Timeless Wisdom: Abortion: The Case For Compromise

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. Okay, my friends, I have never in 21 years of lecturing spoken publicly on abortion. You may understand why in about an hour. This may be the last time for another 21 years. It took a lot of preparation emotionally, intellectually, and morally. And I have good news for you. I think I have a— I think it will help you. 'Cause I do have, I have an answer. I don't have the answer, I don't have that much chutzpah, but I have an answer. An answer which will not satisfy either extreme, and on no issue is my self-definition of centrist, passionate centrist. As accurate as the issue of abortion. I am absolutely equally distant from the right and the left on this issue. I am the perfect person to talk about abortion. I have zip agenda. I don't agree with either of them at all. And the irony is, when I will present to you what those positions are and what a middle position could be, You'll probably, most of you will probably identify with the middle position. Certainly poll after poll in America has revealed that most Americans hold a fully centrist position, a position which I will describe in a moment. Before that, let me just give you two-book bibliography for your interest, though there is a huge library of books on abortion. There is one short masterpiece written by a professor of law at Harvard. This woman has written something brilliant, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law. It's a Harvard paperback. Quite aside from, from her, for what the evidence she brings and her own, I think, highly illuminating thoughts, it's just fascinating and easily read. Okay, the other one is a scholarly work which is a classic of Judaica, "Marital Relations, Birth Control, and Abortion in Jewish Law" by David Feldman. It's been out for years. I read it in college, so, and I don't even think it was new then. Those are two that I would bring to just for your own edification. The two extremes are: the left extreme is a woman can do what she wants with her own body, to use their, their own rhetoric. The right extreme is that abortion is murder. The, uh, the reason that the left one I characterize as an extreme is because it reduces the fetus to a worthless piece of appendage to a woman. The statement, "The woman can do what she wants with her own body," which legally is a fact, a woman can, after all, mutilate herself, she can cut her fingers off. There is no law against a woman cutting her fingers off, or tattooing her body, to give a more innocuous example. In and of itself, a woman certainly can do what she wants with her own body. The question is, is this her own body the same way a decayed tooth is her body? The statement that a woman can do what she wants with her own body is equivalent to saying that the fetus, the unborn— call it what you wish, and I don't have a preference on what term we use— is the moral equivalent of a decayed tooth. A woman has a decayed tooth, she removes it. Does society have any right to tell a woman what to do with her teeth? Of course not. So why do we have any right to tell a woman what she should do with her fetus, with her unborn? It's the same. That's the way the argument works. When I've debated that point with people to the left of me, They've gotten annoyed. They get annoyed, but they don't have an answer. That's what doing what you want with your own body means. It means the fetus is identical to a decayed tooth. I appreciated when one gentleman who took this position on a TV show, TV debate that we had, said, "You're right. I'll be honest. That's exactly how I view a fetus." like a decayed tooth. Okay, what— at least I appreciated the intellectual honesty. I don't appreciate the position, but I appreciated the honesty. What I don't appreciate is someone who says a woman can do what she wants with her own body, then you tell the person what that means and they say, no, I don't look at it that way, but then don't use that rhetoric. You, you can't have it both ways. And of course, logic itself tells you it's not possible. It's not your body. It's in your body. It's— the proof is that if you want the child, you would never say it's your body. Nobody goes over to a pregnant woman who wants to give birth and says, "Hey, how's your body?" Of course not. They say, "How's the child? How's the kid?" Nobody even says, "How's the fetus?" They say, "How's the child?" or "How's the baby?" "Is the baby kicking?" "Did you hear the baby?" "Did you get a sonogram of the baby?" We use rhetoric that we like for our own position. Jerry Falwell made me aware of this in a public dialogue. I give him credit for that. I always try to remember the sources of good points that I hear. Said when a woman wants a— wants the child, she calls it a child. When she doesn't, she calls it a fetus. It's the same exact thing. And it's the same thing here. It's her body when she doesn't want it. It's not her body when she does want it. So let's not fool ourselves. It's a radical position that makes a fetus worthless tissue. You can't get left of that position. That's why I call it an extreme left position. Pro-choice is not an extreme left position. A woman can do what she wants with her own body is an extreme left position. That's the point that I wanted to make clear here. At the other end is the other extreme beyond which you can't go. It's murder. It's morally equivalent to shooting an adult and killing the person and