Except he didn't. What Bill Nye did is tilt with a few carefully chosen strawman caricatures of anti-abortion arguments. Here's the video that Uproxx references:
To be fair, when dealing with controversial issues, a lot of the "information" that's communicated is simply through slogans and signs. It's a problem that's magnified by a desire on the one side to try to get the most message into the fewest words; and a lack of desire on the other side to listen any more closely than that. So caricatured arguments are often self-constructing. But let's see where Nye goes wrong, shall we?
The first strawman is right there in the title, bold type: that anti-abortionists want to tell women what to do with their bodies. Their bodies are not the issue. It is the bodies of the beings dependent upon them that are. More on that later.
The second is Nye's observation that "many, many, many, many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans." That may be, but it's completely irrelevant. This is descriptive of a natural process, and none of those eggs are the subject of abortion. Not one. And as such, they're not the subject of anti-abortionists arguments, either. Nye is just engaging in some obfuscation, hoping that you won't notice that he's completely talking past the issue to focus attention on a non-sequitur. But hey, he gets to get all "sciencey" and "educational", as if you didn't know all about the birds and the bees already. Basically, he's also using the opportunity to be condescending to those who already not only know the facts of life, but assume that their opponents do, too, without the need for remedial instruction.
He then takes this into an attempt at reductio ad absurdum by questioning "who are you going to sue?" over the eggs that aren't implanted in the uterine wall. As if you had to sue over a natural process. As if natural processes are someone's fault. Of course, this is a starting assumption worthy of any liberal who is engaging in "low effort thinking" about a subject, which is exactly what Nye encourages here. He most certainly is not using science. Rather, it's less-than-stellar barracks lawyering. And even there, it's a reflection of a deep legalistic lack of understanding. Natural processes... what a court calls "acts of god"... are nobody's fault. Not everyone who's born lives to old age either. They succumb to all sorts of calamities, from lightning strikes to heart attacks to cancer and liver disease. This natural rate of attrition doesn't keep us from making laws against deliberate murder. Nye is simply using an emotionally-charged legal fallacy to try to make you feel silly, and winds up making himself look ignorant in the process. It's safe to say that he "apparently literally" doesn't know what he's talking about.
He then uses the phrase "women's rights with respect to their reproduction", which completely dismisses any rights that may be held by men in respect to their reproduction. It's plainly sexist. It does take two to tango, and no amount of equity is achieved with placing all authority with one group, and all blame with the other. It's one of the things he should have paid a little more attention to in his remedial sex ed. Surely an enlightened individual would recognize that shared responsibility must be accompanied by shared rights.
Nye then goes beyond sexism and straight into racism. Hey, why not? The race card is a liberal staple. "A lot of men of European descent" is a dressing-up of our old standby, "old white men". And in Nye's world they're passing laws based on ignorance. But as we've seen Nye is already proving himself to be highly ignorant (or at least "ignoring") of the oppositions actual arguments. Maybe he's got something there... he's an old white guy. If people took his advice literally, they'd dismiss his arguments, too. The thing is, the "old white guy" canard is another irrelevancy. People elect representatives, and polls of women show them to be as divided about abortion themselves. But Nye ignores these facts to tilt with a racial strawman. This isn't science, either. It's poor rhetoric.
From here it's a sloppy segue into an argument against the Bible. This particular strawman is the assumption that anti-abortionist reasoning is rooted in the Bible alone. In fact, atheists and agnostics, as well as non-Christian theists are also divided as to the subject of abortion, and many theists hold secular reasoning for their pro-life views as strongly as their religious beliefs. Their opposition to abortion is held independently of their religion. But religion is a convenient scapegoat. If you can argue with "a" religious view, you can stretch it, insisting it is shared by all those who are religious, and you don't have to bother with pesky issues.
