Saturday, February 15, 2014

Puzzle Piece 14: Abortion

In the last Piece we talked about one of the great moral and cultural challenges facing Christians these days, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and this time we need to discuss another: abortion.  Abortion has become so widespread and widely available in most Western countries that it seems almost impossible to conceive of a time when it wasn’t so endemic.  Since being legalised in America in the famous Roe v Wade case of 1973 there have been over 55 million abortions in the US; that’s more than twice the population of Australia.  In Australia, it is a little harder to get accurate figures, but Medicare claims for abortion numbered 76,546 Australia wide in 2009.[1]  But why does it matter?  And what right do we have to force our religious views on others?  Isn’t this an issue of women’s autonomy, of women’s health, of a woman’s right to do as she chooses with her own body?  That depends…

TFY’d: abortion
Many people involved in this debate make claims about the difficulty of the abortion issue, labelling it as complex, involving many different factors.  But it’s not.  It’s actually really simple, and the whole discussion hinges on the answer to one simple question: what is the unborn?  If the unborn is not a valuable human being, then we don’t really need to bother with any of the objections raised above, because if an abortion doesn’t take the life of an innocent human being then no justification for having one is needed.  But if abortion does take the life of an innocent human being, then none of those reasons above seem adequate.  Here’s the pro-life view in a nice, easy to remember three-liner:
1.       It is wrong to take the life of an innocent human being without adequate justification.
2.       Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being without adequate justification.
3.       Therefore, abortion is wrong.
In this debate, almost no one is going to argue about Premise 1, so we’ll just take that for granted and move into discussing Premise 2, the real sticking point between pro-lifers and pro-choicers.

The unborn – what is it?
There is a surprising amount of confusion over what seems to be a very simple question.  To answer it, we turn not to the Bible or any other religious text, but to the science of embryology, which has a lot to tell us about what kind of thing the unborn actually is, and the answer is clear: from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. 
In The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, now in its 9th edition and “Highly Commended” by the British Medical Association in 2012, authors Moore, Persuad and Torchia write that:
…human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte to form a single cell-a zygote.  This highly specialized totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.[2]
In 1981, a US Senate committee heard evidence on when human life begins and concluded that:
Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being – a being that is alive and is a member of the human species.  There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.[3]
Oddly, there is some disagreement among scientists about when something can be considered ‘alive’, for example there is disagreement about whether things like viruses are really ‘alive’, but there is general consensus that something that has the following three characteristics can rightfully be considered ‘alive’:
1.       Irritability, which is reaction to stimuli
2.       Metabolism, which means converting food to energy, and
3.       Cellular reproduction, which means that it grows.
The unborn exhibit all three of these characteristics from the very beginning.  (Further, from a common sense perspective, if it wasn’t alive, why would you need an abortion?)  But, some critics would point out, an individual skin cell also exhibits these three qualities, and no one is arguing for skin cell rights!  Is this a reasonable rejoinder? Not at all.  If you implanted a skin cell into a uterus it would remain just that – a skin cell.  A zygote, on the other hand, has the ability to govern its own development without directional input from the outside – it is a fully functional human being, not just a part of one.  True, it’s not mature, but we’ll get to that objection later. 

It’s just a clump of cells…
In the few minutes after death, many cells continue to function normally, but we recognise that the person/organism is actually dead.  So what’s the difference between the small group of cells in the embryo and a group of cells in a dead body?  Dr Maureen Condic, assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah says that:
…death occurs when the body ceases to act in a coordinated manner to support the continued healthy function of all bodily organs.  Cellular life may continue for some time following the loss of integrated bodily function, but once the ability to act in a coordinated manner has been lost, ‘life’ cannot be restored to a corpse – no matter how ‘alive’ the cells composing the body may yet be…[embryos, however] possess the single defining feature of human life that is lost in the moment of death – the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells…[4]
Clearly, there is something about this clump of cells that makes it more than just a clump of cells. 



