Why universal suffrage means abortion
November 13, 2012 § 33 Comments
In modern liberal democracies we extend the franchise as widely as possible, to insure that each person has the opportunity to freely exercise equal political power. Women’s suffrage is viewed as a basic requirement of justice: if women were denied the franchise we would be treating women as subordinate to men rather than as having equal rights.
Treating female suffrage as a basic human right teaches us that it is a fundamental violation of justice for women to be treated unequally to
men. It follows that a law which criminalizes something that only a woman can do is a basic violation of justice. Therefore laws which criminalize abortion – something only a woman can freely choose, because of accident of birth – are inherently unjust.
A society which treats female suffrage as a basic human right therefore inevitably, over time, will dehumanize the unborn and embrace abortion as a fundamental human right.
How many millions of unborn children must be sacrificed on the altar of universal suffrage democracy conceived as a basic human right? If you are offended at the idea of a restricted franchise – say to only men with at least one legitimate child, married to his first wife or a widower, who pays a poll tax – how many unborn children are you willing to sacrifice on the altar of the perverse notion of defining justice as equal rights?