FIVE BAD WAYS TO ARGUE ABOUT ABORTION

By Scott Klusendorf

Pro-life advocates argue their case with science and philosophy, but
their pro-choice critics do not always respond in kind.

Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the
life of a defenseless human being. This simplifies the abortion
controversy by focusing public attention on just one question: Is the
unborn a member of the human family? If so, killing him or her to
benefit others is a serious moral wrong. Conversely, if the unborn
are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than
having a tooth pulled.

Scientifically, we know that from the earliest stages of development,
the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Leading
embryology textbooks confirm this.[1] Prior to advocating elective
abortion, former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Alan Guttmacher was
perplexed that anyone, much less a medical doctor, would question
these basic scientific facts. "This all seems so simple and evident
that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn't part of the
common knowledge," he wrote in his book Life in the Making.[2]

Philosophically, there is no morally significant difference between
the embryo you once were and the adult you are today. Differences of
size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are
not relevant in the way that abortion advocates need them to be. The
simple acronym SLED can be used to illustrate these non-essential
differences:[3]

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 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
the immediate capacity for self-awareness and a desire to go on
living makes one valuable. But if that is true, newborns do not
qualify as valuable human beings. Infants do not acquire distinct
self-awareness and memory until several months after birth.[4] (Best
case scenario, infants acquire limited self-awareness three months
after birth, when the synapse connections increase from 56 trillion
to 1,000 trillion.) As abortion advocate and philosopher Dean
Stretton writes, "Any plausible pro-choice theory will have to deny
newborns a full right to life. That's counterintuitive."[5]

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-human to human?
If the unborn are not already valuable human beings, 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, although humans differ immensely with respect to talents,
accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless
equal (and valuable) because they all have the same human nature.

Five Bad Ways to Argue

Nonetheless, some people ignore the scientific and philosophic case
that pro-life advocates present and argue for abortion based on self-
interest. That is the lazy way out. If we care about truth, we will
courageously follow the facts wherever they lead. Here are five
common mistakes people make arguing for abortion.

Mistake #1: confuse objective claims with subjective ones

When pro-life advocates say that elective abortion is morally wrong
because it unjustly takes the life of a defenseless child, they are
making a particular type of claim.[6] Specifically, they are making
a moral claim about the rightness or wrongness of abortion. Of
course, moral claims can sometimes be mistaken, as for example, when
a man equates eating peanuts with racial genocide. But just because
the claim is false does not mean it's purely subjective. The man
making it is not offering an opinion; he's claiming to be right.

Many people, however, misconstrue the kind of claim the pro-lifer is
making in order to respond to one they like better, thus avoiding the
hard work of demonstrating why, exactly, the pro-lifer is mistaken.
Consider the following responses to the moral claim, "Elective
abortion is morally wrong."

"That's just your view."

As a guest on the television show Politically Incorrect, former super-
model Kathy Ireland gave a carefully reasoned scientific and
philosophic defense of the pro-life position. The show's host, Bill
Maher, ignored her evidence completely and shot back with
(paraphrase) "Kathy, that's just your view."

What's wrong with this response? Maher was confusing a moral claim
with a preference claim. But there is a difference between disliking
something (say, for example, a particular flavor of ice cream) and
thinking it is morally wrong. Put simply, when pro-life advocates
say that abortion is morally wrong, they are not saying they
personally dislike abortion or would prefer that people not have
one. Rather, they are saying that elective abortion is objectively
wrong for everyone, regardless of how one feels about it. This is
why the popular bumper sticker "Don't like abortion? Don't have one!"
misses the point entirely. It confuses the two types of claims.
(Try this: "Don't like slavery? Don't own a slave!")

Now it may be the case that pro-life advocates like Kathy Ireland are
mistaken about their claim. Perhaps their evidence that abortion
unjustly takes the life of a defenseless child is weak and
inconclusive. But instead of proving this with facts and arguments,
abortion advocates like Bill Maher ignore the evidence
altogether. "Well, that's just your view." This not only
relativizes the pro-lifers claim, it is intellectually lazy. It
attempts to dismiss evidence rather than refute it.

Imagine if I were to say, "There is a pink elephant in the corner of
the room just beneath the window."[7] How should you respond to my
claim? Perhaps I'm mistaken (and chances are I would be), but it
would do no good to say, "That's just your view." The problem is I
was not offering an opinion, I was claiming to be right. To refute
me, you must show that my claim is false. The correct response is to
say, "Your evidence is lousy. We looked in the corner and there is
no elephant."

But again, Maher did not do that. At no point did he challenge her
facts and arguments. What he said in effect was "Go away Kathy. You
have your views and I have mine." This was very condescending
because he did not even entertain the possibility that she had good
evidence for her claim. Nor did he acknowledge the type of claim she
was making.

To sum up, Maher was confusing a preference claim with a distinctly
moral one. Preference claims cannot be evaluated as true or false
because they are matters of personal taste. You cannot reasonably
argue that vanilla ice cream is objectively better than chocolate.
But moral claims are different. They can be evaluated as true or
false based on the evidence. They do not say, "This is better
tasting," they say, "This is right". Kathy Ireland's claim was,
Abortion is wrong because it takes the life of a defenseless child,
and I think I'm right. Maher's glib response did nothing to refute
this. In fact, one could stop Maher dead in his tracks by
saying, "Bill, it's just your view that it's just my view."

"Don't force your morality on me."

A student at a Southern California college said this to me after I
made a case for the pro-life position in her sociology class. She
was in effect saying, "Morality is relative; it's up to me to decide
what is right and wrong." We call this moral relativism, the belief
that there are no objective standards of right and wrong, only
personal preferences. Therefore, we should tolerate other views as
being equal to our own.

