Red means stop – or does it?

Recently I have been reflecting on the abortion debate and trying to truly understand what is the reasoning on both sides. As I am a conservative evangelical Christian, my loyalties lie definitively with the “Pro-Life” crowd, even though I don’t really like the moniker.

What I really want to understand is the rationale of the other side for choosing to allow abortions even in the face of what seems to me an admitted lack of knowledge and understanding. As I heard the comments of Barack Obama at his appearance at Saddleback Church, it seems very obvious that the position on what defines human life is essential to the issue. When asked when a fertilized egg inherits human rights, Mr. Obama basically said that there is no consensus on this question and he did not believe it is his prerogative to claim one or the other.

To this point I could agree with him. While there are many people who have claimed that “human status” begins at a point (fertilization, cell division, etc.), Mr. Obama claimed agnosticism on this issue. I am fine with that.

The issue is not whether or not we can agree when human “life” begins, but how that question determines our decisions, and more importantly our decision making process. What is really at stake is a judgment that is based on the best information we have AND taking the ramifications of a decision based on wrong information into account.

Let’s grant that we just do not know when human “life” begins. We now have two basic options: 1) to allow a person (presumably a mother or father) to decide the fate of the conceived being, or 2) to lawfully restrict the inhibition of this conceived being. These are the only two options.

If we allow this second party to make the decision to inhibit the life (abort) this being, what are the negatives? It seems obvious to me that if the being is a full fledged human person then this would be tantamount to legalized murder. Only if we knew that the being was not a person could we be completely justified in aborting it.

On the other hand, if we restricted the inhibition of this being by law, and it turned out to not to be a justifiable person, then we would have allowed many children into the world that were not wanted by their parents. Granted, this would place these children in a sufficiently negative situation, yet the prospects for adoption would always be a possibility.

By potentially erring on the side of caution, we have allowed a much lesser negative consequence to our actions.

I started this tale with the title “Red means stop – or does it?” because I wanted to use this as a metaphor. You see, we can make a general statement that is true in almost all circumstances while realizing that we do not know all of the facts. I remember when I was in college and I had to temporarily ride a motorcycle for a couple of months. There were a couple of intersections that were less traveled in certain times of the day and it was not rare to find myself as the only vehicle at the intersection. These traffic signals were set up with sensors that would determine if a vehicle was at the intersection or not. If they did not sense a vehicle, then they would perpetually stay in a certain position with two directions being green and the other two being red.

The problem was that my motorcycle and I were not heavy enough to be picked up by the sensors, and, therefore I would be stuck at the red light without the light knowing that I was even there. Conceivably I would be there waiting for the light to change until another vehicle which was large enough to be detected by the sensors came to free me of my predicament.

The question is: Would I be justified in running the red light? The next important question is why or why not? I spoke to a police officer about this issue and he told me that he could not imagine a citation being given to me if I had run the light, as long as I made every effort to determine that there were no other vehicles around. This in fact is what I did many times. What made the difference?

Knowledge. Agnosticism told me that I needed to stop at the light in the first place, but knowledge told me that I could run the light since I had sufficient cause to determine that I was not putting myself or anyone else at risk because of my actions. This is very akin to the topic at hand in that we have to impede the actions of some to protect the rights of others who are involved. With Mr. Obama’s position, I would not have to stop at a red light anywhere since there is no proof that other vehicles will be driving down that road when I am there.

Let’s take this way of thinking to another per issue of the left, global warming. Why are we to take such drastic steps in our lives in order to reduce our carbon footprints? The reason given is because the earth “might” not be able to deal with the excess carbon based pollution that we generate. I myself have major reservations about the apocalyptic future that we are told will happen. But suffice to say, that there is actually a degree of agnosticism on both sides.

Without looking at the actual evidence, which does not give as grim a picture and the popularizers believe, this agnosticism says we should err on the side of caution, for the potential negative ramifications of a wrong decision can be catastrophic. Taking the same logical approach that they this same ideology takes towards abortion, we should be defending the rights of polluters and forcing any real restrictions on them.

We cannot have it both ways. Either we err on the side of caution or we do not. We cannot make rules against one class of agnostics for their behavior while not making any rules against the behavior of another group of agnostics on another issue.

Red means stop for a reason, and it is only with a knowledge of what is actually true that we can make judgments that impair the right of potential children. Doing otherwise would be nothing short of reckless. Mr. Obama, where do you stand now?