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Marcotte’s Sweet Voice Of Reason: “Abortionists Are Heroes”

The “I’m pro-choice but I think abortion is wrong” thing crops up a lot in these discussions, and while I understand the urge to feel like a complex person that lays behind it, I seriously don’t get why people think that it helps anything to hand wring about how terrible abortion is if you’re supporting […]

The “I’m pro-choice but I think abortion is wrong” thing crops up a lot in these discussions, and while I understand the urge to feel like a complex person that lays behind it, I seriously don’t get why people think that it helps anything to hand wring about how terrible abortion is if you’re supporting the right to have one. Suggesting that abortion is immoral just reinforces the anti-choice claims that abortion should be banned and it strongly reinforces the anti-choice notion that women who get abortions are moral children who are too stupid to know what they’re doing. The belief that women are too stupid to really understand what they’re doing is evident in anti-choice measures like requiring sonograms and requiring that women spend a day to think it over before they get an abortion.

Having the notion that women are moral midgets and that abortion is an evil, even if you think it’s one that should be tolerated, being reinforced by pro-choicers does the pro-choice argument no good. So I’d like to argue against it. I think that abortion is not only a good thing, but I’d like to posit that it seems to me that in the vast majority of abortions, the choice made was the most moral choice for that woman. [bold mine-DL] 

To see that abortion is moral, you just need to look at women as human beings with lives that have value. When a woman chooses abortion, she’s not indulging some guilty pleasure, like sneaking in a round of adultery at lunch, to bring up a genuinely immoral action that should not be criminal. She is probably thinking about her family’s well-being and yes, her own well-being. Taking your own well-being into consideration is called “selfish” by anti-choicers, but I think valuing yourself is a moral good, even if you are female. In fact, especially if you are female, since you live in a world where having self-esteem can be an act of moral courage that requires some defiance. If I got pregnant, I wouldn’t even have to suffer much mental strain to realize that abortion would be the best choice for myself, my family, and my relationship. Abortion, not just the right to abortion but the actual procedure, is a moral good that helps women and families and should be honored as such. Women who get abortions should be recognized as people who can accurately weigh their choices and make the most moral one.

Updated to add: Also, saying that abortion is morally questionable, even if you’re pro-choice, is a huge insult to the brave men and women who risk life and limb to perform them. Being an abortion doctor is a pretty thankless task, because a bunch of “Christian” men who have emasculation issues are gunning to kill you in hopes that brings their huevos back. Meanwhile, other anti-choicers are running around claiming that being an abortionist is like this super great career that people only indulge in for the money. This is horseshit and pro-choicers need to push back and remind everyone that abortionists are heroes, who put up with all sorts of abuse because they want to help women. ~Amanda Marcotte

Behold, progressives, the cavernous abyss that is the moral vacuum of the pro-abortion fanatic.  I’ll give her this–she cuts out all of the Obamaesque, saccharine garbage about how “pro-choicers” are deeply concerned about the moral dimension of the problem and want to reduce the number of abortions in this country.  She doesn’t insult our intelligence with obligatory remarks about how much she respects our deeply held convictions, because she doesn’t respect them–she would have to regard pro-lifers pretty much as villains and she’s not afraid to say so.  I can’t imagine Amanda Marcotte wanting to reduce the number of abortions in America–why would you want to curtail something as morally good as abortion? 

Note how perverse this is–she doesn’t say abortion is necessary or unavoidable or even the least bad option in a range of options.  She says it is good.  In the interests of the self, pure utility dictates abortion. 

To see that abortion is moral is to believe that unborn children aren’t human beings and that their lives have no value.  Marcotte has premised the positive valuation of women’s lives on the annihilation of others’ lives: their humanity can only be fulfilled by the denial of someone else’s humanity.  This is implicit in all pro-abortion arguments, but Marcotte is so far gone that she proudly embraces this heinous view. 

Marcotte is hardly the first person to advance a supremacist logic that justifies the murder of other people, but most supremacists nowadays at least cushion the blow of their hideous ideas with euphemistic language.  Give Marcotte credit for this much–no one will ever accuse her of rhetorical subtlety or nuance. 

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