Mary said:
In fact, just about nobody really believes they have equal value. Anti-abortionists simply suspend disbelief for a while when the issue of abortion comes up. "Abortion is murder" is used by a slogan by our opponents. But people should really think about that statement. That means we treat the death of a fetus the exact same as the death of a 2 year old. If we find out a fetus dies, then a police investigation is opened, and if the mother is found to have caused it, she is going to jail for a very long time.

There are lots of examples of how we can show that even the fundamentalist anti-abortion groups understand that development plays a role in value. Consider George Tiller, who provided late term abortions. Why so much special hatred towards him from anti-abortion groups? Is Tiller any worse than a doctor who only performs early term abortions?

My response:

“In fact, just about nobody really believes they have equal value.”

For the record, I really do believe that, but I’m open to being proven wrong.

I should probably clarify what I mean by “value,” just to make sure we both mean the same thing when we use that word. I believe that all human beings are inherently and equally valuable in virtue of the kind of thing we are: human. I don’t believe humans are valuable because of some acquired property that they may gain or lose during their lifetime.

“Anti-abortionists simply suspend disbelief for a while when the issue of abortion comes up. "Abortion is murder" is used by a slogan by our opponents. But people should really think about that statement. That means we treat the death of a fetus the exact same as the death of a 2 year old. If we find out a fetus dies, then a police investigation is opened, and if the mother is found to have caused it, she is going to jail for a very long time.”

I’m not sure if the scenario you’re portraying is a natural miscarriage, or an abortion done after it becomes illegal. If you’re referring to the problem of women being investigated after having a natural miscarriage in the event that abortion becomes illegal, I would reply that I don’t think it will happen. Before abortion became legal in America, women were not investigated for miscarriages, because we all understood that some pregnancies are not successful. (Trust me. After going through a 10-week miscarriage and a “medical miracle” heterotopic pregnancy, I really do get that fact.) Unless there’s a strong reason to believe that the miscarriage was brought on intentionally by the mother, (and there would have to be some very strong evidence,) I don’t have any reason to believe there will be all these supposed “miscarriage trials” that pro-choice groups talk about. This seems more like a scare tactic to me, at least based on my current knowledge of the issue. If it is a scare tactic, I would add that I’m against both sides of the debate using scare tactics, not just the pro-abortion-choice side.

I do know that there have been a few individual cases where doctors or lawyers went outside of the rules and mistreated pregnant women based on their misunderstanding of the law. I think it was RHRealityCheck that recently did a video with four cases. However, after those cases happened, I’ve been told that after every appeal case, the courts decided that the doctors or whoever were acting in the wrong, and wouldn’t let that happen again. I haven’t done all of that research myself yet, but I could if I needed to.

"There are lots of examples of how we can show that even the fundamentalist anti-abortion groups understand that development plays a role in value. Consider George Tiller, who provided late term abortions. Why so much special hatred towards him from anti-abortion groups? Is Tiller any worse than a doctor who only performs early term abortions?"

I think there’s something particularly disturbing about someone who’s able to kill late-term babies that feel pain, possible more pain than you and I are capable of experiencing, on a daily basis. However I don’t believe those late-term babies are any more valuable than the early term ones, although it could probably be argued that in some ways, it is a little worse to kill the late-term babies on the mere basis of pain inflicted on the late-term ones.

Let me provide an illustration: Oftentimes we punish a rapist who assaults a child more harshly than one who assaults an adult woman. That doesn’t mean anybody thinks children are more valuable persons than older women. I think as a society we recognize that there is something particularly evil about assaulting a more vulnerable human being, like a little girl. The idea of an older, stronger person using her like that is horrid and despicable, because she is small, vulnerable and innocent.

If you’ll indulge me to get sidetracked for a second, I would ask who on this planet is more vulnerable and innocent than an unborn human being? The right to live – the right not to be cut to pieces – should be considered a basic right of every person. Okay, back to topic.

I can see how it could come across that pro-lifers believe late-term babies are more valuable. Perhaps a few do believe that, but I think they would fall in the minority, even if some pro-lifers may act like late-term babies are more valuable.

Perhaps a lot of the focus on Dr. Tiller was strategic. Many pro-abortion-choice people agree that it’s wrong to kill very late-term fetuses, and many people also denied that late-term abortions happens with any regularity, so focusing on Dr. Tiller could be compared with attempting an incremental measure like the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban.” It helped create a conversation in our society about whether it’s really okay to kill late-term babies with that procedure or not, and the majority said no, unless the mother’s life is at risk. Does this mean all those people became instant pro-lifers? No, but we were able to find some common ground with them, in some instances for the first time.

Secondly, a lot of the press releases and activities in regards to Dr. Tiller came from an organization called Operation Rescue, and their main office is based in Wichita, Kansas, where Dr. Tiller worked. I think for them they also might have felt like this was going on in “their own back yard,” and may have felt a special “calling” for lack of a better word to fight what Dr. Tiller was doing.