Yesterday, I wrote a very lengthy and philosophically-oriented post about the anti-choice argument put forward by Alex Holzbach, an editor of the Tumblr Politics tag who supports a government ban on abortion from his position as a Christian libertarian.
Since much of it was hidden below a “Read More” break, I wanted to reproduce my conclusion here since I think it contains the most important issue as well as the central issue that divides Holzbach’s position from my own, namely that his position assigns no weight at all to the rights of women:
Holzbach here takes the position of Blaise Pascal, who famously argued that holding the incorrect belief in the matter of God’s existence won’t matter at all if God does not exist but will matter a great deal if God does exist. Therefore, in Pascal’s eyes, the best bet would be to believe in God since nothing is lost by believers if God turns out not to exist (infinite nothingness) whereas a great deal is lost by non-believers if God turns out to exist (infinite damnation).
His wager, then, is that if we ban abortion and I’m right/he’s wrong about human rights, then nothing is lost except some people’s ability to kill those humans who are not yet the bearers of rights. If we do not ban abortion, and if I’m wrong/he’s right, then we allow the murder of those human beings who cannot yet express the rights they hold.
The trouble, of course, is that Holzbach is patently wrong when he claims that nothing is lost if we ban abortion and he turns out to be wrong about human rights. And he is wrong in a way that is quite telling:he entirely ignores the rights of women. If we encourage the government to ban abortion, we are encouraging the government to limit the liberties that women have when it comes to their bodies; there is no way to get around the fact that this is an infringement — and quite a serious one — on their rights. If he is right, then it’s a necessary infringement, though a regrettable oe (for some), of the sort of that comes up whenever rights come into conflict with one another. In this case, the rights of the fetus would trump the rights of the mother. But if I’m right — and by my reasoning above Holzbach has not succeeded in demonstrating that I am wrong — then encouraging a governmental ban on abortion is an unnecessary and deeply problematic infringement on the rights of women. Those rights, very much unlike the rights of the fetus, are not in doubt in any way. In the end, Holzbach doesn’t seem to recognize the rights of women here, or — if he does — he chooses not to assign them any weight at all in his discussion.
Excellent points.
I think it’s worth elaborating on the “women’s rights” issues, because I think the word “rights” doesn’t really fully illustrate the necessity of abortion. Pregnancy impacts the physical health, emotional health, and financial stability of any person who can get pregnant. Not being able to receive an abortion has/would have direct, negative effects on many of these people. There is something tangibly lost when women lose the ability to receive an abortion, and it’s not just a lofty term or noble idea. It can cost a person their ability to support themselves or provide for their existing family. It can cost a person their ability to escape an abusive relationship. It can cost a person their mental health. It can cost a person their physical health or even their life.
People don’t receive abortions for no reason at all. I seriously doubt the 1-in-3 people who are able to get pregnant who have received an abortion in their lifetime do so simply to “kill” embryos and fetuses, and I think anyone who argues from this perspective is a person who hasn’t thought very seriously on the subject of abortion beyond the purely philosophical.
As a person who has the ability to get pregnant, for me the abortion issue is not about my rights. It is about my ability to determine my present and future, my ability to control my financial destiny, my ability to be healthy, happy, and safe, my ability to stay alive, to survive a failed pregnancy. This is not about murdering babies. This is about ensuring that people who can become pregnant do not become trapped by their own internal organs so that people wholly unaffected by their situation can win some sort of moral/philosophical argument.
Let those who receive or perform abortions worry about the morals of their actions. It’s none of your goddamn business. And as a libertarian, you’d think no one should have to tell you that.