Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Sean Hannity and Abortion – Tactical Considerations

Soli Deo Gloria had this article on what some call the "modified pro-life position". Which looks like this:

"....Sean Hannity mention that he is against abortion, except in the cases of
rape and incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake."

Shawn does a good job of explaining why this view has problems, even if it sounds nice and compassionate.

"Rape and Incest
If I were to speak with Mr. Hannity regarding his statement, I’d ask, “Why are you pro-life?” I’m sure he’d say something to the effect, “Well, because it’s taking the life of an innocent human being.” He’d be right of course. My follow-up question would be, “Then why is it okay to take the life of an innocent human being in the case of rape and incest?”

Why is it okay to punish the child for the sins of the father? Is this just? Of course not. Those like Mr. Hannity need to think their position through. Either it’s wrong to take the life of an innocent human being, or it’s not. This “wrong, but . . .” view is neither morally nor logically tenable. If Mr. Hannity and the others really believe that an innocent human being resides within the mother, then there is no justification for killing the child.


While it sounds sympathetic to the situation of the mother in this difficult situation, most times this exception does not take into account the morality of taking the life of an innocent human being. Greg Koukl has often said that if the thing killed in abortion is not human, no justification for abortion is necessary; if it is human, no justification for abortion is adequate.

Life of the Mother
The life of the mother exemption is another mistake in reasoning—or, I should say, a mistake in terminology. Simply stated, abortion is never medically necessary. That’s
because abortion is an intentional act of killing and removing the child. When the life of the mother is at stake, any doctor complying with the Hippocratic Oath is not intentionally killing the child. He is trying to save both, but the baby dies. This is a far cry from abortion, and thus ought not be lumped in with it.

I like how this is stated. In an emergency situation, the doctor is going to do what he can to save as many as he can, not kill as few as he can. Well done, Shawn.

Derrick

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Abortion is a very foul word in itself. It conjures up equal tones with the word murder. Indeed, this is why I chose to walk out of a brand new county position as a case carrier. I walked out in my last few days of training into the immediate world of unemployment. Why? My case load would include working with young ladies who became pregnant. It costs the county $89 to have an immediate abortion performed on this individual. It costs thousands to allow this innocent life to be born. My tenure would be based upon saving the county money. In simple terms, I must push the abortion side to keep my job. Indeed, I walked out. From 40K starting salary to zero in one minute. It was sweet. No regrets.

D.B. said...

I can appreciate your taking a stand for this. You said:

"Abortion is a very foul word in itself. It conjures up equal tones with the word murder."

I think an important thing to remember is that ideas have consequences and the idea that humans are no different than any other animal makes it seem ok to kill the unborn human inside a woman.

If the unborn is a human, nothing (I repeat Nothing) can make killing the innocent human ok.

Note: another bad argument for abortion is that "it is my body, and I can do whatever I want with it."
This might be true if the "thing" inside your body did not have a separate and distinct DNA than the mother (and in the case of having a boy-a penis) Mothers don't have one of those. Sorry.

Derrick