On the morality and legality of abortion, Noam Chomsky seems to have bought into a couple of popular pro-choice arguments that can only be described as profoundly unthinking and anti-scientific (the bold is mine):
“There is a strong debate at the moment with regards to a woman’s right to control an organ of her own body – namely the foetus. There is legislation being enacted in several US states to define personhood as a fertilised egg.
“Pretty soon you can imagine legislation prohibiting the washing of hands because thousands of cells are flaked off that could be turned into a stem cell and you can grow a foetus – so you’re killing a person.”
But on politics, Chomsky is brilliant, and he is brilliant as well on the politics of abortion. In a recent Democracy Now! segment, his argument went like this: The politicians of both major parties primarily, at present, serve the interests of corporations and the very rich. However, the corporate stakeholders and the very rich do not themselves constitute a large number of voters, so the parties have to hoodwink numerous voters, their vote-bank “bases,” into believing that they (Republican or Democratic politicians) sincerely represent such voters on other issues. In the case of the Republican politicians, a key issue that they decided to pretend to care about in 1972 was the pro-life issue. Any Republican presidential candidate who might genuinely care about base issues has typically been crushed during the primaries by the Republican establishment as being too “outlandish.” Of the candidates “rising from the base” whom Chomsky mentions, I think Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum might have sincerely cared about the life issue. Chomsky views Trump as a candidate supported by the base whom the establishment failed to crush. I would add this observation: however opportunistic and insincere Trump may be in his heart about any of the base’s issues, the big pro-life organizations seem to give him credit for having tried harder, at least, on life issues, once in office, than Nixon, Reagan, or either of the Bushes (members of the Republican establishment).
I’m impressed by Chomsky’s argument, as far as it goes. Abortion was not a partisan issue prior to the late 1960’s, and I think it was more likely the Democratic Party and not the Republican that made the first positional move on the issue, whereafter there was an inevitable escalation towards extreme polarization (at least in terms of the parties’ stated policies). Chomsky does not outright deny that the Democrats started it, but seems to suggest that the Republicans moved first. Apart from that question, I’m open to accepting all of Chomsky’s analysis – as far as it goes.
Chomsky is among other things an eminent philosopher, and certainly there must be a rich range of values that he personally holds and that conspicuously underlie all the advocacy positions to be found throughout the whole body of his work. In some of his writings he has probably approached values on a meta level as well, evaluating different values. But in the huge collection of speeches on political topics for which he is best known, I am unaware of concerns about any values other than wealth and power. He is concerned about inequities of wealth and power, and the causes and cures of those inequities. At least, so it is in the Democracy Now! video. He is concerned about politicians’ favoritism toward corporations and the rich over the rest of us.
Within that framework of analysis, his only concern about the slaughter of unborn innocents is not about whether that slaughter could possibly have negative value, nor about whether the anguish many Americans feel toward that slaughter is morally justified or not, but only about how that anguish offers opportunities for political leverage, particularly leverage to the benefit of Republicans – leverage that will affect outcomes not in terms of lives or moral progress, but outcomes in terms of wealth and power balances among Americans. (Or rather, among born Americans.)
I think that Chomsky misinterprets abortion politics by implying that those politics are only important as a mechanism of progress or regress on a materialistic continuum of power and wealth equity. I would submit that the more important continuum we should focus on is a moral continuum of progress or regress in terms of another kind of equity, an equity of dignity. Let’s call that continuum a continuum of humanization. It is a continuum of inclusion or exclusion of all who are rightfully members of our human family. It is a continuum on which I think the greatest inclusivity will ultimately mean the greatest human happiness.
Nothing could be more obvious than that humanity has consistently evolved in the direction of increasing inclusiveness. And it is obvious to me, from changes I have seen in the people around me as that growing inclusiveness has unfolded, that its benefits have not been a one-way street. In the 1960s, it humanized us (those of us who were white) to come to see other races as fully human; it humanized us (those of us who were men) to come to see women as fully human; and it humanized some of us Americans to come to see the Vietnamese as fully human. A decade later, it humanized us (those of us who were heterosexual) to come to see homosexuals as fully human. And around the same time, it humanized those of us who were able-bodied to come to see the differently abled as fully human.
