by Walter Scott Hudson

This week, I published a special episode of the Fightin Words radio program dedicated to the highly controversial and often avoided topic of abortion. I did so because I had recently refined my own perspective on the issue and thought others might find my process challenging. In the past, I have considered myself a strange hybrid of pro-life and pro-choice, believing instinctively and passionately that killing the unborn is wrong, but waffling on whether or not it should be illegal given the murky philosophical and highly personal nature of the issue. A recent experience provided me cause to re-evaluate that position and come down firmly on the pro-life side of the argument. Here I present a summary of that experience for those not inclined to listen to a podcast.

Last week, I stumbled upon a Blog Talk Radio program called We Kill Children, hosted by a man named Jeff. Jeff was in the midst of a conversation with a caller named Steve. Jeff and Steve argued the pro-life and pro-choice positions respectively. As I listened to their conversation, I was struck by the absurd nature of Steve’s arguments and the blatantly self-serving motivation he provided for them.

The primary issue in the abortion debate is whether or not unborn children are human beings with an unalienable right to life. There is no other relevant question. In an affirmation of C.S. Lewis’s assertion that everyone knows the Law of Nature and strives to excuse themselves from it rather than deny its existence, the pro-choice movement does not argue the morality of killing innocent children, but rather denies the nature of the unborn as human. In this regard, Steve was a dutiful example. His first point of contention with Jeff was over the term “abortion,” which Jeff refrained from using. Jeff insisted on using the term “killing children,” which he felt was more accurate. Jeff and Steve sparred with various references as their weapons. Once confronted with the apparent definition of the unborn as children, as indicated in word usage such as “being with child” or “child bearing,” Steve was left with no recourse but to attack the very concept of definition, stating that definitions were arbitrary and dictionaries biased. “Maybe we should just have everything be legal,” he said, “rather than restricting things if there’s no consensus.”

This stood out in my mind as a blatantly absurd comment. If the law was based on a true consensus, none would break it, and there would be no purpose in law. Surely, Steve holds some law dear. For instance, one would find it difficult to imagine he would accept a mugger justifying an attack by citing the lack of consensus on laws against robbery. In order to entertain such an absurd notion, one would need a strong motivation. The mugger’s motive would be personal gain at Steve’s expense. Steve revealed a similar motivation for abortion when considering the alternative of adoption.

It probably would be nice to have more of these mothers – I use the term “mothers;” they’re not a mother yet until they have a child – potential mothers – [give] the child up for adoption. But the thing is… from the guy’s point of view… if the woman doesn’t have an abortion, there’s a 90% chance that, if she says she’s gonna give the kid up for adoption, … if she actually gives birth to the child, she’s actually gonna keep it. From the guy’s perspective, that’s horrifying, because he doesn’t want to be on the hook for child support for 18 years.

As the conversation progressed, this was repeatedly affirmed as Steve’s core concern, that he might be “condemned” to either father or provide monetarily for the care of a child he never intended to conceive in spite of freely engaging in the act of procreation. When challenged on the morality of justifying the murder of unborn children on plainly self-serving grounds, Steve retreated into two branches of justification.

The first was to argue unborn children are not really human beings, and therefore not vested with any right to life. This argument relied on two arbitrary and absurd premises which included:

1) an unborn child is the “property” of the mother, just like one of her internal organs because:

a) the child is inside the mother, and

b) the child is nourished by the mother and dependant upon her for survival

2) at early stages of development, an unborn child does not “resemble” a human being

The second justification Steve evoked was the notion that mothers who abort unwanted pregnancies are “doing society a service” by eliminating potential criminals and “undesirables” from our ranks. Neither of these justifications hold any ground when examined with a cursory amount of reason. So Steve found himself helplessly retreating from one to the other whenever losing ground.

I ended up calling into the show and joining Jeff and Steve’s conversation, as I found myself unable to contain my frustration in the face of such inane rationalization. I addressed Steve’s justifications in turn.

Beginning with the societal benefit argument, clearly no one would accept a similar justification for killing a one-year-old. To do so would place us in the realm of pre-crime, condemning individuals to judgment based on crimes we believe they might commit rather than ones they actually have. Although our society inches ever closer to this travesty of justice with each session of Congress (hate crime, anyone?), we have not yet wholly discarded due process. Furthermore, even if you accept the idea that demographic predisposition to crime justifies preemptive judgment and sentencing, relatively few crimes call for the death penalty. By what rationale could we possibly justify killing people for crimes they may commit, particularly when we have no idea what their crime may be? It is entirely appropriate to ask, in response to such a suggestion, why we bother to jail anyone. If the demographic likelihood of criminal behavior is justification for killing, shouldn’t the actual committing of crime also demand execution? The trend of those in the pro-choice camp to also be staunchly against the death penalty seems inexplicable, until you realize both positions are motivated by a desire to avoid responsibility.

Revealing these flaws in the society-benefits justification led Steve to retreat to the more fundamental point; the unborn are not human beings. Here too, the arguments mine the depths of absurdity. The comparison of an unborn child to an internal organ is based on nothing more than location. The distinction between the two is clear. A mother’s internal organs are part of her organism and present to support her life. She supports the life of her child, an entirely separate organism. Basing the definition of humanity on location is a wholly contrived notion with no purpose outside a desperate justification in this one context. To the point regarding nourishment, one need only highlight the obvious fact that nourishment continues beyond birth, requiring decisively more effort than before. If being dependent on another renders one disposable “property,” then children may be rightly aborted until they move out on their own, the elderly may be rightly euthanized, and those on welfare or receiving any form of charity may be rightly executed by their material masters.

Finally, we come to my favorite rationalization for the unborn-as-inhuman argument; fetuses do not resemble humans. At one point, Steve evoked Hitler to serve his abortion-as-social-service argument, stating that aborting Baby Hitler would have benefited society. In my concluding statement to Steve, I seized upon this example, highlighting the reason he views a hypothetical abortion of Baby Hitler as good is because Hitler grew up to kill millions of people based in no small part on a pseudo-scientific devaluing of their humanity relying entirely on appearance. The large nose, the high brow, or whatever other trait one might choose to focus on clearly indicates a lack of intelligence, or a duplicitous nature, and certainly subhuman status; such were the arguments of the Nazi against the Jew, the handicapped, the crippled, etc. Such is the argument of the abortionist against the unborn. Humanity is not defined by appearance.

For me, the sum effect of this conversation was a demand upon my conscience to take a firm pro-life stance now and in the future. Abortion is a liberty issue. The pro-choice movement has effectively hijacked the concept of liberty and misapplied it to the mother’s capacity to kill her unborn child. In truth, liberty’s stake in the issue has to do with the arbitrary devaluing of human life to justify murder for personal gain. There is no rationalization for abortion that does not ultimately rely upon an arbitrary definition of human life. If we can define human life arbitrarily, then we can value it arbitrarily. And if we can value it arbitrarily, it has no actual value and lays subject to the whim of the strong. Under such a circumstance, it cannot be argued we live in a condition of liberty, for there is nothing barring anyone from arbitrarily defining us as non-human. Josef Goebbels once said, “Yes, [the Jew] is a man. But what sort of a man? The flea is also an animal!” If such logic can be used against the Jew, if it can be used against the unborn, it can be used against anyone. That is why we must demand our public policy be based upon sound reasoning and universal principles which provide incontrovertible definitions.