“Personifying” the unborn — be careful with tactics

By Tony Sifert

There is a basic problem with this pro-life commentary from Godspy: personification implies that something which is not a person is re-imagined as a person; in this case a fetus is said to have the human attribute, pain, which can then become a decisive factor in determining whether or not abortion is (a) “right.” While this may be rhetorically valid – especially in the light of the New York Times apparent dissonance (and the liberal backlash against it) from an uncompromising pro-abortion thematic – it has the parallel tendency of allowing the debate to become dependent upon such “scientifically” based arguments. In other words, by personifying a “fetus” one is able to subsequently claim that in the absence of that personifying quality (pain) the unborn are only persons in an abstract, indefinite sense. The resultant inability (or unwillingness) of the scientific community to “form a consensus” would render illegitimate in the public mind any legal critique of a “woman’s established right to choose.”

Pro-lifers used to be accused of denying what’s human because they care about life that is mostly invisible. But now that science has opened a window onto the womb, it’s the “choice” side who seems increasingly inhuman.

At best, a bittersweet victory.