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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.”
-First Amendment, United States Constitution
Abortion and the Case for Life: What is the Unborn?
By Jacob Lovell
Staff Columnist
jlovell 1 @my.westga .edit
The pro-life, pro
choice debate has been
raging since before your
mother decided against
aborting you. Regardless
of the various arguments
that have evolved over
time, the debate about
abortion comes down to
one, and only one, issue.
Pro-choice advocates
often believe that any
anti-abortion argument
is based solely upon
religious conviction. “It
is only religious zealots
that would care so much
about protecting a clump
of tissue,” they might say.
But such a statement is only
valid if “clump of tissue"
cannot be replaced with
“human child". To assume
that the unborn is merely
a clump of cells indistinct
from the mother is to
assume it is not a human
being, no more than hair or
a cancerous growth.
Claiming that the
abortion debate is based
solely upon religion is
to deny the ability of
nonreligious people to
value human life in the
event that the unborn are,
in fact, human beings.
That alone is an insult, but
the issue is not religion.
The issue is the possible
humanity of the unborn.
So, what is the unborn?
The pro-choice
movement would also
have you believe, usually
alongside the religious
accusation, that the pro
life position is a relative
one. “That’s just your
view” would be a typical
accusation, probably
followed by a “Don’t force
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your morality on me.”
I think purple is prettier
than green. That’s just my
view. Such statements deal
with preference claims. The
idea that a moral claim is
subjective (like in the case
of color preference) and not
objective is, besides being
a philosophically suicidal
idea, to cast aside other
moral claims like, “Racism
is wrong" and "Babies
shouldn’t be tortured for
fun".
If you’re a ‘moral
relativist’, ask yourself
the question. “Is torturing
babies for fun wrong?” If
you say,"Well, I personally,
would not like to torture
babies for fun,” you’ve
avoided the question. The
question is not about your
preference for baby torture.
The question is whether or
not doing so is wrong.
If one can make the
moral claim that “Murder
is wrong,” then such a
claim could apply to the
unborn if unborn humans
are, indeed, fully human.
So the question again:
What is the unborn?
The unborn cannot
be fully human if the pro
choice case is to hold
water. Advocates often fail
to actually argue the point
with facts or reason, and
instead rely on assuming
the answer in their rhetoric.
This is the fallacy called
“Begging the Question"
behind most pro-choice
arguments. An example of
this would be the statement,
“Parking ‘Services’ is evil
because it is bad." While
that statement is valid,
its evidence is merely
a restatement of the
original premise, adding
nothing to the argument,
and constitutes circular
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reasoning.
Arguing that abortion
is justified because a
woman has a right to her
own body assumes there is
only one body involved—
that of the woman.
Some would argue the
supposedly neutral position
that nobody knows when
life begins in the womb, so
abortion must remain legal
through all nine months of
pregnancy. This is based
upon the assumption that
life does not begin until
birth - the exact point
abortion advocates are
trying to prove! This
argument is based entirely
upon fallacy.
Assumptions along
these lines can allow for
the “coat hanger, back
alley” argument: If ‘safe’
abortions are outlawed,
women w ill resort to unsafe
abortion methods. Why
should a law protecting the
unborn be faulted? Should
murder be legalized so that
murderers can safely kill
in public and not resort
to dangerous tactics that
might conceal their deeds?
Abortion advocate
Mary Anne Warren
concedes, "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
prohibiting it.”
The issue is not safety
but rather the status of
the unborn that has been
assumed by the person
using such an argument.
So the question remains
unanswered: What is the
unborn?
To apply this more
broadly, try and bring in
Opinion
any particular argument
for abortion and see if that
argument can likewise
justify the killing of
toddlers or other humans.
If it cannot, then the
argument has assumed that
the unborn is not, in fact,
fully human.
For example, abortion
advocates often use
the emotional issue of
conception via rape (as if
this single case can justify
electi veabortion i ngeneral).
Rape, an objectively evil
thing, creates a victim
that deserves the best care
available. The hardship of
dealing with a child from
rape, abortion advocates
protest, is surely something
that a woman does not
deserve. I agree— she
deserves to deal with that
child no more than she
deserved the rape. This
argument ignores, however,
what a civil society should
do w ith people w ho remind
us of a painful event.
Would killing them make
us feel better or save us
money? Put another way:
Can you think of a situation
where you can justifiably
kill someone if it saves you
any further stress that might
result from them existing?
Can you think of any
situation w here, after being
utterly victimized yourself,
you could turn and justly
victimize another, innocent
person?
If the unborn entity is
human, he or she should
not be killed to benefit the
mother as hardship does not
justify homicide. Compare
this also to a tragically
px)r person whom cannot
justifiably murder a rich
person simply to take the
rich person’s money and
thereby be better off. This
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is so because the rich person
is a person. The debate
returns to that question:
What is the unborn?
The debate usually
becomes, “When during
pregnancy does this entity
become human?” For
this. I’ll quote Dr. Daniel
Heiminiak, an author and
professor of psychology
here at West Georgia.
Heiminiak, an advcxate
for legal abortion, admitted
to the centrality of the
question when he restated
what he claims to be an
idea he shares w ith ancient
philosophers. Heiminiak
wrote, “Without doubt,
if the fetus is actually
a human person, then
abortion would be wrong,”
in one of his books. He
goes on to say that, “In the
early weeks, the fetus is too
under-developed to support
the presence of a soul, so
there could not yet be a
human person there," and
further restates his position
by making the claim (based
upon weak ties to biology)
that the unborn creature is
incapable of supporting
a "spirit" before the 20th
week.
Who is it that is using
religion in the abortion
debate? I have not done
so, and 1 would also not
use strained connections
to biology to justify
killing, say, a mentally
disabled person because of
nonsense about not being
able to support a "spirit"
either. The idea that one
can justifiably kill a human
creature simply because it
is either underdeveloped
or not yet fully developed
is ludicrous beyond just
religious reasons: Should
toddlers be killed at whim
because they cannot move,
*
communicate, or think
as we fully human adults
do? Certainly not, and
if the unborn is human,
it should not be killed for
such trivial reasons either.
The question stands: What
is the unborn?
Let the debate be
about the true issue and
let the arguments, for or
against, deal with that
issue. With that said, I
offer the following facts
concerning the timeline of
an unborn human:
On day I, at
conception, all human
chromosomes are present.
Within a week, cells with
human DNA, distinct from
both its mother and father,
have already become
specialized for the various
human body functions. By
day 22, before even the
first month of pregnancy
is over, a human heart is
present and begins to pump
blood that is different from
that of the mother’s. By
week 6, brain waves are
recordable. By week 10,
all of the human organs
are present in the creature,
fingerprints are forming,
and the unborn is able to
turn its head, frown, and
hiccup. Not more than a
week later, the creature’s
human organs are all
functioning and it can
grasp objects placed in its
hand.
That creature, w'ith
its own DNA, is not a dog
or a bug. It is not a clump
of hair or unnecessary
appendage. Clearly, the
unborn human is human.
While I would like to,
I cannot take credit for
all of the ideas or phrases
in this article. For more
information, please visit
www.caseforlife.com