Some Criticisms

One of the lessons I've learned in my long and valued correspondence with Cassandra is that men must sometimes criticize women on moral grounds. To refuse is to refuse to take women seriously as moral actors. I generally still avoid it as much as possible, but today I am going to make a very rare exception and do just that.

The occasion is Hanna Rosin's article called "Abortion is Great." Abortion is the intentional destruction of an innocent human life. There are cases, such as when it is absolutely necessary to save the life of the mother and the child is too young to be capable of survival, when it is not morally problematic to kill such an innocent human life. It is nearly morally obligatory in that particular example, though I think one can accept the choice of a mother who prefers not to even though it means her life.

There are also cases where the mother or the child might live, as perhaps in the case of chemotherapy, and someone must choose. This case is highly morally problematic, as any case when you are choosing who shall live and who shall die, but it is a case on which honorable people might disagree. I will say that a woman who elects to run the risk herself, to save her child, is someone whom I respect to the uttermost degree. Motherhood itself is honorable because it necessarily entails significant sacrifice, but it is never more honorable than that. Yet I do not see how any law could compel her to make the choice.

In our last discussion on the topic, though, we saw evidence that these cases are a tiny fraction of the statistics. Risk of maternal life accounted for 0.1% of reasons given; risk to maternal health at any level, one percent. This is not what we are generally talking about when we talk about American abortions. We are talking about elective abortions.

And that is what Rosin has come to defend. "They are not generally victims of rape or incest, or in any pitiable situation from which they need to be rescued. They are making a reasonable and even admirable decision that they can’t raise a child at the moment. Is that so hard to say? As Pollitt puts it, 'This is not the right time for me' should be reason enough. And saying that aloud would help push back against the lingering notion that it’s unnatural for a woman to choose herself over others."

That is wrong. 'This is not the right time for me' is not even a fully satisfactory reason to cancel your dentist appointment. After all, your dentist has set aside time for you to show up then, and has thus not taken on other business. Your 'choosing yourself over others' is not without cost to the others: indeed, some medical practitioners have found it necessary to introduce cancellation fees in order to recoup some of the lost income.

Nor is the argument that 'men aren't doing this' persuasive, since in fact men are held to the standard she denies we hold: if a man sires a child, not only I but the law will hold him to supporting it for eighteen years at least. That is what we believe, and what we will enforce with our courts if we can.

The cost it imposes upon the reckless young parent is already a debt they owe their child. The cost they would be imposing on the child by electing to kill instead is the child's whole life.

I am not surprised at the way the culture has turned on this issue. The very frequency of the practice makes it difficult to criticize, and tempting to celebrate. Rosin cites a source that says that thirty percent of American women have an abortion (almost all elective); my source says forty percent. The percentages are large enough that there must be tremendous social pressure to say that it is OK, that it's fine, that it's understandable: Rosin goes so far as to say that it is "admirable."

It is not. If you choose to kill an innocent human being out of preference for some personal advantage, you are doing a great moral wrong. If you choose to kill an innocent human being to give advantages to others -- perhaps other children of yours -- you are still wrong, because it is not necessary in America to kill any one of your children in order to ensure the others have a reasonable chance at success. In either case, you are doing wrong and it will not be possible to fully respect you until you admit it to yourself and try to reform your heart.

If you are arguing that it is admirable to do these things, you are doing evil.

Can we still bring ourselves, Americans, to criticize so large a percentage of our population? I wonder. Another case that brings it to my mind is today's announcement by her lawyer that the artist who bills herself as Ke$ha is suing her producer. No one probably doubts her story. Her lawyer said, "The facts presented in our lawsuit paint a picture of a man who is controlling and willing to commit horrible acts of abuse in an attempt to intimidate an impressionable, talented, young female artist into submission for his personal gain."

I've already seen adequate evidence to believe that. I've had occasion to see two of her videos.

That's not a joke: I would never laugh about such a thing. The most "harrowing" charge, according to the article is that after a night of partying and some sort of pills he gave her, she "woke up the following afternoon, naked in Dr. Luke's bed, sore and sick, with no memory of how she got there."

The first video I saw from this pair started with her being depicted as waking up in a bathtub, and then shortly thereafter proclaiming that she was going to 'brush her teeth with a bottle of Jack' before heading back out for another all-night party. I saw the second one a few years later, and remember that the chorus went something like, "Let's have a night we don't remember."

So I already believe, based on his artistic output, that he's a man whose character and values are despicable and who is willing to use not just the one woman, but millions of others, for his personal gain. He's willing to sell them a vision of the good life that is poisonous, and he was willing to use one particular woman to craft it and pitch it to them. Our culture is worse because of his work.

But how can I criticize him without criticizing her? If I say that the work is poison, what do I say about its chief saleswoman?

Nothing, apparently: read the comments at the Billboard article, and you will see that any criticism is off limits. We have developed a whole vocabulary to explain our objections to criticizing her here. But if he is damnable for having sold this to thousands of young people, if the reason to believe her lies partly in the fact that she is only accusing him of living up to his own frequently-portrayed values, what must we say of her?

Cassandra was right, and not only about me. Our society has gone a long way toward refusing to take women seriously as moral actors by protecting them from criticism. Indeed, we have built a culture that insists on celebrating them even when they are wrong. That does not create respect, but mockery.