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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Abortion, Torture, and Ferocity of Opposition

The argument has often been made that we should basically shut up about torture as long as abortion is legal, since the legalization/normalization of abortion on a large scale is more grave than the legalization/normalization of torture on a small scale. Both are evil, and both ought to be opposed in principle, but we should basically shut up about torture until we can say 'mission accomplished' on abortion.

Needless to say, I find this argument unconvincing. We can't say everything all at once, and we have an obligation to oppose the legalization/normalization of both torture and abortion ferociously, in general.

There is an underlying truth though, a truth which is being misused in this argument, which is not so easily dismissed. That underlying truth is that the legalization/normalization of abortion on a large scale is in fact more grave than the legalization/normalization of torture on a small scale.

What follows from this should no doubt make progressives and those with progressive sympathies uncomfortable. Progressives tend to be rather squishy on the compelling need to treat abortion legally as a form of murder, and to ferociously advocate for such treatment. Indeed "ferocity", if it applies at all, usually applies to their efforts to undermine the point and reverse the objective priorities. As a result they have a credibility problem when it comes to torture, precisely because of the obviously upside-down priorities. And that credibility problem does a great deal of damage to making the case against torture.

When it comes to opposing torture in the company of those who are soft on making abortion illegal, the old adage 'with friends like these' comes to mind.

(Cross-posted)

Comments (33)

Zippy,

What you fail to see is that the pro-abortion/anti-torture position is more consistent than yours. For those who hold it are in favor of harming the innocent and against harming the guilty. It is perfectly demonic. Also consistent is the position held by those who are pro-torture and anti-abortion. For they are in favor of harming the guilty and against harming the innocent.

Now, as the saying goes, leniency toward the guilty is cruelty toward the innocent. And from this we can infer that cruelty toward the guilty is charity toward the innocent. Therefore, we can reduce the pro-abortion/anti-torture position to consistent cruelty toward the innocent and the pro-torture/anti-abortion position to consistent charity toward the innocent.

You position, however, is inconsistent. For it is against direct cruelty toward the innocent (abortion), but it is also against cruelty toward the guilty (torture), which is indirect cruelty toward the innocent, Q.E.D.

I'm not against punishing the guilty, George.

I know you're not against punishing the guilty, Zippy. But you are against cruelty toward the guilty; and cruelty toward the guilty is an ethic that has been sadly rejected in this modern age.

You see, Zippy, the Devil is a reasonable fellow. He knows that he can never persuade good men to oppose punishing the guilty. He might, however, be able to persuade them to employ gentler methods of punishment. And that's all the help he needs.

George: the issue of using torture in interrogations isn't about punishment (cruel or otherwise) at all.

And from this we can infer that cruelty toward the guilty is charity toward the innocent.

I believe you're Catholic, George. As a fellow one of those, I am amazed that you are not embarrassed by that sentence.

Zippy, I was thinking of pointing out that the progressive antipathy for torture parallels their same for the death penalty (even though the two are completely different). But I've decided I'm not going to bring up the death penalty in this thread.

The comparison between abortion and torture is specious. Most abortions occur in the first trimester, when the fetus cannot even feel pain. Furthermore, an abortion lasts only minutes,while torture is often
prolonged over a long time.
Both abortion and torture have existed for a very long time. While no
right-minded person would approve of torture, not every one agrees about
whether abortion should be permitted.
Roe v Wade could be overturned, and abortion made illegal again.
But there will be absolutely no way to enforce the law, except in
isolated situations in a highly selective way. Those who oppose abortion
fail to realize an inescapable fact of life; namely that women will
seek and obtain abortions whether they are legal or not, and if they are
too poor, they will try to abort themselves, with the inevitable disastrous results.
No government has ever been able to stop abortion by making it illegal.
What makes opponents of it in America think that ours will ?
There is far more abortion in poor countries where it is illegal than in those where it is permitted. Trying to stop abortion is simply futile.
The only thing that can be done is to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but that is more easily said than done. And to make contraception illegal
in America would be unbelievable stupid. This would only INCREASE
the number of abortions and create a black market in contraceptives.

Robert Berger illustrates for us a point that I had thought of making: Liberals (and that includes Christian liberals) have their priorities mixed up about abortion and torture because they sympathize more with born people suffering pain than with small, unborn people being murdered. They also assume that the unborn child does not feel the pain of being dismembered, which makes them feel better about abortion, while they continue to feel bothered by torture.

(Robert Berger also appears to be under the impression that abortion would be illegal throughout the United States automatically if Roe v. Wade were overturned, which is false. But that's a correction by the way.)

No government has ever been able to stop abortion by making it illegal.

