This is a response I gave to a post on a blog called A Liberal Mormon. The topic was abortion; you can read the original post here and my response as follows:
Wow. I mean, WOW. I find this offensive on so many levels. Let me just explain them one by one:
First, regarding this statement:
"While the nominally pro-life side may zealously defend the sanctity of life at one stage(the pre-natal stage), they often seem strangely indifferent to life once that life has left the womb."
I am the mother of four healthy, happy children and I can tell you that I am in no way indifferent to life once that life has left the womb. In fact, I have given up just about everything to see to it that my children are well cared for: career, money, financial security, professional respect, autonomy, freedom, health, etc. How can you make such a disgusting generalization?
And as for indifference on a wider scale, lest you forget, we do have laws regarding the neglect and abuse of children. We have laws that punish parents who don't properly care for their children. We have laws that punish those who hurt children. We even have laws that punish those who kill children. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that most people who are pro-life support and agree with these laws.
What we don't have is a law that punishes those who kill their own children in the womb; a stage of life that you clearly define as legitimate. I find it ludicrous that one young woman can have an abortion and face no legal consequences, while another young woman who throws her baby in the dumpster right after giving birth is arrested. Tell me, what exactly is the legal difference between those two scenarios, other than time and place?
I also find the following offensive:
"Pro-life shouldn't simply be about forcing expectant mothers to carry their babies to term, but rather about ensuring they have the medical, financial, and emotional support which will help reduce the feelings of desperation and isolation which lead many women to seek abortions."
First of all, your wording reveals a tactic that I am going to call you out on right now:
Based on that first sentence alone, one might imagine a helpless young maiden being marched by jack-booted officers to a skeezy free clinic in which the nurses cackle gleefully as the poor girl screams in agony during childbirth because the disapproving, moralistic medical staff refuses to give her anesthesia of any kind. Give me a break. What is this, a Lifetime movie of the week? Don't manipulate your readers with emotion-based, pseudo-logic. Even though it is effective (because good people are moved by compassion for others, as they should be), it's intellectually unethical, and you know it.
Second, this issue is not about social reforms needed to improve the condition of the poor and the underprivileged. This issue is about one thing, and one thing only. Should we or should we not, as a society, allow a mother (and her doctor) to end the life of her child? All of those other ramblings about lack of medical, financial and emotional support are just distractions to avoid answering the question.
Third, let me just educate you a little bit about feelings of desperation and isolation. Any woman who has spent eight hours (or more) a day at home taking care of small children could write a doctoral dissertation on the subject of desperation and isolation. How much compassion would you have for that same mother if she decided to end the lives of her children because she was poor, depressed and lonely? How much compassion did any of us have for the woman who drowned five of her children in the bathtub several years ago because she was dealing with those very issues? Certainly not enough to pat her on the back, tell her how brave she was, and send her on her way.
Desperation, loneliness, despair; these are characteristic of the human condition and do not justify the practice of human sacrifice. Because that is exactly what we are talking about here. Sacrificing the lives of millions of human beings so that their mothers won't have to struggle. Really? There's no other alternative?
And the most horrifying of all:
"I'd be more inclined to support the efforts of self-described pro-life advocates if they seemed more genuinely interested in “the sanctity of life,” and less interested in punishing those who have sinned."
So, for you, it's not that you think the pro-lifers are wrong, it's just that they're so damned annoying. In reality, if they weren't all such a bunch of crazy religious zealots (again with the broad, inaccurate generalizations) and were more supportive of the social programs that you proscribe, you would gladly stand up and shout out against legalized abortion. But because they aren't, you will make your point by sitting quietly by and allowing, even supporting, an action that is akin to the Holocaust. Horrible.
In the end, the most destructive thing about this post is not the self-serving arguments or the ridiculous stereotyping, but rather the blatant and overreaching assumption about the correlation between a pro-life stance and stances on other completely irrelevant social issues. For such an enlightened, thoughtful blogger, you are very quick to place everyone who is “pro-life” into identical schools of thought regarding such diverse topics as housing, health care, education, the death penalty, and even war. It is for this reason that people on opposite sides of political and social issues rarely make any progress. They are too busy lumping each other into categories that make it easier to justify their own flawed positions.
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