But as Greg Koukl and Francis Beckwith point out, relativism is
seriously flawed for at least three reasons.[8] First, it is self-
refuting. That is to say, it cannot live by its own rules. Second,
relativists cannot reasonably say that anything is wrong, including
intolerance. Third, it is impossible to live as a relativist.

1) Relativism is self-refuting—it commits intellectual suicide. The
student said it was wrong for me to force my views on others, but she
could not live with her own rule. Although our dialogue was
pleasant, she clearly tried to force her views on me.[9]

Student: You made some good points in your talk, but you shouldn't
force your morality on me or anyone else who wants an abortion. It's
our choice, isn't it?

Me: Are you saying I'm wrong?

Student: I'm not sure. What do you mean?

Me: Well, you think I'm wrong, don't you? If not, why are you
correcting me? And if so, then you're forcing your morality on me,
aren't you?

Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling people what they
can and cannot do with their lives.

Me: Are you saying I shouldn't do that? That it's wrong? If so,
then why are you telling me what I can and cannot do? Why are you
forcing your morality on me?

Student (regrouping): I'm confused. Look, the simple fact is that
pro-choicers are not forcing women to have abortions, but you want to
force women to be mothers. If you don't like abortion, don't have
one. But you shouldn't force your beliefs on others. All I am
saying is that pro-life people should be tolerant of other views.

Me: Is that your view?

Student: Yes.

Me: Why are you forcing it on me? That's not very tolerant, is it?

Student: What do you mean? I think women should have a choice and
you don't. It's your view that's intolerant, wouldn't you say?

Me: Okay, so you think I'm wrong. What is it you want pro-lifers
like me to do?

Student: You should let women decide for themselves and tolerate
other views.

Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?

Student: We believe everyone should decide for themselves and
tolerate other views.

Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become pro-choicers?

Student: What? No way.

Me: With all due respect, here's what I hear you saying. Unless I
agree with you, you will not tolerate my view. Privately, you'll let
me think whatever I want, but you don't want me to act as if my view
is true. It seems you think tolerance is a virtue if and only if
people agree with you.

Put succinctly, her argument for tolerance was in fact a patronizing
form of intolerance. She spoke of moral neutrality, but tried to
force her own views on me.

I once read an editorial in the Toronto Star that was similarly
intolerant of pro-life advocates. While decrying the "single-minded
moral supremacism" of those who call abortion killing, journalist
Michele Landsberg writes:

Will no priest or minister publicly resolve to stop the
indoctrination of youth to view abortion as murder? Is none ashamed
of the blood-drenched holocaust vocabulary used so cynically (and
anti-semitically) to whip up fervor for the crusade? Where are the
outspoken cries of conscience by bishops and cardinals who should be
appalled by the evidence of links between anti-abortion fanatics and
far-right militias, neo Nazis, and white supremacists? Is there no
religious leader who regrets his church's role in feeding this blind
frenzy? Will none of them repent of their excesses, will none call a
halt to their sickeningly manipulative campaigns of "precious little
feet," their fake "documentaries" about screaming fetuses? You'd
think that the world had enough lessons in the dangers of hate speech.

Like hers? It doesn't seem to trouble Ms. Landsberg that her own
vitriolic rhetoric could incite abortion advocates to commit acts of
violence against pro-lifers. She continues:

It was the unbridled hate speech of fundamentalist fanatics in Israel
who spurred on the "devout" murder of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin....We've seen how homophobic rantings from right-wing American
leaders, notably the Senate republican leader, led to escalating gay
bashings, culminating in the heart- wrenching death of Matthew
Shepherd in Wyoming....Denominational schools [should] begin to teach
respect for the laws of our pluralistic society, rather than
preaching single-minded moral supremacism.[10]

Again, like her own?

Notice what is going on here. She decries "moral supremacism," but
says that anyone who disagrees with her view on abortion is an
indoctrinator of youth, a fanatic, an anti-Semite, a neo-Nazi, a
white supremacist, a manipulator of facts, a purveyor of hate speech,
homophobic, a gay-basher, a religious bully, responsible for the
death of Matthew Shepherd, and finally, a fundamentalist fanatic like
those who murdered Yitzhak Rabin.

One can hardly imagine a finer piece of self-refuting rhetoric—all,
of course, in the name of tolerance.

Sometimes the demand for tolerance is laughable. While driving my
sons to a baseball game at Dodger Stadium, a young woman in a white
pickup truck began tailgating me. Visibly angered by a pro-life
sticker on my rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so.
Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of her
anatomy skyward as she passed. She then cut in front of me. At that
moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck. It said, "Celebrate
Diversity." The message was clear: In a pluralistic society, we
should tolerate other views. Ironically, the driver saw no
contradiction between her unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my
point of view and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all
points of view. That is what I mean when I say that relativism is
self-refuting.

Are pro-choice claims for moral neutrality self-refuting?

On a more sophisticated level, we often hear that society should
confer a large degree of liberty by not legislating on controversial
moral issues for which there is no consensus, especially if those
issues incite deep division. Abortion, the argument goes, is a
divisive and controversial issue. Therefore, it should be left to
personal choice. But this view is itself controversial. Do we have
a consensus that we should not legislate on controversial matters?
Moreover, slavery and racism were controversial and divisive issues.
Are we to conclude that it was wrong to legislate against them? The
fact that people disagree is no reason to suppose that nobody is
correct.