At this point in the video it's clear that Nye really isn't speaking to convince anyone to join his side. He may actually believe he is, but he's not arguing as if he were actually doing anything more than cheering on the home team. Certainly, if one is going to use the Bible to speak with Christians, one will want to have a passing familiarity with at least the parts pertinent to what one is saying. Nye, on the other hand, speaks as if he is totally ignorant. He states that the Bible teaches that sex always results in children (ignoring high-profile cases of barren women, including those who later have children, such as Sarah, the wife of Abraham). This is an attempt to make Christians feel silly and stupid. More accurately, his argument instructs atheistic liberals to believe that Christians hold such beliefs and are therefore silly and stupid. It actually makes Christians -- who know the Bible better than he -- believe that Nye himself is biblically illiterate. Nye says, "That’s wrong, and so to pass laws based upon that belief is inconsistent with nature." Laws that are consistent with nature would recognize this: pregnancy doesn't result every time you have sex, but you have to be impressively ignorant to miss the fact that pregnancy can happen any time you have sex, even if you don't like the guy. Or girl. Bill Nye is denying the science.
It is certainly ironic that Nye casts people as scientifically illiterate when discussing science, and then personally proceeds to screw up the science and display actual illiteracy when discussing a book.
His next statement, "It’s hard not to get frustrated with this, everybody. Nobody likes abortion, okay. But you can’t tell somebody what to do," rises to the level of hypocrisy. Nye has no problem whatsoever telling somebody what to do when it's for other causes that he feels are important, even when it's based on shaky science and revisionist data. These are the "more important things" referred to by Nye. These are the things that trump nascent human life.
Nye then proceeds to pretend that science is an exclusively anti-religious affair. "You wouldn’t know how big a human egg was if it weren’t for microscopes, if it weren’t for scientists, medical researchers looking diligently." But the father of microbiology, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, was a Calvinist. From his Wikipedia article, "He often referred with reverence to the wonders God designed in making creatures great and small. He believed that his amazing discoveries were merely further proof of the great wonder of God's creation." Look up the references yourself. Genetics was pioneered by a monk, Johann Gregor Mendel. The Calculus was devised by the devout though unorthodox Isaac Newton. Kepler determined the orbits of the planets through a dogged determination to find out the truth of God's creation. It was a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaitre, not Steven Hawking, who proposed the Big Bang. If it weren't for these and other religious gentlemen and their reverence what they referred to as "the Book of Nature", then you wouldn't have science at all, much less sanctimonious condescending atheists who erroneously claim science as their own exclusive domain. It is only in recent years that the idea has been incubated that science and religion are mutually exclusive. And though this nonsense has been swallowed by many atheists and theists alike, it is by no means true.
Nye closes with this: "Just really be objective about this. We have other problems to solve everybody. Come on. Come on. Let’s work together." Duplicity abounds. If Nye were objective, then he wouldn't cling to the fiction that this nascent life, small and dependent as it may be, is "the mother's body". A genetic lab in a blind test will confirm that these are not the same individual. Objectively... scientifically... it is a life of its own, genetically distinct from the mother, and is by no means "her body". Obviously, to a "pro-life" adherent, life takes precedence. It's right there in the name. IF these other things are so much more important in Nye's estimation, and he himself claims they are, then it is he who should back off of the issue, and work on those other problems instead.
So, did Bill Nye use science to debunk the logic of anti-abortion legislation? No, he used strawmen, distraction, condescension, fear-mongering, false appeal to authority, mis-characterization, misrepresentation, belittling, and emotional cajoling. In short, everything but science.
In a Facebook thread which I'll detail a bit more of in my next post, I was asked the direct question: what is my position on abortion, and why? Here was my answer, re-posted here for the benefit of the fellow who asked. The thread was deleted shortly afterwards.
I've actually posted my views elsewhere on this blog, but this was my answer today:
--==//oOo\\==--
I've posted a link a couple of times already, but I'll do it again, as I think Hemant explains it quite well.
