Before examining this argument further, there are some other peripheral arguments made in the post that I’d like to briefly comment on:

Does that mean someone should force me to continue getting pregnant since I seem to be biologically capable of producing healthy life? No, that does not seem right either. So, I cannot in good conscience support forcing another woman to give birth if she is not ready or willing.

When discussing abortion, the last thing I want to do is come off as being uncaring and insensitive about what is a very emotionally charged issue (for good reason). Especially as a man, who will never directly face this issue on a personal level (only, at most, secondhand), I need to be careful to state that I am aware of these issues and want to be sensitive to them. These caveats do not, however, make my opinions themselves on the matter any less valid than anyone else’s.

I’ve found that from reading pro-choice literature, the word “force” or “forcing” is usually used. I think this is a bit misleading. Let’s say for the sake of argument for the remainder of this post that abortions for those who are the victims of the heinous crimes of rape and incest may due to these extraneous circumstances have abortions freely. (For the sake of argument.) Approximately 1% of abortions currently occur because of rape or incest. This means that using “force” language to describe the other 99% of abortions is not accurate. Certainly the pregnancies may not be wanted, they may be accidental, but they are not forced. Being pregnant is the natural progression of getting pregnant, and given that we are discussing the 99% of pregnancies that are not forced, this should not really be an issue.

What is the issue? As I’ve suggested before in some of my other posts on abortion, I don’t think that, ultimately, the abortion question is as complicated as it often seems. Greg Koukl sums up the dichotomy well:

- If the unborn is not a human being, then no justification for abortion is necessary.

- If the unborn IS a human being, then no justification for abortion is adequate.

The question is, “What is the unborn?” If it is a human being, it should not be killed, because killing any human being (let alone one unable to defend itself) merely because it is unwanted is immoral. However, if it is not a human being, then why should any justification to remove it be needed?

This all serves to lay foundation in advance of the blog author’s main argument, which is as follows:

To me, being pro-life means that I respect and cherish all life. There are times when the sacrifice of life is necessary in order for another life to survive and that is how nature works. Problems arise when I try to respect and cherish two conflicting lives – the life of a pregnant woman and the potential life she carries. That is where I have to take a step back and support the existing life and the choice she makes over a possibility of life. [Original post]

If I understand the argument correctly, the unborn is not a life, it is a potential life (I’ll henceforth reword this term as pre-life for the sake of brevity). Therefore, given that the pregnant woman is life not pre-life (a fact which no one disputes) then her life takes precedence over the pre-life she carries. If I accept that the unborn is pre-life, then I would entirely agree with this reasoning. But this brings us back to the original “main question” suggested above: What is the unborn?

Here is why I think this is such an important question. The zygote, formed at conception, is human. It could not be anything else. It is genetically distinct from its parents. It possesses the same DNA that it will possess all its life; human DNA, since it came from human parents. Some pro-choice defenders even concede this point, one noting that “Pro Choice defenders stick their feet in their mouths when they defend abortion by claiming the zygote-embryo-fetus isn’t human. It is human.” [as quoted here, unfortunately I couldn't find an online copy of the essay cited]

It is not a “potential life” or “potential human”, it is a developing human with great potential. This unbroken stream of development begins at conception (when it becomes genetically distinct from its parents), proceeds in a continuous and unbroken stream of development throughout pregnancy, and continues to develop and grow after birth. What is this … “thing” if it is not human? And if it is human, we should not kill it. As stated previously, killing any human being (let alone one unable to defend itself) merely because it is unwanted is immoral.

Someone suggesting that the unborn is not “life” but instead somehow “pre-life” will need to demonstrate some sort of non-arbitrary and fundamental difference which occurs at a specific time during the unborn’s life at which the unborn turns from pre-life into life. By non-arbitrary, I mean it must be one that can be readily agreed upon, and by fundamental I mean non-trivial, a criteria that is centrally important. Because if we are at all not sure whether, at point “A” in development, whether this thing is “life” or not, we should not dispose of it, lest we run the risk of killing an innocent human being.

What is the unborn? I see no reason to suggest that the unborn that is readily aborted during the first trimester (the first, second, third trimesters being also somewhat arbitrary) would not be allowed to be aborted during the third trimester, or even in a partial-birth abortion, or for that matter after birth. The unborn, in fact, is fully human at its conception, albeit at an earlier stage in its development, but fully human, and fully worthy of protection.

Although I am a Christian, I have not based any of these arguments on religious principles per se, although moral principles (which I think can be shared by both sides of this discussion) have been used where appropriate. I don’t consider myself a right-winger either, for what it’s worth.

