This year, as everyone knows, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I have been solidly on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate since my early 20s, but it was never one of the most important issues for me. Partially, this was due to the fact that I was a man (thus not in need of reproductive rights) and partially this was due to all of my family being vehemently pro-life.

Also, when voting for most political offices, the candidates’ stance on abortion specifically seemed to me not particularly important. Whatever their animus with it might be, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. Obviously, this is different when it comes to electing the President with the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices. However, I was a bit jaded to this as well, because mainstream liberals would always trot it out to shame people into voting for a corrupt, corporate democratic candidate.

Since the reversal of Roe, I have thought a lot more about the issue. When something is the default position due to the current laws, whether I should or not, I feel less need to justify my support of the issue. However, that has changed now.

One of the biggest problems with the abortion “debate” is the terminology that is used. “Pro-life” implies that the other side is anti-life or pro-death. “Pro-choice” implies that the other side is anti-choice. Neither of these is true, though there are certainly people on each side who could be said to fit these descriptions. In saying this, I am not implying that being anti-life or anti-choice is bad. I simply mean that the labels that are commonly used don’t accurately frame the issue.

You can be pro-life and pro-choice, at least in the strict sense of the terms. This is how I viewed myself for several years in my early 20s. I believed generally that abortion was wrong, but I also had very intelligent friends that disagreed and I could understand their perspective. Therefore, it seemed best to leave this moral calculation up to each individual and their health providers.

This reminds me of a meme about the difference between liberals and conservatives. Basically, the meme says that when conservatives don’t like something, they don’t do it; but when liberals don’t like something, they ban it for everyone. Obviously, the meme is over-the-top and unnuanced. However, you could flip the script on this particular issue:

If a liberal doesn’t like abortions, they don’t get an abortion. If a conservative doesn’t like abortions, they force everyone not to get one!

To me the real question in this debate is not “when does life begin” or even “when does personhood begin,” but rather “what is the fundamental right?” This is where the majority of the time spent discussing this should be spent. Is the most basic right that citizens of a developed country have the “right to life” or the “right to bodily integrity”?

Answering this question doesn’t necessarily put you squarely on either side of the issue, but it does constrain the possible positions you can have. It also forces a person to adopt other positions if they want to remain consistent.

Right to Life – Many people argue that having a right to life is the bedrock value upon which society is built. What this translates into is “killing is bad and people that kill should be punished.” The obvious question, though, is who does this apply to:

• Every conscious entity = Mandatory veganism!
• Every human being = Get rid of death penalty, war, guns?
• Every “innocent” human being = Punish people who attempt suicide?

Now, I am not trying to demonize any of these positions; I simply want people to be intellectually honest and consistent with their conclusions. Also, if life is the thing we should fundamentally be preserving, this raises a lot of interesting ethical questions:

• Should people be forced to donate organs to save lives?
• Is it acceptable or even virtuous to violate one person’s “right to life” if it saves 10 other people?
• Should there be laws against “unhealthy” behavior that shortens people’s lives?
• Should every miscarriage be criminally investigated? (I find this hard to argue against if you are on the pro-life side, yet I don’t think I have ever heard anyone suggest doing this. Why not?)

Right to Bodily Integrity – As a social libertarian (not an economic one!), I consider bodily integrity to be the pivotal right the government should be protecting and respecting. The question though is, how far does this extend:

• To every conscious entity = Again, mandatory veganism!
• To every human being = Then this would apply to a fetus as well.
• To every “person” = Sure, but when does a human being “become” a person? Also, what about people in persistent vegetative states (PVS) that have NO cortical activity? Can they really be said to be a “person,” and if not should they be denied this right?

Again, I don’t say this to demonize any of these positions, but simply to point out the costs associated with holding them. Personally, I subscribe to the last position and define ‘personhood’ as having cortical function. I wouldn’t grant fetuses with no cortical activity any rights and nor would I do so with people in PVS. However, I still give tacit endorsement to violating the “personhood” of animals, at least to some degree, so there is still a lot for me to intellectually work out.

Without even really getting into the meat of the various arguments for or against reproductive rights, I feel anyone should be able to realize: THIS IS A VERY COMPLICATED ISSUE! And honestly, this realization, more so than anything else, is why I remain firmly on the pro-choice side. Even if I again get to the point where I view taking any innocent life as morally wrong (a position I do NOT currently hold), I will still remain pro-choice because I believe this will always be far from a black-and-white issue.

Anytime something is morally gray, my default is to leave it up to the individual to decide on the morality of it, not the government. I find this a very difficult position to argue against. Now maybe someone believes abortion is a black-and-white issue. My goal is to convince them otherwise, but not necessarily to change their personal moral view on the topic.

More thoughts on this topic would better be facilitated in a verbal setting. Perhaps I will upload a YouTube video on the topic (I’ve been meaning to revive my channel for a while).

Namaste.