murdering the person. I have problems with that for reasons that I will come to later. I want to start first with the problem of the, of the left position. I told you that most people have a middle position. I'd like to read to you what poll after poll has demonstrated in America, and I fully support— I am absolutely with this, these middle with the rest of Americans. Here is this Professor Glendon, this woman writing: It is not particularly difficult to ascertain where the public stands on abortion since the three principal surveys—National Fertility Studies, Gallup, and National Opinion Research Center—have exhibited major similarities over many years, both before and after Roe v. Wade. That's the famous infamous 1973 court decision allowing abortion on demand. Majorities consistently around 55% have been opposed to its major innovation, elective abortion, and to much of the content of Roe and other abortion decisions. At the same time, majorities have consistently opposed a total ban on abortion. And believe that the law should specify the circumstances under which it is permissible. They strongly approve abortion if the woman's health is in danger and disapprove it if it is sought for no other reason than that the woman does not want the child. Majorities, women more than men, disapprove of abortion after the first trimester. Majorities believe that human life begins before birth, with men more likely to see life beginning later than women do, which is going to be a very important part here, which when I talk about whether or not it's a women's issue. One other, one other point with regard to the public. The way she summarized it is perfect. Although they want abortion to be legally available in some circumstances— this is most people she's speaking about— they do not wish for themselves or want to confer upon others a fundamental right to dispose of developing life. Developing life is a new phrase. I had never heard it termed that way. I think that that is about as honest a way of putting it. Not human and not fetus, but developing life. But anyway, that's just a secondary point. Most Americans are in the middle. Let me define, let me put it in my terms, because this is where I stand, so you'll know at the outset. When I am asked on the radio, which is all the time, What is my stand on abortion? My answer is, I'm pro-choice and anti-most abortions, which perfectly alienates me from 98% of the people listening who want either one of the sides. Now, actually, it doesn't alienate me from 98%. If I'm right that the majority agrees with me, it doesn't alienate me from more than 50%. But it certainly annoys the left and the right. The right want me to say I'm pro-life or anti-abortion, anti-choice. The others want to hear me say pro-choice and end the sentence. But I can't end the sentence. In effect, I am for allowing women to do something that in many cases I believe is immoral. That has been my position for years. It's crystallized through— well, not what's crystallized. What has become clear to me through this research for this course is that there's a solution. I've always known the dilemma that I want the middle of the road done, but how do you do the middle of the road? And if I'd have only known this earlier, I would have been way ahead of the game. And unfortunately, I didn't. I should have read this book 10 years ago. In Europe, they have a good answer. Ladies and gentlemen, I learned, which I am either— I've either been inordinately ignorant, or if not, I am shocked at how we in America, including people like me who are very well informed, have been so uninformed about the European solution to this very dilemma. No, it is, it is, it is absolutely remarkable to me. After all, my friends, I don't think anybody here could argue that the United States is less socially conscious than West Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, If anything, it's Western European countries, especially the northern countries, that Americans look to for social legislation that's called progressive. Now let me tell you something. The United States, Roe v. Wade and since, has been by far the most radical in terms of abortion rights in the world. There was nothing close to Roe v. Wade in the world. The United States is alone in the way it treats the issue of abortion. The radical way in which it terms the entire debate, that it is a woman doing what she wants with her own body, that it is a matter of privacy, that it is a matter of rights to abortion, those three common most common statements are unique to America. The debate is never phrased that way, let alone solved that way, in Western Europe. Why America is alone, I'm going to deal with. Why has it happened that way? But that's a secondary issue to the fact that you should know this, that we are alone, that there are different solutions that are much better. We don't have a solution. We have gone to one extreme. You want it? Get it. Now what have they done? What has Europe done? France offers a model that I'd like to, uh, like to read to you about. In France since 1975, abortion has been available up to the end of the 10th week of pregnancy to any woman, quote, whose condition places her in a situation of distress, unquote. That's the law in France for 25 years. Distress is not defined, and the statute makes the woman herself the sole judge of whether she is in it. No doctor or bureaucrat need certify anything regarding her state. Thus, and this is where Glendon is so terrific, because