Terrible Anti-Abortion Argument: You Could be Stopping a Future President!

Let me preface this post by saying that I have no interest in delving into the pro-choice/pro-life debate. I begin with this disclaimer for a few different reasons. The first being that such debate bores me, I realize that neither side will ever really cede to the other, so that debate is kind of unnecessary. I also realize that very rarely does anything original get said during such debate. Furthermore, I personally do not actually have an opinion on the issue of abortion. Perhaps, if I were a pregnant teenage girl or a 72 year old preacher I would be a bit more passionate about the issue. However, as is, I just see it as another political dividing line, based around something which has existed legally in this country for decades, and which no politician has ever seriously attempted to end, despite the platitudes and the nods to his or her base.

I am not pro-choice. I am not anti-abortion. I am anti-stupidity. I disdain poorly founded arguments. I cannot tolerate intellectual dishonesty. Far too often in our society, we reach for (or should I say sink to) the lowest common denominator. Instead of well reasoned, fact based, intelligent arguments, politicians and action groups take the easy way out and settle for the emotional, the dishonest, or the vague. I present the reader with Exhibit A.

An anti-abortion group, Catholicvote.org, has recently launched an ad containing what might be the mother of all bad arguments: have an abortion or you may be killing the next president of the United States. Just to illustrate the level of silliness inherent in this ad, allow me to give an example. Let’s imagine a pro-choice group (for argument’s sake, we’ll say NARL) decided to run the opposite of the Catholicvote ad. The camera opens on the image of a fetus. We hear a voice over track telling us that the fetus pictured will live a troubled life. He will have many medical problems. He will have a horrible relationship to his family. He will spend a great deal of his life penniless. Yet, he still deserves the right to live, right? Wrong, our imaginary NARL ad argues. The fetus will grow up to be Adolph Hitler! This irrevocably proves that not all fetuses should be born, hence there is no moral imperative against abortion. Right.

Of course not. This is just an example of how insipidly illogical the Catholicvote ad. Setting aside the fact that President Obama’s parents were married at the time of his conception and that there is no evidence that his mother ever considered an abortion, the fetus shown could be anyone. It could be Ted Bundy, or Timothy McVeigh. It could be Margaret Sanger, one of the original proponents for birth control and reproductive rights in the United States. Or, it cold be just another statistic. It could be an inner city youth who will never graduate high school, or a future drug dealer. The view doesn’t know. Nether does Catholicvote.

Of course, there is an entirely different side of this ad, other than the philosophical one. It might very well be a legal issue. During the final days of the Clinton presidency, a cell phone company carried an ad featuring the infamous “I did not have sex with that woman” video clip. The clip was followed by the words “Talk is Cheap.” The White House took issue with the ad, not because the ad claimed the president lied, but because of legal precedent stating that a sitting president’s image could not be used for commercial reasons. Catholicvote might be exempt from this rule, because, technically, it is not selling anything.

I respect the views of others. I think that a vigorous public debate is crucial for the American way of life. I just wish that we could finally say goodbye to such terribly illogical arguments as the one employed in Catholicvote’s ad.

Apparently, the folks behind the ads creation are promising more similar to it in the future. I shudder to think. Somehow, I doubt they will feature McVeigh.