Further resources:
- Stand to Reason: Bio-ethics articles – A collection of excellent articles by Greg Koukl and other STR authors
- Pro-Life Training articles – A second collection of great articles by former STR-er Scott Klustendorf

Today’s article is “Courageous Morgentaler is worthy” by Jennifer Charles which apparently appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, or at least it’s currently on their website.

Awarding the Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler has re-ignited the flames of the national abortion debate. The issue is whether a woman should have the right to a safe abortion. I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to deny a woman that choice.

This is not the issue. The issue is whether or not it is moral to have elective abortions. If it is moral, then we could ask the question “should a woman have the right to a safe abortion,” for which the answer is clearly yes. But this author assumes the answer to the first question and asks an obvious and frivolous question in an attempt to poison the well.

What gives anyone the right to force a woman to bear a child? Whether she has the baby or not is a traumatic and life-altering decision that only she can make.

Like the previous article the idea of “forc[ing] a woman to bear a child” comes into play. This again clouds the issue. No one is forcing a woman to get pregnant (as previously noted even if we exclude rape and incest from this discussion that is less than 1.5% of all cases).

The concern here is for the rights of the child (as the article author calls it) which do not supersede the rights of the mother, but neither should the rights of the mother supersede those of the child. Why should the rights of the mother come first? Is it because the child is not as in a late stage of development as the mother? Well, a toddler is in an earlier stage of development than a teenager … is it okay then to kill a toddler?

To me, it is far more responsible to decide not to bring another human being into the world …

I totally agree! Not getting pregnant in the first place is the best way …

… than to do so when the pregnancy is not planned and the circumstances are wrong. If a person feels that abortion is morally wrong, that does not give him or her the right to impose that opinion on women who are the ones affected.

Here’s the problem: There is no neutral position with regards to abortion. A pro-choice position is a pro-abortion position. Take a look at any other moral issue. Take slavery for example. Could we say “Slavery is a matter that should be left up to each individual; who are you to impose your views about slavery on others?” No, we wouldn’t accept that. Why would abortion be any different?

All laws are based on moral principles. We are right to impose our “opinions” on others if they are committing immoral acts. (And if a person takes a moral relativist view, which I certainly do not, then we shouldn’t have any laws at all.)

And that brings us back to the central question: Is abortion immoral or not? And when answering that, we need to keep in mind a simple dichotomy:
- If the unborn is not a human person, then no justification of abortion is necessary.
- But if the unborn is a human person, no justification is sufficient.

It’s not enough to state whether the unborn is or isn’t; you have to give reasons why. And it’s no good to say “We don’t know when life begins” because if we’re not sure if an unborn child (embyro, whatever) is a human person or not, shouldn’t we err on the side of caution and not kill it?

I would ask these people to empathize with any woman who finds herself in this position.

I do emphasize with a women who finds themselves in this position. At least, I try to. I can’t say that I could ever fully understand the emotional anguish a woman might feel in such a situation. That’s why we need to have more support services for pregnant women, especially given the medical risks and emotional risks involved with abortions. Of course, it’s also important to emphasize with the unborn child (again, the article author’s term) as well.

Resources:

• William Lane Craig on Abortion – An excellent summary of the non-religion based pro-life position.
• Can I Destroy This? – Greg Koukl gives a second excellent presentation.
• Abortion Debate: A Short Defense of the Pro-Life Position – Scott Klusendorf’s Life Training Institute provides many resources including this excellent article summarizing the pro-life position.

Today I read an editorial in The Calgary Herald titled Morgentaler deserves Order of Canada by Catherine Ford, ostensibly about the award, but in practice a summary defense of abortion. Let’s examine her arguments to see whether they make sense.

(Click below for my commentary; it’s a bit long to put on the blog’s front page)

For [ensuring the rights of Canadian women to safe and legal abortions] alone — for the right of all women to be regarded as capable of making a decision whether to bear children — Morgentaler not only merits the Order of Canada, he deserves whatever accolades Canadian women can bestow upon him.

The weasel-wording of the underlined portion obscures that abortion has nothing to do with “the right of all women to be regarded as capable of making a decision whether to bear children.” Certainly both sides of the issue agree that women should have the right to choose whether they will “bear children.” A woman certainly should choose whether they become pregnant or not; we are talking here however about abortion.

We owe him our gratitude for his unswerving commitment to the cause of women’s health.

Except, of course, for the health of all of the would-be women who were aborted. Death is usually considered less healthy than life.

Few other men have fought so vigorously and so single-mindedly for so long on a principle.

