I guess I should thank Felix Baumgartner. It was his jump that helped the Twitter mob 'move on' from my column on abortion in the New Statesman - cross-posted on the Huffington Post UK - which had sparked such outrage, hysteria and abuse after it was published online on Sunday morning.
I may be digging myself further into a hole here but, with the benefit of a few hours of sleep, let me outline the ten things I think I learned from trying to debate and discuss abortion online:
1) LANGUAGE MATTERS. A LOT.
First and foremost, I do deeply regret saying that supporters of abortion rights (not women, per se, by the way!) "fetishise... selfishness". Both words are, of course, deeply provocative and negative and I wish, with the benefit of hindsight, that I'd never used them.
Now, some on my side of this argument might say that the dictionary definition of "selfishness" - i.e. "concerned primarily with one's own interests" - makes the word relevant to this debate, on an abstract, ethical level, but that is beside the point. My use of it in this piece caused needless offence and hurt and, for that specifically, I want to apologise - especially to any female readers who have had to undergo an abortion, something I, of course, as a man, will never have to go through.
I normally write quite polemical and provocative columns but, when writing this particular piece, I did try to be careful and restrained in my use of language and avoid gratuitous abuse of my opponents - clearly, I wasn't careful or restrained enough.
2) LABELS MATTER. ON BOTH 'SIDES'.
Many commenters on Twitter took offence at my self-identification as 'pro-life'. Now, I readily admit that 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' are inaccurate, unhelpful and quite loaded phrases (who is anti-life? who is anti-choice?) - but what are the alternatives? What else do we have? In his blogpost in response to my column, Hope Sen embraces the phrase 'pro abortion' but I know that many abortion-rights activists recoil from its implications. Meanwhile, it's worth pointing out that the likes of Caroline Criado-Perez (@weekwoman) have no right to criticise me for using the term 'pro-life' if they, at the same time, uncritically embrace the equally propagandistic and useless term 'pro-choice'.
3) TWO SIDES TO EVERY ARGUMENT? NOPE
What became apparent quite quickly yesterday is that, for some 'pro choicers', there aren't two sides to every argument. I was told again and again by commenters on Twitter that there is no legitimate 'pro life' (or 'anti choice') position - which makes some of the the criticisms of my use of the words "selfishness" and "fetishise" (see point 1 above) a little irrelevant. It slowly dawned on me, at about 5pm on Sunday evening, that no matter how politely, gently and sensitively the anti-abortion case is expressed in the future, people on the 'pro-choice' liberal-left will never want to hear it. As Hopi Sen put it: "Every other argument, no matter how complex or technical, becomes secondary... What's more, they feel like issues on which there is little room for compromise, and on which I am right, and those who disagree with me are, bluntly, wrong." Or as one commenter on Twitter put it: "One thing that really gets on my nerves about @mehdirhasan's comments is that there isn't even a debate to be had about abortion." Er, ok.
Now I happen to respect the 'pro choice' argument and accept it has a strong ethical foundation; the obverse, however, doesn't seem to the case. To hold 'pro life' views in modern Britain invites instant rejection and ridicule, as well as all sorts of repulsive and unwarranted accusations: yesterday, I was called, among other things, "evil", "sexist", "misogynist", "dictator" (despite the fact that I was "not calling for a ban on abortion; mine is a minority position in this country"), "dickhead", "irresponsible bum", "the enemy", and, in the words of Labour blogger Hopi Sen - in a post that was lauded by, among others, Laurie Penny and Diane Abbott MP - "a self righteous little prick" (Hopi later added: "I'm not saying Mehdi Hasan is a SRLP, but that his argument left me with the reaction 'Mehdi Hasan is a SRLP'". I guess that's ok then.)
Oh, and one 'pro choice' blogger compared me to Jimmy Savile. Classy.
4) FORGET THE FOETUS
I received hundreds and hundreds of tweets yesterday; the vast majority of them were critical of my position and a significant chunk of those were abusive. I can count on two hands the number of commenters who engaged with my claim that "a baby isn't part of [a woman's] body" and has rights of its own. If I am guilty of not giving due weight and attention to women's rights in my piece - and my critics do have a point here - then the 'pro choicers' online were equally guilty of ignoring the foetus, being unwilling to engage in the debate over 'personhood' and, in some shocking cases, dehumanising the foetus in order to score a point. I was astonished by the number of commenters on Twitter who referred to the foetus as a "cancer", a "lump of flesh", a "parasite" and a "cake" (as in, "cake in the oven").
The Independent's Musa Okwonga says this morning that he has "never known a woman considering abortion who has not thought, long and heart-breakingly hard, of the unborn child". I'm sure that's true - but, sadly, the afore-mentioned tweets might suggest that's not always the case.
5) IT'S ALL ISLAM'S FAULT!
Muslims, it seems, aren't allowed to have independent political or moral views. Within minutes of my piece being published online yesterday morning, the precocious (pompous?) Economist reporter Daniel Knowles accused me of being "dishonest" about the real reason for my 'pro-life' position which was driven by...wait for it...yes, Islam! Despite the fact that Islamic law has no fixed, single position on abortion and despite me making clear in the piece that I would be anti-abortion "even if I were to lose my faith". To be fair, Knowles later apologised and deleted the tweet. Still, would a Jewish or Hindu journalist be accused of hiding the 'real reasons' for their views, in a similar fashion, I wonder?
