Redefining Life: Comparing Slavery and Abortion

How can slavery exist in a Republic or democracy unless it involves the self-delusion that some innocent humans are not full people, and are not deserving of basic human rights? I believe that it cannot exist, and that the only mentality to allow the evil of slavery was one that denied the humanity of humans.

Replace ‘slavery’ with ‘abortion’ and the paragraph is certainly as true as can be. And the pro-choice side will agree with me here – the legal definition of babies does not include their humanity or right to life. Where we differ, as many have on the same type of conflicts throughout history, is whether this redefinition is serving justice or evil. The comparison to other evil redefinitions is stark, and I have chosen in this thread to compare two major redefinitions that result in the loss of human life and dignity: abortion and slavery.

Please consider, in an open and logical sense, the veracity of my comparison. And do watch out if you say it’s a right to have an abortion, because Nazis and slavery supporters repealed the right of Jews and slaves to live, allowed private actions to kill, terrorize, rape and lynch black and Jewish people, respectively, and in general considered it a just and moral solution against such non-persons. As such, any comparison you make on that simple basis would not be original or unique to the pro-choice perspective of things, and a stalemate would be the result. I encourage any other comparisons or viewpoints, though.



1) Peaceful Political Opposition

Slavery: Religion was the backbone of the abolitionist movement. Women were heavily involved in stopping slavery, in reform associations. The idea was that the moral and spiritual purity of women ought to protect the home and the family, and to stop sin. The break-up of slave families caught the sympathy of women, and they began the movement to end slavery. The same women moved later, of course, to also work on the women’s movement, and much of the women’s rights movement was founded when women realized their opinions were not as respected in the abolitionist movement as they should have been. A huge component of the times was always the Christian duty to stop immorality – and morality was especially the province of women, as bearers of children and virtue. Christianity fueled the abolitionists. Certainly it will be mentioned that Christians, especially Southern Christians, supported slavery. The North was the site of both Great Awakenings in America, and was the area that harbored the Quakers, Puritans and the religiously guided folk. Religious freedom and religion were less emphasized in the South than the North. The North was the religious area, and as such, it’s easy to notice the opposition to slavery and the religiousness of the population corresponded positively. Those who went to the Chesapeake and south of it were much more interested in land and profit, and in open spaces. Those who went to New England were interested in religion, morality, and the freedom that inspired much of the Constitution.

Abortion: The religious element is the backbone of the pro-life movement. Obviously preachers, churches, Christians, some more orthodox Jews and in general people of faith oppose abortion. The Pope is very much opposed to abortion, and is certainly a religious figure. Churches tend to support the pro-life candidate, and religious institutions and people focus very much on abortion. Obviously we have pro-choice religions and faiths, and one might say that religion does not have to be pro-life. But we can find this parallel in the pro-slavery Christians. Pro-slavery and pro-abortion Christians are both a smaller portion of the religious world, while the opposition to slavery and abortion was associated with a religious, pious or moralistic nature.


Slavery: The Republican Party was founded against the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party was in favor or moderately in favor of slavery. This doesn’t really matter, but it’s fun to notice the comparison and that the method and goal with which each party fights is not new.

Abortion: Republicans of today are largely against abortion, while Democrats of today are largely in favor of abortion.


2) Economic Justifications Of Evil

Slavery: The Southern economy was paramount. King Cotton, as the clichéd term goes, fueled much of the South. Eliminating slavery would spell, in theory, economic hardship for the South. Rather than emancipate a major component of the Southern workforce (and risk economic collapse or stagnation) slavery was championed on behalf of the South’s economy.

Abortion: In the same manner, abortion is put forth as a method to defend a woman’s ability to continue with college or her career. The economic dictates of the world once again are used as a primary justification for ignoring or denying the rights of human beings. Just as slavery was supposedly moving the South’s economy, so is abortion protecting the ability of women to continue with careers or with college. The main point is not whether slavery or abortion did help the economic concerns of the South or of pregnant women, but the fact that money is used as an excuse to do evil.

