To Stomp on a Hedgehog

Twitter user Jess Tholmer once wrote, "you can never ban abortion, you can only ban safe abortions." But frankly, there's a part of me that's okay with that.

If a person decided to stomp on a hedgehog, I think there would be a certain amount of justice if that person's foot got injured by hedgehog quills. Animals have a right to defend themselves. People have a right to defend themselves. If a mugger tried to stab you dead in an alley, you would be completely justified in stabbing them back, or perhaps putting them at risk of accidentally stabbing themselves.

Granted, my philosophy relies on the idea that fetuses are human, or at least that they deserve at least as much moral consideration as animals. Yet, I don't think that's a bold claim to make. If a pregnant woman is murdered, it counts as a double-homicide. Killing a woman and her unborn child is counted as killing two people, not one person and a clump of cells.

And yet, even if we take it as a given that abortion is murder, I'm not completely certain that banning safe abortions is a morally justified decision. If the goal is to reduce human suffering, and if the mother is determined to kill the child one way or another, then wouldn't the most moral decision be to make the procedure as painless as possible, for both the mother and the child? What good does it do to jam a woman's foot full of quills if the hedgehog is going to get stomped to death either way? Wouldn't it be better to give the woman heavy, spiked, quill-proof boots, so she can remain uninjured and the hedgehog's death can be quick?

Ultimately, I'm still against abortion. I still consider it murder. It is an unprovoked, unjustified ending of an innocent, human life. And, even given the desire to reduce human suffering as much as possible, I'm not sure I mind giving the innocent one more layer of protection against their would-be killers. Then again, if a person is so desperate to escape a pregnancy that they'd literally stab themselves to do it, then that person needs help, not a knife in the gut. We should help the people whose situations are so unfortunate that they're willing to consider abortion. Still, even so, I'd rather pay for counselling than safe abortions. If a person wants to stomp on a hedgehog, I'd rather give them counseling than quill-proof boots.

If a person wants an abortion, they clearly need help, but rather than help them do the deed, I'd rather help them not want to.