Pro-choice groups want “safe and legal”, right? Well, maybe not that safe. From The New York Times,
The Virginia Board of Health on Thursday approved a set of regulations for abortion clinics that abortion rights advocates say could result in the closing of a number of the state’s more than 20 clinics. Supporters of the measures say they will make the clinics safer.
[…]
In a statement, the Family Foundation, an anti-abortion group that promoted the measures, called the approval, “a significant pro-life victory,” and said that “Virginia’s abortion centers now face the choice of either spending their profits on meeting standards or no longer doing abortions at their facilities.”
Just take a moment to ponder that last line.
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Andrea adds: As I’ve said before, “safe, legal and rare” comes down to “legal” for many an extreme abortion advocate these days. When you scratch just the tiniest bit below the surface, this becomes clear. And yet they still get off with the stranglehold on “women’s rights” rhetoric. Boggles the mind.
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“Safe, legal and rare.” I need to ask, why should it be rare? What’s wrong with abortion that it should need to be rare?
The quote actually originates from Bill Clinton, and the phrase is used by some (politicians for example) when talking about abortion to attempt to define some common ground (the use of the word rare seems to emphasize that abortion is the lesser of some other evil, but still not a desirable occurrence). The phrase itself attempts to get as many people to nod approvingly as possible. But Shawn you raise the question the statement brings, that if abortion is no big deal, then why should it be rare?
One pro-choice person says this about rarity- …if those 1.21 million abortions represent only the women who could access abortion financially, geographically or otherwise, then that number is too low. Yes, too low. If that’s the case, then what is an appropriate response? How do we best support women and their reproductive health? Do we dare admit that increasing the number of abortions might be not only good for women’s health, but also moral and just? (source: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/04/26/safe-legal-rare-another-perspective)
So the idea that we ALL agree that abortions should be kept to a minimum is clearly not the case. But pro-abortionists who think the number is meaningless, like the post I just quoted, are in fact NOT the majority, the safe, legal, and rare people are the majority (this is why politicians use the phrase, as it has the most appeal). So, if rarity is important to one, like it is to MOST people, then one agrees that abortion is not meaningless, or, since you used the word wrong, one agrees that abortion is not free of wrongness. The article I posted about has to do with safety, these measures are also opposed by many pro-choice groups. So with safe and rare out the window, proponents of abortion are left with… Abortion should be legal, regardless of safety and rarity.
“Safe, legal and rare” is a sop that politicians hand out when they are pandering for votes. It makes everyone feel like the politician agrees with us, no matter what side we take. It’s almost as bad as “I personally oppose abortion but I support a woman’s right to choose”.
Sometimes we will be told that it should be “rare” because some women are poor and have no other options, to which we can ask, “So should abortion only be available to the poor?”
“Safe, legal and rare” really means “Legal, legal and legal” and is one of those statements that benefits from a Reductio ad absurdum analysis.