she explains what all this is about, if all one is interested in is how easily an abortion could be obtained, it would be correct to say that in fact there is abortion on demand in France in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. But so far as the way abortion— all right, now hold on. That's part one. You say you're in distress, you want an abortion, you get an abortion in France. But let me keep on reading what it means. The distress requirement may have no direct sanction And many people may not take it seriously, but it does communicate a message which may enter, along with other social forces, into the way in which French men and women think and teach their children and each other about how one should conduct one's life. I'm going to keep reading about this, but I want you to bear in mind something here which is fundamental to society. The purpose of law is not only to prohibit certain acts, it is to teach. It conveys the values of a society. Let me just move for a minute tangentially here. I want capital punishment for murder on the books primarily as an educative tool. It is the only way in which society could say how heinous it considers murder. I am less interested in executing murderers than I am in having capital punishment as the punishment for murder, because punishment is the only way in which society can say what it thinks about something. There is no other way. The only other way that could exist is where you have wording in laws that allow something but seem to circumscribe it. Now, this is— in other words, punishment teaches and allowance teaches. Allowance teaches, though, usually that something's okay. But if you phrase it within circumscribed boundaries, you're saying you can do it But what America doesn't have is a "but." That's the difference between America and Europe in a nutshell, but I'm not gonna give you just a nutshell, I'm gonna continue. Another statement of principle in the French law is set forth in a later section of the law, quote: The voluntary termination of pregnancy must under no circumstances constitute a means of birth control. That's the law. That's the statute of France. To this end, continuing the statute, the government shall take all the measures necessary to promote information on birth control on as wide a scale as possible, while making— now it's Glendon speaking— While making abortion available in this case, the statute mandates several procedures designed to make the pregnant woman aware of and able to choose alternatives to abortion. It is part of French law that she be made aware of alternatives to abortion. First, The physician who receives the woman's initial request for termination of her pregnancy must furnish her with a brochure supplied by the government informing her that the law limits abortion to cases of distress. Now, of course, you understand the beauty of that. If she says, well, okay, I meet those criteria, I'm in distress. Fine. Remember, she is the only one to determine if she's in distress. But we've given her a government brochure to tell her that it's got to be only if you're in distress. It's purely, totally educative. The brochure must contain information about the public benefits and programs that are guaranteed to mothers and children, and about the possibilities of adoption, as well as provide a list of organizations capable of giving assistance. That's all in the brochure that by French law must be given to a woman by her doctor. He is contravening French law if he does not give it to her. Second, the pregnant woman is required to have a private, private interview, if possible, with her partner, the man who impregnated her, with a government-approved counseling service. She is required. She may not have the abortion without this, which in principle is not to be located in any facility where abortions are performed. Do you see what they're trying to do? Isn't it clear? It was Brilliant what they worked out here, though this would offend now beyond anything imaginable, National Organization for Women. This consultation, according to the statute, is supposed to furnish the woman with assistance and advice, quote, "especially with a view toward enabling her to keep her child." Third, at least one week must elapse from the time of her initial request for an abortion and at least 2 days from the time of the mandatory consultation before the abortion can be performed. After 10 weeks, the law in France permits only therapeutic abortions. The legislation as a whole, writes Glendon, is pervaded by compassion for pregnant women, by concern for fetal life, which we do not have. There was no concern for fetal life in Roe v. Wade. And by expression of the commitment of society as a whole to help minimize occasions for tragic choices between them. See, that's what in Europe they're mature enough to understand. Abortion presents a tragic choice. We should be mature enough to understand that. Of course the woman has a case. There's no, no humane human being can deny that. But there is a case to be made on behalf of society and fetal life too, or developing life as she puts it. But if you say a woman can do what she wants with her own body, you immediately dismiss the possibility that there is tension. There's no tragic choice. Does my decayed tooth have any demands that it can make on society? Of course not. This commitment is carried out by provision of birth control assistance and by comparatively generous financial support for married as well