L'Affaire Shvarts II

I expressed incredulity that pro-choicers could find a reason to be offended by Shvarts's art project, and the obliging Reactionary Epicurean offers three pro-choice points of view that explain why a person might be outraged at Shvarts's abortions but not by others:

It seems to me like there are at least 3, possibly more, coherent "middle-of-the-road pro-choice" positions which can legitimately claim to be freaked out by Ms. Shvarts:

1) Abortion is immoral, period, but restrictions on abortion are not a legitimate function of the government.

2) Abortion is only kinda-sorta immoral, like murdering a dog or a pet canary. Still, an art project composed of beheaded puppy-corpses really isn't all that cool.

3) Abortion is not immoral, but trivializing it is bad for society.

There! Plenty of room for pro-choicers to freak out about Ms. Shvarts.

Fair points all, but none without its own contradictions. On (2): you might be able to get me to concede that some things are within the bounds of morality but still shouldn't be done for fun (i.e. killing your pet canary), but Aliza Shvarts didn't have lots of abortions for recreation; she had lots of abortions for the sake of art. She did have a reason, and not a bad one: either you think what she did is no worse than what goes on at a slaughterhouse every day or you don't, but Aliza Shvarts thinks that's a question you should have to answer. I tend to agree — watching pictures of a pig being slaughtered might turn my stomach, but that revulsion is something I should confront (and, I think, get over) if I'm going to keep eating bacon. Same for pro-choicers and abortion. Art with that end in mind is thoroughly justified.

I'd have to hear more about (3) before I rejected it, but if "trivializing abortion is bad for society" refers to the fact that it encourages sexual license, I'm not sure the argument holds. The problem there is trivializing sex, not trivializing abortion, at least not in the way that Shvarts did. Replace "abortion" with "birth control" in the previous sentence and note that trivializing something that promotes promiscuity is something the Left has already done. Maybe abortion is bad for society in another way, but, again, I'd have to hear more.

Insofar as the first argument could describe an "abortion is murder" pro-lifer, then you're right that such a person has the right to be offended. However, my guess is that people who believe that life begins at conception are too busy being saddened to be scandalized. Even the states' rights advocates among them.