I hope that this statement is referring to the pro-choice abortion issue only, because as a blanket statement about the male gender it is either profoundly prejudiced or shockingly ignorant.

That principle is simple: All women should have the right of control over their own bodies.

I agree 100%. Women should have control over their own bodies. Again, few, if any, would disagree. And again the real question is obfuscated: Is the unborn merely a part of the woman’s body, like a hand or a lung?

This puts the burden of responsibility — the consequences of any decision — squarely on a woman’s shoulders. That is where it belongs. It is her responsibility to make the decisions about reproduction.

I agree that, in one sense, the consequences of the decision fall “squarely on a woman’s shoulders.” That’s the nature of ethical decisions. But all of our laws are based upon ethics; stealing is against the law because it is wrong to steal.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the existing law on abortion, ruling it unconstitutional. Madam Justice Bertha Wilson said a woman’s decision to have an abortion “deeply reflects the way the woman thinks about herself and her relationship to others and to society at large. It is not just a medical decision; it is a profound social and ethical one as well.“

I’m glad that we recognize that the issue of abortion is multifaceted; it is not just a logical conundrum, it is also a social and ethical issue.

It is also, she wrote, almost impossible for a man to contemplate the dilemma of a pregnant woman thinking about abortion. Pregnancy remains outside any man’s personal experience and, wrote Wilson, “he can relate to it only by objectifying it, thereby eliminating the subjective elements of the female psyche, which are at the heart of the dilemma.”

While recognizing that it is impossible for a man to truly emphasize with a woman regarding the emotional issues involved with pregnancy, the insinuation that a man can then have no voice regarding such issues is a non-sequitur. Clearly according to the author of the article a man can have a right view on abortion, since she agrees with Dr Morgentaler and applauds him for his view. Dismissal of a viewpoint based on its source (the genetic fallacy) is prejudiced, unfair, and unhelpful.

Those who do not approve or condone abortion are free not to have one. What they are not free to do is insist, because of their personal beliefs, abortion should not be available for a variety of reasons.

Let’s do a simple search-and-replace on these statements: Those who do not approve or condone murder are free not to murder anyone. What they are not free to do is insist, because of their personal beliefs, murder should not be available for a variety of reasons. Do you see why this sort of argument doesn’t work? Pro-life advocates do not argue that since they have a personal feeling that abortion is wrong “for them” that everyone else should change their own personal beliefs to cohere with theirs. The argument is that abortion is objectively wrong for everyone.

There are always a variety of reasons. Abortion for rape or incest might be permitted.

First we should note that, in any ethical issue (as the author has admitted the abortion issue is) there will be hard cases that are difficult to decide. However, the existence of such potentially morally ambiguous cases should not prevent us from deciding a general rule in the vast majority of cases. (Approximately 1% women cite rape as a reason for having an abortion, while less than 0.5% cite incest.) Moreover, the fact that certain unborn children may be unwanted (perhaps even for valid reasons) should not be enough to take their lives; the homeless or sick are often unwanted and burdens, but does that give us the right to take their lives?

But perhaps the author of the article is merely arguing for abortion in these few difficult cases like rape and incest?

One abortion — everyone should be allowed one “mistake” — could be considered acceptable.

Apparently not. Everyone should get one “oopsie”. Not only is this sort of attitude entirely cavalier towards the emotional issues involved with having an abortion (including all of the studies that have shown the extreme emotional distress often suffered by women who have abortions) but also demonstrates that she is arguing for abortion on demand regardless of the reasons why a woman wants to have one. Why then bring up the issue of rape and incest?

It is an absolute within the bounds of standard medical practice, as set by the College of Physicians and Surgeons in each province.

I’m not exactly sure what this ambiguous statement means. Medically, there is little debate that life begins at conception, as Dr Landrum Shettles, the first scientist who successfully achieved conception in a test tube, notes that conception not only confers but “defines” life. The unborn is, in fact, genetically distinct from its parents and is a separate human entity. (It has human parents after all so it is thus human.) I’m not sure it’s within the bounds of standard medical practice to kill human beings that we don’t particularly like.

He ensured our right and, indeed, our privilege, to make up our own minds about pregnancy — to be unfettered by the opinions of others or the pressures of society.

This merely assumes what the author is trying to argue for, as we saw earlier. Perhaps the argument would go something like this:

1) Women should have the right to make up their own minds about their bodies.
2) The unborn is a part of a woman’s body.
3) Therefore, women should have the right to do what they wish with the unborn.

