Abortion: All a Big Misunderstanding

    I was keeping up with my friend's Tumblr and she left a post, a screenshot of another post (honestly we could have a field day discussing how information is transferred and lost through that site) that I found striking for several reasons. The argument itself is mostly valid (and the obviously invalid bits are trivial enough to dismiss), but still does nothing to refute the opposition. Here's a transcription of the post:

oh? really? because i fucking think every life is valuable

Yes, really. And oh my god, I agree! Of course it is. Every single human life is valuable, no matter what. But guess what? The fetus isn't a human. If it was a human, we'd call it a fucking human. But it's not a fucking human. It's a fetus. It's the mother's fetus. It's not your fetus. Not anyone else's but the mother's. You act as if women have babies JUST to have abortions. No, women don't abort their babies for the fucking fun of it. They have a reason. Whether is(sic) be rape, they can't support the baby, the guy lied and actually didn't use a condom, the condom broke, they changed their mid, whatever it may be. And you need to respect that decision. It's just like all other opinions. You need to fucking respect it. Do you understand that when women walk into those clinics, it's the worst day of their fucking life? They don't want to abort their baby. That's the last thing they want. Maybe they didn't want the baby in the first place, but by god they don't want to abort it. And you need to respect their decision to get an abortion. If you don't like abortion, don't fucking get one. But PLEASE, for the love of god, do NOT tell them they can't get one because you think it's wrong. That's taking away rights. And I will fight to keep abortion open as an option for women until the day I die. I may be 15, but I know what's right and what's wrong. Is your opinion wrong? No, it's not. Is taking away rights from other people wrong? Fuck yeah it is. I won't fucking stand for it.

And if you think every life is valuable, I suggest you stop jacking off every night, buddy. Do you know how many ~*possible*~ lives you're killing?

    So obviously this was written by someone with fairly less than a rudimentary grasp on rhetoric, but we'll forgive that and focus the blame on public education, which has no focus and spends more time ruining math than actually teaching people to compose arguments properly and think for themselves. As a result, freethinking tends to be anti-academic, like the quote above, focusing more on emotional appeal than making a relevant logical argument.
    But that's not my point. In fact, the argument isn't really entirely bad, per se, it just totally fails to refute its opposition because either side bases its opinion on totally different premises.
    Here's an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Abortion
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
Jer 1:5; cf. Job 10:8-12; Ps 22:10-11.

[. . .]

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

    Clearly there's a conflict in definition. In the former case, the definition of a life is cultural, and in the latter, biblical. Neither is strictly wrong, but they're incompatible and decidedly ignorant of each other. Compare the last line of the first argument

And if you think every life is valuable, I suggest you stop jacking off every night, buddy. Do you know how many ~*possible*~ lives you're killing?

to this excerpt from the catechism:

Offenses against chastity

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."

     A logician might say that the fundamental problem is that the premises are conflicting, which is true, from a logical standpoint, but I think the bigger problem is that both sides are actually ignorant of the other's perspective. The simple fact that neither side is willing to acknowledge the validity of the opposing argument out of stubborn principle or closed-mindedness or whatever means nobody is willing to yield.

    Courts and lawmakers have actually done a reasonable job reaching compromise in the abortion issue. Although it is legal, limits such as how far into pregnancy it's available reduce the more gruesome side. In almost every state it is illegal past the first trimester, meaning that the recognizable human form isn't yet developed. While this is still clearly not in compliance with the ideal of life being sacred from conception, it still appeals to a more universal, less literal understanding of humanity.
    But not a perfect job. Lobbyists in favor of abortions ideologically believe that they should necessarily be available, not just as a personal liberty, but as a healthcare right. The controversy that many pro-abortion advocates fail to recognize is that many laws pushed make it strictly mandatory for doctors and hospitals to perform abortion procedures to patients who request them, regardless of the moral values of the doctor or hospital. In the spirit of protecting human rights, lawmakers inadvertently stifle other rights that don't necessarily need to be stifled.
    On the anti-abortion side, there is still some evil from its pressures. The fact that the Catholic church is so adamant about its position indirectly puts a lot of pressure on predominately Catholic nations, especially in South America, to impose incredibly strict abortion laws, with penalties equal to regular homicide. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a horrible downward spiral for many families, caused by a combination of unavailable birth control (also a Catholic ideal), unavailability of sanitary abortion clinics, and harsh penalties for abortion. For a continent with so many sexy people, this is bound to be problematic.

    In these sorts of discussions, it's hard not to make the Catholic Church appear like an evil empire, but that isn't entirely fair. The problem is that it's just so big and influential; even though the church doesn't hold its standards to those not of the faith, its massive influence and explicit chain of authority still cause it to create massive collateral damage.
    With Benedict XVI, there's some signs that the church is beginning to recognize its influence. In an interview, the Pope gave some acknowledgment (albeit incredibly restrained) that the use of condoms can be valuable to preventing the spread of STD and should be used appropriately. It was a small statement, but it shows a growing responsibility on the part of the Church about its influence on people's behavior. Although his statement clearly was not intended to apply to Catholics (in fact, his specific example was male prostitutes, which undoubtedly are among the least of Africa's worries in the AIDS epidemic), that recognition of non-Catholics having their own separate moral standards is a significant step towards understanding.

    So there you have it. Everyone's wrong because everyone's right. As Epictetus said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak,” and in these debates that is proving to be all too true. Clearly there should be less focus on who's right and more focus on understanding and compromise. Or maybe I'm being idealistic. I don't know.