as unwed mothers. Contrary to what one constantly hears from both sides of the abortion controversy in the United States, a divided society can compromise successfully on the abortion issue. It's happened in every European country. Only we stand alone, as it were. Listen to now the contrast with America. In contrast to the current American legal situation, it is worth noting that the French statute names the underlying problem as one involving human life, not as a conflict involving a woman's individual liberty or privacy and a non-person. Folks, these are the most important things I'll say today. Are they clear? The whole The debate is framed differently in Europe. Here it is purely a matter of her rights, her privacy, her body. There it is that plus the issue of another side. There is no other side, just as there is no other side to the right wing. It's murder. Don't tell me if you're raped, don't tell me if it's incest, don't tell me if it's got a terrible Disease, it's murder. You can't murder a human being. If one of you is the product of rape, can I murder you? Of course not. That's why to a consistent pro-lifer, it's irrelevant if the woman was raped. It's no more relevant if she was raped with regard to abortion than if she was raped with regard to you, if you are the product of a rape. If you're a full human being, What the hell is the difference how you were conceived? What matters is you're a human. There is no other side to the right. There is no other side to the left. That's called extremism. That's the definition of it. When you are 100% right, there is no competing value whatsoever. All good values are in your corner. There is no competition. It's called extremism. But we all, everyone in this room knows of rightist extremism, but we never talk about left extremism. But it's pretty bizarre. You can't only have one extreme. It doesn't make sense. Just logically, it doesn't make sense. And in fact, it doesn't either. In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Akron case, invalidated a city ordinance which contained a number of provisions similar to those in the 1975 French law, including an informed consent provision. And that's what they have to do in France and Europe, informed consent. You want an abortion, we'll allow it, but we want you to know the options available to you. Struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the name of liberalism. That is the liberal view on abortion. You can't even require a woman to know there are options, even when you let her do it and it's only her choice. It's struck down in the '83 case where it included an informed consent provision. And a mandatory 24-hour waiting period between the execution of the patient's consent form and the abortion procedure. Justice Powell correctly observed that much of the information required by the City of Akron, Ohio, was, quote, designed not to inform the woman's consent, but rather to persuade her to withhold it altogether. True, but that's what they want to do in France. They want to— of course, obviously, it's not neutral. The decision is neutral, but the information, yes, it's given with the hope that you won't do it. But the logic of the American abortion cases seemed to him to require that American states be forbidden to adopt, forbidden, as France and other European countries have done, quote, abortion regulations designed to influence the woman's informed choice between abortion and childbirth. A closely divided Supreme Court reaffirmed this position in 1986, holding unconstitutional the provisions of a Pennsylvania statute that would have required a pregnant woman at least 24 hours before consenting to an abortion to be informed about the availability of medical assistance and child support, and of the fact that printed materials describing the fetus and listing agencies ready to help with alternatives to abortion were available for her inspection. Turned down that. That was what Pennsylvania argued for, and the U.S. Supreme Court turned it down. Let me, uh, let me tell you of another difference between Europe and us. In Europe, they try to discourage abortion from becoming routine by example. For example, by discouraging establishment of abortion clinics. In Europe, it is done in hospitals. And they mandate that no more than a certain percentage of procedures may be abortions, so that it doesn't become routinized, a place removed from normal therapeutic functioning, normal medical functioning, where doctors just don't spend their lives— you use the verb, all right, we'll use the most neutral verb— aborting aborting potential life, aborting fetuses. What they do in Europe is a perfect compromise, and I am not— I am rarely in the mood of extolling Europe's values, but here they have hit it beautifully. They tick off everybody. The right wing is terribly annoyed because any woman wants an abortion, she gets it. The left wing is terribly annoyed because they fill her with this propaganda. That there are actually options available to her, and society wants you to state that you're in distress. So, that's the perfect thing. When you've ticked off the left and right, you got something good. Something's working, and it works. And there's peace. You don't have any of the battles in Europe that you have in America over abortion. People live with these laws, in the vast majority of cases, with a basic contentment understanding that you have to compromise on a very difficult issue. That's not the case in this country. Let