My pro-life stance is informed by my religion, but is not dependent on it. In fact, numerous religious organizations are either pro-choice or defer the argument entirely, so I conclude that claims that "having religion" obligates one to pro-life are without merit. Rather, my religion and my reason are in concert, and I stand with the 19% of "true Scotsmen" atheists who identify as pro-life, and against the many pious individuals who don't.
Since I'm perfectly capable of accepting the existence of people on this planet who disagree with me, I have no problem with the fact that we disagree on this issue, as we do with many others. So the philosophical question is moot. My civic duty is to respect the legislative process. If you say you're in favor of abortion, then my response is, "Ok." If you were to tell me that your wife had a voluntary abortion, then my response (after wondering why you volunteered the information) would be to say, "Ok." The law allows it. But that doesn't mean I like it, or approve.
And that brings us to the political question, which is not so moot. We live under the laws made not by us, but by those we elect to make them. And when it's time to vote, I have to vote my conscience. I expect every voter to do the same, exercising his power with honesty. For my part, I choose to defend and side with those defenseless persons of complex emotions and thoughts who I do not see as mere potentialities, but as beings whose only fault is that they are in the earliest stages of their development. These are beings distinct from the mother in having their own unique DNA signature that they will carry throughout life. I feel that the most objective scientific conclusion is that, though they are hosted by the mother, they are most assuredly not "the mother's body".
I didn't invent the biology and can't control it, but know that we can control our own actions. To the extent that I'm pro-choice, I feel that those choices should be (and usually can be) made long before conception. I take an active part in those choices by not participating in the conception of lives I would not support. I do encourage contraception, but even more so I encourage some serious thought when it comes to picking your partners. Sex is a risky business, best left to those who have the fortitude to handle those risks. My two youngest children (twins) were unplanned. Yet they live. When force is involved the question is not so easy, so I would find exceptional abortions to be reasonable.
I realize that when YOU vote, you will most likely side with (who I see as) the not-nearly-so-defenseless parents, who very often choose not to be inconvenienced by a life that they had a not-insignificant hand in bringing into existence. I also recognize that you don't characterize your decisions this way and that there are far more factors involved, and that there are no easy answers to those who have considered the problem fairly. I trust that you're voting your own conscience, so I'm willing to live with the result, whether it goes "my way" or not. And I'm not going to jump down your throat and drag you down, however you vote on this issue, or however you feel about it, because you're as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine.
Answer these in your head. We'll come back to them:
Maria is five months pregnant. She and her husband José are expecting a baby girl and they are very excited about it. On the way home she stops at the ATM, and is attacked. She begs the mugger not to harm her for the sake of her baby, but nevertheless she is assaulted and battered. As a direct result of the battery she loses the baby. Her attacker pleads guilty to the assault, battery, and robbery, but he is also charged with murder. Do you think he is guilty?
Maria and José are excited to learn that they are expecting a baby. However, when a test is done, Maria learns that her baby will be severely deformed. She decides to abort the pregnancy. Do you think that's OK?
Maria and José are excited to learn that they are expecting a baby. However, a new scientific test reveals that her child will be gay. She decides to abort the pregnancy. Do you think that's OK?
Maria and José are excited to learn that they are expecting a baby. They visit the doctor and learn that the mother and unborn child are both perfectly healthy. However, they also learn that the baby will be a boy, and Maria had her heart set on a girl.
Although José is just happy to be a father and is unconcerned with the sex of the child, Maria decides on her own to abort the pregnancy, Do you think that's OK?
José and Maria argue over the incident. She says it was her body and her choice; he says it was his son and that he has procreative rights, too. Jose requests applies for an annulment of their marriage. Who do you think is at fault?
--==//oOo\\==--
What got me thinking along these lines was a video by Dennis Prager. In it, Prager deliberately sets aside those difficult and ambiguous areas such as rape, incest, and the health of the mother to focus on those things that should be clearest to you... a healthy mother with a healthy fetus, and he does so without any emotional charge. Now, whether you support abortion always, never, or some of the time, you might be surprised that this utmost clear-cut scenario is not as clear as you imagine.
