In an episode that Bill Maher declared to be more ridiculous than anything The Onion could make up, Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX) made headlines a couple weeks ago as the latest in a long line of Republican politicians to make an ass out of himself while talking about pregnancy and abortion.
Republicans in the House, diligently going about the important business of drafting and passing symbolic legislation that has zero chance of becoming law (when they’re not willfully obstructing the legislative process altogether)1, have recently been earning their $174,000 annual salaries by debating the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
The bill, which the senate is not expected to take up, and which the Obama administration has threatened to veto, would make abortion illegal across the country once pregnancy has reached the 20th week (Roe v. Wade set the constitutional boundary at the point of fetal viability outside the womb, which occurs around 23 – 24 weeks). Speaking at a Rules Committee hearing, Burgess (who, in case you don’t find this hilarious enough, is an OB/GYN) regaled the country with his bit of supporting evidence for why the bill doesn’t go far enough:
This is a subject I know something about … Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?
Republicans want desperately to end abortion. That is the primary concern motivating all the crazy shit we’ve heard them say over the past year or so. It started with Todd Akin’s infamous comments about “legitimate rape.” It continued with Richard Mourdock’s insistence on the role of God’s will in rape-induced pregnancies. And it was arguably furthered still by Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) who, while discussing same bill as Burgess, explained that he opposes a rape exemption in because “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy is extremely low.”2
Thus it was in this recently established tradition that Representative Burgess came forward to present the curious case of the masturbating fetus.
Each of these incidents has precipitated a predictable onslaught of indignant pontification and derision from the left. It’s a war on women or a war on rape victims and so on. But look: if you’re really convinced that abortion constitutes nothing less than the wanton murder of an innocent child, then you’ll find yourself making all kinds of arguments to try to convince people that abortion is a profound, disturbing, even genocidal tragedy that must be stopped.
For Representative Burgess, that means you look at a Republican bill to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks and say, well wait a second, at 20 weeks, fuck, that little guy has already been feeling himself up for over a month! And if he’s doing that, well then shouldn’t we expect him to feel pain too? And why would you ever want to inflict pain on an adorable little unborn baby?
It’s really not that ridiculous if you start with the premise that a fetus—actually, even a zygote—is a full-fledged human being, a person with a soul and an identity and all the fundamental presumptive rights that such a plane of existence ought to guarantee.
The venerable Jonathan Chait characterized the abortion debate in similar terms while discussing the recent legislative battle in Texas that garnered a good deal of attention. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis staged an epic filibuster (of the legitimate sort) to block an anti-abortion measure that would, in addition to banning abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, have the effect of eliminating all but five facilities that provide abortion services in the entire state of Texas.
In his comments, Chait offers:
The abortion debate, at its root, pits differing ideas on the fundamental question of what is a human life. Perry’s side thinks that sperm plus egg equals human life. My side thinks the fertilized egg does not approach human status until much later in the process, which means the mother’s prerogative supercedes any rights it has.
There’s no real resolution to this dispute. Nobody even makes much of an effort to resolve it. Both sides advance arguments that only make sense if you already accept their premise about what a human life is. That’s what Perry’s doing here. He’s saying we should force women to give birth even when they don’t want to, because babies born in bad circumstances can be happy anyway. That isn’t an acceptable burden to place on women, in my opinion, but it surely is if you think abortion is murder.
On balance, I think this is an accurate characterization of the abortion debate, except for one thing: I don’t believe, if everyone can look soberly at America’s general attitude, that the dispute is completely irreconcilable. I’m certainly sympathetic to Chait’s sentiment of resignation, but I do think that, at least in principle, there’s actually a way out of the quagmire. So, Mr. Chait, I’d like to offer up my humble effort at resolving the abortion dispute. And it starts with the bill Mr. Burgess was speaking about.
Burgess’s problem with the House bill—at least, the one he got up to articulate—was that it didn’t set the “no abortion” cut line early enough. The bill has it at 20 weeks (which is probably unconstitutional as it is), but since you’ve got incubating human beings jerking off as many as five weeks before that, you’re still allowing for pain to be inflicted on babies. Or so the thinking goes.
Nonetheless, Burgess, along with 221 out of 232 other Republicans in the house, voted to pass the bill. Here’s the thing, though: Trent Franks’ arguments notwithstanding, the bill carved out an exception for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. And it is precisely here, it seems to me, that the whole pro-life argument falls apart.
There is only one way I can see for us to resolve the abortion debate in America, and it requires that we all confront one particular truth: the vast majority of Americans disagree with the fundamental precept underlying the pro-life position. That is: the vast majority of Americans do not agree that life truly begins at conception—that every fetus is every bit a human being as you or I.
