I’ve grown up in a culture where abortion is commonplace. Furthermore, I risk being branded as intolerant, immoral, or worse for questioning this practice. Be that as it may, I’ve never clearly understood the logic of abortion. Why, in Canada, is it morally acceptable to terminate a normal pregnancy but morally unacceptable to euthanize a healthy happy two-year old girl? The answer escapes me, and I suspect it escapes you too.
Our values
I take it that I share certain values with my fellow citizens, the foremost being that,
(1) It is morally wrong to end a human life without adequate justification.
Indeed, Canada is a society without capital punishment. We don’t consider ourselves competent to end a human life after a fair trial (or perhaps we think no trial could ever produce the needed justification to kill). This doesn’t make us pacifists. We have police who will use lethal force provided they can justify their actions. We also employ our military if need be in defense of our values and interests. But there is always reluctance. Ending a human life is serious business. Doing so without adequate justification is inconceivable to Canadians.
When it comes to abortion, however, it seems clear to me that in Canada people widely believe,
(2) It is not morally wrong to terminate a pregnancy without adequate justification.
Somebody correct me if I’m reading the culture wrong here. As I understand it, a woman’s “right-to-choose” is taken to be sacred by many Canadians. To morally require adequate justification for terminating a pregnancy would clearly violate this widespread Canadian value.
Putting these two beliefs together, it becomes clear that, to Canadians, ending a human life is not in the same category as terminating a pregnancy. Lacking adequate justification, one is morally permitted; the other is not. It follows, then, that Canadians have committed themselves to believing,
(3) Terminating a pregnancy is not the same thing as ending a human life.
Since ending a human life and terminating a pregnancy both amount to ending life of some sort, it is clear that many Canadians actually believe,
(4) An unborn life is not a human life.
This is the logical outcome of our thinking. But is it true?
What am I?
Consider an additional Canadian value. I take it that most Canadians would agree that,
(5) Ben Nasmith is a human being.
Anyone who denies this properly risks being charged with a hate-crime. Some sort of discrimination has occurred if I am not to be regarded as a full human being (racism, sexism, elitism, etc.). To deny that I am human is the pinnacle of intolerance, the cardinal Canadian sin.
That being said, how can my status as a human being be reconciled with the status of the unborn? There must be a morally relevant difference between the unborn and myself to sustain our accepted values. Let’s take a look.[1]
Size
The unborn are smaller than I am. So what? Canadians come in all shapes and sizes. Size doesn’t determine humanity. Indeed, I have personally been a variety of sizes during my life! I may yet grow (wider perhaps). Presumably smaller people are people too. Clearly size is irrelevant to being human.
Level of Development
The unborn are less physically, mentally, and emotionally developed than I am. So what? My young children are also less developed than I am. They’re still human. Is there a specific level of development at which one becomes human? Not as far as I know. After all, we view newborns as human and they are just as developed as they were a moment prior to birth. Furthermore, we regard the mentally and physical handicapped as humans. Clearly, level of development does not determine humanity.
Environment
The unborn are in the womb; I am not. So what? I travel from time to time. As far as I know my being human isn’t a function of my physical location. If the unborn aren’t human, and the rest of us are, then something mystical must happen during their journey down the birth canal such that they become human. But why think that is the case? My 4 litre carton doesn’t become “Milk” just because I took it out of the refrigerator. It was Milk in the fridge and it’s still Milk outside the fridge. If there’s a morally relevant difference between the unborn and I, we must find it elsewhere.
Degree of Dependency
The unborn depend on their mother’s body to survive; I no longer do. So what? We all depend on others to varying degrees at varying times. For instance, I’m quite certain that many urbanites (myself included) could not survive in the wild for long. We depend on farmers and groceries. It’s called society. Dependence on another does not negate humanity; it is inevitable and normal. We all have and all will continue to depend on others to survive.[2]
The emperor has no clothes
I submit that mainstream Canadian values face a glaring inconsistency when it comes to abortion and justice. We cannot both uphold my human rights and avoid the rights of the unborn without maintaining that the unborn are not human. The trilemma here is a) rights for both, b) rights for none, or c) produce a morally relevant difference between the unborn and the rest of us. I challenge anyone to produce such a difference.
In the meantime, it’s a) or b). Since we’ve as yet been unwilling to regard the unborn as human, I maintain that if the unborn aren’t human then neither am I.
[1] The SLED acronym is taken from Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 28.
[2] Perhaps it is literal physical dependence that negates humanity. If so, then Siamese twins do not count as humans, which is absurd. Ibid.
This post first appeared on Cognitive Resonance.
“I risk being branded as intolerant, immoral, or worse for questioning this practice.”
What a sad day it would be for sound rationale if this were to ever happen Ben. Well done, thank you for providing a great example of clear thinking on this very contentious issue.
Ben, I appreciate your well-thought out rationale. My difficulties with the pro-choice position also center around its complete lack of rationality.
-First, as a physician who understand human development very well, I can find no logical, medical, or scientific justification for considering a fetus any less a living, human, person as anyone else. For the reasons you describe above and many more, there is no moral or ethical difference between killing a fetus at any stage of development and any other human person. We (and our organs) are all medically on the constant continuum of human growth and development spanning from conception to death. We are all in need of direct contact to others for nourishment and survival, whether via an umbilical cord, an infant’s mouth to a mother’s breast, human touch any any age, or social interaction at any age. We can all be terminated in ways that do not cause us any suffering or pain. Any designation of the start of human life or personhood except for conception or never is arbitrary and always (if one is honest enough) biased toward the pro-choice position by nothing other than some manifestation of selfishness.
-Second, as a person who ardently supports many great feminist causes, I can’t understand how rejecting the one ability that most uniquely and clearly allows femininity to transcend masculinity-childbearing-can possibly be viewed as feminist. Nor is killing what are logically, medically, and scientifically millions of females each year. Even from a purely pragmatic standpoint, pro-choicers terminating the female children who are most likely to themselves become pro-choicers doesn’t make sense!
-Third, we all value personal choice, but we can only communicate those choices as we are physically able. Can anyone demonstrate a human person employing its physical capabilities to survive more persistently and comprehensively than a fetus? Unlike any of us postnatal individuals, who spend considerable time and resources harming our potential to survive, a fetus uses ALL of its time and resources choosing to live and NONE to pursue termination. How dare any other human, especially those who claim to be pro-choice, wrest that undeniable and unwavering choice to live from the unborn?
-Finally, for those who choose to remain unconvinced, consider this. You only have a fixed amount of time and resources in this world to do the greatest amount of good you can. Whether because you champion personal choice, human rights, feminism, or all of the above, why spend what you have left on anything but the most life-giving, unequivocally beneficial causes? It is unquestionably better to fight for the cause of female orphans, women who are sexually exploited, or women who are abused than for a cause that at best, terminates millions of female fetuses. Why wouldn’t you use your life to fight for the best causes you can? Then do it, and at the same time give the multitude of human people who wouldn’t have lived otherwise the choice of how they’ll use theirs.
Nothing I’ve said above requires, or even invokes, a holy text, religion, or political affiliation. The pro-choice position simply makes no sense at all on grounds every human can and should appreciate. To learn is mature, to confess is humility, to forgive is divine, and to promote life is beautiful!
Jason, author of Healing Hereafter
Thanks so much for your input Jason. I am convinced that reason is on the pro-life side. We just need to talk about the issue more to get beyond the slogans and propaganda to the truth. Also, I think there are lots of pro-lifers ‘in the closet’ who are intimidated by their loud and proud opposition. Educating them to reason through this should be a confidence booster.
Agreed.