What’s in a choice?

I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz-words at least a hundred times: “I’m pro-choice,” or “I’m pro-life”. It’s probably one of the most divisive social issues in our country. So, what’s in a choice?

Well, I’d like to start by laying out a premise that I’ll then explain and defend. So, here it is:

Abortion is murder.

How cliché. By abortion, I am referring to the removal and destruction of a functioning zygote, fetus, or embryo (hereafter ZFE) from the womb of a living human being. The term murder is referring to the act of one human being taking the life of another without justification. To put it in very simple terms, I’m making the argument that abortion is morally equivalent to killing an innocent 1-year-old human child.

Is a ZFE alive?

This should be pretty obvious, but I’ll go over it anyway. As soon as an egg is fertilized it becomes a zygote. It is a single cell with 46 chromosomes (23 from each parent) and contains all of the necessary DNA to grow into an adult. Scientifically speaking, it’s a living organism in the same way that an amoeba is a living organism, except this one is a tiny human being, as explained below. So, it’s not O.K. to abort a ZFE solely on the grounds that it is not alive, because it is living.

Is a ZFE a human being?

Absolutely. In the same way that a tulip bulb is a tulip plant in the early stages of growth, a zygote is a human being in the early stages of development. You see, level of development does not define whether a zygote is a human. A girl’s reproductive system is not developed until at the very earliest 7-8 years after birth, and most commonly not until she is a young teenager. Because she is not 100% developed (i.e. not all of the attributes in her DNA have manifested) does that make her less human? No. The level of development does not define an organism’s humanity. Therefore a zygote is a human being. So, it’s not O.K. to abort a ZFE solely on the grounds that it is not human, because it is a human being.

Before I go any further, I’d just like to point out that from here on out, the debate centers solely around moral issues. There is no biological debate about this. Once an egg is fertilized it is a human being. Many well-educated pro-choice advocates will admit this, because scientifically and biologically speaking it is true. Additionally, please see this page about the four biological differences between a ZFE and an adult human being, and how they are irrelevant when determining whether or not abortion is morally acceptable.

Is a ZFE a person?

You might be wondering, “what’s the difference between a person and a human?”. Well, that’s a good question. I would say they are the same thing, but some pro-abortion advocates would argue otherwise. The most compelling argument I’ve heard for this is that a person is distinguished from a human being by their consciousness. As you’ve probably already noticed, this argument means that a human who hasn’t acquired consciousness yet (like, a 3-month old baby), is not a person.

This brings up another problem. If one uses the argument above as a grounds for justifying abortion, then it must also be OK to “abort” a 3-month old baby. Unless you’re a morally bankrupt person, such as Peter Singer—who pretty much thinks it’s OK to kill any human being who doesn’t express an explicit preference for living—this is probably a repulsive idea to you.

So what’s the argument? Well if you accept my premise that all organisms that are human beings are also persons and therefore have a right to live, we would be done. However this wouldn’t be a very compelling argument if I just left it there. So, we must accept the premise that not all humans are persons, and that personhood is not obtained until consciousness is obtained. In order to make this argument comply with basic human decency, we need to have some other criteria to justify abortion that works in tandem with the lack of personhood. That other criteria is that of physical dependence.

Side note: I want to point out that supporters of this argument make a distinction between physical dependence and social dependence. By physical dependence, they mean the baby is dependent on blood and oxygen flowing from the mother to survive. Social dependence occurs after the baby is born and can be easily transferred without killing the baby. For example, the baby requires milk for sustenance when it is young, but it can easily drink formula instead. In this way the baby’s social dependence can be transferred to another willing party. So, the next big question is:

Does a ZFE have a right to life?

Now, the best pro-abortion argument I have seen on this is one made by Brian Elroy. He argues that because the life of a ZFE is totally physically dependent on the mother, that the mother has the right to abort it. Because the mother and baby are occupying the same physical space and to some extent the same physical body, that they can’t have equal rights (including the right to life). One must trump the other. The example he uses is from the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson, who comes up with a very interesting example that does make one think. It goes like this: pretend you are kidnapped and drugged. When you wake up, you find that you have been surgically attached to a world-famous violinist who needs to remain attached to you for 9 months in order to survive. After that, the violinist will be fine. Do you have the right to have a doctor separate you, effectively killing the violinist? Or are you obligated to remain attached for 9 months? This sure is a peculiar analogy. Let’s break it down.

It looks great on the surface, but there are huge problems with it. For starters, it wasn’t consensual. A more appropriate version of the analogy would be that this happens very often to many people, and you engage in a particular activity that is known to cause this effect. So, let’s update it a little. Let’s say that it’s very common for people to attend the opera and wake up the next day surgically attached to an orchestra member who is then dependent on them for 9 months. I know it’s weird, but we have to make the analogy work against the real-life activity of having sex. Let’s also say that wearing a funny top-hat greatly reduces the chance of this happening (like a contraceptive). So many people opt to wear a funny top-hat to the opera. Let’s also note that these orchestra members have no choice in the matter and are completely innocent. This is a natural biological effect of attending the opera.

