I’ve appreciated our discussion, but I don’t see a point in going any further. The arguments in your last post just circle back around to where we started. More importantly, the first sentence of your last paragraph comes dangerously close to a condemnation of my faith simply because of a difference of opinion. I appreciate just how passionately you feel about this issue, but sometimes passion is more of a cloud than a window.

As to number one, I do not agree that the morality and legality are two seperate and distinct issues in regard to abortion. I agree that there are issues where morality does not necessarily and should not necessarily determine legality. I think with abortion, because the practice is intrinsically immoral, it must be illegal. I have simply conceded that criminalizing abortion could create some problems, but that because it is immoral it should be illegal.

I think some of the issues you raise are worth considering, but again, in light of the fact that abortion is the taking of innocent life, government should not protect it as a right.

Frankly, I don’t see how any Christian can make the argument that abortion is morally wrong, but should not be illegal, and consider himself consistent in his reasoning. It’s like saying, “I believe murder is immoral, but it should not be illegal because there might be some problems that would occur if it was illegal.” You might make the case with less weighty issues, but not when the issue is life — the weightiest of all human issues.

Let me see if I can summarize where we’ve been with this, at least from my perspective, and see where that leaves us. When I initially raised the issue, I had two things primarily in mind:

(1) To point out that the immorality of abortion and whether it should be illegal or not can be two separate and distinct issues, and that one can logically maintain that abortion is a tremendous evil and yet also believe it would be unwise to make it illegal. You’ve agreed that they are two issues, but strongly disagree with my doubts about the propriety of making it illegal.

(2) To raise some “practical” considerations regarding what a law criminalizing abortion would look like. And, unless I’ve misunderstood, you’ve pretty much agreed that the basic issues I’ve mentioned are legitimate ones.

I just am not aware that the pro-life movement has sufficiently thought through exactly what a law criminalizing abortion would look like. Maybe it has and I’m simply unaware of it. And, as I’ve stated above, I really don’t think it would be nearly sufficient to just look to pre-1973 statutes; things have changed way too much for such a simple solution.

Also, just a point of clarification. I had understood you earlier to say that the woman should not be punished under the law, but in your last post, you said her punishment would just be less than the doctor. Is that correct?

In response to your last posting, I believe that you must misunderstand my position on “the immorality of abortion versus the ‘practical issues.’” I do not believe that it is an “either/or” sort of thing where you “pick one or the other.” In fact, my statement was as follows: “I agree that there are problems that the criminalization of abortion would create. What’s more, those problems need to be discussed and weighed carefully. However, it seems to me that the protecting of innocent life outweighs the potential problems that would ensue.”

As I understand it, I am presenting a both/and approach rather than an either/or approach. My contention, however, continues to be that the most important “practical issue” is the fact that innocent lives are being lost daily. That’s the biggest “practical issue” here, and that needs to be addressed as immediately as possible, while at the same time considering and dealing appropriately with other consequences of crimalizing abortion, unintended or otherwise. Will you concede that the weightier matter in this situation is innocent life? Not that other matters don’t need to be considered and dealt with, but will you agree that the most important thing is putting a stop to the taking of innocent life, or at least protecting as many innocent lives as possible?

I continue to believe that slavery is a great comparison in this debate. While I concede that there was still much work to be done, and there were many injustices committed after the criminalization of slavery in 1865, the fact still remains that the effectual beginning of the process that led to freedom in a “meaningful sense” was the abolishing of the intrinsically immoral activity of slavery. Going further, I disagree with your statement that “it took another hundred years of very painful struggle to make significant progress.” I would assert that significant progress was made when slavery was abolished. Was the work finished? Absolutely not. Were there unforeseen problems? Without a doubt. But to insinuate that the 13th amendment wasn’t significant progress is unduly minimalizing the effect of that amendment.

With this abortion issue, I’m all for doing the best job possible of dealing with consequences before they happen. However, it’s almost as if you’re saying that we’ve got to have an answer to all these possible scenarios and problems before we outlaw the intrinsically evil practice of abortion. Where I come from they call that putting the cart before the horse.

In fact, I’m all for doing what you say: “By thinking through and coming up with answers to the questions I’m raising, maybe we could make the transition to criminalized abortion much smoother.” Let’s make the transition as smooth as possible, but let’s get the transition started. I’m assuming by your statement that you agree that we need to make the transition. You just want us to make the transition carefully. I think that’s wise. But, I also think the most important progress we can make is to work to save lives. Lives would be saved immediately if Roe v Wade was overturned.

