By Doug Bandow on 9.4.09 @ 6:09AM
That's what Hillary Clinton thinks.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is upset about abortion. Well,
not abortion per se. But some abortions. Of girls. Apparently
killing boys is okay.
Abortion is one issue never likely to disappear. It sets
protection of life and liberty in apparent conflict and raises
challenging issues such as responsibility and privacy. Abortion
isn't amenable to easy political compromise and any resolution is
apt to leave a lot of people feeling uncomfortable.
But the issue can't be avoided. The bottom line of abortion is a
dead baby. No amount of obfuscation and euphemism can hide the
obvious. And if abortion is a legal right, beyond regulation by
government, then motivation is irrelevant. If you have a right to
kill all babies, you have a right to kill girl babies.
However, Secretary Clinton, a supporter of unrestricted abortion,
appears disturbed by the logical outcome of her policy
preferences. In commenting on her international agenda for women,
she
observed that in some nations "girl babies are still being
put out to die." Moreover, she explained: "Obviously, there's
work to be done in both India and China, because the infanticide
rate of girl babies is still overwhelmingly high, and
unfortunately with technology, parents are able to use sonograms
to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply
because they'd rather have a boy. And those are deeply set
attitudes."
Secretary Clinton's remarks received surprisingly little comment
from those she should have most offended -- other advocates of
abortion "rights." Pro-lifers suggested that Secretary Clinton
was a traitor to the abortion cause, but Laurie Carlsson defended
the secretary's "nuanced view" on an issue that is "neither
simple, nor clean-cut along lines of political beliefs or moral
values."
Yet Secretary Clinton challenged two fundamental precepts of the
case for legalized abortion. First, she tied the "infanticide
rate of girl babies" to sex selection abortions. If sex-based
infanticide and abortion are morally equivalent, then
non-discriminatory infanticide and abortion should be morally
equivalent as well. Secretary Clinton has raised the core moral
challenge of abortion: once we enter the continuum of life, our
essential humanity has been established. The moment of birth has
no obvious moral distinction. Else why would Secretary Clinton be
as upset with those who abort baby girls as with those who put
newborn girls out to die?
Second, Secretary Clinton undercuts the essential argument of
abortion activists: there is a right to unrestricted abortion (or
abortion "on demand"). That means for any reason. However, the
secretary has identified, to her, at least, one illegitimate
reason. If there is one, might there not be others?
There are obvious social consequences of sex selection via
abortion: for instance, a lot of men who can't find wives. But
that doesn't seem to be Secretary Clinton's point. Rather, she is
concerned, rightly, about the moral implications of this
practice.
It is almost an axiom on the Left that there is no worse offense
than to "discriminate," which makes sex selection abortion so
odious to some. National Post writer Barbara Kay
says "sex selection is a form of bias -- arguably even a form
of hatred -- against an identifiable group." But surely sex
selection is not the only form of inappropriate discrimination.
How about abortion of the handicapped, whether physical or
mental? Writer George Neumayr has warned:
"Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out
the disabled has become commonplace." This also is
discrimination.
But discrimination, or even "hatred," doesn't necessarily stop
there. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently
discussed Roe v. Wade and noted the "concern about
population growth and particularly growth in populations that we
don't want to have too many of." Presumably she was referring to
racial minorities, though there could be other disfavored groups.
Cannot abortion be considered a form of society-wide
discrimination?
And if we can judge the motives of those who choose abortion,
then should we not critically assess other purported
justifications? Why is it worse to decide that the baby's sex is
"wrong" than to decide that the pregnancy's timing is "wrong."
Secretary Clinton's apparent position, that people are free to
choose abortion for any reason, except the one reason she finds
most offensive, is intellectually unsustainable.
Perhaps the secretary still believes the procedure should be
legal, and that the "work to be done" is persuading people not to
abort their baby girls. Yet she mentions infanticide in the same
sentence as abortion, and presumably she believes that more than
persuasion is necessary in the former case. Again, there is no
clear line between infanticide and abortion. The females are
killed: the only question is when?
In any case, the law is never going to be able to control
motives. If other abortions are legal, then anyone desiring one
for the purpose of sex selection merely need state anything else
-- or nothing -- and the law would not stand in the way.
Australia, Canada, China, and India all formally ban the
practice. Oklahoma has legislated against sex-selection
abortions. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill
imposing a federal prohibition. However, these measures are
wasted effort so long as abortion is largely unrestricted.
Secretary Clinton has grasped an essential truth: It is wrong to
kill baby girls. But it also is wrong to kill baby boys. The
problem is not sex selection abortion. The problem is abortion.
Many politicians desperately hope that the issue will just go
away. But it won't. Abortion remains one of today's most profound
moral challenges.
topics:
Hillary Clinton, Abortion, Infanticide
