I'd Like To Find That Point That We All Agree On

I’m not sure there’s ever been a better explanation of tolerance than the first two paragraphs of Scott Alexander’s essay, I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup.

In Chesterton’s The Secret of Father Brown, a beloved nobleman who murdered his good-for-nothing brother in a duel thirty years ago returns to his hometown wracked by guilt. All the townspeople want to forgive him immediately, and they mock the titular priest for only being willing to give a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection. […]

Later, it comes out that the beloved nobleman did not in fact kill his good-for-nothing brother. The good-for-nothing brother killed the beloved nobleman (and stole his identity). Now the townspeople want to see him lynched or burned alive, and it is only the priest who – consistently – offers a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection.

In my article, Women Don’t Want Abortions, I explained the reasoning behind my pro-choice stance on abortion. But I also recognised that abortion is a complex, emotive, morally ambiguous topic that we’ll almost certainly never agree on. And that means we have to tolerate each other’s views and rights.

MXM explored what was at the heart of this disagreement.

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MXM:

Another very well written piece. Extremism on BOTH sides of this debate hurt us all. I think was is REALLY at the heart of this “debate” is distrust.

Pro-life people distrust anyone who wants an abortion. They assume they will lie, cheat and steal to avoid responsibility for their own behavior. Pro- choice people distrust pro-life people. They believe ANY restriction on abortions will inevitably lead to a ban. This pushes people into ridiculous positions.

Pro-life people are pushed into total bans on abortions or very restrictive (and vague) laws with harsh penalties that few doctors are willing to risk breaking. Pro-choice people get pushed into allowing an abortion 5 minutes before the baby is born.

To me the best way out of this is now a federal law that prohibits sanctions of any kind against a person who goes to another state for medical care they can’t get in their home state and that prohibits restrictions on abortions before the end of the first trimester. I doubt we will get either.

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Steve QJ:

“Pro-life people are pushed into total bans on abortions or very restrictive (and vague) laws with harsh penalties that few doctors are willing to risk breaking.”

I agree with you on the extremism, but I don't think this fairly represents most of the people on the "pro-life" side of the debate.

First of all, as I point out in the article the "pro-life" position doesn't actually protect life. It's a knee jerk reaction to a personal dislike of abortion that doesn't consider the variety of situations where an abortion is necessary. Orthe fact that the data shows abortion bans simply put women's lives at greater risk.

And second, I don't think pro-life people are "forced" into their position. They feel, almost invariably on religious grounds, that life begins at the moment the sperm touches the egg. And they're entitled to that belief. Nobody is forcing them to have abortions. The question is, are they entitled to force other people to live by their belief? And here I think the answer is a resounding no.

As far as the extremism on the pro-choice side, yes, you can find people who argue that abortion should be legal right up until the moment of birth. But these people are obviously lunatics. And, I think, vanishingly rare. They don't represent the pro-choice side to nearly the degree that the "human life begins at the instant of conception," crowd represent the pro-life side.

I think the overwhelming majority of pro-choice people are happy to accept reasonable limits on elective abortions. Roe vs Wade provides those limits. But people who oppose Roe seem to simply want a zero-tolerance approach.

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Here, another reader, Jon, asked for clarification about where and how to draw the line between a foetus and a baby.

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Jon:

Can I ask, respectuflly, why an abortion 5 minutes before delivery are "lunatics"?

I guess, what Im getting at, is that it seems that for many aboriton proponents, as long as the fetus/baby doesnt look too much like a real person/baby/child, then its ok to abort. But once it does, like in the third trimester, we develop an emotional attachment to it and think of it as a "person".

Thanks for the responces to a very complex issue.

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Steve QJ:

“it seems that for many aboriton proponents, as long as the fetus/baby doesnt look too much like a real person/baby/child, then its ok to abort.”

I think the issue is much less about whether the foetus looks like a person,and more about when the foetus is viable (as in, can live independently of the mother).

A foetus 5 minutes before delivery is clearly a viable human being that would be able to live independently of the mother. It's not a "clump of cells" any more than you or I. Delivering the baby also comes at no or extremely minimal extra cost to the mother.

A foetus at the point of conception is clearly not a viable human being, and given that it is literally comprised of two cells, can barely even be described as a "clump." Forcing a woman to carry this foetus to term means a 9-month hijack of her life, career, and health.

Somewhere between these two extremes is the point where elective abortion should be legal. Roe vs Wade placed this point at three months. Which is still weeks before viability, but gives the woman time to discover she's pregnant and make a decision about what to do.

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Jon:

I agree with alot of this. So, Id like to find that point, that we all agree on, or at least accept it and move on. Id accept viability, which is 21 weeks currently, and adjust as medical advances move that number down.

This issue has overdominated our politics, and especially our judges for too long.

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Steve QJ:

“So, Id like to find that point, that we all agree on, or at least accept it and move on.”

The point has already been found to the satisfaction of pretty much all pro-choice people. As I said, Roe vs Wade placed it at around 13 weeks, almost two months before viability, and unless I'm missing something, there was no significant effort to push it further.

The reason this issue has dominated politics for so long is the attacks on this perfectly reasonable compromise, that have come pretty much exclusively from the "pro-life" side of the debate. Because they want to move it right down to the "two cells is a human being" extreme.

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Tolerance is only meaningful because it’s uncomfortable. 

I’m not being tolerant when I “accept” people of different ethnicities or sexualities or people who I already agree with about abortion. Because I have no issue with any of these things.

No, I’m being tolerant when I respect people’s right to be ignorant or bigoted or to enjoy the movies of Adam Sandler. And all I ask is that these people offer the same respect in return. 

If you look past the usual suspects pretending that abortion is a simple matter of baby murder or as innocuous as taking a dump, you find a bunch of people who don’t know how to balance the various opinions, needs and uncertainties in society. Who don’t know how to manage their personal dislike of abortion. 

And the answer, as with a number of other issues the Supreme Court is weighing, is measured tolerance conditional on reasonableness, intellectual honesty and self-reflection.