I think Prager does a very good job examining whether or not the abortion of a healthy fetus is moral, and shows that his arguments follow from secular reasoning and not at all from religious dogma and emotionalism. So I have just a few thoughts.
One thing that Prager doesn't elaborate on is that the fetus is not the mother's body. His single clarification is pretty solid: "It's IN her body". But so is her liver, so something further is needed. I invite you to think on this proposed double-blind experiment:
Take DNA samples from the fetus and from any other portion of the mother.
Send them to separate labs for sequencing (not revealing the source of the DNA).
Have a third lab compare the DNA sequences and tell you whether they came from the same person.
What do you imagine the results would show? With nothing but physical evidence and no legalisms, emotionalism, or bias in the way, and excluding microchimerism (the exchange of a few cells due to a shared environment) would the lab pronounce these samples as having come from the same person? [1]
I would discuss personhood here, but it was Prager's specific intent to present his case without all those pesky grey areas. But in debating it with myself I found it not feasible to come up with a definition of personhood that simultaneously covered everyone we can all agree is a person except a fetus unless I specifically excluded the fetus.
Thoughts about Scenario 1
Scenario 1 isn't entirely hypothetical. Most states have fetal homicide laws, and a Federal law called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act treats the killing of an infant as a homicide in all 50 states if it occurs in conjunction with the commission of a Federal crime. Twelve states do not have such laws. This was highlighted in a recent case in Colorado where a woman, eight months pregnant, was stabbed in the belly, killing her unborn child. The assailant was not charged with murder.
Recall your own thoughts about Scenario 1. Should this be murder? Either the situation in Colorado is wrong and the assailant should have been charged, or the situation in the 38 remaining states is wrong, and no one should be charged with killing a fetus. Nevertheless, fetal homicide laws have passed with broad bipartisan support in 38 states, including California,
Where this gets dicey in regarding abortion is that, regarding the loss of the fetus, the major difference is that in an abortion the mother doesn't want the baby. In that case, abortion proponents say that the fetus "is the mother's body" and the its loss is no more traumatic than that of an appendix. However, in the case of an attack, many of these very same abortion proponents are in favor of calling the loss of the fetus "murder". This is despite the fact that, if the fetus is not a person, then we cannot logically call its death a homicide any than we could that of a hand or foot that's lost in an attack.
Many abortion proponents had the consistency to oppose the Unborn Victims of Violence Act using similar reasoning. However, you'll find that they weren't so concerned with the actual principle of whether it was a life as they were about how it might affect abortion. Then-Senator John Kerry provided a representative summation in a form letter to his constituents. In it he wrote, "I believe that an attack on a pregnant woman should carry increased penalties. However, legislation granting a fetus the same legal status in all stages of development as a human being is not the appropriate response. I have serious concerns about this legislation because the law cannot simultaneously provide that a fetus is a human being and protect the right of the mother to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Therefore, I do not support the Unborn Victims of Violence Act." While denying the personhood of the fetus, Kerry fails to provide any justification for increased penalties.
Here's what I think. I think he knows it's murder, and he cites increased penalties because he knows it, and to appease those of his constituents who vocally affirm it. However, he was motivated in great degree by concern that curtailing a malicious act might prevent others from performing the very same act dispassionately, and that calling it murder in one instance would reveal it to be murder in the other. Increased penalties cannot be logically justified because the attempt reveals the same thing.
Thoughts about Scenarios 2 and 3
As presented by me, these scenarios are intended to present the same situation: Maria aborts the child for some reason. Since abortion proponents I'm writing of are those who hold that she should be able to do so for any reason, the specifics shouldn't matter to them, ever. And yet, I bet they do. At least, they have so far in conversation.
