NRO's Ed Whelan is Way Out of Bounds on Abortion, Obama
by Scott Swenson, RH Reality Check
October 17, 2008 - 12:14pm (Print)
A few weeks ago RH Reality Check denounced the comments of a Democratic official in North Carolina, Sarah Fowler, who said that Sarah Palin's only qualification as John McCain's running mate was "not having had an abortion." Fowler apologized within 24 hours for her comments, calling them a clumsy effort to make a point about single issue voters.
Let's hope the National Review's Ed Whelan has the same decency, or at least presence of mind, to apologize for his comments in a blog post yesterday, in which he suggests that because Barack Obama's mother "did not have an abortion" Obama should rethink his policies:
Nearly 48 years ago, a young woman, not yet 18, became pregnant in her freshman year of college. Living in a time and place in which abortion was generally illegal, she proceeded to marry the father of her child and gave birth to a son. Perhaps she would have done so irrespective of the abortion laws at the time, even if, say, she lived in a legal culture that celebrated abortion as a fundamental right. Very possibly not. (I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.)
Barack Obama may actually believe, as he stated yesterday, that Roe v. Wade “was rightly decided.” But it may be very lucky for him, as the son born of that woman, that it hadn’t been decided a dozen or so years earlier.
That Obama may owe his very life to a pre-Roe legal regime that banned abortion is, to be sure, not necessarily a reason that he should favor that regime (though I can’t help noting that Justice Thomas’s critics recklessly accuse him of hypocrisy for opposing racial-preference plans that they say he benefited from). But it ought to lead Obama and others to think more carefully about the valuable role that protective abortion laws play.
Perhaps what is most significant about this outrageous comment is who Whelan is. From his bio: "President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government."
Because of who Whelan is, his argument, however ludicrous, receives attention, just as Sarah Fowler's did in a highly charged political season.
Barack Obama's mother made a decision for her and her family based on information that is unknowable, the decisions were private, intimate, personal. As they should be. Speculating on what role legal considerations played, serves Whelan's purpose, but has no relevance. Women of all ages choose to carry pregnancies to term everyday, others choose differently -- the key is that it is the woman who should make the decision, not Whelan, not the Courts, not the Congress.
The anti-choice community's argument that abortion may be preventing some genius from coming into the world that could change it for good is based on the weakest kind of faith -- that who and what we are is all determined at the moment one of millions of sperm, cracks one egg, and makes it through many obstacles to birth, let alone through the many obstacles of life. Barack Obama made many of his own choices along the way that demonstrate success is based on far more than biology alone.
It is because of who his mother was, what she believed, how she raised him, the values she instilled in him that he is who he is. Some of us have a faith strong enough to believe that had she made a different decision about what was best for her, that someone else with his values and wisdom would be where he is today -- fighting against those like Whelan who would impose one set of beliefs on all people.
Creating life is the easy part. Building a culture where every life is respected, every decision based in facts, not lies, growing in wisdom and not made from fear -- that is a culture many who celebrate choice work to create.
Whelan, like so many social conservatives, looks in the mirror convinced that their very existence is God given proof all of their ideas are right -- for everyone -- that they forget free will was given to everyone.
Outlawing abortion, as Whelan and others would do, is not "protective," it is paternalistic, invasive, controlling, and like his comments about Barack Obama and his mother, demeaning to women who look in the mirror and are humbled by their own reflection, thinking carefully before making judgments about, or for, anyone else. Women who know fully the weight of the decision to bring new life into the world and do not need Whelan, Scalia, or anyone else judging their decisions.
I doubt Whelan has the humility of Sarah Fowler, or the presence of mind to recognize the need to apologize for his remarks, demeaning as they are to many women, dripping with paternalism.
The former fetus identity is just not working for anti-choice types. It's just not scary to think about my parents never having met or decided to reproduce.
