In the regional blogosphere, the story of Ted Klaudt's arrest for rape, sexual exploitation of minors, etc., has quickly been eclipsed by a discussion of how that story can reasonably be interpreted. Anna, at Dakota Women, had this on Saturday:
I agree with Ken that it's not helpful to paint every social conservative, or anti-abortionist, or Republican with the same brush in the light of these charges. However, it's still very hard for me to separate the public persona of former-Rep. Klaudt from the crimes he's accused of committing. I don't consider it out-of-line to point out the fact that he appears to have had some pretty hateful attitudes toward women.
And this today:
I actually am sort of interested to find out if Schaff or Blanchard have some sort of commentary about Klaudt's political work vs. Klaudt's personal crimes. People of any political slant are capable of this kind of thing (though he's quite conservative - Dan Sutton, anyone?), but connecting the dots between Klaudt's politics and this situation was one of the first things I did. And so did KELO, for that matter. So anyway.
Anna's response is measured and the question she asks is reasonable, so here goes. I can hardly blame Anna for wanting to see a connection between a criminal act and political positions (pro-life on abortion) that she is deeply opposed to. But a good way to test that inclination is to see how it works in reverse. A not quite analogous but nonetheless useful case would be that of Margret Sanger. Sanger was the founder of the organization that would become Planned Parenthood. She was also an advocate for eugenics. That's not the same thing as personally committing a criminal act, but the idea of eugenics was used to justify a vast number of atrocities in the name of public health in several modern nations. Does Sanger's advocacy of eugenics somehow taint her views of reproductive rights? Some conservatives, and most pro-life advocates who are aware of the facts would say yes. I say no. The arguments for legal birth control (I'm for it) and abortion (I'm against it) can stand on their own without providing any support for eugenics. I am guessing that Anna would agree.
If Ted Klaudt is guilty of the charges then, as a pro-life advocate, he is guilty of a gruesome hypocrisy. To use that alone as evidence that his political positions are wrong would be a classic case of the ad hominem fallacy: X is wrong because Y believes X and Y is a bad person. I think the argument that Anna has in mind is something more like this: opposition to abortion is largely (if surreptitiously) motivated by misogyny; a pro-life advocate who commits rape provides evidence for this view. There is nothing illogical about this argument, though I certainly reject the link between misogyny and opposition to abortion. The problem is that the argument is very weak. One case proves nothing. Are pro-life advocates more or less likely than pro-choice advocates to commit rape? If they were, I am sure that fact would be well-publicized.
The root of the opposition to abortion is the belief that it is infanticide, that the unborn are persons with all the rights that Anna and I enjoy. There is no possible way that that belief can encourage rape.
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