I would like to start off by saying that this post is not directed towards those women who have been pressured into abortions or who have, in a moment of desperation, felt trapped and helpless in the face of a pregnancy and had an abortion. This post is not a condemnation for your actions. There is hope and healing and forgiveness available for you, and this cloud need not dominate the rest of your life.
Rather, this post is directed towards those women and men who flaunt abortion as a positive moral choice with no shame or regret, those who want abortion to be widely accepted and consider it a hallmark of women's liberation. This post is intended to call you out for the hypocrites that you are and to demonstrate the utterly flawed logic that you use to try to justify your position. Abortion may be legal, but just because something is legal doesn't make it right. You may have the force of law on your side, but I will not let you get away with the arguments you use to support your position. Without further ado, let the battle begin.
Before I begin, I'd like to address the point raised on various social media commentary on this topic that because I don't have a vagina or a uterus I'm not allowed to have any opinion on this topic. I call b. s. on that. Just because I'm not a German living in the 1930s, I'm not allowed to have an opinion on the Holocaust? Or because I'm not a Rwandan Hutu I can't have an opinion on the genocide of the Tutsi? Liberals like to stand up against injustice when they are not the perpetrators or even victims; why can't I? The answer is the liberal who defends abortion refuses to admit that there is any victim in an abortion; it's merely a woman exercising control over her own body. Every argument you can make on that front is flawed, as I shall demonstrate. These are desperate attempts to dehumanize a fetus, and I will not stand for it.
The first argument that I often hear to dehumanize a fetus is to argue that the unborn child is completely dependent on the mother's body to survive. It feeds off her bloodstream, sucking nutrients and oxygen in much the same way a parasite feeds off its host. While it is biologically true that the fetus draws nutrients out of the mother's bloodstream, the leap from "dependency" to "parasite" is uncalled for. A newborn child is completely helpless and will die rather quickly if left unattended. It is completely dependent on the mother (or someone else) to survive. It takes nourishment directly from the mother's body and requires constant care in order to properly develop. I'm sure any new mother will tell you that a newborn child is more of a drain on time and energy and resources than an unborn child is. And yet if you call a newborn child a parasite and decide to kill it, you will be charged with murder. There should be no difference if someone kills a child when they are still in the womb. With the advances of medical science, it is possible for a fetus of 23 or even 22 weeks to live outside the womb. And yet many, many abortions are performed past this age of viability. You call that a woman's prerogative; I call that murder.
The second argument used to dehumanize a fetus is that of development. "The rights of a fully-grown human trump those of a potential human." Potential human? Are you so ignorant as to fail to recognize the full humanity of an unborn child? At the time of fertilization, a completely unique set of DNA has formed, containing all of the genetic information that will guide the biological development of the human. Our DNA is what makes us individuals; a fertilized egg has a unique DNA. That is an individual human. A child's heart starts beating around 4 weeks after conception. Note that this beating heart is not part of the mother's body; it is a part of this genetically unique, developing human inside her body. All throughout the child's development, it develops more and more recognizable features and functions that adults have. Sure, it's not fully formed, but is a newborn infant fully formed? As mammals go, human babies are quite underdeveloped at birth. There is a lot of stuff that needs to happen before they are considered fully mature. It takes 13-25 years (depending on what measure of maturity you use) for a child to develop to maturity. So is a child a potential human? Or is it a developing human? Those are two very, very different categories. If someone kills a child, they are a murderer even though the victim was not fully developed. If someone kills an unborn child, they are called "courageous" and "brave"; I call them a murderer.
Another argument used to dehumanize a fetus builds off the previous one of development. "The mother's rights supersede those of the fetus because society has established birth as the point at which you become human." Really? You want to use the superseding rights argument? First off, think of all the times that a society has presumed to dictate morality. Southern culture in antebellum America considered slavery a moral good. An entire race was dehumanized because society determined that they were sub-human. In 20th century Germany, a charismatic leader captivated a suffering country and consolidated dictatorial power. He used this power to convince an entire nation that millions of their own countrymen were an inferior race and not privileged to the same rights as the Aryan race. Not only Jews, but the mentally ill, Catholics, Communists, and many others were marked for concentration camps and eventual death. All because a society presumed to be the determiner of what constitutes a human and whose rights are superior to others. I know it's considered an inappropriate shock tactic to compare someone to a Nazi, but the analogy is too close for comfort in this case. I personally don't want the moral responsibility to determine when someone becomes a human. I prefer to err on the side of caution because murder is kind of a big deal in God's eyes. You say abortion is an assertion of the rights of one person over those of a non-person; I say it's murder.