6) MY OPPONENT'S OPPONENT IS...NOT MY FRIEND
You know you've upset the liberal-left when Dan Hodges, Nadine Dorries MP and Damian Thompson rush to your defence on Twitter. Argh!
7) UNHITCH FROM THE HITCH
Quoting the late, not-so-great Christopher Hitchens at the outset of my column was a bad move. "I don't know why you bother to cite Hitchens," tweeted the Times' Janice Turner. "His sexual politics appalling. Reductive about anything which matters for women." Labour councillor Ed Davie tweeted: "quoting drunk, turncoat, neocon Hitchens shows weakness of anti-choice argument". Ouch.
8) NOT-SO-FREE SPEECH
The reaction from left-liberal, 'pro-choice' commenters on Twitter yesterday reminded me that the right may have a point when they object to the left's shrill, one-sided, close-minded response to any attempt to debate certain social and ethical issues. In the wake of yesterday's Twitterstorm, I was depressed to find myself nodding along to a leader in today's Telegraph: "[T]he most notable feature of the current debate is not the victimisation of those who have abortions, but the vilification of those who in any way criticise the system."
On a related note, on Thursday, I was told by David Aaronovitch at a debate in the LSE that Muslims need "to get a thicker skin" and "be less touchy". Yesterday, I discovered that those who are liberally-inclined on abortion are quite touchy and have very, very thin skins. Oh, and many of them believe that half the world's population (i.e. men) should not have a say on one of the world's most controversial and important moral issues.
9) WE ARE NOT ALONE
'Pro-life' lefties do exist - several well-known individuals emailed and DM-ed me their support. But they were afraid to do so publicly. Yesterday's Twitter mob frenzy (see points 3 and 8 above) will only have reinforced their conviction that if you're a progressive and 'pro-life', it's best to lie low. One well-known female journalist told me recently: "I can't write about this issue."
10) I GIVE UP
The truth is that abortion is too heated, emotive and complex an issue to debate in 140 characters. Or, for that matter, in 950 words.
In conclusion, I wrote this column, not because I wanted to have a row about abortion or "climb on a bandwagon" (as bandwagon-climber-in-chief Diane Abbott claimed in a tweet), but because I desperately wanted "my fellow lefties and liberals to try to understand and respect the views of those of us who are pro-life, rather than demonise us as right-wing reactionaries or medieval misogynists".
Yesterday's Twitter responses show that I failed to persuade them to do so. Partly, through a loose use of language (i.e. "selfishness", "fetishize", etc); partly, however, because sections of the 'pro-choice' liberal-left aren't willing to acknowledge that abortion isn't a black-and-white issue; it's a complex moral debate, involving rights and responsibilities, life and death, on which well-meaning, moral people come to different ethical conclusions.
To go back to my original column, which so few on Twitter seemed to have bother to read before unleashing their hate, anger and bile:
"One of the biggest problems with the abortion debate is that it's asymmetric: the two sides are talking at cross-purposes. The pro-lifers speak about the right to life of the unborn baby; the pro-choicers speak about a woman's right to choose. The moral arguments, as the Scottish philosopher Alasdair Macintyre has said, are 'incommensurable'."
Follow Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mehdirhasan
Diane Abbott: We Must Recognise That Real Women's Lives Are at Stake in All of This
Clare Murphy: Wasting Time on the Time Limit: The Real Issues in Women's Reproductive Healthcare
Barbara Hewson: Abortion Should Be Removed From Criminal Law
Christina Patterson: The Left Is Pro-Choice, But Not Quite So Pro-Debate
Morals are matters of opinion, but there ARE facts here.
1. Abortion is the ONLY life saving procedure that a society run by men stigmatizes. It is no accident that it is a procedure they will never need.
2. Banning abortion elevates a fetus to right not accorded to women OR men. I cannot demand my mothers blood or flesh, yet pro lifers claim that a fetus has the right to make such demands of the women it resides in, thus elevating it's status above that of ANY LIVING BEING.
3. Life DOES not begin at conception, life is a continuum, with living tissue transforming at fertilisation into different living tissue. There is no rational basis for giving an embryo more legal weight than any other living cell in a woman's body.
4. A woman dies EVERY NINETY SECONDS from pregnancy, for men this is an argument of philosophy, for women, it's a matter of life and death.
5. Abortion bans don't lower abortion rates, Sex education and contraception do. All abortion bans do is increase maternal mortality. They're not an effective tool for stopping abortion, they work only as a tool for punishing 'disobedient' women.
These aren't opinions, these are facts.
There was a recent case in Ireland when a pregnant woman died after being refused an abortion. Absolutely tragic. I know families who have suffered maternal death (though for different reasons). I know couples who have had to end an ectopic pregnancy for obvious reasons. This is immensely sad, but a clear-cut case of the least-worst option.
