Over at https://prosblogion.com/, Emerson Green has a recent post on Philosophical Atheism vs. New Atheism. In this post, Green considers two separate strategies that an atheist activist might employ. If the atheist’s goal is to find the truth of whether or not theism or atheism is true, Green argues that you should go after the strongest version of theism you can find. You should engage with the most likely version of theism, and show it to be false. On the other hand, if the goal is to reduce the harm that (as Green sees it) theism causes, you should argue against the most harmful version of theism, even if such a version of theism is far less likely to actually be true.

I found the argument, which is essentially a written version of an episode of Green’s podcast from last January, very interesting. The idea that the goal of seeking truth doesn’t always go hand in hand with the goal of making the world a better place is definitely worth reflecting on. In fact, it reminded me of a quote attributed to Karl Marx:

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it”. 

As often happens when I encounter a new or interesting idea around changing minds and making the world a better place, I considered how the idea might apply to the abortion debate. I think the difference between harm-reduction versus truth-seeking applies to both sides of the abortion debate. From a pro-life perspective, we believe that unborn babies have equal rights with humans outside the womb, and that their right to life outweighs a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. However, we also think there are very extreme and deeply harmful instantiations of abortion culture, including sex-selective abortion, disability-selective abortion, late term abortion and abortions that leave babies in pain before they die. On the pro-choice side, they believe that unborn babies do not have equal rights with us and/or that a woman’s right to choose outweighs the baby’s right to life. They also believe however that there are extreme and deeply harmful instantiations of a lack of access to abortion, including when women’s health and even their very lives can be at risk.

My general attitude is the truth-seeking one: I would rather make the strong case that abortion is a great injustice, and should not be a legal option. I therefore favour making the case against abortion that applies in general, not just in the “hard cases”. Against this background, I then argue for legal frameworks that ensure that no woman ever finds her life at risk as a result of pregnancy, and I believe such frameworks are possible. I also believe we should resource maternity services to ensure that warning signs are picked up on, and to ensure that we don’t have another Savita or another Tania McCabe. In other words, I go after the truth-seeking case, and then show how we avoid hard cases while structuring our legal and medical frameworks to align with the truth that unborn babies are our equals. (An analogous framework can be built up from a pro-choice activist’s point of view).

There are, however, other ways to go about this. These involve highlighting the most harmful instantiations of abortion in an effort to win more people to our side. It involves informing people that technically, late term abortion is available and happening in Ireland. It involves capitalising on tragic medical cases, and it involves concentrating on keeping the small nods to a pro-life culture that exist in our current legal framework. Such a course of action is advised and followed by many pro-life activists.

I’ve been wondering since reading Green’s piece whether there might be something to be said for going after the harm-reduction idea a bit more strongly than I would personally be inclined to. For one thing, this is very much the strategy that was used by pro-choice activists, and it worked. However, pro-choice activists had one thing in their favour: an identifiable victim. It’s much easier to go after the harm-reduction strategy when you have a clear, identifiable victim of that harm, namely women who could tell us their stories. It’s much harder to point to unborn babies as identifiable victims: they can’t speak for themselves, and very few people will speak for unborn babies who were aborted.

Up until recently, I’ve been pretty convinced that the pro-life movement has focused too much on harm-reduction strategies and not enough on truth-seeking strategies. I still remain largely convinced of that, partly because of the identifiable victim problem, but I think the balance has shifted slightly for me. In particular, I think some pro-life activists are probably better placed to highlight and work against the extreme, most harmful aspects of our abortion regime, while others are probably better placed to argue in favour of an overarching, holistic pro-life view of parenting, pregnancy and society. I fall into the latter camp, but I’m keen to learn from those who have experience in the former. We need all  hands on deck!

Muireann