Writer argues for liberals to support anti-abortion stance

Political liberals are rarely antiabortion, but writer Mary Meehan argued to a small audience in Frist Campus Center last night that they should be.

Meehan, a senior editor of the opinion quarterly Human Life Review, emphasized that there are shared values between liberals and the antiabortion movement in "Why Liberals Should Defend the Unborn," a lecture sponsored by Princeton Pro-Life and the USG projects board.

Meehan listed a number of reasons why liberals should cast aside their belief in abortion rights: Liberals believe in defending the helpless and discriminated against, are generally opposed to violence and believe in human equality. These positions are, in her view, tough to reconcile with an abortion-rights activist's approach.

Meehan argued that being an antiabortion advocate is in line with both her liberal and feminist beliefs. It is the tradition of the Left to be the "defender of the weak and helpless," she said, adding that this defense should extend to unborn children. "It is the pride of the Left to defend those who cannot defend themselves," she explained.

Meehan condemned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that overturned state and federal laws outlawing abortion, characterizing it as part of a class of "terrible court decisions." The ruling, she said, denies protection to "unborn human beings."

Abortion is an "escape from a responsibility owed to another," the responsibility of parents to their children, she said. Because parents bring children into this world, she explained, they are responsible for ensuring that harm does not befall them.

Meehan acknowledged that one practical problem with her position is that pregnant women who are abandoned by the men who impregnated them may want to have abortions. The issue of abandonment, however, should be addressed without introducing the abortion debate.

Abortion is not a religious issue, Meehan said, and should instead be treated as a human rights and civil rights issue. Racial minorities and the poor, she said, tend to have higher abortion rates than the white and wealthy.

She added that abortion can also be thought of as lethal discrimination against the disabled if the decision to abort is made because of defects found in the fetus through screening.

Abortion is not only "unjust to children," but is "bad for women," she said. Having an abortion has been found to lower a woman's self-esteem and to psychologically impact her in the long run. Meehan suggested that a lack of support for pregnant women is partly responsible for the high rate of abortions.

Meehan has spoken at several other college campuses this year, including Harvard and Georgetown. Her opinion pieces have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications.