The Truth About Abortion

On June 1, 2009, I appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel to discuss the shooting death of infamous abortionist Dr. George Tiller here in Kansas, and the ensuing disingenuous charges that certain media personalities (who shall remain nameless) had incited the shooting. On June 2, 2009, prominent feminist Patricia Ireland appeared on The O’Reilly Factor and attempted to rebut some of what Bill O’Reilly and I had said about Tiller on that program over the years. After stating her belief that life begins at conception, Ireland went on to state that an abortion may be justified nonetheless if a baby would impinge upon the “hopes and dreams” of a pregnant woman. Ireland then appeared to recognize and attempted to reconcile those contradictory statements by reversing herself on the former, stating that pregnant women are “lives in being” whose concerns take precedence over the “potential” lives of their unborn babies.
Ireland’s rationalizing on The O’Reilly Factor beautifully illustrated the current state of intellectual laziness to which many Americans have sunken, allowing illogical public policy to prevail on some of the most pivotal issues of our time. President Obama didn’t do much better than Ireland when he said at Notre Dame last month that Americans’ opinions on either side of the abortion issue are essentially irreconcilable and that the two sides must essentially agree to disagree. No, Mr. President, the difference of opinion is not irreconcilable, and it’s far too serious an issue for public policy to be based on anyone’s opinion. Our public policy on abortion should be based not on opinion, and not on religion, but on reason. Vice-President Biden acquitted himself no better when he professed during last year’s campaign to believe that a human being’s life begins at the moment of conception but said he cannot “impose that belief on others.” It defies logic to define murder so loosely as to say that an act is murder unless it isn’t murder in the opinion of the person committing it. Either murders are happening or they’re not; one side is right, and the other side is wrong; and every American, especially any American who wants to be entrusted with the power to make and enforce public policy, needs to do the intellectual work necessary to determine which is which. It doesn’t require an M.D. or extensive study of the gestational human development process (like Tiller had); all that’s required is an intellect and the courage to apply it. So, on the heels of my WorldNetDaily column, “The Truth About Interrogation,” in which I laid out an intellectually-sound and consistent position on issues related to the incarceration and interrogation of terror detainees, here’s the truth about abortion:

There exists a point in fact at which the development of a unique human being begins. That point is conception; once conception has happened, a process has begun that, if allowed to continue to its ultimate conclusion, will result in a fully-formed human being. It makes no logical difference that a developing human being does not resemble a fully-formed human being during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy. Elsewhere in American law, we recognize the destruction of a product in the making as the destruction not just of the partially-completed product but of the finished product. For example, if an arsonist burns a farmer’s wheat field halfway through the growing season here in Kansas, we hold the arsonist liable not just for the value of a field full of half-grown crops, but for the full anticipated value of the harvest. While it’s possible that a hail storm may have destroyed the crops prior to the harvest, we nonetheless calculate damages based on what likely would have occurred absent the act that stopped the developmental process. The same correct logic applied to abortion dictates that intentionally ending the development of a unique human being is the functional, prospective equivalent of killing the fully-developed person, which is murder. Nothing justifies the murder of an innocent human being.

It makes no logical difference how the development of a unique human being got started. Rape rarely results in pregnancy, but when it does, the pregnancy is a constant reminder of the rape. While some women are able to conceptualize the unborn child as something good to come from tragedy, at least for a childless adoptive couple if not for the rape victim, others conceptualize it solely as a prolongation of their victimization. As a psychologist, I understand the latter view, and it’s truly heart-wrenching. But it doesn’t justify murder. We don’t even allow a pregnant rape victim to murder her rapist, so we certainly mustn’t allow the murder of an innocent person created by the rape.

Furthermore, it makes no logical difference where the development of a unique human being is occurring. The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade is logically incorrect; a woman’s privacy is important, but an innocent person’s life is more important. An American has an expectation of privacy in her home, but that doesn’t prevent government intrusion into her home if there’s probable cause to believe that she’s murdered someone inside. While a womb is understandably more emotionally-sensitive than a domicile, they’re logically analogous. We mustn’t turn a blind eye to murder in the name of respecting people’s privacy, even within their own bodies.