Let me take an aside and say that if you should write or comment saying that they did -- or more especially did not -- matter to you, I'm afraid I can't weigh it very strongly against my expectations, which are formed over years of personal interactions. The reason is (and I hope you can appreciate this as fact rather than insult) that I have no reason to believe that you're not lying about it, even to yourself. The only way I could have to check the validity of your statement is if I had asked the question and received answers first, before moving on with the rest of this discussion. Since that didn't happen, and you had the opportunity to read the whole post and consider a rebuttal, including retconning your answers to match your ideology, I just have to leave it to you as to whether your answers conflict with your stated views. I can't really accept as reliable testimony a claim that they weren't. Perhaps someday I or someone else will conduct the discussion in just that way and we can see.
If you're like most Liberals, you'll find one of these a lot easier to answer than the other. Many people would spare a severely handicapped child the difficulties of life with a disability. Still others try to reconcile their acceptance of the "differently abled" by stating that it shouldn't be allowed. Still others have an apparent logical meltdown and state that aborting a handicapped child should be allowed only if you would have aborted it if it were healthy (which completely dismantles the idea that a mother can choose and abortion for any reason or that you can have a reason for an exception based on the health of the child).
You'll find a much better answer to that dilemma here [LINK], which can be summed up in this paragraph:
IT IS BETTER TO SUFFER EVIL RATHER THAN TO INFLICT IT.
If this moral precept were not true, all so-called moral dilemmas would be easily soluble by simply appealing to one's own relief from suffering. But in such a world the antidote would be worse than the poison, for people would then have a right to inflict suffering on another if it relieved them of their own. This would be morally intolerable.
Abortion proponents should have no discomfort with this scenario, as "any reason" means "any reason"... and yet many do have a problem with reasons other than those they themselves would sanction.
Scenario 3, aborting a gay baby, isn't discussed much except, oddly, among conservatives, but it's one that liberals really should ponder. Remember, I'm not asking whether it should be legal, but whether it's OK.
Remember, too, that it is not only the accepted view of many that homosexuality is determined at birth (see the video), but that it is determined by genetics. If there were a test for that gene, would you be OK with a mother who uses it to prevent the birth of gay children?
The intellectually consistent response is "any reason" means "any reason" and to have no reaction to this additional information. And yet, while searching through various forums I've found only a very few abortion proponents who respond in that consistent fashion. Mostly, the proposition is either handwaved away with "that would never happen", or manages to spark ire and heated debates deflected completely away from the actual question, I think it's clear that the idea that it could happen reveals an emotional response that belies an internal struggle. I think that those who feel that struggle should not only examine what they believe, but whether it's right.
Anti-abortionists have no moral dilemma, by contrast. They do not value one fetus preferentially over another, but apply their principles equally.
Thoughts about Scenario 4
My purpose in presenting Scenario 4 was to get you thinking about whether José has any parental rights. In a legal sense, for males fatherhood has largely become all responsibility and no rights.
Certainly, if the baby were born, José would have responsibility of child support, even if he knew nothing of the child's existence. Even a private contract agreed to and proposed by the mother cannot give him assurance. He has no say whatsoever in aborting a baby that the mother wants but he does not, and will be forced to give up a large share of his income for the next 18 to 21 years despite his wishes, with no recourse. And if the mother does not want the child he has no recourse for compelling its birth, although the imposition upon her is a mere 9 months.
In Scenario 4.2, José and Maria's marriage is ended, and I ask who is at fault. This is of course a matter of opinion, but you may want to ponder why a man should remain in a relationship where it is clearly demonstrated that he has no place in decision-making authority; where his joy at expecting a son can be tossed aside as irrelevant with the callous disregard exemplified by the words, "It's her body." That may be her body, but only in a civil marriage does this deny a man rights.
