By Scott Tibbs, January 15, 2016
As has been my practice since 2002, I wrote a letter to the editor to inform the community about the upcoming Rally for Life, and my letter generated quite a few comments. I will address some of those objections here. Some are worth discussing, while others are common fallacies that also deserve to be refuted again.
- Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for more than 40 years.
Yes, this is true, and slavery was the law of the land for more than twice that long. (The difference is that slavery was explicitly allowed in the Constitution while the "right" to abortion was fabricated by the Supreme Court in 1973.) It was evil to allow slavery, just as it is now evil for over one million babies to be slaughtered every year with those acts of murder protected by the federal government. The fact that something is the "law of the land" does not mean it should stay that way and certainly does not make it just.
It is also true that abortion was practiced before it was legalized, but there are a lot of things that are illegal now that are still practiced. Should we eliminate all laws? No, that would be silly. Furthermore, the number of illegal abortions performed before Roe v. Wade (and the number of mothers who died from those illegal abortions) is highly disputed and NARAL founder Bernard Nathanson admitted he knew those numbers were "totally false."
As I knew would happen (because this stupidity is always brought up) another commenter whined that natural spontaneous miscarriage is "the worst genocide against humanity ever committed." I have addressed this stupidity before. (See here and here and here and here and here.) And as I have said dozens of times (in story comments, on forums, on the blog and so forth) every single human being who has ever lived or will ever lived either has died or will die. Because God allows this, does that mean we should decriminalize drive-by shootings? After all, God "kills" more people than abortion ever has or will, so why not decriminalize murder?
No, that is stupid. Cancer does not justify drive by shootings and natural spontaneous miscarriage does not justify abortion. That is an extremely childish non-argument vomited by trolls and even some supposedly intelligent people who really ought to know better. Plus, it is extremely cruel to women who have suffered miscarriages to make light of their pain by using it as a "humorous" political argument. This so-called "argument" needs to be permanently silenced.
- There is no "true" answer to when human life begins; the definition is ours to make.
This is a political answer based on moral relativism, not a factual one. The reality is that we know from science where life begins. That happens when sperm and egg join to create a completely new entity - a one-celled organism that resides in the mother's body but is not part of the mother's body. That new human being has a unique DNA code and only needs nourishment and shelter to develop through the various stages of life. The argument is not where "life" begins because that is settled science and has been for decades now.
The real argument, then, is where "personhood" begins. Any point after fertilization is going to be inherently subjective. One can say that "point X" is the point where we should assign "personhood" and protect that life, but what about one day before? What about one week before? Why is a human life worthy of protection at "point X" but not a mere 24 hours earlier? It makes no sense. The only logical place to protect human life is the moment that human life is created - at fertilization. Any other point is going to be a political decision, not a scientific determination.
This is because God has placed His image on mankind, and therefore He has forbidden us from ending a human life. As our Creator, God is sovereign over all human actions whether we submit to His authority or not. We have governments as agents of God, therefore, to protect the weak from being oppressed by the strong. There is no greater example of this than the wickedness of legalized abortion.