Divorce, abortion and all that crap

Paul Vincenti seems to have gone into overdrive this week with his efforts to convince us all that a direct link exists between divorce and abortion. I suppose we ought to look on the bright side: evidently, the anti-divorce lobby is running out of serious arguments... if indeed it ever had any.

But anyway. Commenting under a letter by Jacqueline Calleja in the Times yesterday, Vincenti (CEO of Gift of Life, for those who actually have a life and never knew) nailed his 99 theses to the Cathedral door. At a glance I took them for rhyming couplets (some of them do, in fact, rhyme). But reason? Logic? Anything even remotely resembling the product of a single coherent thought process at work? Hmmm...

OK, let’s take them all one by one:

Divorce argument... it is a person's private choice...

Abortion argument,...it is a women's [sic] private choice.

Not sure where Paul Vincenti got the divorce part of that equation, but it is evident that he doesn’t know or care about the genuine distress suffered by people in failed marriages.  Private choice? More like necessity, in many cases.  And besides, even if we accepted the basic premise, it just doesn’t work out in practice. I assume that Vincenti knows it takes two people to make a marriage, and not just one. So depending on the legislation concerned, a private individual will certainly have the right to sue for divorce... but whether (and on what terms) that divorce is granted, will invariably depend on the other half of the equation, too.

Having said that, I concede that the abortion part is true. That’s what being ‘pro-choice’ means, in point of fact. But again, the oversimplification serves only to blunt the main thrust of the argument. Being pro-choice means acknowledging the reality that abortion, while undesirable, is sometimes necessary . It doesn’t mean you want it to happen; it just means you would rather the option existed in a safe form, because otherwise the inevitable reality is that women will end up butchering themselves. Most pro-choice people I know will also argue in favour of artificial contraception for much the same reason (though in the case of contraception, there are other arguments, too). The bottom line being that some of us recognise unwanted pregnancy as a problem, and not all of us share the belief that a newly conceived (and pre-sentient) zygote deserves the same protection at law as a sentient human being. I am fully aware this argument won’t go down too well with people who reason differently, but that, I would have thought, is the whole point of having different opinions.

 
Divorce argument... nobody should force people to stay married.

Abortion argument... nobody should force a women [sic] to keep her baby
This marks the beginning of a tediously repetitive and singularly dim-witted approach to both issues. But first, someone really ought to inform Paul Vincenti that in English, an adult female human being is referred to as a ‘woman’, which becomes ‘women’ only in the plural form. ( After all, if you’re going to talk about women’s issues, it sort of helps to know what a woman actually is.)

But on to the argument. Excuse me, but... where’s the connection? Nobody should force children to fight wars, either...  as they unfortunately do in several parts of the world. Does Paul Vincenti see a correlation between child soldiers and abortion, too? And that’s just the beginning of the absurdity. Nobody should force people to vote for parties they don’t support. Nobody should force people to espouse (or leave) their religion of choice. Nobody should force people to undergo pain or distress. Nobody should force a vegetarian to eat meat, or a meat-eater to turn vegetarian. I could go on forever, but what’s the point? The simple fact that an argument is applicable in two separate instances doesn’t mean that the two instances are themselves linked. It’s an ancient fallacy, and I believe the technical term is “false dichotomy”. And you will notice that it is also the main thrust in ALL Vincenti’s arguments, bar none.

Divorce argument, ...only religious zealots are against divorce.
Abortion argument,...pro-life people are religious zealots
Both entirely untrue. There are many people who are against divorce for purely personal reasons that have nothing to do with religion. They may be worried about personal security in the event that they are dumped by their spouses. They may be vaguely concerned with a general drift towards lawlessness... which would certainly make them conservative, but the concern itself is not motivated by religion. As for the second bit, well, it only goes to show how ignorant some people can be about the arguments of others. You see, unlike Paul Vincenti, some of us are able to comprehend and even appreciate arguments with which we disagree. I know several pro-life people who are not zealots at all. Some of them aren’t even religious.  Any pro-choice argument along the lines that being ‘pro-life’ is the somehow  preserve of religion is not just laughably flawed: it is a crude and brutish sweeping statement, and quite frankly it has no place whatsoever in any serious discussion. I need hardly add the argument cuts both ways.