Speaking of specious reasoning...

No government has ever been able to stop murder by making it illegal. Or theft for that matter. Or any number of other evil actions. If laws are worthwhile only when they completely eliminate the behaviors they are established to discourage and punish, then no law is worth anything.

when the fetus cannot even feel pain.

So what? Murder only exists in the presence of pain?

According to Robert Berger's complacent calculus a practice cannot be judged intrinsically evil. Instead, it should be accepted as an "inescapable fact of life" if; the person on the receiving end "cannot even feel pain", it's duration "lasts only minutes" and it's "futile" to completely ban the practice. On that basis, he likely supports executions, preferably by private actors or the black market. So, the only fabric missing from his seamless garment of death is torture.

I suspect he'll patch it in right after he unravels his tangled threads; "...no right-minded person would approve of torture,..." and finds torture has "existed for a very long time". Reading others intellectualize their way to moral inertia borders on cruel and unusual punishment.

no right-minded person would approve of torture

Hey.

There is far more abortion in poor countries where it is illegal than in those where it is permitted

Love those kinds of factoids with no facts to back it up.

With the state of property rights law today, there is a method call civil asset forfeiture by which the police can effectively commit a legalized form of armed robbery. All they have to do is accuse your property of a crime, and then they can seize it. Shall we ignore this too because abortion is legal, or rather take it as a sign that something even deeper than the abortion issue is at work here?

Abortion is just a symptom of the greater disease which says that no crime is defined universally by God or nature, and that the definition of a crime is only whatever the government says it is.

Zippy:

I'm not against punishing the guilty, George.


Please clarify --

Are you saying it's okay to punish the guilty; however, if the punishment of such persons is to serve also the purpose of extracting information from them in order to save thousands of innocent Americans; you would find such measures revolting?

It is interesting to note that it is this same insidious derivative of the 'politically correct' that has allowed terrorists to escape punishment in the first place; invoking kinder treatment of these atrocious murderers that's even better than that given to the worst criminals of our society!

What I meant to say is that abortion can be made illegal, but this
can never stop it. When wil anti-choice people get this ?
I do not consider abortion to be murder. Unfortunate yes, but not murder. And laws against murder ARE for the most part enforcable. Not
all are successfully prosecuted, but a large number are. But not abortion. Suppose abortion becomes illegal again in America. How will
the government stop women who can afford it from going abroad for them ?
Will it put up blockades at every border and airport and examine every woman of childbearing age for pregnancy ? And how will we stop
poor women from trying to abort themselves ? Will we put up surveillance cameras in every home and arrest women who attempt this ?
And how will we prosecute them ? Convict them for murder or attempted
murder ? Conservatives are always saying that we should get the government off our backs. But this sounds more like Orwell's 1984 to me
than that.

In the UK, Somali immigrants take their little daughters abroad to have them genitally mutilated over break in the summers. Does this mean that it should not be illegal in the UK to do this to your daughter?

That sort of argument is puerile.

I do not consider abortion to be murder. Unfortunate yes, but not murder.


Mr. Robert Berger:

If I deliberately cut out the baby in your wifes's/daughter's/mother's womb and chopped that baby into pieces; what, then, would you call it?

In most places and at most times, laws were applied to a people and not a territory. There is plenty of support for prosecuting Americans in U.S. courts for crimes they commit abroad. So prosecuting women for procuring abortions overseas wouldn't be unprecedented or impossible. That cases are typically not pursued by home states against their citizens who commit crimes abroad is an issue of discretion and generally not law.

Are you saying it's okay to punish the guilty; however, if the punishment of such persons is to serve also the purpose of extracting information from them in order to save thousands of innocent Americans; you would find such measures revolting?

Not to speak on Zippy's behalf, but I think he is saying punishment is contingent upon a crime. Having coveted information is not a crime. If our action is contingent upon receiving that coveted information, we are not punishing but rather torturing. More to the point, we are not pretending to act under the pretense of a judicial mandate like we do when we jail a reporter for contempt for refusing to testify.

Mr. M.Z. Forrest:

I was more so alluding to the interrogation of confirmed terrorists in order to extract such information wherein such severe interrogation tactics is not only because of information extraction but also due to the fact that they are terrorists deserving of such treatment as punishment for their heinous crimes of having killed/will kill several innocent Americans.

I would find that fitting punishment for their kind.

'Confirmed' is generally an attribution established by a judge. I don't mean to quibble about details, but our actual policy addresses putative terrorists.

