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1. This is a reasonable point of view, but it would also be reasonable to think that imperialism and torture are comparable to slavery as moral evils. And the best that could be said for McCain on those grounds is that his recent support for torture was hopefully just a cynical ploy to win the GOP nomination. His imperialism seems pretty sincere, though.

   — Consumatopia · Mar 29, 02:43 PM · #

2. this is another stalemate in our society.
   as much as I’d love to extrapolate on stalemate, I’ll take care not to put words in his mouth.

   Obama on abortion
   Audacity of Hope pg 222 (chapter on Faith)
   “…a point is rapidly reached at which compromise is not possible. At that point, the best we can do it ensure that persuasion rather than violence or intimidation determines the political outcome—and that we refocus at least some of our energies on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies through education (including abstinence), contraception, adoption, or any other strategies that have broad support and have been proven to work.”

   realizing that in our current state a compromise on a moral issue needs to be had, Obama wants to reduce abortions through (gasp) social policy. That’s a better solution than has come from the right, ever (they know full well that a complete ban is not feasible, but posturing is necessary as the anti-abortion voting bloc is too valuable. So instead they give us their flimsy solution of abstinence education (while restricting access to birth control), which has CLEARLY failed…one need only point to the 25% of teenage girls who have STDs).

   there is a difference between supporting, and understanding.
   but still, understandably to your stance, none of this makes an abortion not an abortion…

   — McL · Mar 29, 03:18 PM · #

3. McL:

   Even if it is true, as it may or may not be, that liberal social policies will do more to reduce the number of abortions than the sorts of domestic policies that the GOP supports, it still seems entirely appropriate for an adamant pro-lifer to refuse to vote for a candidate who, for example, refused to vote in favor of a bill that would have made it a crime to kill an infant who had emerged from the womb fully alive during a failed attempt to abort it. If Obama’s rhetoric of “post-partisanship” and “mutual understanding” manifested itself in any sort of willingness to find a middle ground on the abortion issue (“compromise is not possible”, indeed), say by allowing states to make it illegal in the later terms or supporting laws to ban infanticide, then pro-life voters like me – and I imagine Prof. Jacobs as well, though of course I can’t speak for him – would consider giving him our support. Sadly, however, his party is too much under the thumb of the Planned Parenthoods of the world for that to be anything other than a dream.

   — John · Mar 29, 04:23 PM · #

4. Oh, come on, no one who goes and swears fealty to NARAL and the rest of the pro-abortion lobbies can be taken seriously as someone who might reduce its incidence. Obama seems like a decent fellow who is just horribly wrong on the issue – nothing in his legislative experience suggests anything otherwise. Isn’t he on record as being in favor of using federal funds to pay for abortions here and elsewhere? Yeah, that’ll reduce them for sure.

   Torture I could grant as a moral problem of the same grade as slavery (depending on the definition of torture – sleep deprivation doesn’t do it), but “imperialism”? Please.

   — Michael Simpson · Mar 29, 04:26 PM · #

5. Would everyone reading this who agrees that abortion is “a great moral evil” explain why in a way that doesn’t appeal to the obviously false premise that killing innocent humans is morally wrong?

   I ask because I’m fairly sure that everyone reading this who agrees with Alan reasons as follows: “Fetuses are innocent human lives; but killing innocent humans is morally wrong; so fetuses can’t be killed; so abortion is a great moral evil.” But of course innocent human lives can be killed. There are dozens of scenarios in which it’s morally permissible to take innocent human life, and to assume that abortion scenarios are never among them is to beg the question against abortion proponents.

   So once more: would those of you tut-tutting about the alleged moral horror of abortion explain what’s wrong with it in a way that doesn’t beg the question? Thanks.

   — James · Mar 29, 04:49 PM · #

6. I’m sorry James, but was that supposed to be a serious question? And if so, how long have you been living under that rock?

