Killing Abortion Doctors vs. "Killing Babies"

The murder of Dr. George Tiller is another demonstration (as if we needed one) why it is a mistake to allow idiots access to handguns. It also illustrates the illogical nature of the anti-abortionist argument that equates performing abortions with "killing children". Before he was murdered, allegedly by a right-wing extremist by the name of Scott Roeder, Dr. Tiller's name often came up on the Fox channel's show The O'Reilly Factor, where he was referred to as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

The term "baby" is used to refer to offspring of a certain age. I was my mother's baby at one point in my life, then I was her child, then her teenage son, and now I am her adult son. I am now called "middle-aged" a euphemism for "old". The terms "ovum", "embryo", "fetus" refer to mammalian offspring during gestation, that is, before they are born. The term "infant" refers to a newborn who is unable to speak. We use "toddler" for very young children who are just beginning to walk.

We can play semantic games with these words, for instance, we can say to a pouty teenager that they are "Acting like a baby," which will generally be taken as an insult. Calling a teenager a baby is misusing the language: if we take these terms in their literal and precise meaning, a teenager is not a baby. Similarly, calling a fetus a child is misusing the language. But here there is an obvious point that people are trying to make when they misuse the language in this way -- they are saying that they believe that fetuses (and perhaps ova and embryos) have the same moral status as babies.

Rather than playing these semantic games, why not just address this question frankly? The reason is is that once one does so it becomes clear that it is not at all obvious that it is true that fetuses have the same moral status as children. Simply calling fetuses children begs the central question in the debate over abortion. Unfortunately, however, some people seem to believe that begging this question is a way of answering it. That is, they believe that if one repeats the mantra "Abortion is killing babies." often enough with enough sincere conviction, it becomes true.

There is no similar problem for the sentence "Killing doctors who perform abortions is murder." This is quite literally and obviously true because no one in their right mind doubt that doctors who perform abortions are persons who have certain moral and legal rights which are violated when they are deliberately killed. This is a settled question of ethics and law.

There are, however, some people who seem to believe that it is morally justifiable to murder doctors who perform abortions in order to save the lives of "babies", by which they mean fetuses. Here is where the misuse of the language leads to moral confusion and error, not to mentioned incitement to hatred and violence.

It is not a settled question as to whether fetuses are persons who have certain moral or legal rights which are violated when the women who are gestating them decide to end their pregnancies. It is a hotly contested question subject to intense debate. To describe the fetuses who die as the result of abortions as "babies" or "children" treats that debate as though it were settled, when in fact it is not.

What is settled as a matter of law is that it is legal in the United States of America for women to seek and have abortions. One may not like this law, or agree with it, but it is in fact the law. Wishing the law were different than it is does not change the law. Calling fetuses "babies" and calling abortion "murder" does not change the law. It only serves to mislead people and to incite hatred against women who seek abortions and doctors who provide them with these medical services.

The murder of Dr. Tiller illustrates that words can be harmful. From what I can gather from press reports, the person accused of his murder believed that abortion was "baby-killing" and therefore that Dr. Tiller was literally a "murderer". Since the law was not going to punish him for his crimes or prevent him from committing similar ones in the future, the murderer decided to become a vigilante and give Dr. Tiller what he deserved himself, namely that he deserved to die for performing abortions. Nor was this the first time Dr. Tiller was targeted by members of the "pro-life" movement. Nor was he the only abortion doctor to have been murdered --David Gunn was gunned down in Florida in 1993 --and Barnett Slepian was slain in 1998. These killings reveal a pattern: the reasoning that allows some people to reach the conclusion that it is permissible to murder abortion providers is a trifecta of moral errors.

First, as I already noted, it is wrong to simply assume that abortions are murder. Second, it is wrong to take the law into ones own hands. And third, it is wrong to suppose that death is an appropriate and ethical punishment for murder.

When one commits murder one violates another person's right to life. To deter and punish murder by having a private individual or state deliberately kill the offender is another violation of the right to life. I don't have time to argue the case for this here (see my "Death Penalty and the Forfeiture Thesis" in the Journal of Human Rights), but even murderers do not "forfeit" their right to life, and no one, neither private individuals nor states, have the rightful authority to cause that right to be forfeited. In particular, vigilantes like Scott Roeder do not have this power.

I do hope that if Roeder is convicted of this heinous crime that he is severely punished, for instance, that he spend the rest of his life in prison. But I am glad that he will not be subject to the death penalty under Kansas law.

I suppose that this makes me "pro-life".