To understand why, ask yourself how such an intensely partisan anti-abortion bill, with almost zero chance of becoming law, could garner the support of nearly every House Republican despite making an exception for pregnancies arising from rape or incest. After all, if you’re passing an essentially symbolic bill along mostly partisan lines that isn’t going to become law in any case, why not go all the way and set a hard line protecting the sacred lives of all unborn human beings?
The answer is that, in general, Americans don’t like the idea of forcing women to carry the children of their rapists to term. And they don’t like it enough that even Republicans are concerned about the electoral repercussions of insisting that we should.
I guess it just strikes people as sorta shitty? Like, oh, sorry, I know you were forcibly violated and irreparably traumatized…and, yikes, that really sucks that you ended up pregnant with your rapist’s offspring on top of that…but, I mean, hey, look at the bright side: that must have been God’s will, right? Now there’s this real, true, actual full-on person inside you! The only thing is, that, you know, because it’s really an actual person, we’re gonna have to go ahead and legally require you to carry that child to term. And if you don’t, well, sorry, but you’re on the hook for murder.3
Most Americans just turn out not to be cool with that way of thinking. More than 70% of them, actually. And that has led even staunchly conservative politicians to accept: you don’t fuck with rape victims.
Remember, this was something of an issue for Paul Ryan during last year’s election. Despite having insisted that he is “as pro-life as a person gets,” he ultimately had to give in to Mitt Romney’s official position:
Look…I’m proud of my record. But Mitt Romney is going to be the president; the president sets the policy. His policy is exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. I’m comfortable with it because it’s a good step in the right direction. I’ll leave it at that.
Mitt Romney’s official position on this issue was born of political expediency (as with most issues), and Paul Ryan accepted that position as an imperfect but nonetheless preferable state of affairs to the status quo. But Ryan also understands the critical reality: there is no fundamental, intrinsic, existential difference between a fetus conceived of rape and any other fetus. Either a fetus is a person, or it’s not. No one is arguing that an adult whose mother was raped and carried him to term has different rights than anyone else. No one is arguing that a mother who is impregnated from rape and has the child can decide to drown the child after a few years if it’s not working out. Nor is anyone arguing that a woman who’s been impregnated by rape ought to be allowed to murder you or me or any other person of her choosing as a means of compensation for her suffering.
The crux of the whole issue, as Chait’s analysis rightly concludes, comes down to the question: is abortion murder?
Because every human being has equal dignity, right? So if aborting one fetus is murder, then aborting every fetus is murder. If a zygote is a person, then allowing abortion in the case of rape is in no way different than allowing a woman who has been raped and impregnated to murder you or I or anyone else.
Pro-life politicians do get this, but they can justify voting for a bill like The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in the same way Paul Ryan can justify his support of Mitt Romney’s position: “I’m comfortable with it because it’s a good step in the right direction.” But when it comes to articulating the full extent of their ideological principles, these guys always seem to end up quibbling over the definition of rape (Akin), or playing down the incidence of rape-induced pregnancies (Franks), or throwing up their hands and chalking it up to God’s will (Mourdock).
Why is that? Again, because an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that, at least in the case of rape or incest, abortion should be permitted. So overwhelming a majority, in fact, that the Republican party’s 2012 nominee made it his official policy; and so overwhelming that the radically conservative cohort of House Republicans in 2013 agreed to make the same allowance in a bill that stands no chance of accomplishing anything other than staking out their philosophical position.
Doesn’t all this lead to the conclusion that the basic philosophical dispute is mostly settled already? If we mostly agree that it’s wrong to refuse an abortion to a woman who’s been impregnated by her rapist, then we necessarily agree that fetus isn’t actually a person. And if we mostly agree on that, then we’re left with a negotiation over extent, rather an emotionally charged argument over nature.
NOTES:
1 This is the governing body that has voted 37 times to repeal all or parts of Obamacare. Here are a few other articles talking about the so-called “do-nothing” house and the contemptible “Boehner rule”.
2I’ve heard this argument a number of times and I must say I really don’t get it. It seems to me that the infrequency of rape-induced pregnancy supports the argument in favor of writing an exception into the bill. Franks’ point here doesn’t engage the contention of his opponents that it is morally reprehensible to force a rape victim to carry the child of her rapist to term. It simply says, well, it doesn’t happen very often, so it’s not worthy of any consideration here.
If we’re talking about making allowances for profoundly injured women in circumstances you believe to be so rare, then why refuse them? If the argument is, well, it pretty much never happens, so don’t worry about it, then why do you seem so worried about it? If it almost never happens anyway (it does happen), then shouldn’t we give the benefit of the doubt to the fucking rape victim?
3 Actually that’s not quite right: the bill provides for a maximum of 5 years in prison as the criminal penalty. So it’s not really treated like murder, even though, as Chait puts it, the motivating principle here is the belief that sperm + egg = human life. But apparently it’s not really a human life, at least in the sense that the punishment for aborting a fetus is rather less than the punishment for murdering a human being outside the womb.
The Reason Files 