7. 7. Abortion

Defenders of the morality of abortion are usually defenders of early abortion: abortion of the embryo or of a fetus well before it is viable outside the womb, usually in the first trimester. That is, they are defenders of the morality of removing from a mother a group of cells that is not an independent, viable, and recognizable human being.

Opponents of abortion use the word baby to refer to the cluster of cells, the embryo, and the fetus alike. The very choice of the word baby imposes the idea of an independently existing human being. Whereas cluster of cells, embryo, and fetus keep discussion in the medical domain, baby moves the discussion to the moral domain.

Liberals think of abortions and talk about them in terms of medical procedures, while conservatives think and talk about them in terms of killing babies.

What inclines me to this view is the attitude of pro-life advocates on the death penalty and on programs for reducing America's astronomically high rate of infant mortality, the highest in the industrialized world. Most pro-life advocates favor the death penalty. Most pro-life advocates do not support government programs for reducing infant mortality through, say, prenatal and postnatal care programs for impoverished mothers.

Indeed, some cynical liberals have even questioned the sincerity of pro-life advocates as not really being in favor of "life" as an absolute, since they support the death penalty. Other liberals have questioned the morality of pro-life advocates who want to save the lives of some unborn babies (those who would be aborted) and not save the lives of other unborn babies (the great many who die of inadequate pre-and postnatal care). To a liberal, it is both illogical and immoral for someone to want to save the life of an unborn baby whose mother does not want it, but not to want to save the life of a baby whose mother does want it.

Conservatives support the death penalty and oppose social programs. Programs for pre- and postnatal care are social programs, and so they are opposed by conservatives. Moreover, conservatives would naturally assume that such care was the responsibility of parents. If poor parents could not afford adequate pre- and postnatal care, then it would be irresponsible for them to have children. For conservatives, the issue of infant mortality due to inadequate care is one of individual responsibility, not government action. It comes under moral action Category 2 – self-discipline and self-reliance.

Consider for a moment who is most likely to want an abortion. There are two classical kinds of cases: Unmarried teenage girls who have been having sex but have been careless or ignorant in the matter of birth control; women who want careers or independent lives and whose deepest aspirations would be destroyed by having a child at this point in their lives. There are, of course, many other kinds of cases – victims of rape or incest, for example, and women with a family already and neither the money nor the strength to raise more children. But the first two are the stereotypes.

Let us start with the first case. According to Strict Father morality, an unmarried teenage girl should not be having sex at all. It is a moral weakness, a lack of self-discipline, a form of immoral behavior, and she deserves punishment. She has to be responsible for the consequences of her actions if she is to learn from her mistakes. An abortion would simply sanction her immoral behavior. She would be "getting away with it." That is unconscionable, immoral – a violation of moral-action Category 2 (self-discipline and responsibility for one's actions).

Now the second case. In the Strict Father model of the family, a woman's role is raising children. The moral order places men in leadership roles, not women. Women can work to help out the family and to help out men in business. But women should not be choosing careers or an independent careerist lifestyle over their natural role as mothers in a family. When a women chooses an abortion in order to place a career above motherhood, she is violating the moral order and challenging the entire Strict Father model. Abortion in such a case is immoral by moral-action Category 1 (self-defense of the Strict Father family model, where the father has authority) and Category 5 (upholding the moral order, with men ranked above women).

Once Strict Father morality chooses opposition to abortion and, with it, the use of the "baby" frame, that choice functions to reinforce the Strict Father model itself. A primary function of the Strict Father model is the protection of innocent children.

Liberals and conservatives, understandably, find each other's attitudes shocking. Conservatives, who cannot help but use the "baby" frame, find it hard to imagine anyone not using it and not thinking of abortion as baby killing. To a conservative, a woman making the choice to have an abortion is necessarily engaging in denial, finding an excuse for her own self-indulgence and for her immoral behavior and irresponsibility. Conservatives, given their moral system, cannot help but see it that way.

Liberals find the attitudes and actions of conservatives equally horrific. Conservatives are trying to ruin the lives of young girls in trouble and women trying to make a go of it in a man's world. They are hounding brave doctors and nurses who are working with diligence and courage to help those women. Their actions and their rhetoric encourage those who would threaten or even kill people who have dedicated their lives to helping women who desperately need them. They are encouraging a return to the days of dangerous back-alley abortionists. Given their moral system, liberals, too, cannot help but see it that way.

Gay Rights

Why are liberals for gay rights? For liberals, gay rights follow naturally from Nurturant Parent morality. A nurturant parent treats his or her children fairly and loves them equally. By the Nation As Family metaphor, the government, as metaphorical parent, should treat all citizens fairly and equally, gay or not.

Why are conservatives against gay rights? Why is there so much hostility against homosexuals on the part of conservatives? This has nothing to do with disliking big government and bureaucracy, or supporting fiscal responsibility, or supporting states' rights. The answer is Strict Father morality. Gay and lesbian couples simply do not fit the Strict Father model of the family. Homosexuality challenges the monolithic authority of the father. And above all, it challenges the natural order, which presupposes that sex is heterosexual sex in which men are dominant over women and that, in a family, this natural order carries over to the moral order.

But this is not just a matter of the family. The family, conservatives understand well, is the basis of all morality, all social arrangements, and all politics. Homosexuality challenges the very idea that the Strict Father family is the right model of the family, and therefore of morality and politics.

That is why conservatives resist seeing homosexuality as natural for a certain percentage of the population. Conservatives do not talk much about the increasing evidence that homosexuality has a genetic basis. Gays speak of "discovering" that they are gay, rather than "choosing" to be gay. Conservatives, however, speak of the gay "lifestyle," as though being gay were simply a conscious choice of a particular way of life. If there is no choice about being gay, if one is born gay or bisexual or heterosexual, then the force is taken away from the idea of homosexuality as an immoral choice of "lifestyle." Indeed, if free will is taken away, if there is no choice, then it is much harder to make homosexuality a moral issue.

The conservative version of the Moral Strength metaphor requires that sexual morality be a matter that one has control over: it is a matter of self-discipline. If homosexuality is genetically determined and, therefore, natural, normal, and out of the domain of free will, the concept of Moral Strength, which requires that all immoral behavior be preventable through self-discipline, becomes inapplicable. You can no longer say: if you just try hard enough, you can be heterosexual. Because the priority of Moral Strength is so central to the conservative moral system, conservatives will necessarily have a very hard time accepting the idea that homosexuality is biologically determined, natural, and normal for a certain segment of the population.

Interestingly enough, many conservatives would still find homosexual sex, gay households, and gay families immoral, even if being gay were a matter of genetics, not choice. Homosexual sex would still be a violation of the natural order and gay households would still be a challenge to the Strict Father family, which is the basis for conservative morality. Gay men are "deviant"; they deviate from the sexual norms of the community, going outside of the bounds set by Strict Father morality. Not only are gays seen as immoral in

themselves, but they are seen as a threat since they could lead others "astray," either directly or indirectly through the very existence of homosexual sex and gay households and families, which "blur the boundaries" of moral and immoral behavior.

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