My great uncle made a special request at his birthday party recently. Can we not talk about abortion? Saddled with a couple of nieces he loves dearly but who won’t shut up, he asked for a brief respite after several decades of disagreement.
One of the great difficulties of the abortion debate is that both sides are weary. However, a succinct little book written by a Boston college professor kick-starts the debate with a fresh, reasoned perspective that assumes we are all people of good will. Peter Kreeft’s Three Approaches to Abortion is a book to give to a pro-choice relative or friend with confidence.
“Abortion is the single most divisive issue of our time, as slavery was for the nineteenth century, or as prohibition was for the 1920s,” Kreeft says in his opening sentence. For anyone who ducks away from dinner party, car pool, and water cooler discussions of politics because abortion inevitably surfaces, this book is an invaluable tool. Kreeft believes abortion is an issue that won’t go away until we reach consensus — but he believes it is possible to reach a pro-life consensus.
“This widely-read author and professor of philosophy tackles the abortion issue with reason and compassion,” First Things wrote in its book review.
The National Catholic Register calls it “a slender book that hits like a stiff punch.”
Kreeft takes three approaches — the full title of the book is — Three Approaches to Abortion: A Thoughtful and Compassionate Guide to Today’s Most Controversial Issue.
The first approach argues logically in 15 steps from the premise that we know what an apple is to the conclusion that abortion must be outlawed. The second, titled “Why We Fight: A Pro-Life Motivational Map,” is an inventory of 15 motives that fuel pro-life work. The third approach he calls a “a typical pro-life/pro-choice dialogue,” and it addresses the 15 most common pro-choice arguments.
Here is how Kreeft lays out the two sides:
Intelligent, committed pro-lifers will not be satisfied in principle with anything less than legal prohibition, or abolition, of all abortion (though most pro-lifers are pragmatic enough to accept partial abolitions as incremental steps toward that goal). And intelligent, committed pro-choicers understand this and resist, also in principle, any of these incremental steps.
Pro-lifers find it intolerable that the most innocent and vulnerable members of our society and our species are legally slaughtered. Pro-choicers find it intolerable that women be forced by law to bear unwanted children against their will. Neither side can or will budge, in principle.
Kreeft wrote the book for two groups: pro-life people to give to their pro-choice friends, to explain themselves and their position; and for pro-choice or undecided people who want to understand the pro-life position.
Each approach is different.
The first, “apple,” argument contends that if we share a view of what is real, we must accept what abortion is and if we believe human life is an ultimate value then abortion is always wrong.
“Why We Fight…” is the second, “subjective motives,” approach of the book. “It is not an option, it is a necessity,” Kreeft says to explain what drives pro-lifers. Kreeft lists 15 reasons. They include love of family, love of country and love of sex.
Here Kreeft nails the lynchpin of support for legal abortion: We have no fault divorce and no fault auto insurance, “why should abortion not be our no-fault sexual insurance policy that removes our responsibility for sexual accidents?”
And the crux of the pro-life opposition: “But what are those sexual accidents? People! New little people.” Why else do pro-lifers fight? To stop violence, to fight for women. In an argument espoused by pro-life feminists such as Feminists for Life of America, Kreeft says: “One of the biggest lies of abortionists is that they are ‘feminists’. This is like calling cannibals ‘chefs’.”
“We provide alternatives to abortion not only to save babies but to save women. … That was the message of all the great, early feminists, who saw abortion as the ultimate betrayal and abuse of women.”
Finally, Kreeft imagines a dialogue between a pro-life and a pro-choice advocate.
Because Kreeft is presenting two sides and yet he is clearly on the pro-life side, pro-choicers may quibble with his approach. However, the heart of his dialogue and the heart of his book is this exchange:
Libby: …It’s a fact, it’s not a theory but data, that serious and intelligent and honest people of good will can and do take opposite positions, principled positions, on abortion. You don’t have to demonize your opponents to disagree with them on a controversial issue like this.
Isa: I don’t demonize pro-choicers. I don’t even demonize abortionists. But I demonize abortion. Because I don’t agree with you that it is a controversial issue at all. I say it is a very clear-cut evil.
While this is certainly a book which will appeal much more to people who agree with Kreeft, Three Approaches to Abortion exhibits an honesty and a willingness to engage with pro-choicers which is refreshing and surely needed. Recent polls show an increase in those who believe abortion is wrong, a sign of optimism for pro-lifers. Peter Kreeft’s book is a great, honest resource for anyone who wants to continue the dialogue, and perhaps, person by person, help our society reach a pro-life consensus.
Three Approaches to Abortion is published by Ignatius Press and is available at their website.
Valerie Schmalz is a card-carrying member of Feminists for Life of America, a free-lance journalist, married, and the mother of four young sons. She lives in San Francisco.