Moreover, it makes no logical difference whom the development of a unique human being might harm, nor does it make any logical difference whom the murder of that human being might help. In the extremely rare instance in which the life of a pregnant woman is threatened by her pregnancy, it’s just as heart-wrenching if not more so than the instance of a pregnancy caused by rape. But it still doesn’t justify murder. If two adults are in a slowly-sinking lifeboat waiting to be rescued at sea, we don’t allow one to push the other overboard in order to prolong the sinking of the lifeboat and thereby to prolong remaining occupant’s opportunity to be rescued. We don’t discount the value of the younger occupant’s life even if the older occupant has dependents and the younger occupant does not, nor do we discount the value of the older occupant’s life just because that person has less life left to live than the younger occupant has, nor do we discount the value of the younger occupant’s life if he or she happens to be the minor child of the older occupant. No, we require both occupants to drown or be rescued as fate dictates.

I believe that most Americans intuitively recognize the foregoing to be the truth, even though many haven’t done the intellectual work required to arrive at the same specific conclusions. I’m therefore hopeful that the Supreme Court and the legislatures of the country and its 50 states eventually will reflect the collective wisdom of the American people and ban abortion. Here’s how I think it might happen: I recently appeared on CNN Headline News to discuss a horrific murder case in which the defendant allegedly killed a woman who was eight months pregnant (as reportedly were some of Tiller’s patients) and cut open her womb in an attempt to steal the baby. The baby died, and I believe that most Americans want the defendant to be charged with two murders, not one, which is soundly and consistently logical. Problem is, it’s not logically consistent with a legal system in which a doctor could have killed the baby intentionally, regardless of the circumstances. The same act can’t be infanticide if the mother objects to it but perfectly legal if the mother doesn’t object to it. It’s a glaring fallacy, shrouded in understandably-strong emotions, that ultimately must be resolved, not by rifles (or handguns, as in the shooting of Tiller), but by reason. Either this defendant and other similarly-situated defendants must be charged with one murder only, or abortion must be banned. It is my hope that as such defendants are convicted of two murders, and savvy defense attorneys zealously appeal those convictions (as they should), the Supreme Court ultimately will resolve the issue correctly, and the states will follow suit.

As a psychologist, I don’t want to close without addressing any guilt that the foregoing may have induced in a woman who once had an abortion and now sees abortion as murder. I would encourage anyone in that situation who’s spiritual to discuss it with her spiritual advisor and anyone in that situation who’s not spiritual to discuss it with a psychologist. I believe that the vast majority of women who’ve had abortions did not believe at the times of their abortions that they were committing murder. I also believe it’s possible that women who’ve had abortions were so emotionally distraught at the times of their abortions that they couldn’t have been expected to discern that they were committing murder, particularly when the laws of their states said otherwise. In my humble estimation, the moral culpability of such women is far less than Tiller’s. I believe that Tiller, in contrast, knew exactly what he was doing. In fact, the more I think about him and how he could have done what he did to so many babies for so many years, the more I suspect that he may have been a psychopath, similar in some ways to “BTK” (also from Wichita), except that Tiller was intelligent enough to find a legal and lucrative methodology. I see no moral equivalence then between Tiller and the women who had abortions at his clinic. Nor, by the way, as an attorney who believes in the rule of law, do I condone the shooting of Tiller. The legal system allowed what happened at Tiller’s clinic to happen, and it’s the legal system that must stop it from happening by effectuating, finally, the truth about abortion.

Dr. Brian Russell is a licensed psychologist, attorney at law and familiar national television pundit on psychological, legal and cultural issues. Dr. Russell helped Bill O’Reilly to expose the late Dr. George Tiller’s use of mental health justifications for performing late-term abortions in Kansas, testified twice before Kansas legislators about how the law in Kansas should be tightened to prevent what Tiller was doing, represented a key figure in the scandal that toppled the attorney general of Kansas in 2008 after a bitter electoral battle over whether to charge Tiller criminally, and represented that same client in the unsuccessful criminal case that ultimately was filed against Tiller.