A slippery slope I would rather not go down

Parliament votes today on whether to modify the upper time limit for abortions (the proposal is to reduce it from twenty-four weeks to twenty weeks).

I have no problem with the “pro-life” view that all life is sacred and must be maintained wherever possible. It’s an integrated view that stands up to scrutiny. Everyone in society benefits because everyone’s life is protected under this law.

I have very great problems with the view that only “viable” life is worth protecting, or that “quality of life” issues justify terminations, or that there is a lifestyle-related “right to choose”.

On the Daily Politics show this lunchtime Jenny Scott interviewed a woman who claimed that her life was better because she had had an abortion. When pressed to give examples of how her life was better, she said that she now had time for her trade union interests. As a lifestyle justification for abortion this seemed pathetically inadequate.

The whole issue of “right to choose” and “quality of life” is based on the assumption that there is some abstract mainstream life “worth living” and anything that falls short of this becomes questionable (and therefore a possible candidate for abortion).

What is the mainstream “quality of life” that is the standard all other human lives are to be judged against? Mostly it consists of the ability to participate in materialist consumption (buying cars, buying houses, buying holidays, buying thousands of things you do not need, buying more food than you can possibly eat, buying entire lifestyles and then changing them every six months etc etc). I have spent most of my professional life studying this materialist culture of consumption and I can tell you none of it is particularly worth having.

Materialist consumer culture is based upon the satisfaction of the human impulse (or instinct) for self-actualisation. Once physiological needs (food, shelter, security) have been met, humans start to crave self-actualisation. Materialist consumer culture promises that your self-actualisation will be “satisfied” by buying just one more product (Big Mac burgers or Manolo shoes or Blackberrys etc).

This “promise” is not just limited to tangible products - watching football, or listening to music, or even participating in trade union interests are all predicated on the satisfaction of the same self-actualisation impulse.

The catch is that the impulse cannot be satisfied.

The buying of Manolo shoes (or Sky Sports subscriptions, or Grand Theft Auto etc) will only bring very temporary relief to the self-actualisation craving before the itch starts up again.

Therefore I am happy with the idea that all life is sacred (and we’re all in this together and have a duty to help each other). I am not happy with the idea that some human life is “not viable at twenty weeks” or if born disabled “will not enjoy a good quality of life”. I am not happy because I know that the concept of “a good quality of life” as defined by modern materialist culture is basically a fraud.

“All life is sacred” represents an unequivocal standard. As soon as you move away from that standard you are making compromises. If you can make a case for termination at twenty-four weeks you can make a case for invading another country and killing hundreds of thousands of its people and stealing their oil. If you can make a case for termination at twenty-four weeks you can make a case for live experiments on sets of twins on the grounds that their lives are no longer viable in a national-socialist state. The only difference becomes one of political expediency (ie “how far will society let us go”). To use a cliché, it’s a slippery slope I would rather not go down.

Now I must go back to work.