me just cite to you German law. According to the German Constitution on this issue, quote, the false impression must be avoided that termination of pregnancy involves the same social significance as, say, a trip to the physician for the purpose of healing an illness. That is the way German law would put it. That's the intent there. It's not the same. An abortion is not the same as going to your doctor for a flu shot. It's different. Now, There is one other thing to be mentioned, and then I want to deal with what is really the issue in America for the left, and that is viability. Abortion without the need for any reason, that's what we have in, in the U.S. and 5 European countries. This is the most liberal way of asking for abortion. I don't need to give you a reason. I say I'm in distress. And in America, I don't have to say anything. I could say, "I'm planning a trip to Europe and this is an unsuitable pregnancy," which is exactly, exactly what the OB/GYN who delivered my son said to me when I asked him about this when we first met. This is a Beverly Hills obstetrician, and I asked him, "How many of the women who come to you who are pregnant seek an abortion?" He said, "50%." I said, of them, what percentage is married? He said, 50%. I said, in other words, 1 out of every 4 pregnant women who comes to you is married and affluent and wants an abortion? He said, that's right. I said, well, would you be so forthcoming with me as to tell me why? He said, sure. Just the other week, a woman was explaining to me that She and her husband had been planning a trip to Europe for some time, and it was a poor time to get pregnant. Another woman had recently started a new business and also felt that it was just a bad time to get pregnant. In America, doesn't matter. You can do it because you read in your horoscope that it was better to have a Sagittarius than a Leo, and it is perfectly okay because nobody asks the reason. That's the way it is in the U.S., and that is the way it is in 5 European countries. But the U.S. is alone in the world in forbidding any state regulation until viability, which Roe v. Wade defined as between 24 and 48 weeks. Even after viability, it does not require— you know what viability is, when it could live on its own outside of the mother. Even after viability, it does not require regulation to protect the fetus. A woman can still have an abortion for health reasons, and health is interpreted totally loosely. Again, the U.S. is alone here. 4 of the 5 other 5 countries all forbid abortions after the first trimester except for serious reasons, unquote. Even the 5th, Sweden, places the cutoff point for elective abortions at 18 weeks. After 18 weeks, permission, quote, can only be given by the National Board of Health and Welfare, and then only if there are, quote, substantial grounds, unquote. The Swedish statute specifically provides that abortions may not be performed at all if the fetus is likely to be viable, except in the most threatening circumstances to the woman's health. At all. And that's Sweden, the second most liberal place on earth in regard to abortion laws. If it could be viable. And ladies and gentlemen, viable is getting lower and lower with medical science. The viable time changes. Who knows what viable will be 20 years from now? Who knows? Then it presents a very real problem. Pennsylvania's efforts to assure that viable fetuses be aborted alive, that's all they wanted. In Pennsylvania, they asked, they made a law, if it, alright, we'll give you your abortion, but we want, if it could be viable, we'd like it to take place taken out alive. The U.S. Supreme Court twice knocked it out. Now, what— how do you explain that? The woman is getting what she wants, a terminated pregnancy, but why does she want it dead? To help understand that we're talking about a lot more here than just abortion, Chief Justice Burger in 1986, Roe v. Wade's concern for protecting viable life is, quote, mere shallow rhetoric. In Germany, abortions allowed after the 12th week only with certification of grave danger to the woman or likelihood that serious and irreversible damage had already been done to the fetus. Now, I, in reading all of this and preparing tonight's course, I came to realize something. I came to realize that the extreme liberal view on abortion has a lot more to do with just letting a woman have abortions. If that's all they wanted, they would have adopted the European model. It lets women have abortions. I think that there are other things concerned. And here is one of them. This is my— this is my belief. Liberal legislation is not intent only on allowing abortion, but on removing any guilt, any difficulty, any obstacle, and learning about alternatives. It is not only pro-choice, and this hit me only today, After all of this stuff, it's pro-abortion. I never said that before this minute in my life. I'm pro-choice, anti-abortion. The National Association for Abortion Rights League, uh, NARAL, the, uh, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU Reproductive Rights Division, I now realize, are pro-abortion. They're not just pro-choice. If you're pro-choice, Europe is perfect. If you're pro-abortion, Europe is terrible, because it may induce guilt, and it may give you alternatives. And that is clearly what the U.S. liberal justices have not wanted, even to the point of removing the fetus alive. That's incredible. A woman who wants to terminate pregnancy should terminate pregnancy. What business is