"When the controversies about abortion are debated, “individual right of choice” is invoked as though it were the one supreme virtue. That could only be true if but one person were involved. The rights of any one individual do not allow the rights of another individual to be abused. In or out of marriage, abortion is not solely an individual matter. Terminating the life of a developing baby involves two individuals with separate bodies, brains, and hearts. A woman’s choice for her own body does not include the right to deprive her baby of life—and a lifetime of choices that her child would make."
I also added my own comment introducing the article. I said, "President Nelson clearly refutes the fallacies commonly used to argue in favor of easy legal abortion. It's hard for me to see how anyone could think most abortions are ok when you look honestly at the issue."
In response, an old friend of mine posted a video from The Atheist Experience, where two commentators give a "non theist" view of abortion, and he invited me to evaluate it and share my thoughts. I found that my response was too long for a facebook post, so I'm writing it here, and I'll link the response to the facebook thread. I'll give the video's major points as I saw them (I have numbered them and included direct quotes where possible), along with my responses. Here goes.
1. Abortion is killing a human. It has its own DNA, and it's alive, even if it’s not fully developed yet .
Response: I agree. I think this is hard to dispute.
2. When is it okay to kill a human? One example of this: someone tries to kill you, you kill them in self-defense. This would be considered justified because the person is violating the inherent “moral contract” between human beings, and people have a right to defend themselves.
Response: One of the major problems I find with most arguments in favor of abortion is that they look at this from only the mother’s point of view. In this case they suggest that the baby is violating the mother’s body. They imply that the baby’s presence inside the mother is similar enough to a physical attack that it is okay for the mother to have the baby killed in self-defense. This is too big of a stretch for me to accept. The baby is not forcing itself upon the mother (except perhaps in the case of rape). It is not physically attacking the mother, and it is very unlikely to kill the mother (although there may be some health consequences). Ironically, if you apply this the other way around, it would be considered justifiable for the baby to kill the doctor performing the abortion, as the doctor is coming into the baby’s home and trying to kill it. Of course, the baby is completely unable to protect itself, so this never happens, but under the conditions laid out be the commentators, it would in theory be justifiable for the baby to kill the doctor in self-defense.
3. “In every single case where someone’s bodily integrity or autonomy is going to be violated, we are very very sparing in doing that.” You don’t invade someone’s body without their consent except in very rare cases (e.g. heinous criminal activity). An example is given of harvesting someone’s kidneys or forcibly taking a blood sample. [emphasis added]
Response: This is one of the fundamental problems I see in this argument – people tend to only consider the mother's consent. Can the baby give its consent? Can it protect itself? It can’t, but if you asked children or adults if you could kill them, most would not give their consent. I think we can safely assume that an unborn child would choose to live.
4. “I have a right to not choose to donate my blood or body parts to my child after it is born.” (e.g. to choose not to donate a kidney to a child in kidney failure). Why do we not allow pregnant women to decide whether their body parts can be used by a fetus? [emphasis added]
Response: I agree with the first part of this statement, but that is a different situation. Choosing not to donate your kidney or blood to a child after birth does not guarantee that the child will die. There may be other donors or treatments. However, choosing not to allow the fetus to stay inside your body gives a 100% certainty that the baby will die. Moreover, you have to physically kill the child to take it out of your body. This is a very different scenario than choosing whether or not to donate blood or a kidney.
5. Everyone always has a right to use their own body. “It’s a dangerous precedent to say that someone can use your body without your consent.” The commentators then refer to slavery, rape, and abuse as examples of other people doing things to your body that you don’t consent to.
