Something new to say about Abortion?

It seems that there is never anything new in the debate over abortion. The positions of both sides have become entrenched like the front lines in WWI, and any who stray from the well-worn trenches are easy sport for the snipers. I try to look at the issue from fresh perspectives, keep an eye on any bulges in the lines, and even take a gander at what things look like from the other side of the lines.

Over the past few months, Professor Sherry Colb of Rutgers Law School has produced a series of accessible popular articles exploring the frequently neglected margins of the anti-abortion position to learn more about the moral framework on which that position is based. I think these articles present some very interesting insights into the abortion debate and should be read by any interested in this issue.

Professor Colb’s first two articles deal with the oft cited exceptions to the general rule against abortion that ‘pro-life’ activists often will allow: the incest exception and the rape exception. Hidden within the ethical imperatives that support these exceptions are backhanded recognitions of the foundations of the ‘pro-choice’ ethical precepts and an implicit recognition that the most dogmatic ‘pro-life’ assertions about the nature of unborn are not completely back and white. If nothing else, an understanding of Colb’s analysis will give you grounds for a serious and productive discussion with ‘pro-choice’ advocates.

The most recent article by Professor Colb considers the import of the reluctance of anti-abortion advocates to demand that women who receive abortions get jail time for their acts, when and if abortion is criminalized. Generally, only those who ‘conspire’ to provide abortion services to women are exposed to criminal sanctions. This blanket exculpation of women for their own criminal behavior says a great deal about the world-view of the ‘pro-lifers’. Colb suggests one rationale for the failure to hold women accountable may be that the woman is viewed as a victim of abortion as much as the unborn. Women are seen as being seduced and tricked into giving up their children and thus not criminally responsible for breaking the law. There is a definite note of the infantilization of women in absolving them of any criminal sanctions for their own decisions that violate the law. One possible reason for this widely prevalent advocacy that women not be criminally punished for having abortions, which Professor Colb is perhaps too polite to suggest, is a simple political stratagem to retain support of those who may be against abortion, but find the idea of putting women in jail for it faintly repulsive. As this cavil at holding women legally responsible for their own actions is so easily seen as a crass political stratagem, it behooves those of us who advocate a ‘pro-choice’ view to call on pro-lifers’ to explain this position more often.