The wrong way to argue about abortion

Abortion is one of the most polarized issues in American politics. It's also one of the worst-debated ones. Both sides tend to rely on straw-man arguments that vilify the people on the other side.

• Pro-Life people portray Pro-Choice people as wanting to kill babies. (That is, they hate Life.)
• Pro-Choice people portray Pro-Life people as wanting to control women. (That is, they hate Choice.)

Both of those portrayals are wrong, because in reality the difference between the two groups comes down to the question of when a human life begins. If we could scientifically prove that, the discussion would end.

Here's a version of the issue that's simplified, but not by very much:

Let's say a woman wants to have an operation. Should she be able to?

• If the operation will kill another person, the answer is no.
• If the operation will not affect another person, the answer is yes.

Which of those bullets represents the situation with abortion? Well that's up for debate. In fact, that's the only thing that really needs to be debated to resolve this issue! [Edit: This is not quite true. See comment at the bottom.] But is that what people debate? No, hardly ever. Instead, people talk about how evil the other side is. It feels empowering to be so right! But it's not really empowering at all. It just makes the power swing back and forth based on who's in office (or on the bench) at the moment.

As an example, on the radio this morning I heard a woman explain that abortion rights are a racial issue. He's the gist of what she said:

Black communities (due to a lower average income) have much higher abortion rates. Therefore they have higher needs, and denying access hurts Black people more. 

But when she says that, here's what a Pro-Life person hears: 

Black babies are killed much more often than white babies. Therefore allowing abortion hurts Black people more.

Same data, same concern for racial justice. Opposite conclusion. It's going to be like that every time.

Here's a great idea that will probably never happen: Compromise, so that each side gets the most important things they care about while acknowledging the validity of the other side's concerns.

Like, for example, what if you you amended the Constitution to say something like this?

Abortion is allowed in the first trimester of pregnancy and forbidden in the third. States may decide what to do in-between.

You could tweak the specific week numbers, but you get the point. Pro-Life people would avoid the most heinous abortion scenarios; Pro-Choice people would avoid unwanted pregnancy for the vast majority of women, since presumably most women who get abortions know they want one pretty early. Nobody would be completely happy. But nobody would lose what they have just because political power swung a different direction this year, or this decade.

Could we just... admit that pretty much everybody involved is a good person and just talk?

Edit: To be fair, the personhood of a fetus is not the only philosophical barrier to abortion. There is another argument, which states that even if a fetus is a person, a woman has no responsibility to respect its rights because it is inside her body, and everyone has sovereignty over their body. I read about this in philosophy class but did not realize how widespread it is. It turns out that it is very widespread.

I still think this is a weak position, at least if one is trying to gain support from currently-pro-life people. (If your plan is to build an overwhelming majority so that you can get the exact laws you want passed, then you don't need the debate at all.) The reason I think this is a weak position is that it is tantamount to saying this: "There's a baby inside you. It could live outside you. But if you want,  you can pay a doctor cut it into pieces and suck them out through a hose." That just feels wrong - so wrong, in fact, that I don't think that most people who use the "body sovereignty" argument would actually support that description. Certainly killing a person is more wrong than restricting how someone uses their body.

In the main post I didn't bother pointing out the classic counter-argument to the body sovereignty thing, but I guess I'd better. It goes like this:

If I want to swing my fist around in front of me, I have that right. But if your face is in the way, I lose that right, because the right to safety outweighs others' rights to act. (Maybe a more apt analogy would be the right to squeeze my index finger, vs losing the right to do that if there's a gun in my hand and a person in front of me.)

It all comes down to priorities. Ownership of one's body is definitely a top priority. But there is a difference between not having someone control it, and expecting the right to do anything you want with it. First we apply everyone's right to not be attacked or manipulated. Then we apply rights to take action.

And speaking of free choice and consent, what about the baby? A baby does not consent to be born. The choice is entirely in the hands of the adults who bring that child into the world. (If one of those adults isn't given a choice, I acknowledge that you don't have grounds to hold that person responsible.) So it's perfectly reasonable to attach responsibility to the ones making the choice, even if that responsibility has undesired consequences.

So you see why, for me, it really does come down to when a fetus becomes a person. You don't get to kill someone just because you're using your body to do it, even if the person is inside you.

Edit again: I guess I might as well point out anther problem with common arguments. A lot of Pro-Life arguments start with the claim that life starts at conception. (Or at heartbeat, or some other medically-definable milestone.) But, how do you know this to be true? People generally claim religious reasons, but the question remains, because no religious text I've heard of ever specifies at what point a soul enters a body. Nobody in Biblical times, for instance, knew anything about zygote cells. "Quickening", or the beginning of life, was assumed to be when a woman felt the baby move, but that is way too arbitrary. (And even that isn't actually stated in the Bible).

This is why I think religious people should have room for compromise. Sure, you don't want to kill an innocent person. But how much damage are you willing to cause/allow simply because you think another person might be involved? If there is a decent chance that there isn't a soul in there yet, then shouldn't the potential mother's own rights and well-being count for quite a bit?