A Common Fallacy

In yet another article on our divided electorate Michael Kinsley writes:

It’s true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose and where gay relationships have civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values — as deplorable as I’m sure they are — don’t involve any direct imposition on you. We don’t want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?

This is a common, indeed nigh-universal, fallacy on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate. It is the notion that pro-lifers want to “impose” their views on everyone whereas pro-choicers simply want to live and let live.

But this simply begs the question since what is at issue is who shall count as a person, and therefore who is being imposed upon. From the pro-life perspective, to permit legal abortion is to condemn an entire class of human beings to living only at the sufferance of others. If this isn’t an imposition what is?