This week on Liberal Conspiracy has been something of a feminist-fest, with Cath Elliot starting proceedings over prostitution and Kate Belgrave following through, as well as two posts in quick succession from Laurie Pennie, the first an instance of the habitual leftist tradition of counter-attacking the Vatican (who have been under fire from the Right as well this week courtesy of their stance on the Gaza Strip) and the second a call for arms and a “Fourth Wave” that thrilled even this gnarled post-feminist.

In that spirit I wish to approach the issue of abortion in a fashion that hopefully will prove positive & productive.

The defeat of the anti-abortion bill forwarded by the loathsome Nadine Dorries last year was seen as such a success that I was party to the rather unedifying view of two factions squabbling over bragging rights at the first Liberal Conspiracy blogger’s “summit”. As far as I am concerned few deserve praise save Labour and LibDem MPs for standing and their voters for giving them seats. Especially compared to the comparable American response  to the very hint of Bush sopping to the religion right the British campaign was distinctly underwhelming. The reason the bill failed to become an act is quite simply that there were more Lib-Labs than there were Tories, something which is far from certain to be true come the aftermath of the next election.

For that reason I wish to engage in a deconstruction of the pro-life, so as to prepare for the coming onslaught. 

Amongst the hoariest straw-men in existence is the “They’re after your rights!” view of the pro-life. As feminists consider the issue to be one of individual autonomy and bodily sovereignty they see those who oppose the legality of abortion as opponents of liberty and personal integrity. As they are empowering and liberating women those who wish to outlaw the practice that forms the centrepiece of their ideology must therefore be attempting to subjugate and enslave them, or at least have some desire to dominate them and enforce their view upon the unwilling.

This is making an easy but irksome error: to imagine that since you are making an argument from one stance those opposing you must be coming from directly opposite. In fact one of the most interesting things about this issue (as with so many others) is how it can be and is approached from entirely different directions. As someone who attended a Catholic School I can attest to the fact that discomfort towards abortion truly can stem from another source to the “Those women are doing as they please, I can’t stand it!” boilerplate. There seems to be minimal understanding of this amongst the pro-choice, and even less empathy. This is peculiar as the mainstream pro-life position is based around a pair of simple principles, one which is controversial and shouldn’t be, one which shouldn’t be controversial but isn’t.

Firsty, a foetus constitutes life.

It really is quite curious that this matter is so heavily contested. As High Priest Gilmore of the Church of Satan puts it:

Life is there, whether it is conscious and valuable is debatable.

Yet the debate seems to be based around pursuing the futile pursuit of dimissing the former, instead of debating the latter two qualities. Which is pure folly: a foetus is clearly life, it possesses its own heartbeat and distinguishable identity from the carrier. It could not exist outside of this host and it is not capable of sentience. But a plant can not think, a virus can not live beyond the confines of its host for all but the briefest of periods. These are still considered instances of life.

The counter to this is obvious: we regularly kill millions of plants in the act of agriculture, via penicillin and antibiotics we are dedicated to the attempted obliteration of numerous virus lifeforms. But this leads us to the second part of the pro-life argument, which is rarely challenged but by far their weaker point.

Namely, that human life is of greater worth than all other forms. Or, to be precise, that it is of intrinsically and inherently greater worth.

The Pro-Life as species bigots

This is where I think criticism has been most heavily, but understandably, absent. As far as the pro-life are concerned humanity are the pinnacle of living beings because…Well, just because. The traits which a foetal/zygote body lacks (sentience, sapience, capacity to experience pain) are, accordingly, an irrelevance. No other form of life is distinguished in the same way as humanity, be it as a consequence of human life being a gift from God (with animal life being, presumably, an edible sort of gift) or just some general, vague & hollow claim to human exceptionalism based upon prejudice alone. The latter is becoming increasingly popular, with even George Galloway an espouser.

Now this is an incorrect position, but it is hardly an extremist one. Indeed, the entirety of the meat industry would collapse in a day if the principle that human life exceeds animal in value were not widely accepted. Failing that, we would not squirm at the notion of cannibalism, just so long as the victims were suitably mentally incapacitated.

Not that I’d propose the ascent of vegetarianism as a central tactic for the pro-choice (I’d still like to see it, though). It’s simply that without understanding where they are originating from and taking their arguments in good faith it will prove impossible for the pro-choice to produce a conclusively devastating response to the pro-life. Through an understanding and appreciation of what amounts to a highly simple position the pro-choice can quite easily pick it to pieces. Thus far, however, they have largely relied upon a positively Sartrean level of assumption of bad faith. The consequence has been the pro-choice not even engaging with the pro-life on any meaningful level (i.e. above semantical squabbling), and with much the same being reciprocated. This is the reason that debate has previously generated nothing but noise and is banned entirely from more than a few forums: largely both sets of participants have been talking over each others heads.

I have little doubt that much of the pro-life will give up on this. Much of that movement in the US seems insistent upon arguing that Planned Parenthood (the American reproductive issues stand-in for the NHS) are a pack of eugenist racist snobs. Similar tactics being adopted upon this side of the pond is easily conceivable. But if the pro-choice side is aware and makes evident that the pro-life position is entirely dependent upon a non-falsifiable, quasi-mystical claim of self-justifying value then it will be at a distinct advantage.