Well, 1) is not in dispute, as I have no interest in telling women what they can or can’t do with their bodies. It is 2) that I take issue with. It is the unproved and undefended assertion by this author which flies in the face of logic and medical evidence.

Obviously, his detractors are legion. They include men who rail at the notion women alone should be permitted to decided [sic] whether to bear a child or not.

Silly weasel-wording and straw-man construction (no pun intended). As above, few, if any, men would take such a view. The issue is not a woman’s choice whether or not to become pregnant, the issue is what is ethical once they are pregnant.

They include a host of religions and their acolytes who demand unswerving obedience to a set of man-made rules.

I hope that the careful reader will notice that I have not made any appeal to religious doctrine during my discussion of abortion. (More on this in a moment.)

They also include women who, for whatever reason, believe their lives should be ruled by chance, happenstance and blind obedience.

Another straw-[wo]man argument. Pro-life advocates who are female are branded illogical nincompoops.

So be it. That is exactly what choice entails. Every Canadian woman can now say proudly, “My life, my body, my decisions.”

And again, the author loudly and proudly entirely misses the point. The entire editorial contained no justification for the view being presented, merely statement and restatement of the view and its fundamental underpinnings without any rational argument.

I will say that it can be easy to miss the point with a controversial issue like this one, especially when reason can quickly become clouded or overwrought with emotional issues. But all of the abortion questions can be reduced to just one: What is the unborn? As Greg Koukl says: “If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion is necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate.”

The best (short) online resource on this question is Dr William Lane Craig’s writing here, which is not, as Ms Ford might expect, based on religious reasoning:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6351

Please read and carefully consider the argument Dr Craig above. This is not merely an academic question, one where learned individuals sit around stroking their beards, smoking their pipes and waxing philosophically on their easy-chairs. As I’ve posted previously there are over one million abortions performed every month. If abortion really does, as pro-life advocates claim, kill human beings, that is one million morally reprehensible deaths each month.

There are some clearly religious overtones in the movie, which I’ll comment on later in a second post, but for now I wanted to focus on one of Horton’s slogans in the movie: “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

As some movie reviewers also noticed, “It’s already been adopted by some pro-lifers in the abortion debate.” It’s an important message: Just because a person is very small, they are no less of a person.

This in fact is the first part of SLED, an acronym serving as a helpful reminder of four supposed differences between the unborn and a “real” human being. There is a short description of what SLED stands for after the break, but I wanted to point out that the current Q&A question on William Lane Craig’s site is an excellent summary of the rational pro-life position: William Lane Craig on Abortion. Note that nowhere in his argument does he make an appeal to faith or the Bible. He could have, but it’s not necessary; the argument is powerful enough (I’d say conclusive) without such an appeal.

Click below for a summary of SLED.

Size: True, embryos are smaller than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant? Do we really want to say that large people are more valuable than small ones? Men are generally larger than women, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve more rights. Size doesn’t equal value.

Level of development: True, embryos and fetuses are less developed than you and I. But again, why is this relevant? Four year-old girls are less developed than 14 year-old ones. Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings? Some people say that self-awareness makes one valuable. But if that is true, newborns do not qualify as valuable human beings. Six-week old infants lack the immediate capacity for performing human mental functions, as do the reversibly comatose, the sleeping, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed? If not, how can a journey of eight inches down the birth-canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from non-valuable tissue mass to valuable human being? If the unborn are not already human and valuable, merely changing their location can’t make them so.

Degree of Dependency: If viability bestows human value, then all those who depend on insulin or kidney medication are not valuable and we may kill them. Conjoined twins who share blood type and bodily systems also have no right to life.

In short, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal (and valuable) because they share a common human nature. Humans have value simply because of the kind of thing they are, not because of some acquired property they may gain or lose during their lifetimes.

The above is from Scott Klusendorf’s new site/organization, Life Training Institute, in his article How to Defend your Pro-life Views in 5 Minutes or Less. As I’ve mentioned before, Scott’s book, Pro-life 101 is an excellent resource on these sort of issues.

In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.

Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it “within a pro-choice realm,” and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance. [Source: National Post]

Apparently everyone has the right to free speech … as long as it’s not the “wrong” speech. (See the link above for the full story of how this happened and the school administration’s response; Hat tip to the STR blog for noting this article.)

I’ve posted on abortion before, though it’s important to note that my objections to abortion are not due to “religious” reasons. The case against abortion (although of course also mandated biblically) is based on logic, science, and shared “common ground”. Unfortunately, the arguments in favor of the pro-life view often get lost during emotionally-charged debates on the subject.

