In Richard John Neuhaus’s article, The Pro-Life Movement as the Politics of the 1960s, Neuhaus says that the pro-life movement is one of the largest expressions of citizen participation in history. In a study quoted by Jon Shields in his book, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, Shields reports that 45% of people who participated in a national protest were involved because of abortion issues. Neuhaus also finds it ironic that people generally assert that abortion is a Republican issue, when the goal of the left has focused on “participation and remoralization of politics.” The issue is viewed this way, because abortion tends to be a religious battle, as well as a political one.
Those who promote pro-life are creating a movement for change, while pro-choicers are fighting to keep the status quo. The debate is often wrongly viewed as a fight between housewives and career women. This is proven untrue, considering that there is a high percent of educated, working women who are on the side of pro-life. Kristin Luker, who wrote Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood, believes that all civil rights issues, including abortion, are fought because of differing ideas of how values should have an impact on different “categories of humans.” Basically the argument is over who counts as a human.
Neuhaus thinks that people’s opinions of whether or not someone should be considered a human come from their other values and beliefs. He describes two different cultures: those who are pro-choice and focused on rights and laws, and those who are pro-life and focused on rights and wrongs. Also, there is a distinction between pro-lifers and pro-choicers in that those who are against abortion are welcoming to anyone who wants to join the fight on their side, while the people who want to keep the status quo are not really looking for more supporters.
Today, those on the left seem to have made a turnaround from what they used to promote. Many claim that “our democracy would be more participatory, deliberative, and just if moral issues were pushed to the margins." This mentality would not have much support from those who worked so hard to gain civil rights for America. David Chappell talks about Dr. Martin Luther King in his book, A Stone of Hope, as being a “realistic pessimist” who does not believe that society will ultimately right itself. King would have to disagree with this view of politics, seeing that he supported a whole movement based on moral issues. King thought that in order to foster political change, the moral issues needed to be brought to light. Also, what about issues such as women’s rights? That movement was based on moral issues, and there seemed to be a lot of involvement from those pushing for change.
Kristin Luker refers to abortion as a civil rights issue in her book. This is a topic that people seem to debate. Should abortion be considered a civil rights issue? The argument does center on determining when life starts, which is another way of asking when a person should be thought of as a human. If abortion is, in fact, a civil rights debate, then whose rights are people fighting for? Are people fighting for a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, or for a fetus’s right to live? Figuring out what exactly people are fighting for is sometimes as interesting as their actual stance on the argument.
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3 comments:
I agree with Mallory that calling the Abortion Debate a Civil Rights issue is to make it seem overly simple because, as she says, it becomes confusing as to whose civil rights are being fought for—that of the mother or the unborn child. I disagree on the other hand that those on the left claim “our democracy would be more participatory, deliberative, and just if moral issues were pushed to the margins”. That statement seems both sweeping and unsubstantiated since liberals don’t wish to push abortion to the side as a moral issue, they simply view it with different morals than their conservative counterparts. While conservatives focus on what they see as the immorality of terminating an early pregnancy, pro-choice advocates focus instead on the immorality that they see in telling another woman what she can or cant do with her own body. Just because liberals have different values does not mean they wish to push ‘moral’ issues to the sidelines. To say that pro-choicers are focused on rights and laws and pro-choicers are focused on rights and wrongs is not only false but sounds very sanctimonious. Those who support the woman’s right to chose simply see it as wrong to tell someone what she can do with her life and body, and seek to implement legislation that gives her the right to do so. But to call the opposition immoral is an excellent way to galvanize support amongst those who already agree with you but alienate and offend anyone who’s morals and values differ from your own.
Furthermore, calling the pro-life movement a movement for change may be accurate in that they wish to move from the status quo but it seems to ring false in that the change they seek is not progressive, it is reactionary. They do not advocate progress but more a reinstatement of previous restrictions on abortion
Hey I enjoyed your blog post. You bring up many questions regarding this pro-life movement. Treating the abortion debate as a civil rights movement is quite tricky, I agree. Ultimately, it is quite a hard issue to argue either way, because the inherent beliefs of each side differ quite dramatically. It will be hard to convince the two groups either way because both are quite morally convincing arguments. I would like to know how you stand on the issue.
I think it is very interesting to draw a comparison between the Civil Rights movement and the current debate over abortion. When Mallory referenced Chappell, I realized that beyond her discussion of similarities, there also exists the presence of religion. Chappell writes that religion was the central motivating factor for blacks beginning the Civil Rights movement, and religious sentiment also led to increased support of the movements by whites. In this scenario, religion is cast in a positive light, awakening society to the evils of unjust discrimination. On the other hand, when pro-lifers invoke religion in their protest of abortion, they are criticized for mixing religion and politics. I am in no way trying to assert my personal opinion regarding abortion in this blog comment. However, after viewing the connection between African-Americans fighting for civil rights and contemporary pro-lifers fighting for the rights of the unborn, I have a different perception of the conflict and feel more reluctant to criticize the pro-life movement.
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