By the way, if I could offer a brief aside, I would like to insert here that within the legal system is not the only place where this battle for life needs to take place. I very much believe that our government needs to endorse life at all stages of life, not just for the unborn. But, this battle is really fought in the hearts, minds, and lives of young mothers, especially among the poor. Single, minority women below the poverty line are the segment of our population most likely to get abortions. I believe that the pro-life movement needs to be confronting this issue on the streets, especially in the poor neighborhoods where these young women live. This is done through Crisis Pregnancy Centers and by supplying social and physical help through other means, and helping young women to see that there are other options available. Along these lines, rather than funding abortions, our government (but even more our churches) need to be funding agencies that help promote life.

Finally, you ask about the culpability of the physician versus that of the woman getting the abortion. As attorney I can see how that question would be of special importance to you, and I agree. However, as attorney you must recognize that our laws already address this in other situations. If abortion were illegal, the professional physican performing the abortion should have greater culpability, therefore greater penalty under law, than the woman. Again, our laws already do this. A drug dealer is held more responsible with stiffer penalties than someone simply caught using the drug or in possession of a small amount of illegal product. Furthermore, physcians are professionals. By the very nature of the position, they have more information, and are better able to make a judicious decision regarding medical matters. It is a position of trust, much like that of an attorney or minist They should be held to a higher standard. In fact, they already are. I know of an instance in which a doctor was prescribing drugs to people without sufficient reason, or more than the people really needed. The physician had for all practical purposes become a drug dealer. The physician was tried and lost his license to practice medicine. I’m not sure whether or not he saw some prison time. I’m not suggesting that the woman should not have any penalty at all, but I am saying that the law needs to have harsher penalties for the expert performing the abortion.

This reply is already too long, so I’m going to stop here. I look forward to reading your response.

Thanks again for the spirit and the intelligence of your end of this discussion. I don’t know how much progress we’ve made, but at least we’ve done it with respect, and I think that’s worth a lot.

By way of response, I understand you to say that the immorality of abortion versus the “practical issues” I hinted at is an either/or sort of thing: you pick one or the other. I believe instead that they are equally important. Let’s say the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in this current term. Is the pro-life movement really ready to assist state legislatures in drafting statutes to criminalize abortion that would mobilize sufficient public support AND would survive basic constitutional scrutiny (due-process and equal-protection issues)? Based both on my own limited experience and what you’ve acknowledged, I don’t think that’s true.

I want to respectfully challenge you to answer a question I raised in my previous post: Why shouldn’t the woman who seeks out an abortion be equally culpable with the physician who performs the procedure? If they are equally culpable, what is the rationale for treating them differently from a criminal point of view?

I appreciate your analogy about the abolition of slavery, but you almost make my point for me. Amendments to the Constitution abolished slavery as a legal institution in 1865, but most African-Americans certainly were not “free” in any meaningful sense of the word. It took another hundred years of very painful struggle to make significant progress. By thinking through and coming up with answers to the questions I’m raising, maybe we could make the transition to criminalized abortion much smoother.

Also, with an issue as complicated as this one, you always have to think about and at least attempt to deal with the Law of Unintended Consequences. For example, Prohibition actually had the effect of substantially increasing alcohol use among women because “speak-easies” became one of the primary places where men and women socialized. As to this issue, if abortion doctors are sent to prison but the women consenting to them are not, I think it’s pretty likely that someone would develop and begin marketing some sort of “DIY-abortion” kit. How would the law deal with such a development? You may think this is so hypothetical as to be ridiculous, but it seems to me that with an issue as important as this one, such “excess” of forethought should be the norm.

Finally, I really don’t see much weight in your pointing to the state of the law pre-1973 as predictive of what would happen post-Roe because our society has changed so profoundly in the interem. Just because people didn’t really consider the questions I am raising back then doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be important now. Also, the ant-abortion laws of that time were grounded in a very paternalistic mind-set, a mind-set that is long gone.