Paul D. Simmons, meanwhile, writes that pro-lifers are guilty
of "speculative metaphysics" whenever they claim that the unborn are
persons from conception. (Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate
grounding or reality of things such as, What makes humans valuable in
the first place? And where do rights come from?) For Simmons,
metaphysical claims for the pro-life view are ultimately "religious"
in nature and for that reason, they have no place in public policy.
If you think the early fetus is a subject of rights, you are entitled
to your own religious view, but you can't force that speculative
opinion on others who disagree. When it comes to religion and
metaphysics, the state should remain neutral and allow abortion until
the fetus acquires viability (i.e., the ability to live independent
of the mother).

Simmons's view, however, is self-refuting. As Beckwith points out,
the nature of the abortion debate is such that all positions on
abortion presuppose a metaphysical view of human value, and for this
reason, the pro-choice position Simmons defends is not entitled to a
privileged philosophical standing in our legal framework.[11] At
issue is not which view of abortion has metaphysical underpinnings
and which does not, but which metaphysical view of human value is
correct, pro-life or abortion-choice?

The pro-life view is that humans are intrinsically valuable in
virtue of the kind of thing they are. True, they differ immensely
with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development,
but they are nonetheless equal because they all have the same human
nature. Their right to life comes to be when they come to be
(conception). Simmons's own abortion-choice view is that humans have
value (and hence, rights) not in virtue of the kind of thing they
are, but only because of an acquired property such as self-awareness
or viability.[12] Because the early fetus lacks the immediate
capacity for these things, it is not a person with rights. Notice
that Simmons is doing the abstract work of metaphysics. That is, he
is using philosophical reflection to defend a disputed view of human
persons.[13] Hence, Simmons's attempt to disqualify the pro-life
view from public policy based on its alleged metaphysical
underpinnings works equally well to disqualify his own view.

2) It is impossible for a moral relativist to say that anything is
wrong, including intolerance. If morals are relative, then who are
you to say that I should be tolerant? Perhaps my individual morality
says intolerance is just fine. Why, then, should I allow anyone to
force tolerance on me as a virtue if my preference is intolerance?

The truth is, a moral relativist cannot legitimately say that
anything is wrong or truly evil. My colleague Greg Koukl once
challenged a relativist with this question. "Do you think it is
wrong to torture babies for fun?" She paused, then replied, "Well, I
wouldn't want to do that to my baby." Greg responded, "That's not
what I asked you. I didn't ask if you liked torturing babies for
fun, I asked if it was wrong to torture babies for fun." The
relativist was caught and she knew it. She chuckled and went on to
another subject.

If it is up to us to decide right and wrong, then there is no
difference between Mother Theresa and Adolph Hitler. They just had
different preferences. Mother Theresa liked to help people and
Hitler liked to kill them. Who are we to judge?

3) It is impossible to live as a moral relativist. As C.S. Lewis
points out, a person who claims there is no objective morality will
complain if you break a promise or cut in line.[14] And if you steal
his stereo, he will protest loudly. If I were a crook, I would reply
to the relativist, "Do you think stealing stereos is wrong? Well,
that's just your view. My morality says it's perfectly acceptable.
Who are you to force your views on me?" Simply put, moral
relativists inevitably make moral judgements. They espouse a view
they cannot live with.

I think you are starting to get the picture. Relativism is not
tolerant of other views. In fact, it tries to suppress them. To
cite one more example, during the 2001 winter semester, pro-life
students at the University of North Carolina displayed 20 large
panels (each 6 feet by 13 feet) depicting the grisly reality of
abortion. Known as the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP—see
www.abortionno.org), these pictures have been displayed at over 100
universities nationwide. Though invited to do so, pro-abortion
students at UNC refused to participate in a structured public debate,
but demanded instead that campus police forcibly remove the display.
One pro-abortion student, Marcus Harvey, insisted the display was
intolerant, ignorant, and must be removed.

I wrote a reply to Mr. Harvey that was posted (in part) on The Daily
Tar Heel website:[15]

Marcus Harvey's comments about the Genocide Awareness Project are
typical of today's so-called pro-choicers. Instead of refuting the
pro-life argument that it's wrong to kill members of the human family
simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves, he
chastises the campus police for not suppressing ideas that he
personally disagrees with. This is very intolerant of him. His
message couldn't be clearer: Agree with me or else. Unfortunately,
Mr. Harvey has no clue about the true meaning of tolerance.
Classical tolerance means that I defend your right to speak even if I
disagree with your argument. In fact, the very concept of tolerance
presupposes that I think you are wrong. Otherwise, I am not
tolerating you; I am agreeing with you! For Mr. Harvey, tolerance
means something very different. It means this: Agree with me or I
will call upon the police power of the state to suppress your ideas.
There is a name this and it's not tolerance: It's called fascism.
Thankfully, the university knew better and the pro-life display went
forward despite attempts to censor it. Hey, Mr. Harvey: Please don't
force your morality on the rest of us.

Moral relativism is expressed one other way: "I'm personally opposed
to abortion, but I still think it should be legal." When people say
this, I ask a simple question to clarify things. I ask why they
personally oppose abortion.[16] Invariably they reply: "We oppose it
because it kills a human baby." At that point, I merely repeat back
their words. "Let me see if I got this straight. You oppose abortion
because it kills babies, but you think it should be legal to kill
babies?" Would these same people argue that while they personally
opposed slavery, they would not protest if a neighbor wanted to own
one? This was precisely what Stephen Douglas did during his debates
with Abraham Lincoln.[17] That argument did not work with slavery
and it will not work with abortion.

