Abortion: It's more simple than we make it
Imagine a law that allows Americans to kill other Americans. This law makes murder acceptable to the public, defended by many, and celebrated as morally good. Now imagine this law actively leads to the death of 600,000+ Americans per year. That’s over 1,643 every single day in America. This is no fictional story, this is abortion.
There’s a lot of angles to the issue of abortion, but I think it’s way more simple than people attempt to make it. The question we must answer, “Is the unborn a human being worthy of dignity, life, and protection?” If the unborn is not a human being worthy of dignity, life, and protection, then go ahead and have an abortion. But if the unborn is a human being, then there is no excuse to execute this person, no matter the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy.
I’m a pastor so I look to the Bible as my main source of truth.
Psalm 139:13-16 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
There are other scriptures that support this same idea, but God sees us as human beings with purpose and destiny the moment we are conceived. If He sees us that way, so do I.
What about science?
The science of embryology tells us at conception sperm and egg unite, each bringing 23 chromosomes with them. Genetically, a new human has begun. In addition, there is no morally significant difference between the unborn baby that you once were and the adult that you are today. Differences in size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not relevant such that we can say that you had no rights as an unborn baby but you do have rights today.
Size: True, embryos are smaller than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant? Do we really want to say that large people are more human than small ones? Men are generally larger than women, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve more rights. Size doesn’t equal value.
Level of development: True, the unborn are less developed than the adults they’ll one day become. But again, why is this relevant? Six-year-old girls are less developed than 16-year-old ones. Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings? Some people say that self-awareness makes one human. But if that is true, newborns do not qualify as valuable human beings. Five-week-old infants lack the ability to perform many human mental functions, as do those with Alzheimer’s.
Environment: Where you are, has no bearing on who you are. Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed? If not, how can a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from non-human to human? If the unborn are not already human, merely changing their location can’t make them valuable.
Degree of Dependency: If viability makes us human, then all those who depend on insulin or dialysis are not valuable and we may kill them.
In short, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are equal because they share a common human nature.
This issue is way more simple than we make it. Unborn babies are human beings worthy of dignity, life and protection. This is why I’m pro-life and this is why you should be too. Don’t make something so simple so political.