Now, you are aware of the risks before going to the opera. You attend the opera a lot with no issue. Then one day you wake up and this violinist is attached to you, depending on you to survive for the next 9 months. Now if you separate yourself from the violinist and he dies, are you guilty of murder? Keep in mind that the violinist is literally 100% innocent and that he had absolutely no control over this happening. In fact, the person that did have total control over this happening was you. I’ll stipulate that separating yourself from the violinist at this point is murder. You needlessly put the innocent violinist in this position and then proceeded to take action that resulted in him dying. You have no justification for the action of separating him because you could have prevented it by not going to the opera.

If you disagree with this conclusion, let’s take this a little farther. Let’s for a moment say that 100% of the time you attend the opera this dependence situation happens. Certainly then you would agree that separating yourself from the orchestra member is the same as murder. You went to the opera knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that you would wake up the next day with an innocent person depending on you for life. Now, what if it was only a 99% chance? How about 50%? My point being here that it doesn’t matter what the chance is. If you believe that humans have a right to life, you will not take repeated action that could result in an innocent human baby being killed (if you intend to abort).

Now, the above analogy is much better, because the vast majority of pregnancies come from an act that is consensual on the part of the mother. In nearly every pregnancy, the mother chose to take part in an action that she knew could potentially result in a human being growing inside of her. Additionally, she could have prevented this human being from becoming dependent on her by not taking part in this action. You might think that being abstinent is a ridiculous policy, but a whole lot of people practice it, and the fact is it’s completely effective. Don’t want to get pregnant? Don’t have sex. It literally works 100% of the time.

But, what about the case of rape? The girl did not choose to take part in the action that resulted in a new human being coming into existence. This is a much more difficult topic and I’ll take this stance on it: There is no doubt, all forms of abortion result in a human baby being killed. Even in the case of rape, if you argue that a woman has the right to remove the child from her body, can you also make the argument that she can have the child destroyed? Shouldn’t that child be given every chance to live? Think of the analogy above, if you decide to separate yourself from the violinist, shouldn’t that violinist be afforded medical care in an effort to save his life?

If you think that once you pull a fetus out of the womb it just dies instantly, think again. I have seen with my own eyes (at an Alpha Pregnancy Care Center dinner) a woman who was aborted and lived to tell about it (a compassionate nurse saw that she was alive and crying after being aborted and saved her). There are many examples of this, too. Additionally, non-aborted premature babies survive every single day. In fact, some babies as much as 16 weeks premature have lived, and at 13 week premature, a baby has a greater than 50% chance of surviving with the proper care. So, there is a clear difference between removing a ZFE and killing or allowing it to die. If you argue that a girl who is raped has the right to remove the baby from her womb, that’s only half of the equation. You still need to address the destruction of the baby. I’ll stipulate that the baby still has a right to live.

Now, unlike in the opera analogy above, pregnancy and birth are a natural part of life. Female human beings are actually designed to carry out the task of bringing new life into this world. When someone is raped, I think it’s a mistake to jump to the conclusion that because the rape was a violent terrible act, that the resulting baby is a bad thing. That child is a new life and it is a good thing. It’s a new human being!

So far, I have purposely avoided injecting my world view into my arguments. I have only asked you to accept very basic moral premises that nearly all people share. I haven’t brought my own faith into this argument, not because my faith is a weak argument to bring to the table—in fact I think it’s the strongest—but because convincing you to accept my world view before forming my argument means that some will be distracted by the debate over my world view instead of the debate about abortion, which is what I’m trying to address here. Having said that, because each person’s world view is critical to the way they think and evaluate life’s difficulties, I want to share my perspective on abortion from a Biblical point of view as well. So, I’ll set out a basic premise for the rest of my argument: people are created in God’s image, and therefore have an inherent right to life.

The Bible actually speaks quite a bit about this. Firstly, we have Genesis 1:26-31 that clearly tells us God created mankind in His image. Yes! The image of God Himself. We are not just a bunch of random cells arranged in a particular order that allows us to breath and pump blood. No we have actual souls and what secularists call ‘consciousness’. We are different from every animal out there because God created us to have a personal relationship with Him and He loves us.

Secondly, Psalm 22:10-11 literally says that God has a relationship with us while we are still in our mother’s womb. So, if we have a relationship with God before we are even born, that means all of the millions of babies aborted each year are real people. They do have souls. Yet they are killed anyway. Extracted from their mother’s protective womb and either deliberately killed or just left to die. You can find many, many more examples of what the Bible says on this topic with a simple internet search, or on this page.

Abortion is one of the saddest examples of the depravity of our human condition that exists today. If you’re at all moved by what I’ve written please consider sharing it with someone you know. You can share it on Facebook and Twitter with the buttons at the bottom of this post.

So, what’s in a choice? The life of an unborn human being.