Greg Koukl suggests this tactic: The next time somebody says
that "you shouldn't force your morality on me," respond with only two
words: "Why not?" Any answer given will be an example of that person
forcing his morality on you![18]

Mistake #2: Attack the person rather than refute the argument

Instead of defending the abortion act itself, some "pro-choice"
advocates personally attack those who do not share their views. At
a "Rock for Choice" concert in Pensacola Florida, vocalist Eddie
Vedder of Pearl Jam shrieked from the stage:

I'm usually good about my temper, but all these men trying to control
women's bodies really piss me off. They're talking from a bubble.
They're not talking from the street, and they're not in touch with
what's real. Well, I'm f---ing mean, and I'm ugly, and my name is
reality.[19]

He later said that unlike pro-life advocates, he would never force
his beliefs on anyone. Meanwhile, during an HBO special, comedian
Rosanne Barr told the audience:

You know who else I can't stand is them people that are
antiabortion....I hate them. They're ugly, old, geeky, hideous men.
They just don't want nobody to have an abortion, cause they want you
to keep spitting out kids so they can molest them.[20]

Do you see what is happening here? Instead of defending their views
with facts and arguments, Rosanne Barr and Eddie Vedder are attacking
the character of pro-lifers. We call this the ad hominem fallacy.
It is fallacious reasoning because even if the personal attack is
true, it does nothing to refute the pro-lifer's argument that the
unborn are members of the human community. Suppose we grant that pro-
life advocates are hideous old men who molest children, as Roseanne
Barr contends is true. How does this in any way refute the pro-life
claim that abortion takes the life of a defenseless child? Clearly,
it does not. The attack is therefore irrelevant to the argument the
pro-life advocate is making.

Unfair chastisement

Sometimes the personal attack comes from within the pro-life
movement. Speaking at a pro-life convention in Alberta, a local
cleric chastised right-to-lifers for being "the rudest people I have
to deal with, and I don't like it."

Why are pro-lifers rude? Apparently they focus too narrowly on
abortion when they ought to consider the broader "life issues" such
as occupational safety, AIDS, poverty, and capital punishment. The
result, the cleric said, is a "fractured Christian witness that hurts
the cause."

The cleric is typical of many on the political left who insist that
because pro-life advocates oppose the willful destruction of an
innocent human being, they must therefore assume responsibility for
all of society's ills. In other words, you are not truly pro-life
unless you treat the deforestation of the Amazon with the same moral
intensity that you do the unjust killing of a human fetus. This is
careless thinking and highly unfair to those who take abortion
seriously.

Imagine the gall of saying to the Canadian Cancer Society, "You have
no right to focus on curing cancer unless you also work to cure AIDS,
heart disease, and diabetes." Or, try telling the Canadian Heart and
Lung Association, "You cannot reasonably oppose cardiac arrest unless
you fund research aimed at stopping all loss of life." Ridiculous
indeed, but how is this any different from what the cleric told pro-
life advocates? Consider what he is demanding. Local pro-life
groups must take their already scarce resources and spread them even
thinner fighting every social injustice imaginable. This would be
suicide for those opposed to abortion. As Frederick the Great once
said, "He who attacks everywhere attacks nowhere."

Contrary to what some think, the abortion debate is not about
poverty, capital punishment, the redistribution of wealth, or
protection of the environment. It's about one issue: What is the
unborn? The answer to that question trumps all other
considerations. This is why secular objections to the pro-life view
based on choice or privacy also miss the point entirely. Do we allow
parents the choice to abuse children as long as they do so in the
privacy of the home? Clearly, we don't. If the fetus is human, we
should not harm it in the name of privacy anymore than we would a
toddler.

In the final analysis, the cleric's remarks are not an outrage but a
distraction. He sounds too much like secular critics who argue that
right-to-lifers are hypocritical to oppose abortion unless they also
adopt unwanted babies. Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren't, but
how does my alleged unwillingness to adopt a child justify an
abortionist killing one? Imagine how bizarre it would sound if I
were to say, "Unless you agree to marry my wife, you have no right to
oppose me mistreating her." Or, "Unless you agree to adopt my
toddler by noon tomorrow, I shall execute him." Either way, if you
reject my ultimatum, it does nothing to justify my evil treatment of
innocent humans.[21]

Attacking pro-lifers for their speech

On July 11, 2000, a knife-wielding man attacked Vancouver (BC)
abortionist Garson Romalis in a downtown clinic. Abortion advocacy
groups seized on his brush with death to score cheap political points
against their opponents, notably Canadian Alliance Party leader
Stockwell Day, who opposes abortion.[22]

Day was quick to condemn the attack against Romalis as "outrageous
and untenable," but that did not satisfy local abortion advocates.
Marilyn Wilson, president of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action
League, said Day had "indirectly sanctioned" the violence against
Romalis with his extremist rhetoric.

Why was Mr. Day responsible for the attack? It's really quite
simple: He disagrees with Ms. Wilson on abortion and has said
publicly that elective abortion is the unjust killing of an innocent
human being. "Day is going to try and deny that he would support any
violence," she said in a press release, "but his rhetoric does incite
other people who share his beliefs against abortion to violence."
She then called Day a "fanatic" for "the amount of anti-choice,
extremist rhetoric that's out there."

Bear in mind that to Ms. Wilson, "fanatic" and "extremist" mean
anyone who deviates in the slightest from her own position, which is
that abortion should be legal for any reason whatsoever during all
nine months of pregnancy. If you say that elective abortion takes
the life of a defenseless child, as Day believes it does, your
irresponsible rhetoric will cost an abortionist his life.

