Abortion, the Overlapping Consensus, and Good Faith

This is a thought I had after reading Ross Douthat's article about abortion in America, in which he doesn't so much advocate anything as try to argue that abortion is sort of a big deal, in that it happens a lot, and that this is a problem. I've had a similar thought before, but I happen to be in a mood to write it up right now, so here goes.

John Rawls has, among his manifold ideas, the idea of the overlapping consensus. This relates to his idea of "comprehensive doctrines," which are an individual's set of personal ideologies, beliefs, dogmas, theologies, etc. The overlapping consensus is the stuff that approximately all reasonable comprehensive doctrines in a society can basically agree upon, and often includes things like, say, a commitment to democracy, or to freedom of expression rights, or whatever (at least that's how it's supposed to work). I always found his idea that there will typically be an overlapping consensus large enough to build a government on somewhat overly optimistic, but that's not exactly my point here.

Consider the two "camps" on the issue of abortion: the right, the pro-life faction, argues that unborn infants are human beings just like the rest of us and are therefore deserving of complete protection against being, you know, killed, while the left, the pro-choice faction, argues that decisions as to pregnancy between a woman and her doctor are a private matter upon which the government cannot intrude. It sounds like there's nothing those two can agree upon, right?
Well, I don't think so. You see, even the most ardent pro-lifer, as long as they reside in the reality-based community, would have to admit that criminalization of abortion does not get the number of abortions down to zero. And likewise, I would think that even the most ardent pro-choicer would have to agree that the circumstances of an abortion are unfortunate, and that it would be better if the pregnancy in question had never happened. Which means that the two sides ought to both be willing to endorse policies aimed at reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies: after all, these are the situations in which abortion occurs (for other than purely medical reasons, which is just sort of unavoidable, I think). To put it slightly glibly, while the two sides disagree vehemently about whether it is okay to supply abortions, both ought to be able to agree that lowering the demand for abortions would be good.

And this gives us a test. By looking at a politician, from either side of the isle on this issue, and seeing whether or not they support methods of unwanted-pregnancy-prevention that are shown, using reality-based evidence, to work, we can tell whether or not they are actually operating from the values I outlined two paragraphs above in good faith, or not. If a right-winger does not accept things like reasonable sex ed policies, and also wants to criminalize abortion, the reasonable inference is that they don't actually mind if abortion happens (unwanted pregnancies will tend to end in abortion, regardless of the law); the more likely alternative motive is the simple desire to restrict people's sex lives, and punish those who engage in promiscuity. (If any right-winger is reading this and can think of a more flattering motive that would explain these policy preferences, I'd be glad to hear it. I always try to be reasonable, and I know that I have a limited capacity to figure out by myself the motives of right-wingers.) As to the not-in-good-faith motive of a pro-choice advocate who opposes sex ed, well, uh, I'm not sure there are any. And I also can't think of a particularly compelling motive that would explain that; again, if any right-winger is reading this and can think of a cynical permissivist motive to explain this, I'd love to hear it.

My broader theory, though, is that there ought to be a lot of these things, little tests for good faith. Something that both sides ought to agree is good, based on their overt ideologies. If they don't think those little things that ought to be noncontroversial are in fact good, then you can bet they have a different, ulterior motive.


As a side note, another theory of mine is that you can test reasonably well for good faith by seeing whether people are lying to you. Or, more to the point, whether in the reality-based world the policies someone proposes will actually further the ends they claim to be seeking. If there is a disconnect here, if a person's proposed means have no relation to, or might actually harm, their stated goals, then you can be pretty sure of one of two things: a) they are grossly incompetent, and utterly failing in their duty to know the policies they are in charge of setting (if they're a policy-setter), or b) they have an ulterior motive. Under Scenario B, which is in a certain sense the view to take that gives them the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not they are a moron, their ulterior motive will be one that their desired policies are actually furthering. If you assume competence, in other words, then you can figure out a politician's true motives just from seeing what policies they propose, and what those policies will in fact do: competent politicians don't propose policies that will harm their true priorities. So when you see someone telling you that Policy X will achieve Good Thing A, when in fact it will not achieve Good Thing A but will rather do Thing B, you can be pretty sure that they actually want Thing B, whether you think it's a good thing or not, and moreover that they assume that most people will think Thing B is in fact bad (because otherwise they'd be honest). As to which side fails these tests of good faith more than the other, well, I think you know what I think the facts say.