   Almost any pro-lifer will acknowledge that there are some (even “dozens”, perhaps, though of course it’s hard to figure out how to individuate such things) scenarios in which innocent life can be permissibly “taken”, and most will also grant that there are some such cases (e.g. those where the mother’s life is at stake) in which killing an unborn infant is an appropriate course of action (see “Double Effect, Principle of”). But that doesn’t do anything to undermine the belief that in MOST cases, abortion is manifestly NOT morally permissible, and indeed is a great “moral horror”, and so that in THOSE cases it is appropriate for it to be outlawed.

   Hence the crucial premise in question, which is certainly not “obviously false”, states simply that killing innocent human beings /without an especially good reason/ is morally wrong. Does that do the trick for you?

   — John · Mar 29, 05:07 PM · #

7. Cool down, John!

   You’re right that pro-lifers who’ve thought things through appeal to a much more subtle premise than the premise that innocent life may never be taken. (And some swear off this strategy of argument entirely, preferring arguments like the one developed by Don Marquis. Yes, John, I know my philosophy.)

   But that wasn’t my point. Once it becomes clear that the not-so-subtle premise won’t do the work, the search for a subtle premise becomes extremely difficult. Your own attempt at supplying a sufficiently subtle premise—the premise that “killing innocent human beings without an especially good reason is morally wrong”—is a mere waving of the hands. Which reasons are and which aren’t especially good? Answering this question is hard, and the answer is nowhere near obvious.

   The point, then, is just this: the revulsion on display in many pro-lifers’ discussions of the pro-choice position suggests that they simply haven’t thought through how tricky these things are. If more pro-lifers realized that the argument they usually make is a very bad one, appealing as it does to the not-so-subtle premise, then more of them would realize that pro-choicers aren’t moral monsters who’ve failed to appreciate some elementary bit of morality.

   One last thing: I’ve been living under a rock? Maybe you’ve read Judith Jarvis Thomson and Philippa Foot and Don Marquis, but most pro-lifers—and, importantly, most politically influential ones—haven’t. All one ever reads in the paper or hears on television is the business about how innocent life can’t be taken.

   — James · Mar 29, 05:56 PM · #

8. C-topia, McCain’s evident support for an American international dominion is one of the prime reasons why I may well be unable to vote for him either.

   — Alan Jacobs · Mar 29, 06:40 PM · #

9. My apologies if I overreacted, James, but the way you put things in your original response (“I’m pretty sure everyone reading this who agrees with Alan reasons as follows …”) implied that, well, /everyone/ who’s opposed to abortion – or at least any TAS reader who is so opposed – rests his or her case on that faulty premise. And as we’ve seen, that just isn’t true.

   More generally, though, I don’t see what’s so wrong with straightforward appeals to the “innocent life can’t be taken” principle in public discourse about such things as abortion and war (though I prefer to avoid euphemism, hence “killed” seems better than “taken” and “human beings” better than “life”). Obviously more than this is demanded in the philosophy classroom, but it seems to me that this sort of conviction is nevertheless an important one to have on board, and we would all do well to take it more seriously on its own terms. Moreover, the fact is that even though they may not be able to give them what you or I might regard as a sufficiently explicit articulation, most people’s actual beliefs about when murder is and isn’t permissible are considerably more nuanced than this: their inability to spell out exactly what they /do/ think, and so their reliance on simplistic axioms like “don’t kill other people”, are hardly examples of a clumsy and unreflective dogmatism, but rather just an instance of the deeply pervasive human tendency, which is obviously not confined to pro-lifers, of not being able to give sufficiently careful justifications for why we believe what we believe. The same goes in spades for the “extreme difficulty” of spelling out, in sufficiently abstract and yet counterexample-free terms, the necessary and sufficient conditions for justifiable murder. I don’t see why we should insist that the public discourse of pundits and politicians, let alone the general public, must conform to the same (frankly absurd) standards that we demand of professional philosophers.