I would most definitely grant you that there is sometimes a “distinction between morality and legality.” Likewise, I agree that the cultural/societal aspects of an issue such as abortion need to be considered judiciously. And, I concede that there are “practical issues” that need to be discussed by the pro-life movement as well as the pro-choice movement. Too often the opposing sides in the debate have failed to have fruitful discussions.

Having said all that, we still are left with the fact that abortion, in each and every circumstance, is the taking of an innocent human life. As you said in an earlier post, you are morally opposed to the practice in each and every circumstance. Now, when we look at the numbers, since Roe v Wade there have been almost 50 million abortions performed in the U.S. — averaging over 1 million per year, although the numbers have trended downward over the past decade. By the way, those are more lives lost to abortion in the past 35 years than in all the wars in which Americans have been involved.

If I’m understanding you correctly, your point is that we can’t make it illegal because there are societal problems that criminalizing it would create. I aree that there are problems that the criminalization of abortion would create. What’s more, those problems need to be discussed and weighed carefully. However, it seems to me that the protecting of innocent life outweighs the potential problems that would ensue. When government fails to protect innocent life, it runs the risk of no longer acting as government is supposed to act — for the good of society, and especially society’s most innocent members. In short, innocent life trumps “practical issues” in my estimation.

By the way, your argument is essentially the same argument that those in favor of the choice to own slaves submitted in the 19th century. They in essence said that freeing slaves would create many societal problems. There would be a rise in the number of unemployed. Freed slaves wouldn’t be able to feed their families. They would bring down the economy, and they wouldn’t know how to live free lives without having someone telling them what they needed to do. Some of those arguments were at least partially correct. However, those problems that freeing slaves created were not as great as the moral evil of continuing to endorse and protect the practice. I submit to you that abortion is in and of itself morally evil. Therefore, it is government’s responsibility to protect those innocent lives.

Furthermore, you state that: “Our legal system outlaws certain behaviors because a clear consensus of society believe it is good for society.” While I agree with you that this is often the case, and in fact, the way it needs to be in a democratic republic such as ours, I’m not so sure that this statement applies practically in the area of abortion. When has our country voted on this issue? Have the people really spoken? The numbers that I’ve seen indicate that the country is pretty evenly divided on this issue. However, it is the Supreme Court, not elected officials or the people, who have essentially set the precedent for de-criminalization of abortion.

Finally, we can speculate all we want about what might happen if abortion was criminalized. But, we really don’t have to speculate — we have 200 years of historical precedence on this issue. Before Roe v Wade abortion was illegal in all 50 states. Most of the time women weren’t locked up for getting abortions. They simply didn’t get them, or they did it illegally and the government didn’t know about it. But, there weren’t thousands of women behind bars for getting abortions.

Again, I apologize for the length of my response, but I appreciate the opportunity to have the discussion.

But…he’s going to spread the wealth around. Just not his. If I remember correctly a recent study showed he gives less than 1% of his income to charitable donations (including his church). I guess he believes it’s the government’s responsibility and not the church’s.

Thank you for thoughtful response. You didn’t change my mind, just as I obviously didn’t change yours, but I think the discussion can nevertheless be fruitful.

I will try to keep this reply focused on our clear points of dispute. First, by my pointing out that there are instances where there is a disconnect between morality and legality, I was not really analogizing abortion with illicit sex or drunkenness, but simply demonstrating that morality and legality are not synonymous. Certainly the behaviors have different consequences, but I don’t believe those differences really damage my basic point. And, while I agree one single act of abortion is usually more evil that one act of drunkenness, in the grand scheme of things, alcohol may very well have caused more evil in the world than abortions. In any event, I would be interested in whether you would grant me that there is, at least sometimes, a distinction between morality and legality.

You state that “our legal system outlaws certain behaviors for the good of society.” I basically agree with you there, with one caveat: Our legal system outlaws certain behaviors because a clear consensus of society believe it is good for society. Legality and illegality are, at their very core, social constructs, not ethical or moral ones. Do morals and ethics have a crucial part to play in determining illegality? Without question, but they are not at the core of it. My own morality, and I’m sure yours too, is controlled by my understanding of God’s word, not by what a group of people decide in Washington or state capitols. But, when you start talking about making something illegal, you have to bring in the cultural/societal aspect.

