Thursday, January 04, 2007

Abortion is a moral good?

So thinks Marcy Bloom, an abortion advocate. She writes,
In a society that talks about everything from the mundane to the sensational, abortion has been the secret that many women have felt uncomfortable discussing openly. Even after 33 years of Roe vs. Wade, the acceptance of abortion as a moral good for women and society still eludes us.
She continues,
Even pro-choice politicians and leaders refer to it as tragic (Hillary Clinton) and bad (Kate Michelman) and the need to make it rare. What should be rare, of course, is unplanned pregnancy - not abortion.

Missing in action is any kind of reasoning for why abortion is a moral good or why abortion shouldn't be rare (abortion advocates rarely supply a sound reason for why they think it should be rare) while unplanned pregnancy should. If unplanned pregnancies are rare wouldn't that mean abortion would also be rare? It's as if Bloom thinks unplanned pregnancies should be rare because they put women in an uncomfortable situation while abortions shouldn't be rare because the decision to have an abortion could be some way to empower women by taking control of their unplanned pregnancy.

She also writes,
Society must continue to examine the moral consequences that befall us when the choice of abortion is not honored. It is, after all, a choice that more than one million women make in the U.S. annually. Above all, abortion needs to be viewed as the most morally responsible and loving choice a woman can make when she believes that this is the best decision for herself.

Bloom seems to think that abortion is the "most morally responsible and loving choice" simply because the woman having an abortion believes the choice to have an abortion is the best choice.

Couldn't this flawed reasoning be used to say the choice to do almost anything is the "most morally responsible and loving choice?" It seems clear that the perceptions of the actor don't necessarily make an action morally right. Unless of course, Bloom thinks misguided individuals who attempt to do physical harm to abortionists are doing the most morally responsible and loving thing.

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