Mercifully, these kind of cases are extremely rare. Maternal mortality in the developed world is very low. Higher rates in developing nations are due to inadequate health care.
You make the mistake (assuming that you are just ill-informed) of justfying abortion-on-demand (which is what we have in the UK & elsewhere) on the basis that mothers' lives are at risk. This is almost never the case. See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldhansrd/text/120719w0001.htm#12071972000444 where the UK Government confirm that:
1. Since 1968 just 0.006% of abortions in England & Wales were "immediately necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman."
2. A further 0.37% of abortions were performed because "the continuance of pregnancy would involve the risk to the life of the woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated."
This leaves 99.624% of abortions performed when the life of the mother was not at serious risk.
These aren't opinions, these are facts.
Part 2 to follow...
In response to your alleged facts:
1. As just demonstrated, abortion is rarely to save a womans life. But it always ends a childs life. You also make the common feminist mistake of considering men uninterested and irrelevant to the health & wellbeing of their wife and child. The birth of a child is properly the concern of mother and father - though of course the mother is physically impacted to a great extent.
2. Wrong. A distortion of the truth. The pro-life position grants the unborn child the same right to life enjoyed by all others in society. A pregnant woman has not been invaded by an alien intruder, she has the privilege of nurturing a human being. The father (if only it was always a loving, committed husband...) is also bound up in this responsibility - to mother and child.
3. This is your opinion, not a fact. Your deduction is chilling.
4. Can you source this statistic? If true, it is tragic. But I dispute its relevance to the abortion debate.
5. Can you back up this assertion with facts? Are you really suggesting that there were more abortions (pro rata) before the 1967 Abortion Act than there are now?
Respectfully yours,
Paul
So, remove 80% of the problem by improving sex education, and access to pre-pregnancy birth control. (I say "problem" because medical intervention after the event is always less good than shutting the stable door in good time. )
Surely sex education is good enough? No, it isn't. The reason is not the quality - that's fine. All the right messages are there. There is nothing wrong with the message put forward in schools.
But a very well known football manager made the point that 90% of football coaching in the Premier League isn't about teaching new stuff. It's about reminding people continually what they already know, but may not put into practice.
I wonder how many accidental pregancies occur because men and women simply forget in the nightclub environment, get carried away, and have unprotected sex. I wonder how many accidental pregancies would be avoided if from 11pm onwards, the barman gave a little piece of good advice with every drink served - "remember to wear a condom sir, you'll find a vending machine in the gents" or "remember to make him wear a condom, madam, and we sell three varieties in the vending machines, we can give you change if you need it".
Just reminding people what they already know.
Or "That'll be £6.70, and you should be getting back to the Embassy now, Julian. Alone".
Yes, in fact I think you made the situation considerably worse.
As a journalist, why didn't you include some facts and figures? Presumably you've had some training on the subject of language, so why did you consistently use language that demonises women?
If he had laudable aims he would have behaved in a laudable way.
Instead he distorted the truth and managed to suggest that people who are pro-choice are 'shrill' and 'hysterical.'
That's the vast majority of people in the UK he's vilifying, so don't be surprised if we criticise him back.
"Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side."
A women dies every NINETY SECONDS from pregnancy.
4 million newborn babies die in the first four weeks of life EVERY YEAR.
Pro lifers have NOTHING to say about either phenomenon.
No interest WHATSOEVER in those lives.
If you think cultural opposition to abortion is about anything other than misogyny and a power struggle, I've got a bridge to sell you.
The word "hysteria" may get you into more trouble with the “mob”, or it would, if people still appreciated and understood language.
If you really do believe that abortion is wrong, why apologize for any offence caused? Don’t you have the courage of your convictions?
You presume that selfishness is immoral. I think, we need to distinguish irrational self-interest and rational self-interest.
I don’t consider myself ‘left-wing’, ‘right-wing’, ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, but I agree that many self-identified leftists do think there is no debate to be had on many issues. Furthermore, some want to make it, and have often succeeded in making it, illegal to debate many issues. However, my sympathy is limited by your collusion in the general assault on free speech, most recently with the issue of offended Muslims.
For every one critic who’s harsher towards you because of your faith, there are probably many more who hold back because they don’t want to be ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’.
Weirdly, it’s now ‘left-wing’ to defend conservative religion (except Christianity and sometimes Judaism) and to oppose the overthrow of the genocidal dictator, Saddam Hussein. I agree with Christopher’s statement that he didn’t betray the left, but that the left betrayed him.
I'm fairly sure no one is actually "pro-abortion". It would be wonderful to live in a world where contraception were so effective and readily available that no conception was ever unwanted. Until that time comes -- safe, legal abortion is vital in any civilised society.
Is there no such thing as society? Do the actions of one individual have no impact on any others? Do we as human beings have no right to care for the well-being of others - and I include in this the mother of the child, and the father (he is not irrelevant to the debate), and the unborn child?
Abortion affects the whole of society at many, many levels, and everyone in society has the right - perhaps even the responsibility - to have an opinion and to voice it appropriately.
Paul
(yes, I'm a man. But more importantly I'm a human being and member of society.)
a bit presumptuous, don't you think? You're not all that important.