Hypocrisies About the Value of Life

Oftentimes our political arguments stem less from disagreements about the conflicting views themselves than they do from belief systems within single individuals which often contradict each other. The value of human life provides a great example of this phenomenon.

Generally speaking, Liberal Americans support abortion rights and the abolition of capital punishment at significantly higher percentages than their right-leaning counterparts. Additionally, Liberals are over three times as likely to be vegetarian or vegan, often citing a desire to protect the lives of animals as their primary motivation.

This is not a judgment of any of these stances - individually, they all have their strengths and weaknesses (like anything else) and are well within any person’s rights to choose for themselves. This is, however, an observation of their contradictions.

We can all recognize the need for a woman to have autonomy over her own body. It is entirely reasonable for a woman to reject governmental control over her life decisions. We can also recognize many of the shortcomings of the death penalty, some of which (like imbalanced application, false convictions, etc.) I covered in a recent article. But while being cognizant of those realities, we can’t ignore these facts: one stance advocates for the lives of adults who have chosen to take another person’s life, while the other advocates the killing of innocent babies who’ve never done anything wrong. Regardless of our views about either of these issues, we can’t deny that they fly in the face of each other.

I’ve known vegetarians, and to a greater extreme vegans, who share both of those stances. Vegetarians are opposed to the killing (and frequent mistreatment, an even more legitimate concern) of animals in the name of feeding humans. Fair enough; it’s a sacrifice I can respect if you’re true to yourself and your convictions. True vegans are vegetarians squared, refusing any activity which even affects or inconveniences animals in any way. They will not eat or wear animal products (including honey, which effectively enslaves bees, and silk, which kills silkworms when harvesting it). Many will not kill rodents in their homes or spray their yards to kill fleas and ticks, feeling the world is as much theirs as it is ours. Again, tough sacrifice, but I respect you if that’s your belief and you’re living it.

This monumental respect for all life, even vermin and parasites, often (somehow) does not extend itself to unborn human children. The pro-life/pro-choice debate is far too comprehensive to tackle in a single paragraph, and I won’t try, as there are countless points to be made for and against both positions. But the contradictions here are striking.

How can the same people who support the lives of murderers and lower life forms be so dismissive of the lives of babies? This stance frequently doesn’t just apply to first-trimester decisions, when a fetus is not yet fully formed or viable for survival.

Whether you support it or not, there is at least an argument to be made in support of women’s rights and the proliferation of unwanted children over a mass of as yet unformed cells. But many support the termination of pregnancies throughout their terms, flippantly sacrificing babies with beating hearts, developed central nervous systems, and actively dreaming brains in defense of a woman’s right to choose.

These same people call out the inhumanities of removing convicted killers from our world, punishing criminals in general who victimize the innocent, and using animals as a food source. They seem to disregard that animals do the same things to each other and that most crimes are committed by the same recidivist individuals.

Isn’t it inhumane when a murderer takes another human life? If you’re against capital punishment or the consumption of animals, aren’t you de facto pro-life? Or is it only until you’re faced with the inconvenience of a woman being asked to decide about a condition in which she played a role within a reasonable amount of fetal development time?

Tell me that it’s unfair that women carry a greater burden in pregnancy than men, and I’ll agree with you. Explain to me the pressures that unwanted children create for their parents, society as a whole, and the innocent children themselves, and I’ll listen. Ask me if there are structural inequities in the application of the death penalty, and I’ll tell you there are. Describe the horrible conditions industrial livestock endure, and I’ll shudder along with you. All of these subjects are worthy of debate.

But tell me that all lives, even those of bugs and human predators, are worthy of protection while those of unborn babies are not, and you’ll have to answer for your hypocrisy. You can’t have it both ways.

Zephareth Ledbetter is the author of “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism”, available as an ebook at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004, and can be reached on Facebook and Twitter