Camille Paglia on Abortion

There is nothing like an editorial by Camille Paglia. By the time I reach the last word, I want to stand up and applaud her honesty, combined with her wonderful writing skills, which make for a nearly sublime philosophical experience.

This is where we get to her most recent Salon editorial, "Feminists have abortion wrong, Trump and Hillary miscues highlight a frozen national debate". I will not quote the article, because I recommend you go read it.

If you were told someone wrote an editorial blasting feminists for their lame arguments in favor of abortion, yet that person is also pro-abortion, what would you think?

This is where Paglia is one of the few talking heads out there to get this discussion correct: Women should have the legal right to an abortion, but that does not give them the ethical right to it..

How often do ethical discussions end up in the realm of "there ought to be a law"? At some point, we need to limit the discourse to public shaming as the punishment.

Politicians use these ethical issues to promote themselves: "Look, I will make this illegal, so we can punish these wrongdoers!" Unfortunately, this leads to an overstuffed legal code, where a cop having a bad day can just go to his legal buffet to pick what to charge you with, after he has already shot you.

When Donald Trump was talking about punishing women for having abortions, he unintentionally brought the issue to light. If you ban abortion, who gets punished? If you punish the woman, what if she was a victim of rape or incest? You would be double-punishing her. On the other hand, if you punish the abortion provider, you still end up punishing the woman again, by either forcing her to go through with an unwanted pregnancy or going to illegal means to get an abortion. There is no "good" way to legally punish anyone involved in an abortion.

Admittedly, I would prefer any pregnant woman to go through with her pregnancy, and give the baby up for adoption if she cannot handle it for any reason. But my preference should NOT be law. It is NOT my decision to make, nor is it society's decision.

However, as Paglia points out, to actually encourage abortions is morbid, if not evil. In an age where contraception is cheap and easy to get, there are no excuses for abortion, outside of forced sex and the much more rare "the birth control failed".

"With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there's one individual who's not being considered at all. That's the one who is being aborted. And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born."--Ronald Reagan

(hat tip to Best Demotivational Posters for the pic)