Ms. Wilson is using scaremongering tactics to poison the public
debate over abortion. Her statements are intellectually dishonest
for at least four reasons. First, let's assume that pro-life
rhetoric does in fact lead to acts of violence against abortionists
(though there is no good reason to suppose that this is so). Would
this in anyway refute the pro-life argument that elective abortion
unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being? Keep in mind
that pro-life advocates do not merely state their case; they buttress
it with scientific and philosophic reasoning. If Ms. Ms. Wilson is
using scaremongering tactics to poison the public debate over
abortion. Her statements are intellectually dishonest for at least
four reasons. First, let's assume that pro-life rhetoric does in
fact lead to acts of violence against abortionists (though there is
no good reason to suppose that this is so). Would this in anyway
refute the pro-life argument that elective abortion unjustly takes
the life of an innocent human being? Keep in mind that pro-life
advocates do not merely state their case; they buttress it with
scientific and philosophic reasoning. If Ms. Wilson thinks we are
wrong about the humanity of the unborn and the inhumanity of
abortion, she should patiently explain why our arguments are mistaken
and why fetuses should be disqualified from membership in the human
community. But instead of refuting the pro-life view, she attempts
to silence it with personal attacks.

Second, it is blatantly unfair of Ms. Wilson to demonize pro-life
advocates for espousing their sincerely held beliefs. Let's assume
that I'm an animal rights activist opposed to the sale of fur. If a
deranged environmentalist firebombs a local clothing store, am I
responsible? More to the point, is Ms. Wilson responsible if, upon
reading her press release, a pro-abortion activist shoots Stockwell
Day for the purpose of saving the community from such an awful
extremist? (In a press release one day prior to the stabbing, Wilson
accused Mr. Day of favoring "state-sanctioned violence against women
by forcing them to bear children they may not want."[23]) If she is
serious that merely disagreeing with her on abortion is itself an
incitement to violence, then let's not fool around: Ms. Wilson should
lead the charge to ban all pro-life speech. (Actually, she would
like that, but lacks the courage to say so publicly.)

Third, it does not follow that because a lone extremist stabs an
abortionist, the pro-life cause itself is unjust. Dr. Martin Luther
King, for example, used strong language to condemn the evil of racism
during the 1960s. In response to his peaceful but confrontational
tactics, racists unjustly blamed him for the violent unrest that
sometimes followed his public demonstrations. Mayor Richard Daley of
Chicago argued that if Dr. King would stop exposing racial injustice,
black people would be less likely to riot.[24] The Mayor's remarks,
like those of Ms. Wilson, were an outrage. Are we to believe that a
handful of rioters made Dr. King's crusade for civil rights entirely
unjust?

In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, King rebuts this dishonest
attempt to change the subject:

In your statement you asserted that our actions, though peaceful,
must be condemned because they precipitate violence….[I]t is immoral
to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain…basic
constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence….Non-
violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish
such a creative tension that a community…is forced to confront the
issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so it can be no longer
ignored.

Fourth, if it is extreme to call elective abortion killing, then
abortion advocates bear partial responsibility for the stabbing of
Dr. Romalis. The fact is that pro-lifers aren't the only ones who
call abortion killing. Abortion-choice advocates do too:

· Warren Hern, late-term abortionist: We have reached a point
in this particular technology [D&E abortion] where there is no
possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator. It
is before one's eyes. The sensations of dismemberment flow through
the forceps like an electric current.[25]

· Anthony Kennedy, pro-abortion Supreme Court Associate
Justice, describing common abortion techniques: The fetus, in many
cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: it bleeds to death
as it is torn from limb to limb. . . . The fetus can be alive at the
beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time
while its limbs are being torn off. . . . Dr. [Leroy] Carhart [the
abortionist who challenged Nebraska's partial–birth ban] has observed
fetal heartbeat . . . with "extensive parts of the fetus
removed," . . . and testified that mere dismemberment of a limb does
not always cause death because he knows of a physician who removed
the arm of a fetus only to have the fetus go on to be born "as a
living child with one arm." . . . At the conclusion of a D&E
abortion . . . the abortionist is left with "a tray full of
pieces."[26]

· Planned Parenthood, 1963 brochure: Abortion kills the life
of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and
health.[27]

· New Mexico abortionist, 1993: Paradoxically, I have angry
feelings at myself for feeling good about doing a technically good
procedure which destroys a fetus, kills a baby.[28]

· Abortionist Dr. Crist, 2000: In testimony Wednesday in St.
Louis Circuit Court, [abortionist] Crist said that it is not uncommon
for second-trimester fetuses to leave the womb feet-first, intact and
with their hearts still beating. He sometimes crushes their skulls to
get the fetuses out. Other times, he dismembers them.[29]

My question for Ms. Wilson and abortion-advocates who think like her
is this: If calling abortion "killing" makes one responsible for acts
of violence against doctors, are pro-abortionists like Warren Hern
and Anthony Kennedy guilty of inciting violence against their own
people? Like pro-life advocates, they candidly admit that abortion
is brutal killing. Therefore, when Dr. Hern complains about threats
to abortion doctors, is he partially to blame for his own
insecurity? Put simply pro-abortion advocates like Ms. Wilson lack
the courage to defend their views publicly. Instead of refuting the
scientific and philosophic case for the pro-life view, they call
names from a distance in hopes of silencing their critics. There is
a name for this—fascism. Pro-lifers take heart: Our critics have
truly run out of ideas.

A crass form of reverse sexism

Finally, some pro-life advocates are attacked for their gender. Men
are told, "You can't get pregnant, so leave the abortion issue to
women." Besides its obvious sexism, the statement is seriously
flawed for several reasons. First, arguments do not have genders,
people do.[30] Since many pro-life women use the same arguments
offered by pro-life men, it behooves the abortion advocate to answer
these arguments without fallaciously attacking a person's gender.

Second, to be consistent with their own reasoning, abortion advocates
would have to concede that Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case
legalizing abortion, was bad law. After all, nine men decided it.
They must also call for the dismissal of all male lawyers working for
Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on abortion related issues. Since
abortion advocates are unwilling to do this, we can restate their
argument as follows: "No man can speak on abortion—unless he agrees
with us." Once again, this is a classic case of intolerance.

