Today I happened to see some FB post that led to a FB post claiming that abortion is a "great evil." That Harris-Walz support abortion rights--this "great evil"-- was given as a reason to not vote for them.
When asked about this, the person who made these claims, a Tim Stratton, pointed me to this page:
However, when those who do not even think God exists still come to see that abortion is murder, how can a Christian justify his or her vote to empower a politician who seeks to support those who murder babies? How does this not make one an accomplice to murder?
The rest of this article will be looking at the arguments Challies offered which do not rely on the Bible or any religious views. He began with my favorite methodology…
LOGIC
Challies references Scott Klusendorf’s booklet, “Pro-Life 101,” as he summarizes the pro-life argument in the following manner: “Elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being.” He supports this statement via deductive reasoning:
1- Intentionally killing an innocent human being is a moral wrong.
2- Elective abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being.
3- Therefore, elective abortion is a moral wrong.
The critical step in this argument is the second premise. As Challies noted, “if the pre-born child is an innocent human being (premise #2), then elective abortion is always a moral wrong.” So, the question is raised: Is the pre-born an innocent human being? This question is vital for all people — especially the church — to properly understand because…
“If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion is necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate.” — Greg Koukl
Challies followed that by pointing out that we should “always bring the discussion back to this question: What is the pre-born?” While the Bible is clear on this topic, we do not even need to reference it to come to our conclusions since science comes to the same conclusions.
Comment:
- yes, obviously, these embryos and fetuses are biologically human: they aren't canine of bovine.
- while they are "human beings" in the sense of "biologically human organisms," they are not "human beings" in the sense of being biologically human organisms who are persons: they lack what makes us persons, which is our having minds. (Would you mind taking a nap .. and never waking up? Yes, because your mind would end; your existence as a person would end, even though a living biologically human organism might remain). This is a well-known distinction, which yields different arguments, each of which is unsound about early fetuses.
- they are neither innocent nor not innocent: only agents or persons can be innocent: innocence requires the ability to do wrong and not do it: this term doesn't apply.
- So this is a common argument that only has superficial appeal.
SCIENCE
There is conclusive scientific evidence that all pre-born children share four common characteristics:
Complete. From the moment of fertilization the pre-born child is complete. All the information that needs to be there is there. It simply needs time to grow.
Unique. The scientific evidence of DNA proves that the pre-born child is unique and genetically distinct from his or her mother. The pre-born child is not a part of the mother (like an appendix), but a unique entity inside his or her mother.
Living. The laws of biology tell us that the pre-born child is alive because it is growing, developing, and undergoing metabolism and responding to stimuli.
Human. The scientific law of biogenesis states that living things reproduce after their own kind. So, dogs beget dogs, cats beget cats, goldfish beget goldfish and humans beget humans. Not parasites or blobs of cells, but humans—complete and unique living human beings.
Challies reiterates for the sake of clarification: “Science tells us unequivocally that the pre-born child is a complete and a unique living human being.”
Comment:
- yes, obviously, these embryos and fetuses are mammalian organisms and the bodies of mammals start early.
- obviously, they are biologically human organisms: that's not a "human being" in the morally relevant sense though, according to most people, which you can get them to realize by thinking about various end of life cases;
- as a matter of literal logic, nothing follows from this apart from very dubious and controversial premises.
BACK TO LOGIC
So, science implies that the pre-born is a human person.
Comment:
- no, science doesn't address what is and isn't a person: this is naive scientism.
In fact, even Hillary Clinton agrees and says, “The unborn PERSON does not have constitutional rights.” She goes on to imply that that’s just the way it is according to the constitution. Too bad too sad for pre-born human persons! At least Hitler and the KKK denied the personhood of Jews and blacks so they could sleep at night!
Comment:
- no, this involves avoiding thinking about how embryos and these people are different in very important ways.
How can anyone justify the grotesque murder of an innocent little baby who they admit — and know — is a human person?
Comment:
- they usually don't "admit" this. But this is a bad rhetorical question.
They are fine with changing the laws when it comes to gun control, gay marriage, and bathroom policies, but why shrug your shoulders and say, “oh well, that’s just the law,” when it comes to the murder of baby humans?
Comment:
- babies are young people; embryos and beginning fetuses are not people, so they aren't babies.
Perhaps the liberals in the clutches of Planned Parenthood might respond (as Challies noted): “But the pre-born are different than the rest of us and so they don’t deserve the same protections that you or I do.” Greg Koukl responds:
Abortion-choice advocates typically cite one or more characteristics they believe make a human being a person. Each of these characteristics fall under one of four categories. You can remember these categories with the acronym SLED: Size, Level of development, Environment, and Degree of dependency. . . none of them [make] a relevant difference. None of them justifies killing the unborn.
This is clearly demonstrated through basic critical thinking on each of these four issues. Here is the SLED acronym offered by Klusendorf and Koukl:
Size. The pre-born are smaller than born humans, but size does not determine our humanity. Infants are smaller than toddlers, and toddlers smaller than teenagers, but all are human and all are deserving of the law’s protection.
Level of Development. The pre-born are less developed than born humans, but our level of development does not determine our humanity. Toddlers are less developed than adults, but both are human and both are deserving of protection under the law.
