There is little doubt in my mind that the pro-choicer today doesn’t have much of an argument that he can hang his hat on. When flailing and pontificating about abortion as a “choice”, his only real avenue is to resort to a discussion of rights. He cannot say that the unborn are not human – it is a medical fact that they are – and therefore that abortion doesn’t kill human beings. No – the pro-choicer must resort to other arguments; in fact, in advocating abortion he attempts to rationalize for the legal killing of an innocent human being by advocating for women’s rights. Hence, while his argument may concede that the unborn are indeed human beings he then declares that that ought to have no bearing on a pregnant woman’s rights to her bodily autonomy. But does the woman really have the right to kill her own offspring? Does the bodily autonomy argument hold up under close scrutiny? Well, if a recent discussion I had on the topic is anything to go by, I really do think the argument is left wanting. And if so, then surely the pro-choicer has no choice but to abandon his ill-fated position.

It Started at the End

I had been reading Ravi Zacharias’s book, The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists, which was written in response to the vitriol published by Sam Harris in his book, Letter to a Christian Nation. There was one particular discussion in Zacharias’s book that I took a liking to – not at all related to Harris’s book when taken out of its context, but one which served effectively well as a conversation starter on the topic of abortion and morality.

The quote I lifted from Zacharias’s book (and which I modified slightly to publish via Twitter was:

When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you [as an advocate of abortion] decide who should live or die, it’s your moral right?

Zarcharias’s point is pretty clear: who are we, as created beings of the God who authored all life, to decide who should live or die? By what standard can we, for example, label God as immoral for allowing death by disaster yet hold ourselves to be moral for electing to kill innocent human beings? To suggest that we are morally justified to decide who can live and who can die, but that God has no such right, is a patently absurd notion from the outset.

A few hours after I sent the above Tweet, I received a reply from someone who I’ll just refer to as @TweeterStranger. Here’s her Tweet back to me with her reply starting after the “>>”:

When we dcide who lives & dies [via abortion] it’s our moral right? >> A woman can choose what she does w/her own body

I responded with words similar to the following: yet it is not her body that she kills, nor even a part of her body that she removes[1]. She kills – whether knowingly or not – a distinct human being. (And this human being, I should have added, is exactly in the right environment at exactly the right period of time of that stage of life: in the womb.)

To which @TweeterStranger replied, again: it is in her body; therefore, it is her choice.

Those of you familiar with pro-choice rhetoric will of course recognize such a response as an appeal to personal, bodily autonomy and privacy. There’s no addressing the morality of the issue of abortion – supposedly, whether or not there is a moral concern, it is trumped by a mother’s right to the use of her own body as she deems fit. (So instead of talking about morals, we’re talking about rights – and the two are not necessarily synonymous.)

In effect, the bodily autonomy argument declares that, in certain situations, it is morally permissible to terminate the life of an innocent[2] human being. (Am I the only one to whom that sounds crazy? Name any other situation in which we would deem it ok to kill an innocent human?) Never mind the fact that what is created at conception is, as a statement of scientific and medical fact, a distinct human being. No, far from it: the mother allegedly has every right to crush and dismember or poison to death an innocent human being for the sake of her “right” to bodily autonomy.

During my 42 Tweet-exchange with @TweeterStranger, she spent 38% of her replies reiterating the same rhetoric over and over again: her body, her choice. Repeatedly, I’d requested why she believes a woman has an inalienable right to bodily autonomy when such a “right” tramples over the inalienable right to life of the human being who is killed, but this was to no avail. The challenge remained unanswered or, at best, was brushed aside with annoyance.

The Magic of the 7-inch Birth Canal

@TweeterStranger presumes that there exists a right to bodily autonomy (as well as to privacy). The basic premises of this argument, as I understand it, are two-fold: 1) a person has a right to do what they wish with their body; 2) no one else has a right to violate or to use another’s body. For @TweeterStranger, and many like her, these two premises are perfectly sufficient to justify abortion. But if the bodily autonomy advocate is true to their stance, this argument in favor of abortion must give way to other scenarios in which they themselves would be horrified at.

Consider this snippet of my conversation with TweeterStranger:

TweeterStranger: Point is, mother makes choices for her child for years. Child can’t decide if it wants to be born, mom decides what’s best.
TweetingOutLoud (me): If mom decides best could she not kill her crippled 2 year old toddler and still claim her right to choice?
TweeterStranger: If she gives birth to the child, it’s a different story, obviously. At that point, she made her choice to take care of it.
TweeterStranger: In short, no she can’t [kill her toddler]. Before it’s born, while it’s still in her body? Yes, of course she can; that’s her right to choose.
TweeterStranger: Mother has a right to her body and whatever’s inside it. After the child is born, it’s a separate human with it’s own rights.

Notice the line of thinking here: killing a child who is inside the womb is permissible, while killing a child outside of the womb is not. The big question is, “Why?”. And the typical response is, “Because it’s inside the mother’s body!” What’s a poor unborn child to do? Inside the womb it is at the mercy of its mother; outside of the womb, it is protected by law, even from its mother. How strange. And how inconsistent!