Third, lesbians and post-menopausal women cannot naturally get
pregnant; must they be silent on the issue? Think of the bizarre
rules we could derive from this argument: "Since only generals
understand battle, only they should discuss the morality of war."
Or, "Because female sportscasters have never experienced a groin
injury, they have no right to broadcast football games on national
television."

Again, abortion advocates must offer arguments to support their
position. Attacking people personally, even if those attacks are
true, will not make their case or refute ours.

Mistake #3: Assume what you are trying to prove

Advocates of elective abortion must show that the unborn are not
fully human for their case to succeed.[31] But instead of proving
this conclusion with facts and arguments, many people simply assume
it within the course of their rhetoric. We call this "begging the
question" and it's a logical fallacy that lurks behind many arguments
for abortion.

A person begs the question when he assumes what he is trying to
prove. Suppose federal prosecutors confronted you with this
question: "Have you stopped cheating on your taxes?" Obviously, the
question is unfair. It assumes that you have broken the law, which
is in fact the very point prosecutors are trying to prove. Your
defense attorney would be outraged, insisting that they prove guilt
with facts and evidence, rather than assume it with rhetoric.

Arguing that abortion is justified because a woman has a right to
control her own body assumes there is only one body involved—that of
the woman. But this is precisely the point abortion advocates try to
prove. Hence, they beg the question. Or, take the claim that no one
knows when life begins, therefore abortion should remain legal. But
to argue that no one knows when life begins, and that abortion must
remain legal through all nine months of pregnancy, assumes that life
does not begin until birth—the exact point abortion advocates try to
prove. This is hardly a neutral position. It is a clear case of
begging the question.

So is the coat-hanger/back-alley argument, which states that women
will once again be forced to procure dangerous illegal abortions if
laws are passed protecting the unborn. Besides, we are told, the law
can't stop all abortions, so why not keep the practice legal? But
unless you begin with the assumption that the unborn are not human,
you are making the highly questionable claim that because some people
will die attempting to kill others, the state should make it safe and
legal for them to do so. Why should the law be faulted for making it
tougher for one human being to take the life of another, completely
innocent one? Should we legalize bank robbery so it is safer for
felons? As abortion advocate Mary Anne Warren points out, "The fact
that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not,
in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder
is wrong regardless of the consequences of forbidding it."[32]
Again, the issue isn't safety. The issue is the status of the unborn.

(To digress for a moment, the objection that the law cannot stop all
abortions is silly. Laws cannot stop all rape—should we legalize
rape? The fact is that laws against abortion, like laws against rape,
drastically reduce its occurrence. Prior to Roe v. Wade (1973),
there were at most 210,000 illegal abortions per year while more
conservative estimates suggest an average of 89,000 per year. Within
seven years of legalization, abortion totals jumped to over 1.5
million annually![33] True, no law can stop ALL illegal behavior,
but that's not the point. At issue is the status of the unborn: Are
they human beings? If so, we should legally protect them the way we
would any other group that is unjustly harmed. Also silly is the
claim that women are "forced" into having illegal abortions. Women
aren't forced to have illegal abortions; they choose to have them.
As Greg Koukl points out, "A woman is no more forced into the back
alley when abortion is outlawed than a young man is forced to rob
banks because the state won't put him on welfare. Both have other
options."[34] Finally, the claim thousands died annually from back-
alley abortions prior to 1973—when Roe. v. Wade legalized abortion in
the U.S.—is just plain false. Dr. Mary Calderone, former medical
director for Planned Parenthood, wrote in 1960 that illegal abortions
were performed safely by physicians in good standing in their
communities. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control report 39
women died from illegal abortion in 1972, the year prior to
legalization, not 5,000 to 10,000 as claimed by abortion advocates
for each year prior to Roe.)

In short, if you think a particular argument begs the question
regarding the status of the unborn, simply ask if this justification
for abortion also works as a justification for killing toddlers or
other humans. If not, the argument assumes the unborn are not fully
human. Again, it may be the case that the unborn are not fully human
and abortion is therefore justified. But this must be argued with
evidence, not merely assumed by one's rhetoric.

Mistake #4: Confuse human value with human function

Abortion advocates like Mary Anne Warren claim that a "person" is a
living entity with feelings, self-awareness, consciousness, and the
ability to interact with his or her environment. Because a human
fetus has none of these capabilities, it's not a person.[35] Warren
makes two assumptions here, neither of which she defends. First, she
doesn't say why should anyone accept the idea that there can be such
a thing as a human being that is not a human person. What's the
difference? I've never met a human that wasn't a person, have you?
Second, even if Warren is correct about the distinction between human
being and human person, she fails to tell us why a person must
possess self-awareness and consciousness in order to qualify as fully
human. In other words, she merely asserts that these traits are
necessary for personhood but never says why these alleged value-
giving properties are value-giving in the first place.

In his article "Why Libertarians Should be Pro-Choice Regarding
Abortion," Libertarian philosopher Jan Narveson makes points similar
to Warren.[36] His larger purpose is to tell us who is and is not a
subject of libertarian rights. He argues that humans have value (and
hence, rights) not in virtue of the kind of thing they are (members
of a natural kind or species), but only because of an acquired
property, in this case, the immediate capacity to make conscious,
deliberate choices. Because fetuses lack this acquired property,
they have no rights. A woman's choice to abort, then, does not
negatively effect the fetus or deny it any fundamental liberties.

But this can't be right. Newborns, like fetuses, lack the immediate
capacity to make conscious, deliberate choices, so what's wrong with
infanticide?[37] What principled reason can Narveson give for
saying, "No, you can't do that?"

