For any who foolishly claim that in the realm of morality the “slippery slope argument” is inherently fallacious, witness:
1859 - “[By] the existence of fœtal life…at the very beginning, at conception itself, we are compelled to believe unjustifiable abortion always a crime.” (Dr. Horatio Storer, “Contributions to Obstetric Jurisprudence”)
1973 - “A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, [which] means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception.“ (Justice Blackmun, Roe v. Wade decision)
1990s - “Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.“ (President Bill Clinton)
Today - “#ShoutYourAbortion… Abortion is normal… This is not a debate." (Feminists)
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Or, consider this article from CNN, which demonstrates, in three vignettes, the descent into infanticidal barbarity.
The first story is of a woman who found out her baby would be born with incurable brain deformities. She decided to have an abortion to avoid the agony of carrying that doomed baby to term only to have her die, suffering, shortly after birth. Instead, the doctor injected the baby’s heart with poison and she delivered her dead a few days later.
The second involves a woman who developed preeclampsia, and whose life was at risk without an early termination of pregnancy. Although the baby was 24 weeks, he was behind in his development, so they decided to kill him, rather than deliver and hope for the best.
The third is the sad tale of a Honduran girl who becomes pregnant by an older man during the summer, and wisely decides to procure an abortion while staying in the US, since the procedure is illegal in her home country. Although there was no medical condition that threatened her or her child, nevertheless we are assured that she was like other women in her situation: “they have come to the decision that an abortion is absolutely necessary to preserve their mental or physical health and/or to save their unborn child from a life of suffering.“
So, at 30 weeks (almost 7 months) pregnant she got a late-term abortion. We are told that although at first she regretted her abortion, “that regret was short-lived. Two days later, when she ‘gave birth to a dead fetus’ at the clinic, she said, she was overcome with tears of relief.“
The article closes with the touching conclusion that “she looks forward to being a mother someday…when she’s become the woman she plans to be.”
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Notice the progression: doomed and deformed child, then threat to mother’s life, then…what? I guess, “not the right time.” CNN, using all the rhetorical and emotional manipulation they can muster, thus guides—no, drags—their readers down the slippery slope by introducing first a tragedy in which death of the child was all but certain, then an emergency in which the child had some hope of living had he been delivered, then a late-term convenience abortion in which the baby could have been brought to term and delivered healthy, and alive. Indeed, at almost 7 months, had he been delivered early he would have had a 96% chance of surviving. But instead he was murdered.
Notice, too, that the last case is precisely the situation that pro lifers warn about, and that abortionists typically attempt to ignore. They use tragedies to distract and obfuscate, and to try to assure us that late-term abortions are only there for the safety of the mother, or only used in cases of deformity (c.f. a recent NY Times opinion piece that leans on just this kind of case). But here CNN lets the mask slip a bit, and they include a story of a mother killing her child for no reason other than to make her life easier. They conflate all three stories, and make of them morally equivalent demonstrations of the acceptability of late-term infanticide. Why? Because they are trying to deaden and deform our moral senses. Remember, their cry is #ShoutYourAbortion.
And then, of course, there is the context in which CNN has run this story: the recent NY state bill allowing abortion up to birth, the similar proposed law in Virginia, and the Senate bill recently introduced to give explicit protection to those babies who are the victims of attempted abortions, and who are born alive. The bill called for health care practitioners to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
All but 3 Democrats voted “No”.
We’re not just on a slippery slope. We’re being jet-propelled, Rocket Man style, down a frictionless plane, toward a pit of vipers.