 
Divorce argument,... the freedom to choose to have a divorce is a civil right.
Abortion argument.... abortion is a woman's civil right to choose.
Ah! That’s more like it. Probably the only semi-decent analogy on offer. Divorce is indeed recognised as a civil right in large part of the world. The second part is however a little vague. The right to ‘determine one own’s destiny and make one’s own choices in life’ is a human (not civil) right, and it is by no means restricted to women. That is nonetheless the basic right appealed to in most pro-choice arguments. Evidently Paul Vincenti reasons differently, but hey! The right to hold different opinions is a human right, too. (Vincenti ought to bear that in mind, before seeking to criminalise an entire opinion by means of a Constitutional amendment, like he did in 2005...)

Divorce argument,...divorce is a human right.
Abortion argument... abortion is a human right.
Utter bollocks on both counts. Neither divorce nor abortion is listed anywhere as a human right. Has Paul Vincenti actually read the Universal Declaration, I wonder? If not, he can do so here (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml)

Divorce argument... divorce is available abroad so we should legalize it .
Abortion argument.... abortion is available in nearby Sicily so why do we discriminate against Maltese
How odd. I seem to remember the exact same argument being used by the Nationalists when talking about colour TV and Barilla pasta in the 1980s. You could extend it to virtually any argument under the sun. I suggest Paul Vincenti listen to the Cranberries (nice Catholic band from Ireland) once in a while. Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?

Divorce is already here....
Abortion is already happening in Malta
Both true. What surprises me is that the same Paul Vincenti who points this out goes on to say; “There is none so blind as they who will not see”. Try telling that former Justice Minister Tonio Borg, who stated on live TV that he thought abortion ‘didn’t happen in Malta’. But in any case: I have never heard anyone argue that abortion should be legalised on those grounds. Indeed I have never heard anyone (other than John Zammit, who – no offence or anything – hardly counts) argue that abortion should be legalised in Malta at all.

Divorce…. Only conservative fundamentalists are against the right to divorce
Abortion… Ultra conservative

Huh? Come again? Not at all sure what he meant by that. Perhaps he fell asleep at his keyboard while trying to finish the second part (and who can blame him? Squaring the circle is tiring work, you know) but in any case, it is increasingly clear that there is little point in trying to see the logic in a patently illogical stand.

Well, that’s the wrap insofar as Vincenti’s arguments go. Now I have a question for the man himself. Do you read your own statistics, Paul? I’m referring to the survey you commissioned from Informa Consultants, oh, around two weeks ago, as I recall. The results were given considerable prominence in the press. I think you’ll find that this survey (I won't comment on the methodology, by the way, but... boy oh boy...) came to the conclusion that 87% are against the legalisation of abortion in Malta. Of the remaining 13%, only 4% can be described as ‘pro-choice’ (according to your own survey, please note) while 9% believe abortion should be allowed ‘in some cases’.

Now compare this to surveys on the subject of divorce (I refer to those conducted by MaltaToday and Illum, and also by Xarabank, The Times and others). For the past year, they have consistently shown an increasing majority in favour of divorce. MaltaToday, for instance, fixes it at 59%. Others placed it even higher.

Hence my question for you, Paul. There is, after all, a tiny mathematical difference between 59 and 4.  If, as you claim, there is such a clear correlation between divorce and abortion... how do you account for the gulf of difference in public opinion on the two issues? If the basic arguments in favour of divorce and abortion are so similar – and the profile of the pro-divorce/pro-choice person so analogous – then why do repeated surveys clearly indicate that the overwhelming majority of pro-divorce people are also pro-life?

Please note it’s not a rhetorical question, Paul. I’d like an answer, please.