Peter Singer in Practical Ethics bites the bullet and says there is
none, that arguments used to justify abortion work equally well to
justify infanticide.[38] Abortion-advocates Michael Tooley and Mary
Anne Warren agree. For example, if the immediate capacity for self-
consciousness makes one valuable as a subject of rights, and newborns
like fetuses lack that immediate capacity, it follows that fetuses
and newborns are both disqualified. You can't draw an arbitrary line
at birth and spare newborns. Hence, infanticide, like abortion, is
morally permissible.

Lincoln raised a similar point with slavery, noting that any argument
used to disqualify blacks as subjects of rights works equally well to
disqualify many whites.

You say `A' is white and `B' is black. It is color, then: the
lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this
rule, you are a slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin
than your own.

You do not mean color exactly—You mean the whites are intellectually
the superiors of the blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave
them? Take care again: By this rule you are to be a slave to the
first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own.

But you say it is a question of interest, and, if you can make it
your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well.
And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.
[39]

In short, if humans have value only because of some acquired property
like skin color or self-consciousness and not in virtue of the kind
of thing they are, then it follows that since these acquired
properties come in varying degrees, basic human rights come in
varying degrees. Do we really want to say that those with more self-
consciousness are more human (and valuable) than those with less? As
Lee and George point out, this relegates the proposition that all men
are created equal to the ash heap of history.[40]

Philosophically, 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 because they share
a common human nature. Humans have value simply because they are
human, not because of some acquired property that they may gain or
lose during their lifetimes. If you deny this, it's difficult to say
why objective human rights apply to anyone.

Natural rights versus legal (positive) rights

Put differently, pro-life advocates, echoing Lincoln, argue that we
must distinguish between natural rights and legal ones. Natural
rights are those rights that you have simply because you are human.
The are grounded in your human nature and you have them from the
moment you begin to exist.[41] For example, you have a natural right
not to be harmed without justification as well as a natural right not
to be convicted of a crime without a fair trial. Government does not
grant these basic rights. Rather, government's role is to protect
them. In contrast, legal (or positive) rights are those rights you
can only acquire through accomplishment or maturity. These rights
originate from the government and include the right to vote at your
eighteenth birthday and a right to drive on your sixteenth. But your
natural right to live was there all along. It comes to be when you
come to be.

To cash this out further, I do not have a legal (positive) right to
vote in the next Canadian election for the simple reason that I am
not a Canadian citizen. But just because I lack the right to vote in
Canada does not mean I lack the right to basic protections whenever I
visit that country. Likewise, just because a fetus may not have the
positive right to drive a car or vote in the next election does not
mean he lacks the natural right not to be harmed without
justification. Elective abortion unjustly robs the unborn of his or
her natural right to life, as Hadley Arkes explains:

No one would suggest that a fetus could have a claim to fill the
Chair of Logic at one of our universities; and we would not wish
quite yet to seeks its advice on anything important; and we should
probably not regard him as eligible to vote in any state other than
Massachusetts. All of these rights and privileges would be
inappropriate to the condition or attributes of the fetus. But
nothing that renders him unqualified for these special rights would
diminish in any way the most elementary right that could be claimed
for any human being, or even for an animal: the right not to be
killed without the rendering of reasons that satisfy the strict
standards of "justification."[42]

Do women have a natural (fundamental) right to abort?

Secular liberals insist that abortion is a fundamental human right
the State should not infringe upon. In reply, I borrow a question
from Hadley Arkes and ask, "Where did that right to an abortion come
from?" In other words, is it a natural right that springs from our
nature as human beings or is it a positive (legal) right granted by
government? If the latter, the abortion advocate cannot really
complain that she is wronged if the State does not permit her to
abort. After all, the same government that grants rights can take
them away.

On the other hand, if the right to an abortion is a natural right—a
right one has in virtue of being human—then the abortion-advocate had
that right from the moment she came to be, that is, from conception!
[43] Thus, we are left with this amusing paradox: According to the
logic of many abortion-advocates, unborn women do not have a right to
life while in the womb but they do have a right to an abortion!
Absurd! In short, liberals cannot tell us where rights come from or
why anyone should have them. As Arkes points out, they have talked
themselves out of the very natural rights upon which their freedoms
are built.

Mistake #5: Disguise your true position by appealing to the hard cases

Some people argue that legal abortion protects rape victims from
compulsory motherhood. They castigate pro-lifers as cruel and
insensitive toward women suffering from sexual assault. This seems
like a powerful objection, as nearly everyone understands that rape
is profoundly evil. Victims of this heinous crime deserve our best
care.

But there's a moral consideration as well. How should a civil
society treat innocent human beings that remind us of a painful
event? May we kill them so that we can feel better? Put
differently, can you think of any other case where, having been
victimized yourself, you can justly turn around and victimize another
completely innocent person?

If the unborn is a human being, she should not be killed to benefit
her mother. Hardship does not justify homicide. Hence, we are back
to the one question that trumps all others in the abortion debate:
What is the unborn?

Hidden agendas

But the appeal to hard cases is flawed in another way that has
nothing to do with one's attitude toward women or the morality of
abortion. It is flawed because it's misleading.

Here's why. The "pro-choice" position is not that abortion should be
legal only when a woman is raped, but that abortion is a fundamental
right she can exercise for any reason she wants during all nine
months of pregnancy. Instead of defending this position with facts
and arguments, many disguise it with an emotional appeal to rape.
But this will not make their case. The argument from rape, if
successful at all, would only justify abortion in cases of sexual
assault, not for any reason the woman deems fit. In fact, arguing
for abortion-on-demand from the hard case of rape is like trying to
argue for the elimination of all traffic laws because you might have
to break one rushing a child to the hospital.[44]

To expose their smokescreen, I ask abortion advocates the
following: "Okay, I'm going to grant for the sake of discussion that
we keep abortion legal in cases of rape. Will you join me in
supporting legal restrictions on those abortions done for the
convenience of the mother?"[45] The answer is almost always no, to
which I reply, "Then why did you bring up rape in the first place?
Were you trying to disguise your own extreme view that abortion
should be legal for any reason whatsoever?

