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.
[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.