Slavery: Slave-owners had compelling financial interests in slavery. Emancipation and abolition had the tendency to ignore the property claims of slave-owners in favor of freeing those enslaved without compensation to their ‘masters.’ Further, as explained before, the South and plantation owners had economic concerns over the existence of slavery. Rather than lose money over abolition or emancipation, slave-owners obviously favored continued slavery.

Abortion: In the same mold, abortionists have compelling financial interests in abortion. The practice of abortion is quite a moneymaking industry, with most of the money going largely to the practice, doctors themselves, their assistants, and potentially to insurance companies and hospitals. Planned Parenthood itself handles a huge volume of money. The industry itself – counting abortions and excluding the less than 10% of pre-natal counseling Planned Parenthood does – is international in scope, covering billions of dollars. It’s a profitable business, and it’s no wonder abortionists support it when one sees how rich it makes them.


3) The Right To Do Evil

Slavery: Slave-owners might have been heard saying that it was their plantation, slaves were their property, and it was their right to buy and sell slaves. It was a personal exercise and not subject to the approval of government – or so they might have said. The right of property trumps the right of life and humanity.

Abortion: By the same idea, a pro-choice person might be known to say that it is ‘her body’ and it is her right to obtain an abortion, also not subject to governmental consent. The concept is the same. Again, the right of property trumps the right of life and humanity.

Slavery: In a broader sense, states' rights were presented as the ultimate judicator on the issue. A state’s right is all that matters, and the federal government should not intercede. Sidestepping, of course, the fact that a state has rights in order to protect the higher calling of individual rights. States’ rights were fallaciously raised above the fundamental right to own one’s life.

Abortion: Obviously, women's rights are the liberty used to justify abortion. The right of women to have abortions should not be stopped by the federal government, essentially. This, naturally, elevates the right of women above the right of all people to own their lives. Both causes demeaned the right to life – the first condition for any other liberty – and promoted other causes above it.


4) How To Ignore The Facts

Slavery: The Constitution called slaves ‘other persons.’ Other euphemisms were used, some insulting of black people, some vague towards the practice of slavery, but very few intellectual arguments or members of polite society directly used the word slave, I would contend. Obviously, the exception would be the opposition to slavery. An abolitionist was not hesitant to denounce the slavery of humans or to call the institution for what it was.

Abortion: We also see that the pro-choice movement tends to use scientific terms. I’d like to quote Barbara Newman from the American Feminist, summer 1994:

“… we pretend that abortion does not kill babies. It ‘removes pregnancy tissue’ or ‘corrects contraceptive failure.’ And if even the word ‘abortion’ is too candid, we have the ‘D & C’ or ‘the procedure.’ In a saline abortion, the woman does not give birth to a dead infant, she ‘passes the fetus.’” Meanwhile, the pro-life movement obviously uses terms such as unborn, baby, children, and other terms that do not shy from acknowledging the personhood or humanity of the victims.

Slavery: In the time of slavery, most people didn't own slaves or know about its brutality. Around 2% of all Southerners owned slaves, and if one asked a Confederate soldier why he fought, he’d say it was for his home state or for his rights, not for slavery. It was not common knowledge, especially in states that had outlawed slavery decades before. However, once the fugitive slave law came into effect, and the Underground Railroad became popular, the truth of slavery was known in ‘free’ territories. Once forced to deal with the horrible nature of slavery, opinion moved more against slavery in the north.

Abortion: Most people don't know the specifics of abortion. They know maybe it’s a vacuum, maybe a scalpel, not much beyond that. It’s simple. With RU-486, they probably think that the baby passes into non-existence, erasing the inconvenient innocent child. The truth of abortion is a hidden one. Even mothers getting abortions will note that the ultrasound, used to find the baby’s location, will be turned from their view. Ignorance is bliss.


5) Violent and Non-Political Opposition

Slavery: John Brown performed violence to oppose slavery, to the extent of an insurrection, as did Nat Turner’s slave rebellion. William Lloyd Garrison wrote many editorials and stories on the truth of slavery’s evils – he was even jailed for libel until freed weeks later when supporters paid his fine. The famous Underground Railroad moved slaves illegally out of slave states and to freedom. Some were known to take in slaves who escaped their bondage.

