The Rare Morality (Redux)

"[Our] core beliefs and values. can guide us in reaching our goal of keeping abortion safe, legal and rare into the next century."
Hillary Clinton speaking to NARAL, Jan. 22, 1999


It's all but impossible to ignore that these days Hillary Clinton is steadily positioning herself for a run for the White House in 2008. To do this, of course, she is steadily aiming towards the center on issues (rhetorically, anyway), in the hopes of counteracting her reputation (read: actual ideology) as a staunch liberal. Recently (or at least last I noticed; she seems to be giving "major speeches" every day now), she addressed the issue of abortion.

Now, I don't care to argue here the merits of "allowing abortion good"/"allowing abortion bad." But in listening to the coverage, and of Sen. Clinton's actual remarks, I fought the urge to tune-out, and noticed the notion that I've outlined above in Sen. Clinton's (then Mrs. Clinton) quote:

" [keep] abortion safe, legal, and rare..."

Can someone explain to me the significance that the frequency with which abortion occures has to the Pro-legal-abortion position? That is to say, when operating under the belief that abortion should be legal, who cares how frequently abortions occur?

I don't wish to delve too deeply into the actual text of Roe. v. Wade, but (using general terms) the Roe decision as written by Justice Blackman revolves around the central issue of whether or not a women's (implied) 14th Amendment protection of privacy outweighs any potential "compelling interest of the state" to prevent the killing of the embryo/fetus that the woman carries.

Blackman and the majority of the Court maintain that because they (and everyone else) are unable to determine if a fetus can be defined as a "person" under the Constitution, the State cannot be assumed to carry such "compelling interest," and therefore cannot inhibit the 14th Amendment rights of a women to have an abortion.

Logically, the implicit argument involved is that because the Court cannot determine that a fetus is a "person," that therefore it is not a person, unless or until science can prove it (From a court standpoint, this makes some sense; jurisprudence can't infer an absolute without grounds to do so; even "just in case.").

Ok, so now I've finally come to what annoys me about the phrasing that Hillary and many abortion advocates use. Using the definition provided in Roe, there is no benefit or significance from a moral standpoint as to the frequency with which abortions occur. A fetus is not alive. It has no inherent value beyond the context that it should be seen as a part of a woman's body. So who cares how frequently women remove it from their bodies?

Hillary's argument is tantamount to seeing moral rectitude in limiting the number of appendectomies that occur, or the frequency that someone cuts their fingernails.

Ok, so maybe I will delve into abortion as a concept. The obvious reason that Pro-Choice advocates include the little qualifer of "rare" is that it appeals more to the sensibilities of the average American (and were they open to admitting it, I suspect to the Pro-Choice advocates own as well). Fundamentally, people have an aversion to abortion, even if they can't rationalize why. By allowing that "we'll keep abortions rare" it allows people the ability to feel like they are still preserving a moral coherence to their argument, no matter how slight. "Yes it's killing," they might say, "but at least were making sure it doesn't happen too often." And while it might be "more moral" in a technical sense to kill only one instead of 100 (though that's debatable), the fact remains that the act of killing in and of itself is an immoral one. Such is the fundamental problem with the logic employed by Hillary and company.

And ultimately, this indicates the precise problem with the Roe decision itself. If the rationalization and logic provided in Roe were accurate, people from sea to shining sea should feel ok to flaunt their ability to have an abortion, without any feeling of guilt or queasiness. Afterall, it is a right that they enjoy thanks to their status as an American (and the fetus' status as nothing). Yet American's approach abortion as almost an "apologetic right." People seem to intuitively sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with abortion.

That Hillary promotes the goal of the "rare abortion" indicates that even she intuitively understands that. Even if she won't admit it.