That political thought ever could be made a (political) science always appeared a piece of folly. The problem is not simply the subjectivity of the objects of that would-be science (i.e., political animals), but the subjectivity of those who would seek to objectify them (i.e., more political animals). At least half of that quandary is by and large avoided in the asocial (i.e., natural) sciences. This injection of values, passions, self-interest, and the like—at both ends—ensures a tremendous amount of inconsistency and illogicality of the sort that science cannot countenance and political science cannot dispel. This impasse is amply borne out in the conflict surrounding abortion.
In essence, that conflict is intractable, for it involves a clash of two fundamental and irreconcilable rights: that of the unborn to life and that of the mother to bodily autonomy. Whenever rights come into conflict, something must give. The intent of this essay is not to martial out arguments in support of one side or the other and establish which should prevail, but rather to use the issue of abortion as a case study in the limits of science—political or otherwise—and consider how a well-tempered spirit of deliberation and reconciliation might approach such insuperable disputes. To that end, it might be fruitful to consider some of the congenital contradictions that riddle this debate.
On the one side, the defenders of reproductive rights (to employ that euphemistic if not somewhat Orwellian phrase) cannot plausibly deny that what abortion entails is the deliberate termination of human life. Until the science on this question became politicized, it was never in doubt when life began. That politicization has sown considerable confusion and discord, much as the debate on what constitutes a woman has. This despite the fact that science prides itself, with good reason, on confounding absurdities, not compounding them. Life begins at the moment of conception and the life that begins when a woman conceives is human, for what other life could two humans possibly bring into being through the procreative act? The question of personhood is distinct and need not be examined here. That said, it is worth noting that the argument, advanced in Roe, that a fetus is not a person and therefore does not have rights, is but a sophism that ignores that cats, for example, are neither persons nor devoid of rights (or at least legal protections that prevent them from being disposed of like property). That the law might afford greater protections to cats than to unborn children ought to give ladies—cat ones included—pause.
On the other side, those who argue that a woman’s right is not really in play since the body, to say nothing of the life, is not really her own, do so, it seems, evasively. That is not to dispute the veracity of their underlying claim so much as to suggest that there is nothing dispositive about it. The fetus is at once a separate life and an inseparable one. It is not simply that the fetus is dependent on the mother, but that the fetus depends on the mother exclusively. It is disingenuous to discount or ignore the bodily rights of the mother, rights of the sort that—in the minds of pro-lifers—are outweighed by the unborn’s right to life. One might contend that instances of self-defense aside, one’s right to bodily autonomy cannot supersede another’s right to life. To have one’s personal space violated on a crowded subway does not give one a license or right to harm, let alone kill, the violator. One can grant that in principle and question it in fact. Indeed, all but the most steadfast pro-lifers question it, at least implicitly, in both principle and fact. For an exception to this rule is generally made in cases of rape. But it is unclear why the life that results from rape is less entitled to it (its life, that is) than the life that is conceived in consensual union. Presumably there is no depreciation in value of the life of the unborn who knows no culpability, but rather an appreciation of—and for—the interests of the mother who bears the child against her will. To concede that exception is to accept that in that instance at least, the mother’s bodily autonomy should be given priority over the rights or interests of the unborn. And that, too, ought to give one pause.
Again, none of this is intended to help resolve the debate so much as highlight the sheer complexity of it and the need for compromise on it. Those who maintain that their values are not to be compromised are self-deluded, if not, worse yet, self-anointed. However paradoxical it may seem at first blush, the refusal to compromise one’s values often brings about a violation of them. Regardless, the reality is that anyone who pays taxes to a government engaged in activities of moral dubiety (and what government isn’t?) is in some way—however far removed—complicit, a lesson that Thoreau wonderfully exemplified in word and deed. Closer to home—indeed, in the home—anyone who possesses and depends on products of forced labor (and in this globalized day, what American doesn’t?), bears some complicity, again, however attenuated.
But such illustrations aside, the logic that undergirds the competing positions on the abortion debate—the logic that masquerades as infallibility and engenders inflexibility—already is compromised, as exceptions clauses (for rape, for example) suggest. As John Ely Hart observed, generally speaking, one is not privileged—statutorily or constitutionally—to take another’s life to preserve one’s health. On the other side, all those who vehemently proclaim “my body, my choice” when it comes to abortion and no less vehemently championed mandatory vaccinations when it came to COVID ought to see the inconsistency, if not the error, of their ways. At a minimum, it ought to be apparent that to hold those contradictory positions is to recognize that the right to bodily autonomy is not absolute or inviolable (what right is?). Or consider drug use, which ostensibly boils down to bodily autonomy: what one does with or to one’s own body is one’s own business. To counter that drug use carries consequences that transcend the drug user seems woefully naïve or misguided, not because it is wrong, but because it misses the point. There are consequences to abortion, not just for the individual who chooses it, to say nothing of the life snuffed out by it, but for the society that sanctions it. A culture that condones if not promotes the wanton destruction of human life cannot remain unaffected by that choice.
The drug debate is pertinent, not because there is an (im)moral equivalence to be drawn or because there is commensurate gravity to the issues at hand, but because that debate is being hashed out pursuant to the principles of federalism. On such fraught and vexed questions, common ground will not be achieved by an unelected majority of the court imposing its will on the people (as Roe made plain), but by restoring the will to the people tinkering away in their respective laboratories of democracy (a promise that Dobbs holds out). That was one of the elemental sins of Roe: it put an end to a debate that was, at that time, well under way. A pluralistic society cannot long endure, at least not in its democratic guise, without consensus and compromise. And for that, dialogue and deliberation are needed.
If judicial fiat will not resolve this matter, nor will “the science,” in which far too many far too readily place their trust these days. For even if science has settled the questions of when life starts and fetuses feel pain and hearts begin to beat and brains begin to develop, the question that remains is, what is to be done? And science is ill-suited to address that sort of question for it excludes from its calculus that on which the debate ultimately turns: values. It is one of the misfortunes of political thought that in aspiring to be something that it is not nor ever can be (i.e., a science), it forfeits much of its force when it comes to such matters of gravity.
Perhaps one day moral clarity on this issue will be found or the values of the American people will align more neatly. Until that day arrives, if ever it does, let the people themselves reach across the proverbial aisle so that they may reach one another. And may they do so with an appreciation for how incompatible absolutism is with the American experiment and the ethos that has sustained it. The American republic reposes on a spirit of compromise—it always has and, so long as we can keep it, always will.
Image Credit: Elin Danielson-Gambogi, “Mother and Child” (c. 1890) via Picryl