Response: a. Again, they are only considering the mother and not the baby. Does a baby/fetus have a right to use its own body? Does the baby consent to being killed?
b. The mother actually did give her consent – when she chose to have unprotected sex. Nearly all sexually mature women understand that unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy. That’s the woman’s point of decision. Abortion is essentially a way to avoid unwanted consequences of her decision, but is she justified in taking a human life to avoid those consequences? That is a steep price to pay to end a pregnancy. If one life is as valuable as another, then consider this scenario - what if a woman could kill some other person, a neighbor perhaps, in order to make her pregnancy go away. Would that be okay?
c. They speak reverently of a "precedent” that we don't allow someone to use another's body without consent. Does this really fit the case of pregnant women and babies? This seems to be over-extending a commonly-held belief to a rather different situation. There is the issue of whether pregnancy really happens without the mother's consent, and equating pregnancy with slavery, rape, or abuse is quite a stretch in my opinion.
6. The commentators expressed concern about making it illegal to “defend yourself against this violation” (meaning violation of your body by the fetus inside it)
Response: a. Again, the pregnancy is a consequence of a woman's choice. The fetus is not intentionally violating its mother. In that respect it is not a violation, but a natural consequence of the woman's action.
b. Looking at this from the other point of view, is it legal for a fetus to defend itself against the supreme violation of destruction of its body? There is a major imbalance of power here – the baby has no ability to respond to threats to its life or health. One of the major functions of law is to protect people in cases of an imbalance of power (e.g. laws to protect children, the elderly, people receiving healthcare, the mentally ill, the disabled, employees, renters, people who aren’t physically strong enough to defend against someone who might want to hurt them). Is it unreasonable that law should be applied to protect the least powerful human – the unborn child - who is completely unable to defend itself?
7. They express the idea that the mother can choose not to make her body available to the fetus, and because the fetus relies on the mother’s body to stay alive, it will then die because it is not yet self-sustaining
Response: a. The mother can make that choice before the fetus is formed inside body (by using birth control or avoiding unprotected sex). If she makes that choice after the baby is inside, she is guilty of killing a human being, because you can’t just “ask the fetus to leave”, you have to physically assault it and cause it to die.
b. Pregnancy is more like a fetus “renting space” in a woman’s body than it is “violating” or assaulting a woman’s body. It’s illegal for a landlord to evict a tenant within the period of their lease unless the tenant violates the terms of the contract. The tenant might be annoying or inconvenient, but once the contract is signed, the landlord loses the right to indiscriminately evict him or her. The woman had sex without using birth control, which is essentially signing the contract with the “renter”. That’s where a woman’s consent lies – choosing to have unprotected sex. Once she signs that contract, she is violating the rights of another person if she throws the fetus out. In the case of a tenant, if they are evicted, they can take legal action or find another place to live. Not so with the fetus.
8. They acknowledge that you have to proactively remove the baby from the mother, then they go on to say, "but that’s an unfortunate fact of nature”, and emphasize that the important thing is the “precedent” that you don’t allow someone to use another person’s body without consent.
Response: a. This doesn’t hold up logically (i. It’s okay to destroy a fetus’s body without its consent? ii. The woman did give consent to the possibility of pregnancy when she had unprotected sex).
b. It casually disregards a major problem – that you have to physically kill a human to effect an abortion. It doesn’t just disappear or walk away and find another womb. Calling this “an unfortunate fact of nature” is majorly discounting the fact that you’re killing someone.
9. They return to the idea that when you kill someone, even in self-defense, you are violating them. They ask the question, when is that violation justified?
Response: Based on the above arguments, I think that abortion may be justified in two cases:
a. Rape. Reason: lack of consent on the part of the mother. In this case, the guilt of taking an innocent human life would fall on the rapist, not the mother.
b. The pregnancy seriously threatens the mother’s life. Reason: If the mother dies, the fetus will also likely die. If only one or the other will live, then it is reasonable to let the mother be the one to live (more people will be affected by the mother’s death - her family, children, others who rely on her, etc.).
10. One of the commentators waffles about whether abortion is killing or allowing someone to die. Is it killing if we respect everyone’s right to deny their body to other people?
Response: a. The basic definition of killing is taking an action that causes something that is alive to be dead. Yep, that holds up.
b. I think you have to apply this equally to the mother and the fetus. Is the fetus part of "everyone"? Does he or she have a right to deny the assault on his or her body by the mother or the doctor performing the abortion?
