Every reason for an abortion is a good reason.
This is Amanda Marcotte’s response to a recent interchange between FoxNews duo Bill O’Reilly and Kristen Powers, who lamented that women can and do have abortions for any reason (convenience, fetal defect, socioeconomic circumstances, etc.).
Marcotte incorrectly concluded from that fragment of the Fox exchange that pro-lifers believe that there are some good reasons for abortion and other reasons that can’t be justified. Here she misses the mark completely, as she did in May when she illogically blamed pro-lifers for the success of Gosnell’s “house of horrors.”
In her response to the Fox segment, found in an RH Reality Check column, Marcotte describes her perception of the pro-life view this way: If a woman can justify her reason for seeking an abortion well enough, then the pro-life community will deem her worthy of her abortion. But if a woman can’t justify her abortion by demonstrating her dire circumstances and sad back story, then her abortion is to be condemned. This view, she believes, stands in stark juxtaposition with the pro-abortion view – or at least Marcotte’s view– that women don’t need any reason at all to kill their children.
Marcotte may as well have gotten her interpretation of the pro-life view from outer space. The pro-life view, which is founded on a belief in the sanctity of life, is well-known by the pro-abortion community. This is why most abortion supporters spend time trying to demonstrate that the right to life of the unborn is trumped by a woman’s freedom to choose abortion. Marcotte completely overlooks this fact to baselessly argue that pro-lifers force women to shame themselves into justifying their abortions.
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Marcotte is right to acknowledge that asking “When is murder OK, and when is it not OK” is a slippery slope, and no logical conclusion can come from that conversation. In fact, she argues that a woman should never have to ask that question: she is justified in having an abortion for any reason whatsoever. In Marcotte’s eyes, there are no circumstances in which a woman’s desire to abort should be infringed on by conscience or some concept of the right to life, or a problem with taking innocent life. Conversely, murder (taking innocent life in abortion) is never fine in the pro-life view, whereas it is always fine for Marcotte. Pro-lifers believe this is so because all life has intrinsic value, and as such humans can never be the arbiters over lives of other innocent humans.
Marcotte’s argument simply demonstrates her ignorance about the most common beliefs of both pro-lifers and many abortion supporters who would not agree with her.