For anyone who is interested in pro-life issues, two great websites are:

• Life Training Institute
• Stand to Reason’s Bioethics section

And two highly recommended books on the subject are:

• Pro-Life 101 A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Case Persuasively by Scott Klusendorf
• Common Ground Without Compromise by Stephen Wagner

This is not a trivial topic: Over one million abortions occur each month. This is 15x the number which perish from all STDs combined including HIV/AIDS. Something to think about, anyways … though not at York University, and perhaps soon not anywhere else in Canada either? From the same article:

Meanwhile, similar controversies are unfolding across Canada, with anti-abortion groups at Capilano College, the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Lakehead University and Carleton University stripped of official club status and funding, at least once by fiat of a single member of student council. Some clubs have regained status, while others appealed their cases to human rights commissions.

• Population
• Births
• Deaths (sorted by method)
• Abortions
• Number of cars, bicycles, and computers produced
• Etc …

You can also click the Year, Month, Week, Day, and Now buttons at the top to limit the results to a specific period of time. For example, since I started writing this post, 200 abortions have occurred. In the last week, the number of abortions that occurred was approximately 258,000, compared to 17,000 from all STDs including HIV/AIDs. Now, all of these figures are sad and alarming, and I am in no way trying to belittle the AIDS epidemic. In fact I regularly support the blood:water mission in their efforts to provide clean drinking water and clean blood to help battle the HIV/ADS crisis in Africa.

However, although the shockingly large number of abortions does not itself prove anything about the ethics of abortion, it should lead us to think seriously about the morality of this issue: Year-to-date nearly 31 million abortions have occurred. If abortion does take the life of a human person, that is 31 million murders.

• For more on this subject, please see my previous post Abortion = Profits?.

Planned Parenthood (whose services include “family planning, gynecological care, STI/STD testing and treatment, pregnancy testing, and abortion”) reported some shocking figures for their 2005-2006 fiscal year:

Total abortions performed: 264,943
Total income: $902.8 million
Total profit: $55.8 million

Of that $902.8 million gross income, $305.3 million came from taxpayer dollars, an increase of $32.6 million from the previous year.¹

The glaring number of 264,943 abortions (roughly equivalent to the number of people who live in the city of Buffalo, New York) should encourage us to take a calm but serious look at the issue of abortion.

That, of course, is the big question: What is the unborn? As Greg Koukl says, “If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion is necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate.” Irregardless of my Christian faith it is my contention that abortion is morally wrong and therefore should no more be allowed than any other crime. Of course, this doesn’t make the issues surrounding abortion any easier, but moral decisions are rarely easy.

Related reading:

• Confessions of an Ex-abortionist – Why Dr. Bernard Nathanson, MD, who performed over 75,000 abortions, now campaigns against abortion.
• Can I Destroy This? – Greg Koukl asks the important question in the abortion debate: What is the unborn? All other questions are secondary.
• “Active Euthanasia” or Infanticide? – A previous post on Why Faith regarding “infanticide”: Is it a logical outcome of legalized abortion?

If a respected British medical school has its way, British doctors will be routinely killing babies born with serious disabilities. The Times of London reported in a page one story this weekend on the shocking proposal from Britain’s respected Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology. The College has called on doctors to consider permitting infanticide in the case of seriously disabled newborn babies. According to the paper, geneticists and medical ethicists supported the proposal – as did the mother of a severely disabled child – while a prominent children’s doctor described it as “social engineering.” (Source: NewsMax)

The issue is, of course, who decides who lives and dies under such a proposal? What qualifies as “severely disabled”? Steve Wagner of STR gives his thoughts on the issue here: Ob/Gyns in England Want Debate about Killing Newborns. As one commenter notes, “I’m curious who gets to decide what an appropriate level of “pain, distress, and discomfort” is necessary to make a baby a candidate for killing. What if the family is just poor? There’s a certain level of distress and discomfort that come from that.”

I was thinking of this issue and that comment as I read the following news story today, found on Google News Canada‘s front page:

A 16-year-old girl is facing a charge of second-degree murder as well as six other criminal charges after her newborn boy’s body was found in a wood north of Montreal. The girl gave birth to the baby over the weekend at the home of her mother’s boyfriend in Ste-Sophie, about 50 km north of Montreal. (Source: Ottawa Sun)

Under the proposal of legalized infanticide, would the above act be considered a crime? The idea that inconvenient babies should be killed is immoral and should not be tolerated; here is an issue in which tolerance is not acceptable.

Further reading: Greg Koukl’s articles regarding abortion