Toronto March for Life(first published on The Great Exchange.)
Well, that escalated quickly! As the COVID-19 virus has spread rapidly from China to the rest of the globe, it has sent the world into a panic and virtually shut down the global economy. A micro-virus, invisible to the naked eye, has completely turned the world upside down.
Interestingly enough, this global pandemic has also revealed the way that humans think–what we prioritize in times of peril. During crises, our moral intuitions seem to become all the more clear; things that we forget in times of weal become all the more concrete in times of woe.
What does any of this have to do with abortion, you ask? Precisely this, when doing activism, no matter where it may be, one of the most oft-parroted phrases heard from abortion advocates is the refrain, “my body, my choice!” Pro-aborts argue that since the baby is inside the mother, all bets are off. This argument is the “pro-choicers” trump card.
Most insidiously, those who promulgate this argument even suggest bodily autonomy makes the humanity of the pre-born–a scientific fact—irrelevant to the abortion debate. Bodily autonomy is, to the pro-abort, an absolute paradigmatic belief. Or is it?
Through this viral pandemic, civil, medical, and social authorities have urged people to stay home. Self-quarantine and social distancing are encouraged, if not demanded, for the well-being of ourselves and our neighbours.
Social media is replete with examples of those chastising others for endangering their neighbours through the reckless use of their bodies. Even the mere suggestion that we must soberly weigh the devastating effects of shutting down the global economy with the dangers associated with spreading the virus has caused many to recoil in moral indignation: “How could you even talk about such things? How could you be so callous? Saving one life is worth any economic hardships we may face!”
O, really? You don’t say. Given all this hue and cry, one might get the impression that the temporary suspension of bodily autonomy for the betterment of those who are most vulnerable is a societal virtue. Fascinating; apparently, individuals have a moral duty to persevere through hardship–mental, physical, and economic—for the sake of their neighbour’s well-being. Amen to that. Isn’t it amazing how pro-life people become during a pandemic?
Do you see how these arguments expose the schizophrenic thinking of the culture of death? The people who argue that they should be able to kill their pre-born child—because they are free to do what they want with their own bodies—are the very same people who are demanding that individuals have the moral obligation to forego their own right to bodily autonomy for the health of others.
If bodily autonomy is an absolute right, then one ought to go about their life during this crisis unabated. If it isn’t, then apparently bodily autonomy is not an absolute right, and the pro-aborts trump card is nothing but a cynical ploy to kill vulnerable pre-born children unabated.