   — John · Mar 29, 07:40 PM · #

10. I’m with you, Alan, and I say this as the parent of a child who is special-needs, exhausting, but much loved.

    — Joules · Mar 29, 07:44 PM · #

11. I have two comments. One, very few people actually support abortion. Very few people think abortion is a good thing, rah! rah! But lots of pro-choice people think that the question of balancing the needs of a fully developed human vrs. the needs of a human in the very earliest stages of development (which means it lacks many of the most important features that distinguishes it as human) is difficult, and therefor one that is most logically made by the person who has the most at stake, morally, spritually, financially, logistically, emotionally… So I don’t think abortion is good, but I feel that it is not a decision that some politician—not usually a natural repository for integrity or thoughtfullness—should make for me or my wife or daughter.

    So a person can be anti-abortion and still not want to pass a law banning abortion. I mean, most people agree that abortion is not a good thing, but we have different ideas about how to end it.

    — cw · Mar 30, 12:46 AM · #

12. If you rewrote that entire post substituting McCain for Obama and the Iraq occupation for abortion, you would have my feelings in a nutshell. There is no such thing as the perfect candidate and we all have to follow the issues that matter to us.

    — semanticdrifter · Mar 30, 01:14 AM · #

13. James writes: “Maybe you’ve read Judith Jarvis Thomson and Philippa Foot and Don Marquis, but most pro-lifers—and, importantly, most politically influential ones—haven’t. All one ever reads in the paper or hears on television is the business about how innocent life can’t be taken.”

    Oh, come off it. Will libs ever tire of playing “The Right Is Anti-Intellectual” card? Oooh, you’ve read Judith Jarvis Thomson and Philippa Foot! Whoopee! C’mon, for every “innocent life cannot be taken” I have to listen to some girl tell me about “it’s my body, my choice!” or “Bush, stay out of mine!” Emotivism on parade, folks.

    — Derrick · Mar 30, 01:48 AM · #

14. <i>Moreover, I am not even convinced that the best way to limit abortions is through governmental action.</i>

    As Ross Douthat tirelessly points out, the only way you are going to have a significant reduction in the number of abortions is through legal sanctions. The rest is window dressing.

    — Thursday · Mar 30, 07:12 AM · #

15. As Ross Douthat tirelessly points out, the only way you are going to have a significant reduction in the number of abortions is through legal sanctions. The rest is window dressing.

    You know what organization has prevented more abortions than any other in the country?

    Planned Parenthood, of course, by providing contraception and family planning information for anyone who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay. But, of course, as much as abortion foes gnash their teeth and claim they’d do anything to prevent abortions, vigorously supporting sex education and widespread contraceptive use is a bridge too far. Typical.

    — Greenzo · Mar 30, 01:32 PM · #

16. Many women use abortion as their birth control. All of my friends who have had abortions are women who weren’t committed to the men they were with at the time and chose to have unprotected sex with them. As they have moved through life there has been an enormous amount of sorrow and regret they’ve experienced because of the choices they made.

    I have to say that as much as I’ve heard against Planned Parenthood in the evangelical Christian community, they are the organization that made it possible for my Christian college friends to get birth control pills and other forms of birth control and education affordably when we were in college in the mid-80’s.

    — Joules · Mar 30, 06:17 PM · #

17. I feel the same way about torture.

    — Michael · Apr 1, 02:25 AM · #

18. Michael — and this also goes back to C-topia’s first response — I completely agree, and I consider the Bush administration’s support and practice of torture to disqualify it in just the same way that I think Obama’s support of abortion disqualifies him. That would have been a good point to make in my post.

    — Alan Jacobs · Apr 1, 01:28 PM · #

19. It’s not just Bush. McCain voted against a bill to require the CIA to adhere to the Army Field Manual’s restrictions against torture. He said he believes torture is wrong but that this was just a bad bill. I say he helped block the only real attempt congress has made to stop the torture. So I can’t vote for him.

    — Michael · Apr 2, 05:08 PM · #

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