Every responsibility has (or should have) accompanying rights. The American colonists fought an entire war of independence based on the idea that taxation without representation -- or in other words, responsibility without rights -- is tyrannical [2]. Why then should José not leave this tyrannical situation to find another woman... in his eyes, a better woman... who believes as he does that in a marriage a man and a woman are joined "as one flesh" and that as a result, all important decisions should be made jointly?
Personally, I say they share what "fault" there is to be had. They should have explicitly discussed exactly this sort of thing before they got married, and if either of them had detected attitudes in the other that would leave them as less than a full partner, they should have put the brakes on the marriage. "Love" has only a little to do with it. You can be infatuated with someone who isn't your proper mate. Marriage is a whole lot more than that. True love is caring for someone else more than you do yourself. So when it comes to the immediate cause of their dissolution, I think it's an easy choice. "It's my body" is an argument that could sway even the Catholic church to annul such a marriage on the grounds that Maria suffered from a "grave defect of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties mutually to be handed over and accepted". A civil marriage would never end in divorce on such grounds, of course; but it wouldn't need to. Civil marriages are by comparison lightly undertaken and lightly cast aside. For instance, in South Carolina, just leaving will do it. Seeking annulment allows both he and Maria to be re-married within their Church, and is a compassionate solution, not a hateful one.
A personal struggle
I'm a little more vocal on this subject than I have been in the past, as the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced of the immorality of abortion. At one point I accepted the argument that as a male I have no credible say in this matter. That's untrue. As human beings we have equal say in the matter of procreation, and if you disagree with that, then it is you who are being oppressive, not I.
Then I accepted the argument that it should be left to the individual. That's also untrue. In matters of life and death, a just society has always favored the helpless. We don't allow the murder of adults, and we give special protection to children who are unable to fend for themselves. There is no one less capable of self-defense than a child in the womb. That child should be defended when the mother is attacked, and also when the mother attacks.
Part of this is surely to make sure that unwanted children are not conceived. So contraception, I think, is essential. But so are morals. So is the promotion of a decent family structure where children are born into welcoming families and fathers are not driven away as if they were irrelevant except for their utility as ATMs. And so is acceptance of responsibility. This means more than a man shouldn't lie with a woman unless he is prepared to "pay up" for failed contraception; it also means that a woman shouldn't lie with a man unless she is prepared to be intimately involved with him for very many years. Face-to-face, and not as a line item deduction on a paycheck stub. I think it is important that when we promote the value of Fatherhood that we not be limited to lip service, but we make that value achievable.
This isn't something that is or should be limited to religious individuals. Everyone should ask themselves if abortion and the casual disregard for life and family and community and cooperation that accompanies it is something they should be supporting. In those areas where we have needed improvement over the past, we should improve. People must be treated with equality across the board, which is, after all, simply putting our lofty rhetoric of the past into action. But in changing society we have thrown away many practices that were objectively better, and we should either return to them or find out where we went wrong in our attempt to improve them.
I'm going to leave you with this TED talk by Sam Harris. Whether you're religious or not, it will not be what you expect. Please set aside 20 minutes and watch.
[1]You could hear the argument that a mother and fetus literally are a chimera (a single organism composed of genetically distinct cells.") However, the constituent parts of a chimera do not spontaneously separate and become distinct organisms. Pregnancy is quite different.
[2]When I presented this argument to someone, he attempted to deflect the discussion into one of slavery. My response was as follows: "Slavery is wrong, and except for prison it has been abolished for 150 years. That said, why shouldn't José leave a situation that you yourself just equated with slavery?" His response was very good: "Isn't Christian marriage slavery, where the wife is 'subjugated'?" He's referring to Ephesians 5:22-33 where a Christian marriage is described and the phrase "one flesh" is used. My response was to point out the context and language, both in the scripture and in what I said.
First, in a Christian marriage a wife is not "subjugated". She submits herself (willingly) to the husband, for reasons you can read for yourself in the link. Furthermore, a Christian husband is to love his wife "even as himself", and that precludes being dictatorial. He is to be the head of the family "as Christ is the head of the church," which indicates servant leadership (and do follow that link!). If he's a dictator, he's doing it wrong. So no, a Christian marriage is absolutely nothing like slavery.