Abortion: Clinic bombers and abortionist kidnappers have adopted the mantle of John Brown’s violent pursuit of liberty. Sit-ins that block the entrance to clinics are to some degree the Underground Railroad of abortion – nonviolent but illegal. Clinic protestors and pro-life advocates can be directly compared to William Lloyd Garrison and the abolitionist movement. People who volunteer to adopt a pregnant woman’s baby are somewhat similar to those who personally aided the escape or freedom of slaves, perhaps by crook, perhaps by purchasing their freedom.


6) Social Engineering Through Torture And Death

Slavery: The enlightened thought held that ‘savages’ needed the direction of slave-owners. Without their direction, the slaves might have fallen victim to the north’s ‘wage-slavery,’ or to their own wild and violent nature. Slavery was presented as a pragmatic solution - social engineering of a sense.

Abortion: It’s the common line that ‘every child must be loved.’ Although there’s no word yet as to killing children who are already born and yet unloved, or to killing hermits and undesirable bachelors, this is a social engineering stance. Presented on practical grounds, the right to life is swept away from the conversation by a minor argument regarding the well being of society’s victims. Both abortion and slavery were often argued as being for the good of society and for the good of the victims of each evil.


7) Redefining Life To Legitimate Evil

Slavery: Slaves were not human. They were dark savages, Negroes, darkies – anything but actual people.

Abortion: In the same sense, we often hear that a baby who is not born is just cells and tissue – again, anything but a real person. It’s easier to go on with slavery and abortion as long as terminology and psychology prevent any sort of sympathy with those we victimize. So, not only are we helping babies and slaves by aborting and enslaving them (see above argument) but they’re not real people, so we’re not obligated to grant them the rights humans would expect and deserve.


Slavery: A slave is stupid. A slave is uneducated. It’s a step above a monkey, ape or orangutan. It cannot read or do basic math, and it holds an inferior grasp of language. Of course, slaves couldn’t read since we legally prevented them from such.

Abortion: A fetus is small and undeveloped. It’s a tree or a frog, or it’s an animal. It’s undeveloped and can’t talk. Of course, it can’t talk because we kill it before it would have had that ability.


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8) The Difference

Slavery: A slave is somewhat able to defend himself, revolt, flee, fight back or otherwise stop the injustice against him. Obviously the long days, lack of education, lack of weaponry, and the array of private and country police forces made escape difficult and made revolution little more than glorified suicide. But the fact remains that an adult has the ability to run, to fight, to reason, to climb trees, swim rivers, and generally flee, assuming the right opportunity arises.

Abortion: A baby is defenseless. Even after birth, a baby is easily killed. The only two defenses an unborn child has are its ability to make small movement inside the mother – which never save it from its fate – and the compassion and defense of others.



A common statement is that only two other instances in history have changed the definition of life in order to deprive others of liberty. These two historical instances are the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and the institution of slavery in colonial and early republican America. Certainly racism and bigotry have at other points taken those created by God's will and, without any justification, or for the wrong justification, taken the lives of such non-persons.

It cannot be different with abortion. Let us hold a general yet clear standard for such injustice, drawing upon the contentions I’ve provided:

1) The standard of human life is re-defined, or the standard of worthiness to live is re-defined
A) This will usually involve a sub-human caste
B) Almost invariably a false scientific basis will be provided, and perhaps even an entire class of scientists (Eugenicists, abortionists, race-theory experts, etc), whether it’s the genetic inferiority of Jews, the intellectual inferiority of black people or the assertion that a fetus is nothing but a cluster of cells, perhaps no more advanced than a tree or a frog or other easily murdered natural creature, the definition must set forth to assuage our consciences and assure us that it is not murder, as these are not people

2) A higher moral goal, above the preservation of innocent life, will be established as the true standard for moral purity:

The protection of Southern pride and economic life, the defense of slaves from their own savagery, the purification of the Aryan race and the German nation, or the advancement of fundamental liberties and the right to control a woman’s body – usually in conjunction with blanket women’s rights – all fit this mold.