The Moral Battle of Abortion
A lot of the country is furious over the recent passage of quite a few pro-life bills. Social media, the usual gauge of angry sentiment, is pegged firmly in the red. Millions of posts originating from all over the country have formed into a crescendo of denunciation, much of which is aimed at Georgia and Alabama. Some of the other state governments, and a few independent companies as well, have used the outcry as a justification for imposing economic and political sanctions, often being announced with the same uncivil, sensational name-calling found on Facebook and Twitter.
Strangely, such noise usually calls the more level-headed individuals to the spotlight, resulting in a discussion of the many dimensions of the positions. So far this has not happened. Nor does it appear that it will. Much of the spotlight is controlled by people that have settled the issue for themselves long ago. So instead of inviting a discussion, they’ve invited even more denouncements. Despite the media bias, pro-lifers are winning the arguments in public squares and on social media. If we are to continue to make gains, we need more involvement from the pro-life side at the individual basis. I offer this critique as ammunition in achieving that goal, should you wish to use it.
The Foundations of the Positions
The basis of the pro-life position is exceptionally straightforward and consistent. There is some slight variation between different beliefs, but the foundation is essentially this:
It is never morally acceptable to intentionally kill an innocent human being for personal gain.
The pro-choice position is less straightforward as it employs a euphemism and does not accurately describe what is being done. It is usually stated this way:
A woman has the right to bodily autonomy, and therefore should be able to get an abortion without consequence.
Why is one position straightforward and direct while the other is the opposite? That’s simple. It is because the pro-choice position is morally repugnant when stated directly. If they came out and said, “We have the right to execute our unborn children because we do not want them,” most people would reject it intuitively. They do not even need to hold the pro-life position, even though most people do. Most pro-choicers do too, although it creates cognitive dissonance for them. This obligates pro-choicers to use wordplay in order to dress-up their position and deal separately with that cognitive dissonance. They know they will lose the argument if they do not.
The Pro-Choice Strategy
The first thing they’ve done is found their belief upon a proximate right. They’ve chosen the right of a person to choose when they wish to have children. This is a valid right in itself. They stretch that right out a bit, arguing that if someone can choose when to have children, they can choose when not to have children, which is also true to a point. This concept is packaged into commonly used terms such as reproductive rights, or as used above, bodily autonomy. One way to assail this position is to point out the differences in choosing to not have children before and after the point of conception. Deciding not to have children before conception simply means choosing not to conceive one. After conception, they must actively kill a human in order to not have children. The former is morally acceptable. The latter is not.
The second thing they’ve done is dress-up their stance with euphemisms. Instead of saying “intentionally kill an unborn child,” they say abortion. Since that still carries a significant negativity, they often retreat to an even milder euphemism, “right to choose.” The truth is ugly, and they try to stay as far away from it as possible. It is not hard to show how ugly abortion is, and the evil that is involved. Pictures and videos of actual procedures are particularly effective.
Lastly, they must deal with the cognitive dissonance stemming from the fact the two positions conflict with each other. Since they cannot attack it directly, they simply contend that the pro-life position of killing an innocent human being does not apply because an unborn child is not human. They argue that the fertilization of a human ovum with a human sperm does not constitute a human being initially. It loses its humanity for a period. How long is that period? That depends on the pro-choice person’s preference. Anytime before that point of preference is reached, a mother should be able to kill her child without consequence, anytime after that point, it is immoral and should be banned. There are a few effective ways to argue against this position, but perhaps the best is by using science and logic to show this line of thinking is nothing more than a fallacy.
The Definist Fallacy
When someone says that the child growing in the mother’s womb is not human, the question becomes: What is it? It seems that too is a matter of preference. Some say its a “clump of cells,” others say its a part of the mother’s body. Some combine those points. In the end, none of those labels have any scientific foundation. The merger of human gametes results in the creation of a brand new set of genetic instructions for making and operating a new human being, which it begins to construct immediately after conception. It is an immensely complex process that an independent human being starts on its own and then enjoins with its mother for support. All humans alive today have completed, or are in the process of completing that process. There is no scientific or logical basis to claim it is anything but human. In the end, this is just another example of the definist fallacy.
That fallacy can be exceptionally harmful when the act of redefinition denies human beings their humanity. The worst atrocities in human history have been caused by this line of thinking. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, slavers in the American South denied the humanity of Blacks in order to redefine them as property. The Nazis denied the humanity of Jews to redefine them as "parasitic vermin only worthy of extermination." Today, the abortionists deny the humanity of unborn children in order to kill them and avoid responsibility for taking care of them. Pointing out this fact is extremely inflammatory, but it is also accurate. Abortionists are using the same tactics the genocidal regimes used in order to murder millions in their own genocidal campaign against the unborn. If this last point does not convince, which it may take time to work in stubborn minds, then its likely nothing will. There are a lot of people that want the option to abort children so badly, no arguments will convince them otherwise. Be prepared when you encounter them, they may become hostile.
Good luck out there, and God bless.