Having examined all these arguments, we now come to the hypocritical side of the abortion movement. Liberals claim abortion is all about women's rights. What about the rights of the unborn woman? I fully support the rights of woman. Indeed, one of the great triumphs of the last century has been the progress that women have made in gaining equal legal status with men. There is still work that needs to be done on that front, but progress is being made. Yet in our efforts to grant women autonomy, we have reached too far and placed them in the role of God, dictating when human life starts and elevating the control of her body over the rights of the newly-forming body in her womb. I will fight for women's rights, but I will make certain that the rights of unborn women are protected first. Because if you aren't given the chance to be born, what does it matter if you have equal pay with men? A dead girl and a dead boy get paid the same.
Liberals also tend to oppose the death penalty, tend to discourage excessive military involvement, tend to protest police brutality, and generally advocate against violence. I wholeheartedly share in all these endeavors. Yet liberals grow strangely silent on violence when it comes to violence against the unborn. I cannot hear descriptions of the brutality of abortions without feeling sick to my stomach. Abortion is more brutal than war, more brutal than death by injection, more brutal then a policeman beating a black man to a pulp. Where is the moral outrage, liberals? Stop being hypocrites when it comes to violence. Take a stand against brutality against the unborn. Then you might gain my respect.
A corollary of the violence discussion is the tendency of liberals to support animal rights. I'm all for ethical treatment of animals. Dog fighting rings are disgusting, and it's good that we prosecute offenders. But Michael Vick, a person convicted of dog fighting who served his time in the justice system, still gets hate mail and draws protests wherever he plays in the NFL, yet numerous other players charged with domestic violence, rape, and other forms of assault are given free passes. Most liberals are more outraged by dogs being electrocuted than than by tiny humans being burned with saline and dismembered. Once again, electrocuting dogs is spineless and despicable, but harming a dog is not even in the same moral ballpark as harming a human being. The argument is made that its crueler to mistreat animals than to mistreat grown humans because the animals are more helpless. That same logic should be applied to unborn children. All I'm asking is for the same standard to be applied across the board.
This last point of hypocrisy has already been mentioned once before, but it is so important that I must bring it up again. Almost any rational person, whether conservative or liberal, will argue that the chattel slavery of Africans in American history is the greatest moral blight on our nation's history. Almost any rational person will argue that genocide is a terrible evil. And yet many of those rational people will not blink twice at the statistic that since 1973, America has legally exterminated 56 million of her own children. That is more people dead than Hitler and Stalin killed combined. The reason people ignore the statistic is because they refuse to acknowledge the humanity of those aborted. They prefer the term "terminated pregnancies." This kind of dehumanization is exactly the characteristic of American slavery and genocide around the world. If you oppose slavery and genocide, you need to stop trying to convince yourself abortion is a positive good. Otherwise you're being a hypocrite.
With all of this hypocrisy and flawed logic laid bare, what is left to the abortion supporter? There is only one argument, and it is not one I can combat logically. The only argument left is "I am more important than another life. My convenience, career, lifestyle, well-being, and life are more important than that of another." That argument has basically been the justification for any and every evil and injustice ever committed. It is a characteristic of all of humanity since the first members of our race. Christians refer to this as sin.
Sin is pervasive, affecting all we do and say. Just because sin is doesn't mean that it should be. There is a better way. It is a path of courage, self-sacrifice, love, and humility. Unfortunately I cannot convince you with logic to abandon the path of sin and selfishness. Only a transformed heart through the power of Jesus can do that. What I can do is strip away all your other excuses and arguments until you are left with nothing but the reality of your own sin and selfishness. At that point, it's between you and the convicting Spirit of God to change your heart. Until that happens, I'm afraid America will be trapped in this genocidal, selfish, prideful, barbaric practice of abortion. You can continue to hold such a view. But I don't have to let you get away with trying to justify it as anything other than selfish, sinful, and cowardly.
The second argument used to dehumanize a fetus is that of development. "The rights of a fully-grown human trump those of a potential human." Potential human? Are you so ignorant as to fail to recognize the full humanity of an unborn child? At the time of fertilization, a completely unique set of DNA has formed, containing all of the genetic information that will guide the biological development of the human. Our DNA is what makes us individuals; a fertilized egg has a unique DNA. That is an individual human. A child's heart starts beating around 4 weeks after conception. Note that this beating heart is not part of the mother's body; it is a part of this genetically unique, developing human inside her body. All throughout the child's development, it develops more and more recognizable features and functions that adults have. Sure, it's not fully formed, but is a newborn infant fully formed? As mammals go, human babies are quite underdeveloped at birth. There is a lot of stuff that needs to happen before they are considered fully mature. It takes 13-25 years (depending on what measure of maturity you use) for a child to develop to maturity. So is a child a potential human? Or is it a developing human? Those are two very, very different categories. If someone kills a child, they are a murderer even though the victim was not fully developed. If someone kills an unborn child, they are called "courageous" and "brave"; I call them a murderer.