it hers what happens to it? Or is it still part of her body when it's out of her body? Which is really remarkable. You then reach a metaphysical plane that transcends what I can rationally appreciate. That is what hit me. Secondly, Roe v. Wade, and this is now her, who is a feminist, Professor Glendon, her words: Roe v. Wade embodies a view of society as a collection of separate autonomous individuals. The German decision, which I read to you, emphasizes the connections among the woman, developing life, and the larger community. But we don't— there is no relationship between the woman, developing life, and the larger community. It's between the woman and herself. That's all we think about. As she writes, it's a view of society which is the classical liberal view in America today. A collection of separate, autonomous individuals. Society has no claims. Only individuals have claims. Justice Douglas, the great liberal justice, in his opinion on Roe v. Wade, quote, childbirth may deprive a woman of her preferred lifestyle. That is terminology you would never hear from a justice in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, any— anywhere in the most enlightened places we compare ourselves to. That childbirth will just somehow hamper her, quote, preferred lifestyle. And this from one of the most distinguished Supreme Court Justices of the 20th century, at least in the liberal— in the liberal view. The pro-choice liberal notion is that society does not really exist. America— these are my words— America is a geographical but not culture-based or value-based society. It is a geographical locale wherein individuals with no duty toward the society each live. Thus, the state, the society, can have no interest in abortion. Only the pregnant woman can. Abortion is not a serious matter for society in America. Those are what underlie the reasonings, I believe, in the liberal extreme position, which is not merely pro-choice, but in effect anti-any alternative to choosing abortion. It is frequently couched as a women's rights issue. I thought so till I did the research. It's a lie. I'll give you 3 reasons, and this is as new to me, practically as new to me as it is to you. I didn't know these things. I, I thank you for taking this class to force me to coalesce thinking on this issue. My eyes have been opened like no other area I recall in the last 5 years on one given issue. I too thought, well, look, it's a women's issue. I mean, it's always shown as a women's issue. Let me give you 3 reasons why it's not a women's issue. First, by definition, it is a women's issue only to those who ascribe absolutely no value to the fetus, absolutely no value to societal interest in preserving developing life, and absolutely no value to the father's role in conceiving the fetus. It's only a women's issue if you accept the original argument that it's only the woman who matters. That's what I— why I feel like I want to kick myself. I fell into the trap of tautology. It's a woman's issue only if you say that only the woman matters. The moment you say it matters a little bit, just a teensy, eensy, beensy bit— that was for my son, because he's falling asleep, I wanted him to get the teensy, eensy bit. If the fetus matters just 1%, it is only 99% a woman's issue. If society matters just 1%, it's down to 98% a woman's issue. If the conceiving father matters 1%, it's down to 97%. That's why nothing else can ever matter. And that is why radical feminists are so strong on the issue. It now makes sense to me. Because only when you formulate it that way can you argue it's a woman's issue. So you have to formulate it that way, or it ceases to be a woman's issue. The moment you allow that there are competing tensions, moral values, that it isn't only the woman involved. It ceases to be a woman's issue. It is partially a woman's issue. Second, which I knew the whole time, but it just, it never, it's the, you know, has that happened with you? You know something, but it never falls into place. More women than men oppose abortion in the United States. That's always been that way. It'll probably always be that way. More women than men approved the German government's decision of some limitations on abortion. The strongest supporters of abortion prior to Roe v. Wade were affluent white men. According to demographer Judith Blake, She explains why it was affluent white men who were the vanguard of pro-abortion rights. This is because abortion frees men from any responsibility for the child. I had never thought of that. That's a woman's issue. That, it would strike me, would concern women. Where is men's responsibility for conceiving this? No way. The men who conceive it have a vested interest. And who was doing this the most? Who would get saddled the most? Affluent white men. You can come to them for paternity suits. So of course they were the most passionately feminist. No skin off their back. It's like Playboy always gives to feminist foundations. You know, the leader in making women into sex objects then gives part of the profits to feminist organizations. Of course! Carol Gilligan, one of the leading feminist thinkers in America, who's also at Harvard, you should read her book, "In a Different Voice," it's what it's called. She explains the different way women see the world. It is truly a magnum opus. In a Different Voice, Carol Gilligan. Many of the women in her chapter on abortion, quote, stated that one of the reasons they were seeking abortions was because the