SLED
Having shown that the unborn is indisputably an individual, human being we need to turn more specifically to some of the reasons people give for advocating abortion, and there is a simple little acronym that can help you to handle almost any objection to the pro-life view: SLED.
S – size
L – level of development
E – environment
D – degree of dependency
These four letters will help you show that almost every pro-choice argument in favour of abortion is ignoring the scientific data above and treating the unborn as something other than a unique member of the human race.  Let’s go through them one by one first, then see how they can be applied in conversations. 
Size
You will often hear people make statements that relate to the size of the unborn, especially at the zygote or embryo stage, statements like, "It's so tiny, too small to be a real baby."  Whenever you hear someone make a statement in favour of abortion that relates to the size of the unborn it's important to point out to them that size has absolutely nothing to do with what the unborn is, or if it should be considered valuable.  Are short people less valuable than tall people?  Are fat people more valuable than thin people?  We understand, when thinking about people who have been born, that the size they are is a morally neutral fact about them, and the person who suggest otherwise when it comes to the unborn is claiming that the foetus is not a real human being.  After all, if it was a born human being they would never make the connection between size and value.  When you hear this objection, take your conversation partner back to the scientific facts above about what the unborn really is. 
Level of Development
Related to the size objection is the claim that the foetus is just a clump of cells, or it lacks some particular element, like a heart or brain, and that it doesn't have enough body parts to be considered human.  This objection seems to make sense on the surface, after all it certainly doesn't look like a baby until all the parts have formed, but is it really relevant?  The foetus looks exactly like it is supposed to at that stage of its development.  Newborns bear only a passing resemblance to the teenagers they will become, and those teenagers don't look that much like they will when they are 80, but so what?  The level of development which a person is currently at is no indicator of their value.  Again, the person who makes this claim has begun treating the unborn as though they are not a human being.  Ask them this question, "Are toddlers more valuable than infants because they are more physically developed? Are teenagers?"  This is why talking about the unborn in such language as "potential person" is not a good idea - we are not interested in their potential at some distant point in the future, we are interested in their value in their current state.  (Personhood language is actually entirely distractive in this discussion.  We don’t have ‘person rights’ we have ‘human rights’ and if a thing is human then it is entitled to all those human rights, including the right to life.) 
Environment
Many pro-choicers will make a distinction between an unborn baby and a born baby, and very few are willing to advocate for post-birth abortion (though this idea is gaining traction in certain circles).  Intuitively, once the baby has been born there seems to be something upon which almost all people can agree that makes post-birth abortion wrong…but what is it?  What is it about the few-inch journey down the birth canal that turns a previously valueless entity into something that must be protected and nurtured?  Does something magical happen in that journey to change the nature of the thing itself?  If so, what about babies born through caesarean sections?   They don’t travel through the birth canal, so do they get that magical transformation too?  In fact, the Environment in which one finds oneself is completely irrelevant to the nature of the thing itself.  When you roll over in bed you don’t change what you are!
Degree of Dependency
Another objection against the pro-life view that is often used is that the baby is completely dependent on the mother, therefore she has the right to decide what should happen to it.  But, again, the person making this claim isn’t considering the unborn to be completely human.  To show this, trot out a toddler – metaphorically of course (unless you happen to have one handy…).  All newborns and children (and many teenagers!) are completely dependent on others for every element of their lives, just as dependant as the unborn are on their mothers, yet it would be a ludicrous claim for someone to make if they said they could take the life of a toddler for those reasons.  Also, there are many people of all ages who are completely dependent on others to survive, the disabled or the elderly, the sick and infirm, but that dependency is not a sufficient reason to permit taking those human beings’ lives!

Some other objections:
It’s about choice! – When you hear this, it again become clear that the one making the claim is failing to recognise the full humanity of the unborn.  What they are really saying is that they should be able to choose to take the life of another human being – but we don’t accept this argument in any area other area of life, so why should it work here?  Again, trot out the toddler and ask if you should be able to choose to end that toddler’s life and you will quickly see a rejoinder that fits into one of the SLED areas above.
If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one! – This one’s become so popular you can buy it as a bumper-sticker and plaster it on your car.  But let’s try a few modifications to it and see how well it works: If you don’t like slavery, don’t own one.  Or how about: If you don’t like wife beating, don’t beat your wife.  Obviously, these modifications trade on the idea that, as a society, we recognise that some things are actually wrong, regardless of whether or not we personally participate in them, and the taking of innocent human life is one of those things.  No one is content to sit on a jury at a murder trial and say, “well, I wouldn’t murder anyone, but that doesn’t mean no one else should either.”  It’s obvious, isn’t it?
Women will die through back alley abortions! – Again, this objection fails to count the unborn as truly human.  This objection is 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.   Doesn’t that seem odd to you?  Why should the law be faulted for making it more risky for one human being to take the life of another, completely innocent one?  Should we legalise bank robbery to make it safer for felons?  Obviously not!
No disabled child should be brought into the world when it can be so easily avoided. – We think we can all agree that disabled children are human, and killing them is killing humans.  Just because the unborn are smaller, defenceless, and disabled is killing them justified?  As well, one should ask handicapped persons if they wish they had been aborted rather than born.  Let’s take a classic example of two babies born in Austria a number of years ago.  One was a healthy boy for which the mother was glad.  The other was a girl.  She had Downs Syndrome.[5]  Nevertheless, this mother loved the little girl and taught her to care for herself.  One day the mother had a stroke, which left her helpless.  Her disabled daughter took over her care for the rest of her life.  The boy grew up just fine.  The whole world later heard of him.  His name was Adolf Hitler.  Which of these babies would be the most likely to have been aborted?  A professor once posed this medical situation — and ethical problem — to his students: “Here’s the family history: The father has syphilis.  The mother has TB.  They already have had four children.  The first is blind.  The second had died.  The third is deaf.  The fourth has TB.  Now the mother is pregnant again.  They are willing to have an abortion, if you decide they should.  What do you say?”  The professor asked the students to break into small groups for “consultation.”  All of the groups came back to report that they would recommend abortion.  “Congratulations,” the professor said, “You just took the life of Beethoven!”  The point of these illustrations is that having a disability is not an indicator of the worth of a human life!