Second, I used that phrase because in my example Maria and José happen to be Catholic. But the argument doesn't require a "Christian marriage" to hold water. If any man and woman do not agree on something so basic as whether and how they will have offspring, why should they not find more compatible partners who do agree on these basic things?
You'll find that my argument relies in no measure on subjugation, but on an equal partnership.
It's the story of Emily Letts, an abortion counselor at Cherry Hill Women's Center in New Jersey. Rather than begin by reading a description of the film, I want you to see it. I would embed it if I could, but I'll have to link you to it. It's short:
I'm not sure that this video is as convincing as Emily thinks it is. Or, to put it another way, I know that, though she feels better every time she sees it, my own reaction is quite the opposite. Here's what I see when I view the video:
In this video, Emily talks about the 'support' she has and repeats, "I'm a lucky girl. I'm a lucky girl," as if she hopes to believe it.
But where is that support? A nurse in the clinic holding her hand. Otherwise, she's completely, totally alone. Alone in the car, alone in a claustrophobic studio, alone in front of a blank wall. And as she says in Cosmo, she has no long-term partners... "I thought I was OK." She can hook up... a guy here, a guy there... but there's no evidence that she has anyone to love, and to love her in return. Or, if she does, she's keeping them far removed from this attempt at making a 'positive' statement about abortion.
Emily Letts: "I knew that what I was going to do was right." *
Look at her face. Not just the static image... look at her face as she animates it in the video. Look at her demeanor. Is she really OK?
And in the end, of what is she in awe...? "I can make a baby. I can make a life". Not a 'fetus'. Not 'tissue'. Even she knows it was a baby. A life. The first thing she would save from a fire is the sonogram of the child she discarded. And though she now casts people as 'hateful' for pointing out that she killed that child, honesty compels me to note that she did kill it, deliberately, convincing herself that what she was going to do was 'right'.
This isn't a positive video. It is a horrible, depressing account of what looks for all the world to be a sad and lonely girl lying to herself in a dark closet. It should be shared, with appropriate commentary.
So those are my visceral reactions to the video. But what does it mean in reference to the meme, "Nobody is pro-abortion"?
What we have here is someone who is PRO-ABORTION, who counsels others on the matter, and who claims lots of support. She argues in favor of it, with the express goal of proving that "there is such a thing as a positive abortion story" by becoming that story. We're not talking about exceptions for rape and incest. We're not talking about the fragile life or health of the mother. There was no agonizing over this at all; no real decision-making, no thought of alternatives. "I knew immediately I was going to have an abortion," says Emily. She wasn't even using birth control. Her horrifying tale is one in which abortion is a tool of first resort.
And Emily is not unique. So when someone tells you that "No one is pro-abortion," know that it is not true. It was not true when Barack Obama said it in 2008, and it's not true when you see it on Twitter or Facebook today. It's not true when it's said by those who would credit Emily Letts as a "courageous hero" for celebrating an act that is so casually destructive.
Plenty of people are pro-abortion. They just don't want you to know it.
Then again, some do. Here are examples that argue the point forcefully:
From Valerie Tarico on Alternet: I Am Pro-Abortion, Not Just Pro-Choice: 10 Reasons Why We Must Support the Procedure and the Choice
Personally, I have far more respect for those that plainly state their position as in these examples than for those who pretend it doesn't exist. If you feel that a thing should be done even though it has the appearance of murder to so many, then you should be able to at the very least articulate why it should be done. When people are clear about their positions, then there can be a dialog. While there still may not be agreement, the level of respect will rise considerably when everyone is honest about their views.
* Still frame taken from Emily's Abortion Video on Vimeo. Reproduced here under 17 U.S. Code § 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use, for the purpose of political commentary.