men in their lives were unwilling to give them moral and material support in continuing with pregnancy and childbirth. Third, Roe— this is now Professor Mary Ann Glendon. This is so— it's so intelligent, I just have the greatest respect for her. Roe v. Wade, with its emphasis on the separateness, the rights, and the self-determination of individual women, looks like a very masculine decision, while the West German Constitutional Court's opinion, with its emphasis on responsibility for others and on the social bonds of the community as well as individual rights, seems more reflective of feminine values. And women instinctively have that sense. And instinctively, their gut is, which has a sense of bonding, is going to oppose abortion on demand more than men do, who think more autonomously. What's good for me? What are my rights? I don't care about bonding. I care about my rights. Those are 3 reasons, I think rather powerful ones, why it's not a women's issue. It's framed that way to get more support. Of course it will be. It's because a woman then feels disloyal to her gender. And women— excuse me, and men are cowed into submission, lest they look like sexists. That's another reason I am convinced that men jump on the bandwagon. The last thing a man wants to be called, especially upper middle class white males, is sexist. And what does it cost them? Yeah, hey, I'm for abortion. I love women. I'm for abortion. We make them pregnant and then we're for it. So I come to these conclusions. The middle road is the European model. We don't, I tell you, we don't even have to do anything but take a, get a fax machine and have the French send over their law. The more I have read it, or the West German, now the Germans, it doesn't matter. Even the Swedes. Can you imagine adopting the Swedish social model? And becoming more conservative, but that is exactly what we would be doing. We are on the radical fringes in the world on this issue. Now, I don't mind being alone if you're right, but I don't think we're right. There are competing values at work here. The solution is to have those laws Because while 90% of American abortions are in the first trimester, you would at least have the ability of the law to educate. Let the woman who goes in know that it isn't the removal of a tooth. And maybe there will be some who will read the little brochure and say, Okay, I'll give it up for adoption. Or even, okay, I'll have it. Now that involves society taking care of the woman and the child afterwards. Here the left has very valid arguments. And this centrist is very in favor of, for example, paid maternity leave. Absolutely. If we're going to tell women don't abort, we've got to help them out. Of course that's true. That is, that is part of it. Now, you run into a severe problem that Sweden, France, Germany don't have with the inner-city abortion, inner-city births, wherein you have people who can't take care of kids. And who, if you support, will have more kids who have no fathers. That's a problem. That's a serious problem, which is beyond the purview of this session, and I recognize it. I just, I don't want to make it sound like I have a panacea, but it is to say that in principle, of course, we have an obligation as a society to the woman that we're asking not to abort. While perfectly giving her the right to, and I remain as I was before, pro-your-choice, even if I don't like the choice you will make in many instances. Now, why is the right wrong? The right argument is that it's murder, and it is overwhelmingly held by religious Christians. The reason is that in Catholicism and among fundamentalist Protestants, it is held to be murder. Or at least it is among Catholics, and I guess among some fundamentalist Protestants. Well, no, no, I'm not— I guess it is. Here I have a problem on two grounds. One is theological and one is logical. Let me start with the logical. And any of you who've heard me debate this issue with, uh, with, with right-wing Christians who've called my show have heard what I have done. Say, "Do you really believe it's murder, or do you use the term to make people realize how bad you think it is?" And they usually say, "I really believe it's murder." So then I say, You mean that literally? Before I ask you the next question, I got enough. Do you really mean it literally, or do you use it as hyperbole for dramatic effect? No, it's literal. It's a life, Dennis. There's no difference. So big deal, it's in the womb. Okay, I say, then let me ask you something. Should doctors who perform abortions be executed. I'm for capital punishment. If you're for capital punishment, do you— you must hold that these are mass murderers equivalent to Eichmann, personally murdering tens of thousands of people. You believe that? You believe they're Eichmann? You believe they deserve to be— or you don't believe in capital punishment? Imprisoned for the rest of their lives, with the key thrown away, for aborting? And there's a lot of hemming and hawing. I'm told sometimes, "Well, they don't realize how bad it is." I say, "Neither did Eichmann. Thought Jews were subhuman. He slept at night, took care of his kids." Then there's a little discomfort there. "Are they mass murderers?" is one of the questions I ask them. And then, let me get to it, should they be given these sentences of death or life imprisonment, and then I tell them why I draw a distinction between murder and abortion. And here it gets to the heart of a very important matter. From my perspective, as a person and as a Jew, the moral issue is not what happened to the fetus. It's what did we do? Let me explain that to you. And God bless her, Maryann Glendon was right on track with this too. I got to read you this. It was— she is a giant. She ends her chapter on abortion with this. She kindly enough mentions in a footnote that it was a theologian who told it to her. It's about the famous Belgian fictional detective Hercule Poirot. Hercule Poirot is thinking over a case and talking about the murderer, and his assistant Hastings addresses him, "But Poirot!" You haven't even mentioned the victim. To which Poirot replied, my dear Hastings, everyone knows what murder does to the victim. What I'm interested in is what it does to the murderer. That's what I'm interested in. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't care that much about fetuses. Very honest with you. They don't know nothing. They don't feel nothing. They have no bonds to anybody. They have no self-consciousness. Their nervous system is so undeveloped and the operation is so fast, they don't suffer. Nobody's cried about them. Nobody knew them. Ask a woman who has had a, a child die 5 days of age, 2 days old, and ask a woman who has had, uh, what's it called? No, no, not a stillbirth. That's when it's born. Miscarriage, which I have in my own home experienced. There's no comparison. Any woman who would walk around with a miscarriage lamenting that child for years is sick. Is sick. I will state it categorically. Any husband who did is beyond sick. Need of the— need of emergency treatment. But they will do it for a 2-day-old child. 'til they die. It's developing life which has no emotions. We have no bonds with it. No one is suffering. My concern in abortion is Poirot's concern in this case. What does it do to us to kill millions of would-be children? Not what did it do to them. I don't lose sleep over them, even when I see the pictures. And they're gross. And they're emotionally riveting. What does it do to us? What does it say about us? That we could say, "Big deal, I forgot the condom," which is what the vast majority of abortions are about. Not to mention the affluent ones of were going to Europe. That's what I'm worried about. It's not murder. Nobody's murdered unless you say it's a full life. If it's a full life, that's a theological belief. It's not a logical belief. And for theology, we have to turn to our own traditions. I honor those of Christians who believe that. It's not mine. And since we both share the same Bible, at least in what Christians call the Old Testament and to us is the Hebrew Bible, I will conclude by telling you what it says, and you'll make up your own mind whether you think that the Bible says that abortion is murder. It's listed only once in the Bible, Exodus 21:21. Verse 22. And here it is: If men are fighting and wound a pregnant woman so that her fruit be expelled but no harm befall her, then shall he be fined as her husband shall assess, and the matter placed before the judges. But if harm befall her, then thou shalt give life for life. The Torah could not be more explicit if it tried, contrasting her death, if men kill her, with the fetus's death, which men also induced by fighting in her vicinity. They have— it's a capital offense if she died. It's a fine determined by what the husband thinks it would have been worth. Totally pecuniary deal, as you will. Now, please understand the Jewish tradition has a very negative view of abortion, very negative. Only done in therapeutic circumstances, etc., etc. But it isn't murder. It's never murder. And as the rabbis say in the case of rape, how can we force a daughter to Israel to bring forth what was forced down her? There, she and she alone is what matters, because it's not a whole life. I'm told by Christians who debate with me that it says in Jeremiah, "I knew you when you were in your mother's womb." Of course God knows you at any point. So what does that mean? God knew whatever you were. That's why God is God. No human being ever says that in the Bible. I knew you were before you were born. You were quite a fetus, very cute, cute little fetus there. It is very difficult in life not to take an extreme position. It is something I'm working on for the next issue of my journal: Why do people become extremists? There are many reasons, and you know what one of them is? It's the most comfortable place to be. It is. It's so comfortable to just say it's murder, you don't have any tension with incest, with Tay-Sachs babies, you have no tension with rape, you have no tension with the circumstances into which the child will be born. It is so easy to say let a woman do what she wants with her own body, it's just a women's thing, the hell with the fetus, it's like a decayed tooth, No tension. Extremes have no tension. That's the joy and the appeal of it. You're 100% right 100% of the time. There's no other position. For the rest of us who are the majority of human beings who think about it, it is a real terrible issue. There are competing values here. And I think there's a solution. It's been found in Western Europe, and along with a whole host of other things in the raising of values in a society, I think we could gradually make a society where we do not have a million of these every year, which every one of us, left to right, would like to see. Okay, thank you very much. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.

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