Environment. The pre-born are certainly in a different place than born humans, but where we are does not determine who we are. If we are human, we deserve the law’s protection no matter where we are.
Degree of Dependency. The pre-born are more dependent on their mothers than most born humans, but infants are just as dependent. Our dependency does not determine our humanity.
Comment:
- this "SLED" mantra seems to be born of groupthink: it's the result of what happens when people develop views with no outside input, especially critical input. Put simply, nobody believes this and it assumes things that can't be assumed. No thoughtful abortion advocate accepts such a principle: nobody should think personhood is defeated or eliminated by SLED factors.
Trot Out the Toddler
After examining the pre-born through the lens of the SLED test, it becomes clear that if one is going to continue to support abortion, then, to be consistent, they must also support a mother’s right to kill her toddler too! This follows because any justification one makes for abortion based on the four points above would also apply to a toddler.
Comment:
- no, this would only happen if someone has a pretty thoughtless defense of early abortions. That might be true of some random people, but it's not true of people who actually study these issues.
If we are to consider ourselves as a nation of rational thinkers, then if one is going to say there is nothing wrong with terminating the pre-born, then, if logically consistent, they have no grounds to state that terminating toddlers is wrong or evil either.
Comment:
- no. I suggest making a list of what toddlers are like, and a list of what embryos are like, and thinking about what characteristics are morally relevant and not.
So, both logic and science clearly demonstrate that abortion is the murder of a pre-born human person. However, what if some are so blindly committed to a political party or a specific politician they affirm that logic and science demonstrate that the pre-born child is a human, but it is not a person? This is where History comes into play.
HISTORY
As I mentioned above, the Nazis and the KKK tried to justify their actions by denying the personhood of certain human beings. Consider all of these examples from history:
1858, Viriginia Supreme Court: “In the eyes of the law… the slave is not a person.”
1881, American Law Review: “An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution.”
1928, Supreme Court of Canada: “The meaning of ‘qualified persons’ does not include women.”
1936, German Supreme Court: “The Reichgericht itself refused to recognize Jews… as ‘persons’ in the legal sense.”
Comment:
- that mistakes were made in previous thinking about who is a person and who is not a person gives no support to thinking that embryos are persons. (Question: does this strategy support thinking that some animals are persons?)
1997, Supreme Court of Canada: “The law of Canada does not recognize the unborn child as a legal person possessing rights.”
In regards to each one of these examples, Challies made a powerful point:
. . . science and common sense tells us that they are human. Only the law had the chilling audacity to strip these groups of personhood. If someone is a living human being, then they are a person.
Comment:
- This is thoughtless or uninformed or both. "If someone is a living human being, meaning a living human person, then they are a person." Yes, of course! "If someone is a living human being, meaning a living biologically human organism, then they are a person." No, not at all: it depends on what other characteristics that organism has: in particular, do they have a mind or any kind?
A separation between these two can only ever lead to evil.
Perhaps you are unconvinced that the pre-born human baby is a person, but are you convinced that the pre-born human baby is not a person? How do you know? Unless you are 100% certain that the pre-born human baby is not a person, then don’t you think it is better to be safe than sorry? Consider this comic strip which forcefully makes the point (click here).
Comment:
- Question: does this strategy support thinking that some animals are persons?
- Also, this doesn't consider the risks of not allowing abortion. It's not considering all the relevant factors, in this bad rhetorical question.
Abortion is an evil violation of human rights. I am glad that many non-Chrstians (including atheists) are coming to see this is the case based on science and reason. With that said, however, Christians not only have science and reason at our disposal, we also have the ultimate authority in the Word of God; therefore, we have additional warrant for recognizing (as Challies noted), “the pre-born children as our neighbors, made in the image of God, we must be at the forefront of defending their lives.” We must do this by speaking the truth in love (Eph 4:15)!
Conclusion
Many times Christians will counter that they vote for Pro-Choice candidates because they are not “one-issue voters.” I respond by pointing out that some issues are big enough to reject a candidate completely. After all, suppose Hitler got every singe issue right — except for the Holocaust! I hope that would make you a “one-issue voter.” What if a white supremacist got it right on every single issue — except did not see blacks as “persons” and thought they should all either be enslaved or killed. I don’t know about you, but I do not care how awesome the rest of their policies were, I would NEVER vote for a white supremacist dirt bag!
Challies concluded by referencing Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
If silence in the face of evil is evil, what is voting for and empowering a politician who supports this holocaust of abortion that has been taking place since 1973? If you are a Christian, how are you going to look in the face of Jesus one day and justify those votes? I am not a Republican or a Democrat; I am an independent and freethinking voter. I am not endorsing any candidate, but stating as fact that a true Christian has no grounds to vote for a pro-choice candidate; it is better to not vote at all, than to vote for a politician who fights to keep the murder of babies legal.
Bottom Line: If you would not vote for Hitler, then you should not vote for a pro-choice candidate!
Don’t be on the wrong side of history; rather, be on the side of truth (John 18:37)!
Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),
Comment:
- this does not appear to be that. This is a document that appears to be born of just not understand these issues very well. That happens to members of groups like these. Not good!
Tim Stratton
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