Another argument used to dehumanize a fetus builds off the previous one of development. "The mother's rights supersede those of the fetus because society has established birth as the point at which you become human." Really? You want to use the superseding rights argument? First off, think of all the times that a society has presumed to dictate morality. Southern culture in antebellum America considered slavery a moral good. An entire race was dehumanized because society determined that they were sub-human. In 20th century Germany, a charismatic leader captivated a suffering country and consolidated dictatorial power. He used this power to convince an entire nation that millions of their own countrymen were an inferior race and not privileged to the same rights as the Aryan race. Not only Jews, but the mentally ill, Catholics, Communists, and many others were marked for concentration camps and eventual death. All because a society presumed to be the determiner of what constitutes a human and whose rights are superior to others. I know it's considered an inappropriate shock tactic to compare someone to a Nazi, but the analogy is too close for comfort in this case. I personally don't want the moral responsibility to determine when someone becomes a human. I prefer to err on the side of caution because murder is kind of a big deal in God's eyes. You say abortion is an assertion of the rights of one person over those of a non-person; I say it's murder.
Having examined all these arguments, we now come to the hypocritical side of the abortion movement. Liberals claim abortion is all about women's rights. What about the rights of the unborn woman? I fully support the rights of woman. Indeed, one of the great triumphs of the last century has been the progress that women have made in gaining equal legal status with men. There is still work that needs to be done on that front, but progress is being made. Yet in our efforts to grant women autonomy, we have reached too far and placed them in the role of God, dictating when human life starts and elevating the control of her body over the rights of the newly-forming body in her womb. I will fight for women's rights, but I will make certain that the rights of unborn women are protected first. Because if you aren't given the chance to be born, what does it matter if you have equal pay with men? A dead girl and a dead boy get paid the same.
Liberals also tend to oppose the death penalty, tend to discourage excessive military involvement, tend to protest police brutality, and generally advocate against violence. I wholeheartedly share in all these endeavors. Yet liberals grow strangely silent on violence when it comes to violence against the unborn. I cannot hear descriptions of the brutality of abortions without feeling sick to my stomach. Abortion is more brutal than war, more brutal than death by injection, more brutal then a policeman beating a black man to a pulp. Where is the moral outrage, liberals? Stop being hypocrites when it comes to violence. Take a stand against brutality against the unborn. Then you might gain my respect.
A corollary of the violence discussion is the tendency of liberals to support animal rights. I'm all for ethical treatment of animals. Dog fighting rings are disgusting, and it's good that we prosecute offenders. But Michael Vick, a person convicted of dog fighting who served his time in the justice system, still gets hate mail and draws protests wherever he plays in the NFL, yet numerous other players charged with domestic violence, rape, and other forms of assault are given free passes. Most liberals are more outraged by dogs being electrocuted than than by tiny humans being burned with saline and dismembered. Once again, electrocuting dogs is spineless and despicable, but harming a dog is not even in the same moral ballpark as harming a human being. The argument is made that its crueler to mistreat animals than to mistreat grown humans because the animals are more helpless. That same logic should be applied to unborn children. All I'm asking is for the same standard to be applied across the board.
This last point of hypocrisy has already been mentioned once before, but it is so important that I must bring it up again. Almost any rational person, whether conservative or liberal, will argue that the chattel slavery of Africans in American history is the greatest moral blight on our nation's history. Almost any rational person will argue that genocide is a terrible evil. And yet many of those rational people will not blink twice at the statistic that since 1973, America has legally exterminated 56 million of her own children. That is more people dead than Hitler and Stalin killed combined. The reason people ignore the statistic is because they refuse to acknowledge the humanity of those aborted. They prefer the term "terminated pregnancies." This kind of dehumanization is exactly the characteristic of American slavery and genocide around the world. If you oppose slavery and genocide, you need to stop trying to convince yourself abortion is a positive good. Otherwise you're being a hypocrite.
With all of this hypocrisy and flawed logic laid bare, what is left to the abortion supporter? There is only one argument, and it is not one I can combat logically. The only argument left is "I am more important than another life. My convenience, career, lifestyle, well-being, and life are more important than that of another." That argument has basically been the justification for any and every evil and injustice ever committed. It is a characteristic of all of humanity since the first members of our race. Christians refer to this as sin.
Sin is pervasive, affecting all we do and say. Just because sin is doesn't mean that it should be. There is a better way. It is a path of courage, self-sacrifice, love, and humility. Unfortunately I cannot convince you with logic to abandon the path of sin and selfishness. Only a transformed heart through the power of Jesus can do that. What I can do is strip away all your other excuses and arguments until you are left with nothing but the reality of your own sin and selfishness. At that point, it's between you and the convicting Spirit of God to change your heart. Until that happens, I'm afraid America will be trapped in this genocidal, selfish, prideful, barbaric practice of abortion. You can continue to hold such a view. But I don't have to let you get away with trying to justify it as anything other than selfish, sinful, and cowardly.
