There is no abortion debate

» Pro-life and pro-choice share no points

Eric Wilkins
Contributor

 

here is no abortion debate. It’s atough

pill to swallow on such a polarizing
issue but there is zero common ground
between the two sides. Even the best-
intentioned of arguments fail to present
any reasonable conclusion. They can't. If
one side thinks it’s murder and the other
doesn’t even think a fetus is human, there’s
simply no room for compromise; a solution
that satisfies both sides is impossible if
these are the parameters.

lll never forget my first dip into the
abortion debate. I was in grade four, in
Catholic school, and had just been handed
one of the pro-life movement’s staples:
Precious Feet, a pin of a minute set of feet
intended to represent how fully-formed a
child is at 10 weeks. Age plays a key role in
conditioning mindsets—and I was sold.
How could you debate that was life? That
that was human? It was a perfectly shaped
miniature being and all the details that
came later merely added to my conclusion
bias. It was murder.

Children get a heartbeat at six weeks.
They also get brain activity at six weeks.
They begin to make movements at 16
weeks. Talking and crying aside, there
appeared to be very minimal difference
between those capabilities of a “fetus” (a
little-used word in our school) and those
of anewborn. None of us would killa
screaming baby so why would it be okay
to kill it before it could scream? It was
murder.

A popular poster at the time depicted

Ore erm

a

 

a baby next to a puppy with the caption
“What rights do *you* have?” We all went
gaga for it. Why was it that the world
fought so hard for animal rights, but we
couldn't get anyone to care about a human
being?

I remember listening in horror as we
were educated on the barbaric abortion
procedures that were somehow legal in
our country. It was murder. There were a
lot of cultural Catholics in that school but
there were precious few who didn‘ feel very
strongly about abortion. We'd enter essay
competitions every year. Every student
came out of that school fully equipped
to take on anyone and everyone on why
abortion is such a vile and evil act.

Even as | got into college and started
to be exposed to different lines of thinking,

Stop dismissing
Black conservatives

» Invalidating other’s opinions due to
assumptions is disrespectful and damaging

Janis McMath
Senior Columnist

 

Ge how focused Canada is on
race and identity politics, I find the
invalidation of Black conservative voices
in America to be a very important and
relevant topic for all of us to consider. A lot
of contemporary media implies that, in the
current political climate, being a Democrat
as a Black person is necessary. The popular
theory of “linked fate” reaffirms society’s
assumption of a Black person's relationship
to the Democratic party.

The theory of linked fate is defined
by an article in the Atlantic: “In a political
context, [linked fate] suggests that [Black]
voters approach elections with one simple
question: Which candidate is better for
the African American population?” This
theory of linked fate is used to explain
why the African American population
has historically consistently voted for the
Democratic party—which immediately
and, in my opinion, unfairly implies that
the Democratic party is unambiguously
better for Black people. A segment of NPR’s
Code Switch podcast also affirms this
bias the media seems to have about the
Democratic Party being the only option

for Black people, stating that “Whiteness,
demographically and ideologically,

has been so central to the mainstream
conservative project that bringing [Black]
conservatives into the fold and into the
Republican Party [...] wouldn't just change
its racial demographics. It would effectively
change the party's ideological composition,
as well.” I’m sure Black female conservative
activist Candace Owens would take issue
with this.

Candace Owens is a prominent
Republican activist who believes that the
current Republican party is aligned with
Black people. For example, on the issue of
police brutality, Owens stated in a video
posted to YouTube by Turning Point USA
that media statistics exaggerate the number
of Black men shot and killed by police in
2016: Out of an alleged ggo deaths of Black
men at the hands of police, “only 16 of
them were unarmed [...] that is 0.00004%
of the Black community but we saw it every
night.” (The Washington Post actually
states that in 2016 only 223 Black males
were shot and killed by police officers, and
of those only 18 of them were unarmed.)

