Public protests, for the most part, are attempts to awaken society to a moral position about which society is seemingly asleep. One thing protestors are not at all interested in is dialogue. Their position is deemed ironclad and has no need of being challenged. Among the many blessings of liberty in the United States is the right to protest. This does not mean, of course, that public protests will be persuasive, civil, or even rational. Advocates for the freedom to abort have taken full advantage of their opportunity to protest and direct their complaints against those alleged enemies of freedom who uphold the right to life.

One public protest that holds particular fascination for me, which may have been staged in any number of venues, is the following chant: “Without this basic right, women can’t be free. Abortion on demand and without apology.”

My initial reaction, when I first encountered this mantra, was sadness. I felt a terrible alienation from members of my own species. The brotherhood of man, supposedly united by reason, if not by love, has been splintered. Intelligent conversation has given way to willful, one-sided rhetoric. How is conversation possible? The protestors are not speaking to me. They are ordering me to adopt a position which, to me, does not make an ounce of sense.

From a philosophical point of view, the first contentious item is the gratuitous claim that abortion is a “right.” Abortion presents an opportunity, but not all opportunities are based on a right. How can it be a “basic” right, when the right to life is more basic, undergirding all subsequent rights? If I do not have a right to my own life, how can it be said that I have a right to any of my possessions? The “right” to abortion opens the door to the right to theft. The protestors are enjoying their own right to life. Why can they not share that same right with others?

Beyond that, what makes a woman “free”? Can abortion alone make her free? Where do all the other freedoms stand: the freedom to think rationally, to resist temptation, to secure lasting friendships, to make positive contributions to society, and to become a morally integrated person? Abortion poses a danger to any one of these other freedoms. Granting a woman the “right” to abortion does not make a woman’s legitimate freedoms superfluous. Further, it denies the freedom of others, for the unborn child and the right of an expectant father to protect his child. When isolated, freedom loses its positivity. There is something more valuable to a woman, and that is her freedom in the truest sense of the word. It is the freedom that distinguishes the bad from the good uses of freedom.

In other words, we become free, not from reason, but through reason. It may truly be said that without reason no person can be truly free.

Chanting “Without apology” is tantamount to the abdication of reason. An “apologia” is a set of reasons. But the abdication of reason is also the abdication of freedom. Pro-choice proponents do not protest for reason since only they can permit themselves to be reasonable. They are protesting on behalf of something that only an outside agency can give them. They want society to give them a carte blanche for abortion without giving a passing thought to its nature, consequences, or adverse effects on themselves. They want society to be as irresponsible as they are.

Hamlet’s burning question, “To be or not to be” has been replaced, in the modern era, by “To kill or not to kill.” Hamlet’s soliloquy, however, is a meditation that remains tied to reason. His rational faculty leads him to thinking that something worse than “suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” may happen to him after death. “What dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.” Thus, reason talks him out of suicide. His final decision is “to be.”

“To kill or not to kill” is not a genuine question on the minds of the protestors. When it comes to abortion, killing should not be questioned. Is there not something barbaric about isolating reason from abortion and justifying killing for the sake of killing? Our protestors are indicting themselves. No sensible person can take them at their word. Perhaps, if they invited reason to be involved, they would be led, like Hamlet, to a more positive resolution.