Chomsky clearly doesn’t see the unborn as full-fledged members of our human family, so there was nothing in his presentation that would prompt him to think about the continuum of humanization. I blame him for short-sightedness about the unborn, but don’t otherwise blame him for focusing only on his power-and-wealth continuum. But the omission of the other continuum badly throws off any evaluation of the overall impacts of the two parties.
A materialistic analysis of history is largely subscribed to both on the right and on the left, both by capitalists and by Marxists – and by Chomsky as well, as far as we can tell from the focus of his political presentations. And yet our material well-being, beyond a certain point, contributes notoriously little to that which we really seek in life – happiness.
What does contribute to our happiness is our moral evolution. I think that a society that has outgrown slavery is a happier society. I think that a society that has outgrown rape will be a happier society. And I think that a society that has outgrown abortion will be a happier society. Some historians on the right say that underlying Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964, his real concerns were only about naked power and how the loyalty of blacks could contribute to his party’s power, and say that in his heart he remained as racist as he had ever been. And yet laws, out of whatever motives they may come to be enacted, have a tremendous pedagogical effect. Their pedagogical effect is at least as important as their deterrent effect. Laws influence culture as much as culture influences laws. That principle holds whatever the reality of Johnson’s attitudes may have been. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has contributed to a less racist, more moral society. And I would submit that that moral progress is a greater progress than the correction of wealth and power inequities. A more moral society is a happier society.
When we discuss progress on a continuum of humanization, and discuss the aim of eventual inclusiveness of the unborn, we have to notice that humanization of the unborn is related to, but not exactly the same thing as, saving unborn lives. Because of the constraints imposed by Roe v. Wade, a law aimed partly or entirely at saving unborn lives may be, for instance, an abortion clinic regulatory law that unavoidably masquerades as being aimed entirely at the protection of women. Such a law may save many unborn lives by causing the closure of abortion clinics, but such a law cannot pay recognition to the humanity of the unborn, hence will do little to humanize the unborn. And a law from the other side of the aisle may provide social support for pregnant women and mothers, and thus save unborn lives by lessening the pressure to abort. But that law, similarly, will not pay recognition to the humanity of the unborn and hence will do nothing to humanize the unborn. Such a law will make forbearance from abortion more convenient, but will not make it more morally incumbent. As soon as the funding for the program dries up, parents of unwanted children will go back to killing them as usual, because they will recognize their humanity no more than before.
When Chomsky looks at the anti-abortion stance of Republican politicians and applies his power-and-wealth analysis, he is only concerned to point out that the stance is opportunistic and that it wins votes. Whether Republican policy initiatives do in fact save some unborn lives – a fact admitted to recently even on Rewire.News – makes no difference to him. He does not stop to reflect on the fact that a young person who owes his life to the Hyde Amendment, or to some state-level parental-consent law or waiting period, supported by Republicans, might be happy to be alive – regardless of whether she is alive due to sincerity or due to opportunism!
That Republican-supported laws are saving some lives is unquestionable, regardless of the rivers of cynicism on which those laws have no doubt often floated. And when some of those laws save lives, they do so in a way that pays recognition to the humanity of the unborn.
Republican politicians have been duplicitous with pro-lifers, no doubt. And it’s doubtful that the small contribution they have made on the continuum of humanization, in relation to the unborn, has outweighed all the harm they have done on the continuum of wealth and power equity – not to mention the harm that they have probably done even on the continuum of humanization, in relation to groups other than the unborn. But the contribution that they have made, sincerely or not, in relation to the humanity of the unborn should be recognized, and above all it should be recognized that the continuum of humanization is the more important of the two continuums. Failing to perceive the humanity of the unborn, Chomsky seems not to think at all about the continuum of humanization or any continuum of moral progress, and ends up with a materialistic view of history.
© 2019
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