Opinion: Pro-Choice Arguments Cracked – Now It’s Pro-Life’s Turn
I genuinely find it hard to take a side and stick to it in the abortion debate. I’m aware that strong views tend to spread more readily but I can’t help but find fundamental flaws in both the pro-choice and pro-life arguments.
And both flaws happened to be exposed to the nation in the span of a few weeks.
I spotted a major weakness in the pro-choice argument when watching pro-choice activists debate Peppi Azzopardi on Hot Seat, the new show co-produced by Lovin Malta and FreeHour.
Pro-choice debaters tried to depict the unborn child as something lesser. A potential person, a human but not a person, a clump of cells, an entity that shouldn’t be granted human rights because it cannot live independently.
These sorts of arguments come across as detached and overly pragmatic, as though decisions about when life begins are shaped more by personal convenience. No matter how you slice it, a new organism with distinct DNA comes into existence after conception.
And yet we have now also seen the major flaw in the pro-life argument – a struggle to explain how the authorities should react when people are caught breaking the law.
A law without enforcement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, and yet very few pro-life activists call for the punishment of people who commit what they believe should remain a crime.
If an embryo is as much of a human as you and I, then abortion amounts to murder. If it’s murder, then the recent suspended sentence to a woman who had an abortion should be considered outrageously lax as a conviction.
Imagine if someone had to plead guilty to murder only to get a suspended sentence. There would be public outrage.
And yet most of the outrage, including by pro-life voices, has centred on the punishment being too harsh. The implication is that the unborn child is on a lesser plane of existence than a human being.
These are the fundamental questions that both sides of the debate must answer.
For the pro-choice side, it’s why people should have a right to end a life that, if left to its own devices, will most likely develop into a human being with its own unique identity, hopes and dreams.
For the pro-life side, it’s what punishment should be given to women who have had an abortion, and why it should differ from that given to convicted murderers.
If the abortion debate is to progress, then both sides should address the inconsistencies in their positions.
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