Finally, you said that “it’s a false premise to believe that women would be locked up for life for getting abortions” and that it’s the doctors who would be punished. Of course, we’re both speculating because it hasn’t happened yet, but I respectfully disagree with you as to what would happen. What is the moral distinction between the woman and the doctor? Both are consensual participants in the activity and both are aware (or certainly should be aware) of its consequences. I don’t see how you can logically hold one party responsible and not the other. In order for a law that would make the distinction you suggest pass constitutional muster, there must at least be some rational reason for the distinction (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a lawyer). But, my basic idea in making this point was simply to hint at the fact that there are quite a number of very practical issues that would be entailed in the decision to make abortion illegal. I have not heard the pro-life movement even begin to discuss these issues, much less resolve them. I’ve actually put together a list of those issues, but I think I’ve rambled on enough already.

Once again, I really appreciate both the quality and the tone of your response. Hopefully we are an example that bloggers can disagree and yet remain respectful of one another.

I, like you, believe that abortion is morally wrong. Practically everyone agrees with that. There is, as you point out, some confusion and argument over the exceptions, but the fact remains that most people feel that it’s wrong. Even the democratic party (which is wholeheartedly committed to a woman’s right to have an abortion) says in its platform that it wants to reduce the number of abortions. Why do they want to do that? Why do you and I believe it’s wrong? The only reason I can see is because it is the taking of a human life. Our legal system recognizes this regarding a fetus when it is accidentaly killed by someone, say a person beating a pregnant woman up and killing the fetus. That person can be charged with manslaughter. Why? Because it’s the taking of a human life. So, most of us agree that it’s morally wrong, like you and I do.

Your point, however, is that it may be morally wrong, but that doesn’t mean that we need a law criminalizing abortion. The reason you give is that there are all kinds of morally wrong practices that are not outlawed. Your examples include drunkeness and sex outside of marriage. I would ask, though, how can we compare abortion (the taking of a human life) with drunkeness and sex? It’s like saying murder is wrong, but we don’t need to criminalize it because we don’t criminalize all immoral behavior. I don’t beleive the taking of a human life is comparable to drunkeness and illicit sex. In other words, some immoral behavior trumps other immoral behavior. there are weightier issues. Life has always been the weightiest of issues in our country, at least officially.

Furthermore, even those two examples (drunkeness and illicit sex) are criminalized in certain instances. It is illegal to be drunk in public, and one can be arrested for that. What’s more, it is criminal behavior to have sex outside of marriage with a minor (if you are an sdult). My point is that even those examples, under certain circumstances, are both morally and politically, or legally, wrong. Why is that? I would argue that our legal system outlaws certain behaviors for the good of society, not to mention the fact that they are morally wrong. Roe v Wade says that the mother’s right trumps the human life inside of her. That’s a moral decision, not just a political one.

Your last point is that the majority of people don’t want to punish women for getting an abortion, therefore it should not be criminalized. However, when did we start making moral decisions based on popular decision? If the majority of people decide that we shouldn’t punish murderers, does that mean we shouldn’t? What’s more, I think it’s a false premise to believe that women would be locked up for life for getting abortions. To my knowledge, that never happened for the approximately 200 years that abortion was illegal in this country. The doctors performing abortions would be targeted if in fact abortion was illegal.

Someone might say to that, however, “What about the unsanitary abortions that would surely take place, putting both the mother’s and the baby’s life in jeopardy?” While there’s no doubt that that would happen if abortion was illegal, I believe many more women would decide to do something else like putting the baby up for adoption or deciding to raise the child. Rather than tax payer money going to support abortion, why not put that money toward programs that minister to low income women (who are more likely to seek an abortion statistically), helping them to make other decisions that support life — both the baby’s and the mother’s.

Sorry for the long response, Gary. As you can see, this is an issue close to my heart. For me the issue of life trumps the other issues — morally and politically.

But, at the same time, I do not see the wisdom in making abortions illegal. For one thing, I have heard very little discussion of the collateral issues associated with such a decision. Just one example: I don’t believe most people would really stomach sending middle-class young women to prison for the rest of their lives. Also, there are a lot of things I believe are morally wrong that are not legally prohibited; sex outside of marriage and getting drunk are just two examples. There is an implicit premise behind making something illegal: that the overwhelming majority of people not only agree it is wrong but are ready to consistently punish the people doing it. I don’t see such a consensus on abortion.

The above is a very abbreviated statement of what I was alluding to.

Thanks for your posts Mike.