11. One commentator says, "I have a problem with 'is it alive?'". He wishes there was more focus on the question of "who is responsible for the welfare and development of this baby."
Response:
a. This suggests that it’s not so important to save the child’s life if there isn’t a plan to provide for it. I don't think this argument is very strong. I expect that most people from a difficult home or upbringing are still glad they were born. Some of the most successful people come from difficult backgrounds.
b. Ultimately this is a different problem from the issue of abortion. I agree that there needs to be more focus on caring for babies resulting from unwanted pregnancies. This is one reason why adoption exists. It doesn’t get around the problem of ending someone’s life.
12. The commentators make a small diversion about taking away children from their families at the border, and not having a good plan for what you’re going to do with them. “You have to think about this, [referring to an unborn child] this is someone who’s going to exist.”
Response: Except that this person isn’t going to exist if you have an abortion. Is that okay? We just end a human life because it presents a problem or because people might not provide for it responsibly? What would the child choose?
13. "If you dislike abortion, you should be for sex education, contraception, social safety net, prenatal care. You should be for all the things that people who are anti-choice are against.”
Response: This is a gross generalization. I, for one, am in favor of birth control, sex education (although I think that parents have the right to choose how this is taught to their children, including sexual morality), contraception, effective programs to help the poor, and availability of prenatal and other important medical care. Based on the other people I know who oppose abortion, I don't think I'm particularly exceptional in my support for these other things. Saying that all people who oppose abortion also oppose these things is simply not true.
14. At the end of the video the discussion devolves into name calling and character assassination. Here are some quotes: “Life is not sacred to them [people who oppose abortion]. They laugh at the thought of you being tortured for eternity. They want to impose and oppress you with their religion. They use it as a bludgeon. These are not people who care and are empathetic and are loving people.” They refer to anti-abortion demonstrators as “hateful, nasty people.” “This is not about a baby, this is about you not living according to their ‘god rules’, and you had sex, and that’s why you should be punished. That’s what it boils down to every time.”
Response: a. I don't feel like I should even have to comment on this. I think the hostility and prejudice are pretty obvious. This is a grossly inaccurate caricature of Christians and pro-life people in general. I admit that there are some vocal people who go too far in protests, and they probably do a disservice to the pro-life cause, but this description is absurd. It makes the commentators lose credibility.
b. In my case, while the sanctity of life is part of my religious beliefs, I didn’t adopt this idea because I heard it at church. It just seems right and fair. I would argue that it is self-evident. The Declaration of Independence (not a strictly religious text, and one that most Americans probably agree with) states,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
If unborn children are living humans, does this apply to them? Do they have an unalienable right to life?
c. I want to address the idea I frequently hear that pro-life white men just want to control women’s bodies. As a pro-life white male, I reject that assertion. I really have no desire whatsoever to control women’s bodies. I do, however, feel very strongly about the destruction of innocent life, especially human life. That’s the source of my opposition.
In conclusion, I believe very strongly in the principle of freedom of choice - for everyone. As President Nelson said, "A woman’s choice for her own body does not include the right to deprive her baby of life—and a lifetime of choices that her child would make."
The importance of consent before use of someone's body is perhaps the central argument used in this video to support abortion. I agree that consent is crucial, but I believe it should be applied evenly to both parties - the mother and the child. If the child doesn't give her consent to be killed (and obviously she can't give that consent), then she should not be killed. The mother is on shakier ground in terms of consent, because she already consented to take the action that led to the baby's creation.
Freedom of choice must be coupled with responsibility for one's actions. Abortion in most cases is an attempt to avoid the consequences of an action that has already been taken, but I believe that the cost of a human life is too high for avoiding pregnancy in all but a very few scenarios.
I also believe that it is right to consider the effects of an action on all people involved. In the case of pregnancy, "all people involved" includes the mother and the baby. It is better for a woman to go through a pregnancy than to destroy a life. Pregnancy may be bad, but death is worse than pregnancy.
