Abortion cannot really be defended by appeals to morality or logic. So pro-abortion arguments are mostly based on emotion, unsupported “rights” talk, euphemism, and statements that just don’t make any sense.
For example, a friend reported hearing several versions of this: “Any administration that takes children away from their parents at the border won’t hesitate to nominate somebody who opposes Roe v. Wade.” Uh, but. . . .doesn’t abortion take children away from their parents?
Another friend noticed pro-choicers talking about how “mothers” should have the right to terminate their pregnancies. How can there be a “mother” if the fetus isn’t a child?
I came across this op-ed piece in a British newspaper arguing for legalizing abortion in Ireland. The author is an American abortionist who purports to be a Christian. “As a Christian doctor in the USA, you might expect me to be anti-abortion,” he said. “Yet some church leaders insist on maintaining religious customs regarding human reproduction that were established prior to scientific understandings about how that process occurs.”
What “scientific understandings” is he referring to? Pre-scientific folks, while still rejecting abortion, believed that the child in the womb was not fully human until “ensoulment,” which took place at “quickening,” when the mother can feel the baby move in her womb. Though pro-abortion Christians still cite such teachings, science has shot those down, establishing that the development of a human being is a continual process from conception through birth, growth, maturity, and death.
Then there are arguments like this: “How can you pro-lifers oppose abortion when you support capital punishment?” Some pro-lifers, especially the Catholics, advocate a “consistent life ethic,” in which they oppose all killing, including war and capital punishment. But it is not inconsistent to believe that murderers should be executed, while babies should be protected. There is the difference between guilt and innocence. What have babies done to deserve capital punishment?
Actually, the argument has greater force when it is turned around. How can you oppose capital punishment (plus, usually, war, gun violence, etc.) while being in favor of abortion? At least criminals facing the death penalty have the benefit of a trial, plus multiple layers of appeals. Before we abort a baby, could we at least give the child a fair trial?
Then there is the liberals’ claim that they are for the poor, the marginalized, the downtrodden, the little guy. And yet they are in favor of killing the poorest, the most marginalized, the most downtrodden, and the littlest guy of all–the child in the womb.
Photo by jordanuhl7 [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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