[Peace-discuss] abortion debate

[Tom Mackaman]

One of the problems with this debate is that it treats the moral issues surrounding abortion as trans-historic phenomena.  
 
In fact, the question of abortion, or emergency contraception for that matter, cannot be neatly abstracted as a "moral issue" from the entire mess of politics and history confronting humanity.  I think that much of this discussion has taken as a starting point that there exist timeless, unchangeable, universal morals that operate outside and above human society.  As much as we might wish that to be the case, I think a serious engagement with history shows it is just plain wrong.  Much could be said, but I wanted to make just a few points:
 
1.  The very practice as we know it today is made possible only by recent gains in scientific understanding.  Those who oppose it often act as though their opposition is based upon some timeless moral tablet, when in fact there would be no discussion were it not for scientific discovery.  The absurd stand against emergency contraception is a perfect example of this:  A scienftic discovery threatens to make antiquated the entire debate on abortion.  Instead, the anti-abortion zealots suddenly "discover" that God reveals conception starts earlier than He had previously revealed.  
 
2.  We cannot separate the attack on abortion rights from the broad-based assault on the gains working people made throughout the twentieth century.  The same moralizers who attack abortion also attack basic programs such as Planned Parenthood.  And they attack the publics schools, Medicare, Social Security, and so on.  Some moralizers are no doubt sincere in their effort to defend life.  But many others are not, and no matter how one might wish it away, to join forces with the reactionairies on the matter of abortion is itself reactionary.  
 
3.  To the extent that we accept abortion as a problem, the solution lies not in pressuring our reactionary government to outlaw it, as Carl calls for, but in creating a society in which the fundamental causes of the problem are erradicated, which Carl also, to his credit, calls for.  Poverty, violence, lack of time off for working women, lack of health care, day care, etc., these are the problems that must be faced.  
 
4. Carl, I know you consider yourself to be an anarchist.  But I have to point out that your call for the government to legislate morality is as far away from an anarchist position as can be, as when you write, "it would seem that sometimes government would have to be the driving force of individual morality (as in ending slavery?)".  Although I do not consider myself an anarchist, I know that the one of its central inspirations has been a revolt against state-sanctioned morality, especially in the historic epicenters of anarchism:  Church-dominated or -influenced states such as Italy and Spain.  And the basic tactics and strategy of anarchism is the destruction, not the strengthening, of the state and its police apparatus.  
 
Socialists, who also should favor the dissolution of the state, should agree on this score.  We do not call upon the state to legislate morality or adopt new police measures.  We view the state as the historical instrument by which one social class dominates another.  The modern US government is the instrument by which US capitalism impoverishes millions in this country and leads us on terrible wars of conquest abroad.  It is a reactionary utopia to imagine that such an instrument can ever truly enforce "morality."  
 
     
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