So, in a recent entry, and in a post he made at my request describing his politics back in January (that I just happened to recently re-read) expressed bemusement at the notion of vegan/animal rights people being pro-choice. If you’re looking at it as opposing harming a life form that is presumably not up to human standards of consideration v ending a human life, the conflict here should be obvious.
Veganism is in part about not hurting the fuzzy bunnies for me. But veganism also strikes me as a moral choice to live ‘small on the land’. The calories in an ear of corn fed to me v the calories in an egg derived from a chicken fed on that ear of corn, well, it’s more ‘efficient’ in some senses to get the calories direct from the source. Let alone the meat dimension to this question. Then there’s the health considerations like lowering my risk of heart disease and colon cancer while never having to give a thought to BSE other than “must suck to be a beef eater”.
Now how does this relate to abortion? There are two dimensions here. 1) I would be much happier if every kid that came into the world was wanted and cared for, and we had no one bitching about urchins in the street. We’ve had legal abortion here for many years now in the states. This problem isn’t what it used to be. If you love orphanages and think we ought to have them overflowing with kids getting substandard care, please do raise your hand. Alternatively, if you want the necessary tax hikes to make sure that the new generation of accidental children is properly taken care of, please, do step forward. Not to mention sent off to college, because that’s a nearly necessary step to good pay and good jobs in modern, developed countries. Everything we pay to raising abandoned kids would be coming from the public pocket. With no legal abortion there will be more unwanted and abandoned kids. And I sincerely doubt that kids raised in orphanages are coming out with the same advantages as kids raised by relatives or adoptive parents with equivalent resources. So, we’re talking inefficient/low quality people production. Freakonomics, I hear, makes the argument that the recent decline in crime is a product of Roe v Wade. I haven’t read it myself, but I’d like to.
2) The life of the mother. 9 months is a pretty significant chunk out of one’s life. I hear the pain of birth is pretty substantial too (not that abortion is pain free). Birth control isn’t absolutely effective (speaking as the product of a busted condom). Rape, incest, blah, blah, blah. Look, teen pregnancy sucks. And it happens. And taking the child mother out of society’s eye so she can have her kid before getting back to life is a big opportunity cost in her life. Giving up kids for adoption, in addition to returning us to argument (1) has an effect on the mother too. Different effects for different people.
I don’t like abortion. And, obviously, it’s never been an issue for me. If I get a woman pregnant, you can be assured, it won’t be by accident. Abortion is a shitty choice to have to make. But in many cases it’s less shitty than the alternatives.
And finally, no I am not willing to accord to a zygote, embryo, or fetus the same rights accorded to an infant. We don’t treat infants the same under the law as 6 year olds, who we don’t treat the same as adolescents, who we don’t treat the same as 18 yos, 21 yos, 25 yos, 30 yos, or 35yos (and there are more distinctions, those are just the most obvious ones). I even take a historical perspective on the issue of infanticide. Humans have been practicing infanticide longer than we’ve been practicing agriculture. It’s ugly, it’s nasty, I can’t imagine doing it. But who do we think we’re kidding? This should not have shock value for us.