University of Virginia Library

No Defense

Miss Ward's letter is by far the
best piece advocating abortion that
I have yet seen, but it still contains
a few flaws.

1) The 'interest' of the unborn
child in an abortion decision is its
life. If it is aborted, it dies. Even
though the social effects of carrying
a child can be adverse, and even
though some of the physiological
effects of pregnancy are not
pleasant, can it really be said that
the mother, in the average case, has
any interest in any way comparable
to that which the child has at
stake?

2) To let the mother be the sole
arbiter as to what the interests of
her unborn child are, and to balance
them against her own opposed
interests, if any, is to let a party to
a contested issue be the judge of
that issue, except in one respect:
the 'defense' has no voice. Unborn
children need an advocate, since
they can't protect their own rights.
One of the greatest guarantees of
fair justice in normal life is the fact
that unjustly treated men often
seek to rebalance the scales of
justice themselves; to avoid this,
justice, which was originally
conceived as a replacement of the
blood feud, is usually kept
reasonably fair, in order that men
may not pursue revenge in order to
right injustices. An unborn child
doesn't have that option, and
therefore needs even more
protection. To let the mother do
the balancing is much more like
letting a man be tried in a court
where the prosecuting attorney is
the judge and that man is not
allowed to speak his own defense.
How can this be fair?

3) Our president, and a third of
the people who have volunteered
their services are women; we are
not a monosexual group. What,
then, becomes of the charge of
'male chauvinism'?