Again, if abortion-advocates think that abortion should be a legal
choice for all nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever,
including sex-selection and convenience, they should defend that view
with facts and arguments. Exploiting the tragedy of rape victims is
intellectually dishonest.

Summary and Conclusion

Again, this is not a debate about privacy or trusting women to make
their own responsible choices. Does the right to make one's own
responsible choices include the rights of parents to abuse children
in the privacy of the home? Therefore, if the unborn are human like
other children, killing them in the name of privacy is a clear moral
wrong. As I have shown, this debate is about one question: What is
the unborn? Everything comes back to that one question.

Let me be clear. I am vigorously "pro-choice" when it comes to women
choosing a number of moral goods. I support a woman's right to
choose her own health care provider, to choose her own school, to
choose her own husband, to choose her own job, to choose her own
religion, and to choose her own career, to name a few. These are
among the many choices that I fully support for the women of our
country. But some choices are wrong, like killing innocent human
beings simply because they are in the way and cannot defend
themselves. No, we shouldn't be allowed to choose that.

Sadly, opponents of the pro-life view believe that human beings that
are in the wrong location or have the wrong level of development do
not deserve the protection of law. They assert, without
justification, the belief that strong and independent people deserve
the protection of law while small and dependent people do not. This
view is elitist and exclusive. It violates the principle that once
made political liberalism great: a basic commitment to protect the
most vulnerable members of the human community.

We can do better than that. In the past, we used to discriminate on
the basis of skin color and gender, but now, with elective abortion,
we discriminate on the basis of size, level of development, location,
and degree of dependency. We've simply exchanged one form of bigotry
for another.

In sharp contrast, the position I have defended is that no human
being, regardless of size, level of development, race, gender, or
place of residence, should be excluded from the moral community of
human persons. In other words, the pro-life view of humanity is
inclusive, indeed wide open, to all, especially those that are small,
vulnerable and defenseless.[46]

Remember: The absence of consensus does not mean the absence of
truth. People once disagreed about slavery, racism and genocide, but
that did not make them complex issues.[47] Nor did it mean that
there were no right answers.

Today, the moral question of abortion can be answered by asking one
question: What is the unborn? Once that question is answered, moral
clarity is possible. Whether we shall have the courage to pursue
moral clarity remains to be seen.

Review Questions:
· Pro-life advocates content that elective abortion
unjustly takes the life a defenseless human being. They defend this
claim two ways. What are they?

· What does the SLED acronym stand for? How is it used
to affirm the pro-life view?

· What's the difference between a preference claim and a
moral one? When someone says, "That's just your view," what mistake
are they making?

· When someone says, "You shouldn't force your views on
me," what are they doing to you? What two-word reply should you
politely offer in return?

· What are relativism's three fatal flaws?

· Why are the claims "men can't speak on abortion"
and "you have no right to oppose abortion unless you adopt babies"
flawed?

· What's wrong with the claim that self-awareness
determines human value? How does this damage the idea of human
equality and dignity?

· How do natural human rights differ from legal rights?
When do they come to be?

· Why is the appeal to rape both flawed and misleading?


Projects to Enhance Learning:

· Conduct a brief campus survey with the following
questions. Do not debate those who participate; simply ask the
questions and record the answers.

1. Do you believe that morals (what's right and what's
wrong) are real things or do we just make them up for ourselves?

2. Consider the following two statements: A) It is wrong
to torture toddlers for fun. B) It is wrong to rape women for fun.
How do they differ from the claim, "chocolate ice-cream is better
than vanilla?"

3. Do you think that the terrorists who flew airplanes
into the World Trade Center were evil or did they just have
preferences different from our own?

4. People once disagreed on slavery: Some thought it was
wrong while others thought it was perfectly fine. Was slavery wrong
even though people disagreed?

5. People today disagree on the issue of abortion. What
is the best way to get at the truth and resolve the matter?

6. Pro-life advocates claim the elective abortion is
wrong because it unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human
being. How does this claim differ from saying that you like
chocolate ice-cream rather than vanilla?

Once you have the data, use the questions below to write a two-page
summary of your findings. Then, distribute the summary to at least
five youth pastors near you.



(1) Do those surveyed see the difference between moral claims
and preference ones?

(2) In what ways, if any, did people give conflicting answers
to the questions?

(3) What's the best way to reach people who think moral truth
is just a preference, like choosing your favorite ice cream?

· Study the following tolerance statement from the
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice then write a two-page
reply, which you will email to the organization. Be prepared to
explain why the organization's statement is 1) not tolerant of other
views, 2) self-refuting, 3) not morally neutral (i.e., why it
actually takes a position while claiming not to). Explain further
why the "pro-choice" view in general cannot account for basic human
dignity/equality and why the mere fact that people disagree tells us
nothing about whether abortion is right or wrong.

Pro-choice clergy honor the value and dignity of all human life and
recognize that different religious traditions have different views
regarding the beginning of life. Because of these honest differences,
they believe no one religious philosophy should govern the law for
all Americans. (www.rerc.org)

http://prolifetraining.com/Articles/Five-Bad-Ways.htm
Christopher Merritt Owner
Group:Support_life@yahoogroups.com Web-Site SupportLife.5u.com