Owens concluded by saying that
the US, under Democratic leadership,
had “launched a war on police officers

my pro-life stance remained. I still
remember my reason for not going out
with someone because “she believes
in abortion.” I must have been at least
three years clear of Catholicism before
I started to find my feet, and it was
the heaviest internal struggle I'd ever
faced. Almost my entire crowd was
now pro-choicers—and all of their
arguments also made sense... but they
seemed weaker, lesser somehow.

So many of the pro-choice
reasons revolved around the pregnant
woman herself. So many focused on
how it was more necessary to be ready
and capable to look after the child
than it was to actually have the child.
So many spoke to the quality of life you
could offer the baby. So many noted
how no one should be able to dictate
to a woman what she can and can’t do
with her body. So many talked about how
it was reason enough not to have the baby
just because you don't want to have it.

It wasn't that the new thinking didn’t
make sense. It did. But I still thought it was
wrong and for the longest time I couldn't
figure out why. Then I remembered:
Abortion is murder. How was I trying
to move on to a fresh take when that
remained the counterargument; what could
top that? How could people rationalize
murdering a child just out of convenience?
I had landed in limbo. I didn’t rationally
agree with any pro-life teachings anymore
but couldn't emotionally agree with any of
the pro-choice.

I came to realize that if I ever wanted
to reconcile my struggle, I had to stop

Photo of Precious Feet pin via Amazon.com

in an effort to control the Black vote’—
substantiating her opinion that the
Democratic Party is not for Black
people due to their tactics of emotional
manipulation.

Owens instead believes that Black
people are being manipulated to vote
for the left, which is often an accusation
that Black Democrats throw at Black
Republicans—often in the form of the
very offensive term “Uncle Tom.” Ina Vice
video about young Black conservatives,
the video's subjects talk about being called
“Uncle Tom,” which is often used to refer
derogatorily to a Black person who is
overly influenced by and subservient to the
approval of white people. If the Republican
party is so obviously the wrong choice for
Black people, why resort to racist terms
rather than a solid argument? If your side
has the strength of facts and statistics, use
those. “You're brainwashed,’ is not a valid

believing in one side. I had been fighting
to find a common ground—something that
would let me keep all of my beliefs—but
there was none. If I were pro-life then the
fetus was always a human and disposing of
it at any point would be murder. If I were
pro-choice then it was never a human and
anything that happened to it before the
actual birthing was fair game. I dropped
the former.

I’m not here to advocate for either
side but the fact is that we can’t boil it
down to science. It really is about both how
sacred life is, and how much proof is good
enough, to you. Science can't definitely
say when a fetus becomes a human being
because it’s not a scientific call. Does a
heartbeat prove life? Does a brainwave
prove life? What is your definition of life?
Is a person in a vegetative state alive? Isa
brain-dead person alive? Children seldom
can remember anything before the age of
three—are they even alive then?

There are a lot of issues that people
can debate and have their minds changed
on. Murder should not be one of them.

If you truly think something is murder, I
sincerely hope that you never change your
mind on it—the precedent set by flipping
sides on something as fundamentally evil
and black-and-white as murder is insane.
Likewise, if you don’t think something

is murder, you shouldn't be able to be
convinced that it is. The two cannot even
agree to disagree. Debate, criticism, and
introspection fuel change in the world—
but this is one argument that will never see

the end.

 
  
 

Jgoodwin on Twitter

 

a

Photo via @_real

debate point.

Race has always been a huge and
necessary part of politics but when we
start ignoring the people and instead only
begin to look at their race, that is where
the problems begin. We cannot make the
sweeping assumption that one party is
better for a certain race; that simplification
helps people justify their lack of dialogue
with the other side since their party is the
“correct party” for such minorities, and all
else is immediately deemed racist. There is
so much media trying to dissect why such
a “contradictory” group of people exist
instead of just trying to understand their
arguments and facts. Your pigmentation
should dictate nothing inherent about
your beliefs or values—yet we still try to
pigeonhole political beliefs based on skin
colour?