I emailed Whelan expressing my distaste with that post. He wrote back a blanket form letter that he responded every angry email with, which didn't address my point at all and, in my opinion, dug him in deeper (below is my email response from Whelan - but the links where he says "this blogger" didn't come over in this comment window, sorry):
Re: Former Fetus Barack Obama [Ed Whelan]
I didn’t suppose that folks on the Left would take kindly to my post yesterday, but the spasms of irrationality (not to mention obscenities) in blog posts and e-mails have surprised me. Lots of folks out there can’t read very well or engage in reasoned argument, but that doesn’t stop them from expressing their ill-formed thoughts. A representative sampling:
This blogger (like many others) claims that I “pointed out that Senator Obama likely would’ve been aborted if the legal option existed.” No. I made the simple observation that, generally speaking, a pregnant college freshman living in a culture in which abortion is legal and accepted is more likely to abort than one living in a culture in which abortion is illegal.
This one headlines her piece “National Review Insists, ‘No One Wants a Black Baby”. What a vile invention. She then imagines that I was stating that Obama was born in Kansas and thinks that Hawaii’s liberalization of its abortion laws in 1970—nine years after Obama’s birth—somehow refutes something I wrote.
Also vile and baseless is this blogger’s claim that I am “lamenting the fact that Roe v. Wade didn't come earlier, because if it had maybe Obama might have been aborted and McCain wouldn't have to run against him.” (The blogger then says that I didn’t “say it like that,” but alleges that those are my thoughts.)
Some charge me with contending that the fact that Obama “may owe his very life to a pre-Roe legal regime” compels him to be pro-life. I specifically rejected that illogic.
Others maintain that whether or not abortion is legal has zero impact on a pregnant woman’s decision to abort. I don’t doubt that many factors come into play, and, yes, fervent e-mailers, I know that women resorted to illegal abortions before Roe, but the claim that abortion laws have no impact at all strikes me as absurd (and contradicted by, among other things, the soaring rate of abortions after Roe).
Still others fault me for daring to speculate, in the acknowledged absence of direct statistics, that “the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies … [is] very high.” Does anyone seriously doubt this? A hugely disproportionate number of abortions occurs among college-age students, and finishing college is routinely cited by the pro-abortion side as a compelling case for abortion.
Yet others seem to think that sperm cells are tiny human beings.
Striking a different note, lots of e-mailers complain that I have grossly violated decorum by raising the hypothetical question of what Obama’s mother might have done under different circumstances. I confess that objections of decorum from folks who spew obscenities at me—“I really hope you rot in hell” is one of the nicer sentiments—are difficult to take seriously. But let me try. I aimed to use a concrete circumstance and a hypothetical to get people to (as I put it) “think more carefully about the valuable role that protective abortion laws play.” I don’t see what is remotely objectionable about that, especially as I clearly refrained from opining that Obama’s mother would have chosen one path over another. I suspect (though I concede I can’t prove, so don’t e-mail me asking for proof), that my angry correspondents dislike thinking concretely about the fact that abortion kills actual unborn children. Far easier to hide behind gauzy abstractions about “choice”.
10/17 02:02 PM
After Whelan defiantly rebutted other people's statements on-line, posted links to their site and offered no apology, I started getting some interesting comments on my own blog -- the majority of which are not suitable for publication (hint: if you use the words "evil" or "killer," you're probably not getting published)
Even among the comments that I approved, I continue to be offended. Writes one commenter,
I think one of the subconcious points that one gets from Mr. Whelan’s article is how many other Barack Obamas have been aborted since Roe v. Wade? How many teachers, scientists, authors and even politicians have been lost?
How dare they degrade the importance of parenting by suggesting that unwanted children grow up to become Barack Obama. It's as though you could just throw a kid on the side of the road and expect them to become outstanding citizens. Gee, I've been doing this wrong all along: sending my kids to good schools, finding enrichment activities that challenge them, giving them the security of being able to safely make progressively more difficult decisions. . .
Poor Stanley Ann Dunham and Madelyn Dunham. If only they knew they could have spent so much less money and resources building an outstanding citizen.
