Writing in The New Statesman, Mehdi Hasan, political director of the Huffington Post, UK, says arguments against abortion can be rooted in reasoning that politically progressive people should find persuasive. He writes:
Abortion is one of those rare political issues on which left and right seem to have swapped ideologies: right-wingers talk of equality, human rights and “defending the innocent”, while left-wingers fetishise “choice”, selfishness and unbridled individualism.
“My body, my life, my choice.” Such rhetoric has always left me perplexed. Isn’t socialism about protecting the weak and vulnerable, giving a voice to the voiceless? Who is weaker or more vulnerable than the unborn child? Which member of our society needs a voice more than the mute baby in the womb?
Yes, a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body – but a baby isn’t part of her body. The 24-week-old foetus can’t be compared with an appendix, a kidney or a set of tonsils; it makes no sense to dismiss it as a “clump of cells” or a “blob of protoplasm”.
The United Kingdom is debating whether to reduce the point in a pregnancy before which a woman can have an abortion from 24 weeks to 12 weeks.
What do you think of his argument and the larger debate?