The latest salvo in the debate over marriage equality in the US is nothing if not inventive. A brief filed by a group of 100 lawyers and university professors with the supreme court, which last week was hearing oral arguments on the question of whether the US constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry, claims that gay marriage causes abortion.
This might come as a surprise to those of you labouring under the impression that an abortion typically follows an unintended pregnancy, which usually follows intercourse between two people of the opposite sex, quite a few of whom may not even be married.
The amicus brief claims that marriage equality will cause 900,000 abortions over the next 30 years. The logic for this is that, in countries where same-sex marriage is legal, opposite-sex marriage typically declines. The paper goes on: “A reduction in the opposite-sex marriage rate means an increase in the percentage of women who are unmarried and who . . . have much higher abortion rates than married women.”
Aside from being hopelessly misogynist ("quick, marry the harlots off before they get themselves knocked up"), this is laughable nonsense, all the more so as it comes from the keyboards of a group of lawyers and academics. You might as well argue that cold climates cause abortion, since eastern Europe has among the highest rates of terminations in the world; or that trips to Ikea destroy relationships, since Sweden has one of the lowest marriage rates (actually, you could be on to something here), or that iPhones are killing polar bears, or that reading the Bible causes death.
There may well be societies and states in which terminations and same-sex marriage rates are rising in tandem with one another, but correlation doesn’t imply causation. The fact is that opposite-sex marriage rates are falling almost everywhere.
Of course, I understand the wider point this brief is trying to make: same-sex marriage, abortion, the upsurge in women identifying as feminist, and the declining rates of opposite-sex marriage, are part of a societal sea change that makes conservative onlookers uncomfortable. But while the slippery-slope argument might have an intuitive down-with-this-sort-of-thing appeal, it doesn’t hold up to logical scrutiny.
Other things that have nothing to do with same-sex marriage include surrogacy, paedophilia, incest, polygamy, early death, parenting and opposite-sex marriage. To deal with the last two first: there are already thriving, happy, children being raised beautifully in Ireland by same-sex parents, single parents, divorced parents, adoptive parents and foster parents, and there are unhappy children being raised badly by married opposite-sex parents.
They’re all still families, and the gender of the parents has little to do with whether or not the children are flourishing. On the question of whether it threatens the institution of marriage, if you are happily married to an opposite-sex partner and the referendum passes, I bet you won’t consider your vows weaker.
One of the most meaningless arguments of the anti-equality side here in the US and in Ireland is the “what’s to stop . . ?” one. It’s the one that warns that if people of the same gender are allowed to marry, then what’s to stop people from deciding they want to marry their children, their siblings, their dogs, their Volkswagen Golf or that ripe-looking banana sitting invitingly in the fruit bowl. In most of these cases, the response is simple: it’s about consent. A child can’t give consent, therefore can’t legally marry. Close relatives could theoretically consent to marry, but incest is – fortunately – prohibited under the law.
Vote how you like on May 22nd, but at least vote on the question being asked. If you believe that the gender of the participants is what defines a marriage, vote no. If you believe that what defines it is love and the desire of consenting adults to make a public commitment, vote yes. If you’re not sure what defines marriage, but you believe gay people are equal citizens who are entitled to equal rights, then vote yes.
A phoney-sounding baby poll
A report out last week by the Einstein Healthcare Network revealed that one in four babies under one year old have placed a call on a smartphone. Unfortunately, the report didn’t say what the babies talked about, but if they’re anything like the rest of us, they’ll have been putting in an order for pizza.
A whopping 15 per cent of infants “use apps”, according to the survey, and 12 per cent play video games. The report, which was based on a survey of 370 parents of children aged six months to four years old and was presented to the American Academy of Paediatrics last week, unleashed a wave of agonised speculation among experts about the likely effects of technology on the brains of infants. But I had a more pressing concern: what’s wrong with my baby?
I don’t consider her a slouch in the intellectual department. She can say “bye bye”, turn a tidy room into ground zero in less than 10 seconds, and escape from her changing table more quickly than David Blaine can get out of a plastic box hanging over a volcano. But she is 11 months old, and her smartphone-using capabilities extend to biting it, decorating it with grated cheese or throwing it across the floor.
Is it possible that these parents could have been exaggerating their offspring’s capabilities just a tiny bit? No, you’re right, that’s way too far-fetched. I’m off to Google Baby CoderDojo classes.