Even a “Pro-Choice” Writer Admits the Arguments for Abortion are “Flimsy at Best”

Anyone who follows the abortion debate is well aware of how amazing it is that some observers can tip-toe over the edge, concluding that all reasons for abortion are examples of bad reasoning and/or self-exculpatory reasoning, and then…. point.

Or better said, say “Forget how I broke down the usual pro-choice talking points, because in the end….”

I don’t think I’ve ever read a better example than George Jonas’ piece for the Canadian newspaper, the National Post. The headline certainly gets the bottom line—“Abortion is a parent’s decision, not the government’s”—but it misses the wrecking ball Jonas wields to dismantle the very foundation of the reasons for abortion.

Jonas told us right from the chute

“I’m not against abortion; I am against vague thinking. I oppose the ‘pro-choicer’ arguments commonly used to support abortion. I think they are thin at best, and at worst, untrue.

For example

“Pro-choicers argue, for example, that society shouldn’t interfere with what a woman does with her own body. Well, society doesn’t. Society interferes with what she proposes to do with someone else’s body. human. Few societies expect a woman to keep her baby if it’s inconvenient for her. They just hope she doesn’t kill it.”

Or so

“There are those who say, well, you can ban abortion, but the women just keep going in the back alleys. I think on the same basis we can legalize holdups because people still rob banks. Others argue that men shouldn’t participate in the debate because they can’t get pregnant, which is true. That’s why I don’t rely on my credentials as a man in the abortion debate, only on my credentials as an ex-fetus.”

Jonas also has a brilliant critique of what he calls the essence of the feminist argument: “grant[ing] women of 007 license to kill, à la James Bond.”

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But…but just because abortion kills doesn’t end the discussion (it doesn’t “dispose of the matter”).

“All societies, including religious societies, authorize individuals, sometimes classes of individuals, to kill for some reason. Judges, parents, police officers, ship captains, inquisitors, soldiers, executioners and others have the right to end people’s lives, provided they do so for compelling reasons. reason. I really believe that the state has no business in the country’s bedrooms, even if they become death chambers.

I even scratched my head on the left turn. What constitutes a “compelling reason”? Outside of the context of abortion, what if cranky, tired parents wake up in the middle of the night again to a crying newborn? Don’t we want to step in to prevent that child’s death?

What about a boyfriend who brutally beat his girlfriend? Is it enough to say in all these cases that you are nervous that the “government” is stepping in to protect the very vulnerable?

I don’t honestly believe that Jonah really believed what he wrote, or even much of it. He ends with this:

“In ancient Sparta, parents threw their children into a cliff called Taigetos. Spartan society was useless for frail children. This is surprising. Our preference is to kill healthy children. The year we designate [the late] Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada for the abortion of unwanted fetuses was the year we freed Robert Latimer after nearly a decade in prison for killing his disabled son.

“Imagine a time-traveling spaceship of Spartan tourists discovering that at this destination the natives imprison parents for killing terminally ill children, but honor doctors who kill healthy children at the behest of their parents. Canada is lucky not to have relied on time-space travel tourism since ancient times.”

Is this supposed to be a paradox? Maybe Jonas. To me, this is a backhanded acknowledgment that what Latimer did was appalling. He killed his 12-year-old daughter by putting exhaust fumes in the cab of his truck. But so, too, is what is done to millions of unborn babies around the world every year.

Only in one instance can we avert our gaze more easily. On the other hand—a child with a disability—it’s harder to pretend there’s no victim.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared on National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.