Bourgeois Salient

Inconsistencies and unjustified generalisations appeared in your editorial last week. The greatest of these was your attempt to associate "anti-abortion" ideas with reactionary politics. While we think you made some valid points about a substantial sector of the pro-life' movement, and about the social conditions that give rise to the needs for abortion, you purport to argue for a progressive movement from the standpoint of a petty bourgeois individualist. More about that later.

Furthermore, despite the fact that you criticise the emotionalism of the 'pro-life' rallyists, the opening paragraph is similar to the style of some editorials seen in the reactionary Catholic newspaper, 'Tablet'. In particular, we refer to John Kennedy's treatment of the Khoo Ee Liam demonstration. Where he uses 'communists' you use Nazi rally' or Republican convention'. With these points in mind we will have a closer look at the contents of the article.

Statements such as "the holier-than-thou demeanour of those in support of the rally" and "mothers...... so slightly out of touch with reality" typify the arrogance that many progressive people have been trying consciously to combat. This attitude could be seen as a result of a narrow appreciation of the political reality in New Zealand, indicative, perhaps, of an intellectual removed from the day-to-day experiences of many New Zealanders.

You also suggest that the people who did not march in the rally were normal, implying that those who did march were not. You associate normality with "a casual demeanour" but we would suggest that no demonstration is treated casually by the participants. We sincerely hope that you took the recent Khoo Ee Liam picket seriously.

It is also interesting to note the general conclusion you draw from what a woman said on a radio talk-back show and from a guess. You took the group of youths to be secondary school students and the adult who spoke to them to be a teacher simply because he happened to look like one. From this you imply that anti abortionist teachers were generally encouraging their students to march. Given that your guess was right in the first place this is still quite a generalisation.

You suggest that not many people at all can make a "reasoned decision about a subject like abortion". Presumably you would argue that the pro-abortionist lobby have made a reasoned decision on the matter. Does this mean, then, that those who are pro-abortion have made reasoned decisions regarding their stance on this matter and that very few, if any, anti-abortionists have?

You state that the anti-abortion ad "lies about the arguments of pro abortionists, saying they regard the foetus as not really human". If this ad did in fact lie, then it implies that the pro-abortionists do regard the foetus as human. In this context the anti-abortionists indeed have a case. However, you may be doing the pro-abortionists a disservice, since, in general, their case hangs on the fact that the foetus is not human.

Your bourgeois outlook is betrayed when you resort to a relativist moral outlook on the question of abortion. You argue that because the "debates about when human life beings are unanswerable and pointless, the definition of life depends on moral decisions, which are in the province of individual choice not group coercion or legislative control". This implies that the recognition of human life is dependent on individual choice. Then since the recognition of human life is dependent on individual choice. Then since the recognition of a particular reality (i.e. that of the existence of human life) depends on individual choice, why doesn't the reality which those "well fed mothers" were supposedly out of touch with, also depend on individual choice? If this is the case, and there is no objective reality, then a marxian analysis of society which pre-suposes an objective reality, becomes meaningless.

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We agree that the need for abortion rises primarily from the social and economic conditions of a society such as ones. We also agree that a large proportion of the membership of SPUC is middle class and basically reactionary in outlook. However "Anti-abortion" does not necessarily imply "non progressive". It is debatable if abortion does do anything to solve the economic and social conditions of existence, in fact, it may be seen as a way of cushioning the effects of social evils inherent in capitalist society. It could be argued that the pro abortion lobby, comprised mainly of bourgeois intellectuals and members of the middle class, is also a reactionary force.

In conclusion, then, we are not trying to solve the debate between the pro and anti abortionists. We are questioning some of the assumptions made in this article.

Marx himself in the third manuscript "Needs. Production, Division of Labour" made an interesting point on this question.

"The absence of needs, as the principle of political economy, is shown in the most striking way in its theory of population there are too many men. The very existence of man is a pure luxury, and if the worker is moral he will be economically in procreation...... the production of men appears as a public misfortune."