Three final thoughts
Rape – this is often the very first scenario that people say would make an abortion acceptable, and it is certainly the most emotionally laden issue with which to deal.  Rape is one of the worst indignities a person can suffer, and when discussing this we must have the greatest compassion for rape victims.  However, a few things need to be considered.  Firstly, having an abortion will not in any sense make the person ‘unraped’, and she will still have to carry the scars of her ordeal for the rest of her life.  An abortion won’t change that.  Secondly, justice cannot be obtained for a rape victim by punishing the innocent unborn baby who resulted from the rape.  If the unborn really are human beings, as we decided earlier, then they have a right to life just as the mother does, as we all do.  Is this a terribly difficult decision for a woman to make?  Absolutely!  But the difficulty of the decision doesn’t change any of the factors involve.  In his 1 January, 2012 podcast, STR speaker Alan Shlemon talks about his friend Susan who became pregnant after being raped, and he discusses how, in her own words, keeping the child was the easy decision because she understood well exactly what is was she was carrying.  Was it difficult for her to carry that baby to term?  Absolutely!  But the way the child was conceived does nothing to change the thing it is.  Further, many women who have an abortion after being raped find later in life that they are carrying the scars of two events: the initial rape, and the abortion that followed. 
What about incest? – Another common circumstance under which many say abortion should be permitted is in the case of incest.  To deal with this, simply trot out the toddler.  Ask if a three year old conceived by incest could be killed.  If the answer is no, then ask what is the difference between that three year old and the unborn.  Whatever their answer, refer back to the SLED anagram above and you will see that the reason they advocate it is because they are not thinking of the unborn as a full human being.
Mother’s life is in danger – many times in this discussion you will hear of a woman who had an abortion after her doctor told her that something unusual was happening with the pregnancy and that there was a chance her life could be in danger.  You will also hear of many cases where the mother decided to keep the baby, and it was born perfectly fine.  But what if the mother’s life actually is in danger?  Let’s stipulate that the mother actually would die, no uncertainty, definitely would die.  In that case it seems that regardless of the course of action one life would be lost, and potentially both if the problem killed both the baby and the mother.  In this case, it seems that it would be permissible to have the abortion.  However, consider this: in most cases where women have abortions to avert problems in the pregnancy there is not a 100% chance that her life is in jeopardy, and yet abortion takes the life of the baby in 100% of cases, so if there is only a 50% chance of the mother dying, but a 100% chance of the baby dying, doesn’t it seem that abortion would not be justified in that case?

What should we say to those who’ve had an abortion?
To conclude, we need to consider how we might approach this issue with someone who has actually had an abortion.  If we are successful in demonstrating the full humanity of the unborn then she will come to realise exactly what it is she has done in the past.  Actually, this is not restricted to women – the men whose partners have had abortions are often as impacted by it as the woman herself.  There are a few things we need to keep in mind. 
Firstly, you will notice that throughout this Piece we have never used words like ‘murder’ or ‘baby killing’, words that are too often used by opponents of abortion.  It’s not because we think those words are inaccurate; it’s that they are so emotionally charged that they are not suitable for use in a conversation that will already be filled with high emotions.  Avoiding words like these can go a long way to making your message less offensive and more palatable.  But, even if you talk about it in the mildest terms possible, there can be no escaping the realisation of what has actually happened, and often guilt and shame will be carried by a woman in these circumstances for a long time.  As Christians, it is at this time that we would turn to our Bibles and share with them the freedom from guilt that only the Cross can bring. 

To impart a message of condemnation about abortion without also preaching the solution to that condemnation would be not just a disservice to those suffering under the burden of their actions, but would risk pushing them further away from the very thing they need: forgiveness and release from guilt.


[1] Yes, abortion is covered by Medicare, which means that if you pay tax, you fund abortions.
[2] 2008 edition, cited in Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life, Crossway Books, Illinois, 2009, p. 35, emphasis added.
[3] Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981.  Cited in ibid, p. 36.
[4] Maureen L. Condic, ‘Life: Defining the Beginning by the End’, First Things, May, 2003, , accessed 27th October, 2013.
[5] These days as many as 90% of children diagnosed in utero with Downs Syndrome are aborted.