"Violence is a logical outcome of the extreme self-righteousness of those who claim the "pro-life" label as an absolute and yet who do not have an actual, consistent ethic of life such as the views held by pacifists."
There are numerous comments on her article from people from both sides of the debate but I wondered about her limited reasoning. She argues that anyone who opposes abortion on the grounds of being "pro-life" is inconsistent if they support for any reason war or the death penalty. She further indicates that it is the tendency of most pro-lifers to feel that murder is justified.
Is it inconsistent to be opposed to abortion and still pro death penalty?
No. There is a significant difference between supporting the right to life for innocent individuals and supporting the right of society to impose consequences on negative behavior. Certain individuals rely on others to protect their rights, and pro-life people include the unborn in this category. I believe in the goodness of humanity and feel confident that most people would agree that children,the elderly, the handicapped, and the disabled fall into this category. They rely on others to safeguard them and the rights society collectively assigns to all people.
In the protection of those rights, societies create laws to regulate the behavior of those members who do not by nature behave in a way that benefits society. The creation of the law requires the imposition of consequences for infractions, generally consistent in severity with the nature of the crime. Some cases are severe enough that societies will make the determination that the perpetrator has no value to society and must be removed for the general welfare of the citizenry.
What about war? War in the best cases is an extension of the individual vs. society discussion of the previous paragraph. In others, it is not. An individual who holds moral values of pro-life could conceivably see a war both ways--as a requirement to safeguard the lives and rights of innocent or helpless individuals, making it consistent with their pro-life belief system or as a political tool without the required justifications, making it inconsistent with a pro-life belief system. In other words, a pro-life individual could easily go either way on a war without losing consistency in his belief system.
The issue I have with Ms. Thislethwaite's article is her assertion that there is no way for someone to claim the Pro-Life label while supporting the death penalty or any war for any reason and yet "have an actual, consistent ethic of life such as the views held by pacifists." That's narrow minded. People can have actual consistent ethics of life and be on both sides of this issue. That's what makes it complicated for us. How do you decide where you fall on the issue when you support freedom of choice and protection of innocent life? Who doesn't support both those things? But to say that someone has to put the socially imposed consequences of murder and violent rape on the same take-it-or-leave-it platter with all types of abortion is illogical. Please, respect reasoning, even if you are looking at the same data and coming to a different conclusion.
The original article is here, if you want to read it.
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