Bush, Abortion, and Dictatorships

The Bush administration refuses to be associated with any international programs linked to abortion. The “Global Gag Rule,” for example, prohibits foreign NGOs that receive US funds from using even their own money to provide legal abortion services, lobby for liberalized abortion laws, or even provide abortion counseling and referrals. Why is abortion worse than dictators, though?

Jeanne at Body and Soul asks:

There's something I don't get. How come the same administration that believes we will be tainted by any association with abortion, no matter how much good can be accomplished, also works with and financially supports brutal governments on the grounds that some greater, long term good will come from it? In other words, why is it anathema to have a three times removed connection to a doctor in Africa telling a woman whose body can't take any more pregnancies how to get an abortion, but it isn't wrong to directly finance a government that boils people alive?

That’s a very good question. There is a moral inconsistency here that is closely related to the critique of anti-abortion activists which claims that they are only interested in protecting life in the womb; once someone is born, the activists are completely unconcerned about the quality of that person’s life or what happens to it. Such criticisms aren’t always fair, but in this particular situation it certainly seems to be a reasonable observation.

Read More:

• Guide to Ethics and Morality
• News About Ethics
• Bioethics