Such a response is really unsatisfactory and is nothing more than an attempt to avoid the reality of what abortion does: kills a defenseless child. @TweeterStranger was happy to contend that a mother could not terminate the life of her 2 year-old, citing that the mother had made her decision and was now responsible[3], but she doesn’t suggest why the mother is now morally obligated nor why the same responsibility and obligation didn’t exist prior to birth. How is it exactly that a child, two days before exiting the womb is any less deserving of life than a child two days out of the womb? (Or, for that matter, just minutes either side of the birth canal?) There is little that is physically different or cognitively different, and the child remains dependent on the mother’s care for survival. The location of the child has changed, but why should that matter? It’s not as if the child becomes something else entirely simply because it has moved from one place to another. Where’s the magic?

The problem here for the likes of @TweeterStranger is that the toddler is afforded protection under law by sheer virtue of him being a human being, not because he is no longer inside his mother’s womb; human beings, as we know, have a right to life; further, the unborn are also human beings; hence, unborn human beings likewise have a right to life by virtue of their ontological status as human beings. You cannot argue that your right to life is made null and void because of your location. Are you any different a person if you’re in one country over another? You’re still you, right? That you are you as an unborn child inside the womb of your mother no more cancels out your human beingness than a car ceases to be a car when it leaves the garage.

Talking of rights doesn’t even come into the picture and nor should it. Society expects mothers to care for their offspring – there is an obligation that they do so. Medical practitioners cannot knowingly provide a pregnant mother a drug that will cause the deformation of her unborn child, even if the use of that drug will be a great convenience to the mother (i.e. ease her morning sickness). The question is why this is the case. The answer is that the unborn are human beings and are deserving of our nurturing and protection. This is not to say that pregnant mothers aren’t to be cared for – they are and they are to be supported in instances where the pregnancy is burdensome and unexpected. Moreover, it is to say that where innocent life hangs in the balance, there is a greater obligation (not charity, nor an act of goodwill, but obligation!) to forego one’s own “right” to privacy and bodily autonomy for the sake of the most defenseless in our society. Our children.

At the end of the day, a pro-choicer must aptly put forward sound reasons for stating why an unborn human being has no right to life and that its mother has every right to terminate its life for any reason she so desires. He must further demonstrate why it is okay to kill a perfectly innocent human. These, to me, sound like very unpalatable and overly problematic positions to defend[4] as I’m sure many of you will agree and on which I believe @TweeterStranger faulted.

For those interested in further Tweets I publish, feel free to follow me via Twitter; I’d also encourage you to follow us here at The Aristophrenium while you’re at it, too.

Pro-life Resources:

Footnotes:
[1] Science tells us great deal about the unborn. We know that from conception, a unique being is created that has a different genetic makeup from both its mother and father. As such, the unborn is not a part of the woman’s body; because of this, no woman can claim that abortion is akin to simply electing to surgically remove an ulcer. Her unborn is not part of her body – in fact, her body seeks to attack it and the unborn defends itself. You can’t get a clearer example of the distinctness of the unborn than that. Yes, the unborn child is attached and draws nourishment from the mother; yes, the mother’s body reacts to the presence of the unborn; and yet, the unborn is not parasitical for it is precisely where an unborn human being should be – it is in its natural state and pregnancy is a natural state for the female body. Where else could it go?

[2] By “innocent” I mean this is in the purely societal, vernacular sense. For instance, we do not condemn – as a general rule and as a matter of principal – a man to death for a crime that he did not commit. Some critics of the pro-life view hold that pro-lifers put themselves in a bind when they use terms such as “innocent human being” when referring to the unborn. They claim that Christian doctrine teaches that all humans are sinful from the moment of conception – which is true. As most Christians are pro-life, the critics say, they cannot call the unborn “innocent” because that would contradict the doctrinal understanding that all humans are sinful. Such a claim is not only ignorant of the biblical understanding of sin – which is an intolerable offense towards a holy and righteous God – but they also misunderstand the usage of the term “innocence” in a secular court of law. Properly understood, to be “innocent” is to be “harmless” or to be “not guilty” of an act of harm. I fail to see how the term “innocent” cannot be legitimately applied to the unborn who, confined in their mothers’ wombs cannot intentionally act in any harmful manner towards anyone – even their mother.

[3] Interestingly, if @TweeterStranger believes that the mother is responsible for the child after it’s born because she chose to birth the child, I wonder why she believes the mother has no responsibility to the child when she engaged in the sexual activity that created him? Surely, if no child was desired, she ought to have refrained from such activity? Seems perfectly logical to me.

[4] Let me state from the outset: I’m male. I’ve never been pregnant, nor ever will be and neither have I been raped. I state these early for a few reasons. My gender has no bearing on the pro-life contention that the unborn are human beings. My inability to become pregnant likewise has no bearing on the fact that the unborn are human beings. For argument’s sake, if I were female and could become pregnant, even the fact that I’ve never been raped does not change the biologically certain conclusion that the unborn are human beings. Do you see the trend? If you want to argue “rights”, then please do so in the context of the humanness of the unborn and tell me why bodily autonomy – as a right – is a “higher” right than a human being’s right to life.

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