I don't do a lot a reading on abortion related news, but thanks to my favorite online magazine Slate.com, one left-leaning William Saletan regularly makes my list of things to read, and monthly or so, on abortion.

Tuesday, he wrote:

Look up any abortion-related item in Jezebel, and you'll see the developing human referred to as a fetus or pregnancy. But when the same entity appears in a non-abortion item, it gets an upgrade. A blood test could help "women who are concerned that they may be carrying a child with Down's Syndrome." A TV character wonders whether she's "capable of carrying a child to term." Nuclear radiation in Japan "may put unborn children at risk."

This bifurcated mindset permeates pro-choice thinking. Embryos fertilized for procreation are embryos; embryos cloned for research are "activated eggs." A fetus you want is a baby; a fetus you don't want is a pregnancy. Under federal law, anyone who injures or kills a "child in utero" during a violent crime gets the same punishment as if he had injured or killed "the unborn child's mother," but no such penalty applies to "an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman … has been obtained."

I would do Saletan injustice by taking this too far, while I don't agree generally agree with his view on abortion he is one of the fairest writers on the topic I have encountered. However, his observation is interesting.

At first glance one might want to yell, "HYPROCISY!" and that is an understandable view. But I think our reaction ought to be more subtle than that. Instead, this suggests that the meaning or value assigned to a fetus from a pro-choice perspective if dependent on the mother's intentions. If this is the case pro-lifers should be happier than if this was mere hypocrisy.

No one on the left (nor the right, I hope!) believes that the worth of one individual is somehow dependent on what people -- or a single person -- thinks of them. Indeed, this seems to be a cornerstone of teaching today.¹ I don't even need to list the ab absudem consequences, they suggest themselves too quickly.

Generally, I do not believe that ending or reducing abortion starts with the courts,² clinic sit-ins, or threatening abortion doctors (or killing them.). This has no long-term benefit yet does long-term harm to the pro-life movement. I also like to think the left is as rational as the right.³ Maybe this offers a new ground to have the discussion over abortion on.

Footnotes

1. Moreover, this is in line with a Christian perspective, a person's value comes from what God thinks of them. 

2. Granted, an overthrow of Roe v. Wade would be the exception to this, but that is not a possible reality at this point.

3. Indeed, this ought to be a longer post someday, but I think each side values similar principles (says, the right to life and to autonomy from government control) but disagrees on where to put the emphasis of these rights (the born vs. the unborn). Of course, I also don't believe that there is a purely rational aspect to any moral disagreement.