“The Right to Life" & Classical Conservatism

Nothing that I have said should be taken to mean that I either support abortion or that I do not think it’s possible to reason about moral issues. Generally speaking, I oppose abortion. But how, one might then ask, might a conservative argue against abortion without resorting to the idiom of “rights?”

For starters, he or she should proceed not from a purportedly trans-cultural, trans-historical principle of “reason,” but the culturally and historically specific sensibilities regarding life generally, and human life in particular, that we have acquired here and now. He will begin from where he is because the conservative knows that morality consists not in some transcendent principle of a Reason common to all humanity, but in the customs and habits of particular peoples. Morality is incarnate, in other words, constituted by tradition, and unless it engages the passions, as well as the minds, of the peoples to whom it belongs, it is dead.

Contrary to what his opponents charge, the conservative knows that a tradition of conduct is not “static,” but dynamic, and its value lies in its remarkable ability to adapt to new and unforeseen conditions. All traditions are “open-textured” in being incomplete, but they suggest a variety of possible ways in which they can be furthered. With respect to abortion, the conservative must show that our tradition can plausibly, or perhaps even most plausibly, be read, in its need for greater coherence, as calling for the realization of a future in which abortion is less, rather than more, acceptable. As the twentieth-century British philosopher and conservative Michael Oakeshott had eloquently said, politics is the pursuit, not of a dream, but of the “intimations” of a traditional manner of attending to life.

This is but an admittedly rough sketch of the kind of approach to abortion (or any other moral issue, for that matter) that the conservative should adopt. To the predictable objection that because this approach is “relativistic” and “unprincipled,” it is insufficient to guide conduct, I respond with a question:

How has that “principles, rights-based” model been working out for you?