Whether waterboarding or similar methods are fit punishments for terrorists is a question I don't think should keep us from making the categorical assessment that we are not in fact punishing terrorists. If an officer in a non-terrorism case arrests and detains me for 24-hours, he isn't punishing me. If he likewise questions me about a case, he isn't punishing me, even if he does so harshly. Similarly, if my father were to have spanked me as a child for some offense versus having spanked me in desiring to know where his wallet was, social services would evaluate the latter case differently. I will agree from a strictly legal stand point, establishing that there is a germain fact and the party's formal cooperation in a conspiracy with the same do move us closer to a gray area. As it stands, we do not appear to have the procedures in place to make those distinctions, and it doesn't appear we are doing so. However I think our actual argumentation is closer to treating terrorists as a caste without rights.

What I meant to say is that abortion can be made illegal, but this can never stop it.

We have empirical evidence that theft, murder &c. can be made illegal, but that this has never stopped these acts from being committed. Would you suggest that they should legal because they cannot be eliminated in their entirety?

I do not consider abortion to be murder. Unfortunate yes, but not murder.

Well, you are wrong.

But even more than that, this statement is irrelevant. To demonstrate, please consider the following two statements, both of which are true: 1) Theft is not murder. 2) Theft is unfortunate. Does it follow from these statements that theft should not be illegal? If not, why not?

Aristocles:

Perhaps the following observation will help: we have many times tried and convicted criminals and sentenced them to execution. We have never tried and convicted a criminal and sentenced him to be waterboarded. That is because the nature of the thing being done is different. It is precisely because the nature of the thing being done is different, and illegal to do to POW's, accused criminal suspects, or convicted criminals, that the Bush administration felt the compelling need to create a new category of non-person - the 'illegal combatant' - with respect to whom no laws apply. This permits us to make up whatever we want and apply it to them.

I would be perfectly willing to tell a terrorist (presuming that it is the truth) that he is going be tried and executed; and that if he cooperates by providing information his execution will be stayed. In no case though does torture enter into that picture. In the case where he does not provide the information the execution will not be fake, and he will not be returned to his cell to think it over for another round. Rather, his next discussion of the matter will be directly with the Almighty.

Mr. Zippy:

In my view, the severity of the interrogation that such terrorists are subjected to should be considered as part and parcel of their punishment.

That it also serves the purpose of extracting information from them in order to prevent yet another tragedy of mass proportions should rather justify the treatment and not, on the contrary, curtail it.

...the interrogation that such terrorists are subjected to should be considered as part and parcel of their punishment.

You'd better classify them as criminals, try them, convict them, and sentence them to it before you do it then.

You'd better classify them as criminals, try them, convict them, and sentence them to it before you do it then.


Mr. Zippy:
Does this mean that if it happened procedurally as you've indicated here, you wouldn't be so averse to such treatment?

Does this mean that if it happened procedurally as you've indicated here, you wouldn't be so averse to such treatment?

No, I would not support waterboarding a convicted criminal as a form of punishment. (Waterboarding him until what? Until he says he is sorry?)

I'm just pointing out that the notion that waterboarding an accused and untried terrorist for information 'as part and parcel of his punishment', isn't.

Aristocles, wow, you've changed the music. Last week it was Kumbaya. This week it's "Death to the Infidels", or at least "Waterboard the Heathens".
I'm not going to sing either tune, but if I had too, I liked your turn the other cheek song list better.

Kevin:

I'm glad you caught on.

I do not consider abortion to be murder. Unfortunate yes, but not murder.

If it's not murder, why is it unfortunate?

What Aristocles is describing is another person maliciously destroying
a fetus of a woman against her will. A woman deciding to terminate a pregnancy is a completely different matter. That is HER right, and no one
has the right to take this right away from her.

So her consent to the malicious destruction of her fetus no longer makes it a malicious destruction of her fetus?

It is not her right in a moral sense. It is merely a make-belief right - one that sadly has real consequences.

Mr. Berger,

Do people have the right to become amputees?

If you concede that no doctor should needlessly amputate a limb under the demand of the patient, then you are willing to concede that society has the right to proscribe practices that obstensibly only harm the person being acted upon.

What Aristocles is describing is another person maliciously destroying
a fetus of a woman against her will. A woman deciding to terminate a pregnancy is a completely different matter. That is HER right, and no one
has the right to take this right away from her.

Oh, so if your wife approved of my cutting her open and shredding her baby to pieces, that would be just dandy with you?

You are such a remarkably open-minded gentleman for allowing her the dignity of such a beautfiful and Godly act!

Would you like to keep the pieces of 'rubbish' that once comprised your child as soveigners?

How about keeping a part of its little head? I'll be sure to keep that intact for you! Or would that be too much as it might very well give some semblance of what once was a human being?

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