The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Little Big League

7.17.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 5 of 6)

THE LAST WORD
Re: "frost's" letter (under "Feel the Chill") in Reader Mail's Border Voters:

OK, I'll take Mr. Frost's word that he does not like abortion. (What is not made clear is whether his dislike stems from aesthetic or moral reasons.) Common among those who claim to not like abortion but are pro-choice, in a half a heartbeat Mr. Frost goes from defending "choice" to defending abortion itself.

In responding to Garry Greenwood's letter, Mr. Frost takes exception to the notion "that any interruption of a conception is "killing a human life." We the readers are then gifted with a tour through the wonderful world of embryology. Along the route to "life," we are informed that these "babies" (little pieces of tissue, etc.) do not have this and this" and are only "this and that." He then plows into the non sequitur that because of these facts this "thing" obviously isn't human life. I would say that Mr. Frost gets himself lost in the forest of synthetic nomenclature when he should take a more orderly and developmental view. In other words, the entire range from conception to full gestation is human and life. Instead of taking a particular point in development and seeing if it meets some arbitrary criteria before it can be said to be human, one should look at that stage, note its characteristics, and conclude that that is what it means to be human at that stage of life.

Mr. Frost then switches his argument by claiming that abortion (or freedom to have same) can relieve suffering. The mother apparently receives some sort of stay of execution from a life of unfulfillment and privation. In addition, we would be doing these imaginary children a favor by saving them from the torture of being unwanted and knowing they are the reason Mommy drinks and cries.

Then we end with the perennial, tedious argument that one is not qualified to advocate the defense of innocent life when one does not also rush to save the guilty from the gallows at the same time. (While the "Pro-Life" must pass a number of tests to become certified as "Pro-Life" and thus possessing the right to present "Pro-Life" arguments, the "Pro-Choice" are not expected to meet any qualifications.)

Thus in one letter, Mr. Frost moves from declaration of neutrality, to factual, to utilitarian, and to charges of inconsistently/hypocrisy arguments.

It is precisely because Libertarians are caged in their self-image as people who are moved by their self-described enlightened self-interest and rational thought that Mr. Frost makes a series of misjudgments.

1.) Libertarians have not cornered the market on rationality. Yet, as anyone who has ever touched a libertarian nerve can testify, Libertarians also tend to be argumentative, superior, sarcastic, and rude. Libertarians share the conviction that they see the pure light of rationality but are catastrophically ruled by their purblind inferiors. This ends in their visible irritability in dealing with their opponents on the subject of abortion. Libertarians can imagine no other wellsprings of disagreement than ignorance, bad faith, superstition, or...worse...the totalitarian temptation.

2.) This in turn leads to failing to take the "Pro-Life" argument seriously. Abortion is a transcendent and profound moral issue. If abortion is in fact evil and murder, then we are in the midst of an ocean of horror. History will not be kind to us for this mass inhumanity and those who follow us will sing to our graves a bitter song. But Libertarians treat this moral question to the level of seriousness of dancing and playing cards

3.) Any argument which stresses the conveniences which abortion may yield is nothing more than "the ends justify the means" argumentation. At best, such justification is problematic creating more questions than it answers. More typically, appealing to the temptation for such benefits only invites contempt.

4.) Blithely implying insincerity to Pro-Lifers provides numerous lessons in how not to win friends and influence people.

Conservatives believe there is a moral order to the universe. Libertarians have serious doubts about that. Conservatives believe in ordered liberty. Libertarians not so much. Conservatives the American Revolution. Libertarians more the French in many respects.

Learn it. Love it. Live it.
-- Mike Dooley

Frost, I asked you in my previous letter to give an objective justification for the pro-choice position. Instead, you persist in drawing arbitrary lines and introducing straw man arguments.

The location, at a particular point in time, of the zygote, blastocyst, fetus or whatever term you wish to assign the life created at conception has no bearing on its humanity. Neither does its shape, size, or the number of cells it contains. I hope I don't have to enumerate for you the atrocities committed by evil men against others they deemed to be inferior and therefore subhuman using dubious distinctions like these. Dehumanization is always the first step in the process of declaring someone else undeserving of life.

Letter to the Editor

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