What's Murder Got to Do with it?

Side note: As you know from the title, this is a blog post about abortion. At first, I felt bad about choosing this topic. In my senior year, my debate teacher actually wouldn't allow us to pick abortion as a debate topic, since she had "heard it all." But then, I realized that silencing this dialogue is a form of oppression. Ironically, this teacher taught about the book 1984 in the same class, in which language is manipulated in order to control the masses. By preventing important conversations about abortion to take place, how can students ever gain a sophisticated opinion about such an important and controversial topic? This is what I'm attempting to do by writing this post - develop my own view on the topic. Silence = ignorance, so let's talk. 

Maybe, maybe not. Amoralists say: So what?  [source]

Until I was about 15, I thought there was only one way of looking at abortion: whether or not you considered it murder. I thought that whether or not you were pro-choice depended entirely upon when you thought a fetus could be considered a living being. If you think life starts at the moment of conception, abortion is murder and should be illegal. If you do not, it isn't murder and should be legal. This is a purely moral lens, through which many people today still look at abortion. But is abortion simply a moral issue?

There is a category of people called "amoralists," who claim that morals do not matter. You may remember a famous amoralist - my man, Machiavelli. In The Prince, Machiavelli makes the argument that morally unjust actions, such as stealing, lying, cheating, or even killing, are justified as long as they are for the good of the state. Here's a really obvious example: say a terrorist is going to attack your country and take the lives of everyone in it. The ruler who kills him is not considered a "bad" person because he did something positive for the state. Essentially, the ends justify the means - A.KA. morality doesn't matter if your actions benefit the state. It is important to note that morals should be taken into consideration if what your doing is only for personal gain. (Note to GSI: part of this last paragraph was taken from my last blog post, which was on dirty hands and my rebel stage, which can be found here. This blog post applies Machiavellian thought in a different way than that one.)

If anyone has read Freakonomics, they know where I'm going with this. In the video, below, one of the authors of Freakonomics explains that legalizing abortion can be linked with a lower crime rate. For those of you too lazy to watch, I'll explain (but you SHOULD watch - it's a cool video!). 

In 1973, the famous Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade made abortion legal for all 50 states. The authors of Freakonomics cite this as the main cause of a lower crime rate in the 1990's. The unwanted children that were aborted would have probably been born into situations that have been scientifically proven to make people more likely to commit crimes (ex: poverty, single parent homes, etc.). The peak crime ages are around 20-25. This many years after abortion was legalized, when the kids who would've been born if it weren't for legal abortion would've been most likely to be committing crimes, the United States saw a huge drop in crime rates. 

Now, I know what you're thinking: "That's a clear post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (I actually don't remember the English term for this)!" You may think this because given the information provided, it could seem as though the authors are making the assumption that because one came after the other, the one that occurred first. However, the video shows that there is really no other explanation that can account for such a dramatic, national drop in crime. If (note, this is a BIG conditional statement - I'm not making any claims about my own beliefs) one choses to accept the theory that legalizing abortion leads to less crime, then legalized abortion is for the benefit of the state. Thus, from a Machiavellian perspective, abortion is justified. Now, if you are NOT an amoralist, it doesn't matter if abortion is for the good of the state. Murder is murder and that is that. If you are not an amoralist and believe that life starts at the moment of conception, then these facts don't matter. Abortion isn't justified. 

Another issue that comes with illegal abortion is the safety of women. Making something illegal typically opens up a black-market for it, which makes things a lot more dangerous. Take prohibition, for example. A lot of those 20's gangsters wouldn't have had work if it weren't for the illegal supplying of alcohol. Without prohibition, there's no underground market for alcohol. Eventually, alcohol was made legal, partially because of this very issue. Corruption was rampant in the government and people were absolutely drinking anyways. 

Illegal Abortion = Unsafe Abortion. [source]

The same concept can be applied to abortion. A larger percent of women who get abortions die when it is illegal than when it is legal. Also, interestingly enough, women tend to get more abortions in places where it's illegal to. According to CBS via an article on Jezebel.com, "Sedgh said she and colleagues found a link between higher abortion rates and regions with more restrictive legislation, such as in Latin America and Africa. They also found that 95 to 97 percent of abortions in those regions were unsafe." However, once again, if you are not amoralist and you believe abortion is murder and morals matter...these statistics doesn't matter.

In light of these statistics, Machiavelli would surely support legalized abortion. He would disregard the fact that abortion may be considered murder, and only think for the good of the state. The state is benefitted from a lower crime rate, and safer women. To be completely honest, I'm not sure what my own views on the matter are. Do I think that lower crime rates and women's safety are good reasons for legalized abortion? Yes. Do I think abortion is murder? I don't know. Even if I did know, would it matter? I'm not sure yet. This post was written in hopes of developing my own view point on the matter. If anyone has comments and opinions, I would love to hear them.