Answered by: Stephen, an expert in the Political Matters category

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The short answer is: yes, sort of. I take that back; there are very few "short answers" when discussing Christopher Hitchens' opinions. The man does not possess a non-nuanced thought; his position on abortion is not exceptional in this regard. However, he has stated, in public and on multiple occasions, that he believes that the term "unborn child" is "not a propaganda term" and that the unborn child "has right on its side." What he means to express by these statements is a feeling that all should be done that can be done to protect the life of a fetus in utero. This conviction is, he says, bolstered by "every recent advance in medicine and embryology" which are forever pushing back the date of viability. The salience of this position is that Christopher Hitchens is almost always thought of as a "left-leaning" thinker. His opinions on the Iraq intervention, notwithstanding. Some stumble over his pro-life stance more than other opinions of his because it seems to be the one at most in conflict with "liberalism" and what might be loosely termed "western progressivism." The question is asked: How can a man who has spent most of his career arguing for the emancipation of the human personality from superstition and totalitarianism have such an "anti-liberal" pro-life stance? The question becomes even more difficult when one considers that his famous attack on Mother Theresa was composed, in large part, as a diatribe against her anti-women's liberation advocacy in Calcutta. He said, "[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction." Is it not hypocritical to force women to bear unwanted children, Christopher? Why is Christopher Hitchens pro-life? As was mentioned in the beginning of this article, Christopher Hitchens's opinions are always subtle and sophisticated in their complexity. In an article published in the National Catholic Reporter (I believe) entitled, "It is time life and choice met in historic compromise" He lays out a pro-life slash pro-choice compromise. Under his plan, women in extreme situations (rape, incest, life-threatening pregnancies) will be given state funded abortion, all other women are to be told that the rest of us as a society have an interest in a "candidate member of the next generation" and will find a state-funded means of providing for and educating the child. Oh, and contraceptive will be made available by the state as well. One of the fatal flaws of other pro-life advocates is their inability to envision a future (asked what punishment mothers who get abortions should receive should abortion become illegal most of them have never considered the question) Christopher Hitchens, unlike almost all others in his camp, has a genuine pro-life plan for the future. Most choice advocates agree that they wish to see lower numbers of abortions, so in this sense they are also pro-life, and Christopher Hitchens may just be the man to moderate this battle.

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I highly disagree with your interpretation of his opinion, but it seems like I am in a very distinct minority here... Hitchens asserted that there was such a thing as an unborn child, but that does not mean we was pro-life as opposed to pro-choice. What I would venture, which I think is somewhat similar to what he was trying to say, is that yes, a zygote is an "unborn child" but we have a right to kill it, particularly because it will not feel pain, has no memories, etc.... http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2003/02/hitchens200302 By Lorenzo on 27-02-12 at 07:31pm

Hitchens' position on the abortion issue is even more nuanced than that, and he was apparently pretty ineffectual - a rarity for him - at communicating this in a comprehensive way. I myself am an atheist of the pro-choice persuasion, but have heard other atheist cohorts either praise or condemn Hitchens for being anti-choice. In one recent instance, a friend of mine said he had been recorded as saying abortion doctors deserved death, which to me sounded pretty out of character for Hitchens. I asserted he very likely did not think that.

I draw most of my experience with his positions from the myriad debate recordings, available on YouTube, of him sparring with one or more theist counterparts. Abortion had come up several times tangentially in many forums, and his expressed sentiments did not indicate a man willing to stand in line holding self-righteously gratuitous pictures of aborted fetuses (real or faked). Quite the opposite, really, as he was more obviously defending reproductive rights, never denounced Roe v. Wade, and spoke regularly about the empowerment of women, which is effectively an endorsement of their corporeal rights.

In addition to being basically the only person criticizing Mother Teresa publicly, ruthlessly assaulting her love of poverty, he has often derided her selection of abortion as one of the great evils of our age, and her ill words toward the use of condoms in Africa. To me, this indicates that Hitchens was very much not opposed wholesale to abortion - as you partly show - but could be thought of as someone who argued strongly for the "unborn child" from a late second/third trimester position. But even as you state, he did not see problems with medically justifiable reasons for abortion even at those stages of pregnancy, or due to rape. It seems obvious to me he wasn't quite the anti-choice advocate even his opponents on the right have lionized him as, in at least one instance having been called an "abortion survivor" - what a hideously presumptive label that is. Abortion was an issue he had many comments on, but those comments weren't addressed with the same sort of fluidity and thoroughness that he applied to other issues such as the IW, or religion.

But, Hitchens was never a policy wonk, and his realm was typically literature, history and politics, not issues. Speaking from personal conjecture, I think the reason he is seen as anti-choice is because he was such an adroit defender of his other positions, that many likely assume he was opposed to abortion simply because he made a number of qualified statements against it. His delivery did often have a way of appearing to roundly dismiss something out of hand, giving the impression he may have been more opposed than he was. By Anonymous on 26-01-12 at 01:12am

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