* After my sermon on Pro-Life Perspectives: Applying Biblical Wisdom, my pastor and I did a follow-up video looking at the top five questions received from the congregation. The questions were:
1) Can you debunk the rape/incest argument? Where should the church stand on those specific issues?
2) Where do we stand when the baby threatens the health and life of the mother? For example ectopic pregnancies.
3) How do we approach the argument, “it’s my body.”? As well as “we are valuing the fetus more than the mother.”
4) Should we care just as much about frozen embryos as we do newborn babies?
5 )How should we respond to the “Whole Life” argument - i.e., Christians only care for unborn life & don’t support policies that benefit all life.
Here are the notes I used for the video--has references and documentation for some of our claims:
As we start… it is important to keep in mind the basic pro-life perspective:
· From the moment of conception, there is a human being who is a person of intrinsic moral worth who should be protected from lethal violence.
· Many of the cases brought up end up having the structure: “Can I destroy this life because of the following situation, _______________________?”
Also… every ethical system and ethical position will have tensions in dealing with highly difficult ethical situations. Not every highly contentious issue has nice and tidy solution.
1. Can you debunk the rape/incest argument? Where should the church stand on these specific issues?
a. For context: about 1% of abortions are due to rape
b. Avoid glib and logic-chopping answers. A real woman has undergone a violent act against her person. We need to remember this and answer this issue with that in mind.
c. In the pregnancy by rape situation, there are three persons involved:
i. Rapist: who should be punished to the fullest extent of the law
§ Nothing but moral revulsion and punishment
ii. Woman: who should receive maximal care (physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc.)
§ Nothing but moral compassion and care
iii. Pre-natal life: who should receive protection
§ Nothing but moral concern and protection
d. To commit an aggressive act of violence against the unborn is not a proper response
§ The pre-born human is innocent; to commit an act of violence against her is not just
e. The rapist has put the woman in a place where she has to act heroically to act in a moral manner.
§ “[A] woman who continues her pregnancy resulting from rape is a hero. In choosing to act heroically, she radically contradicts the act of her attacker. He imposed himself on her; she gives of herself for her child. He acted selfishly; she acts benevolently. He diminished her life for his pleasure; she nurtures a life despite pain. The acts of such a woman contradict in a most striking manner the acts of the rapist.
“Does it follow that since such a woman is heroic, it is morally permissible to have an abortion? Unfortunately, evil people can force other, more vulnerable people into situations where the morally permissible but not heroic option is gone, and the only available choice is between moral heroism and moral evil… The rapist who impregnates a woman forces her to choose between enduring an unplanned pregnancy and inflicting life-ending harm on her own innocent daughter or son. It takes heroism to choose the former, but it still wrong to choose the latter.”[1]
2. Where do we stand when the baby threatens the health and life of the mother? For example, ectopic pregnancies?
a. Life of the mother
i. Most pro-life thinkers recognize the legitimacy of saving the mother’s life.
ii. Double Effect reasoning: “It is permissible to do one action with two effects, one good and one bad, so long as the action itself is ethically acceptable, the evil effect is not chosen as a means or as an end, and there is a proportionately serious reason for allowing the evil side effect.”[2]
1. Intention of action and foreseen results of action are different and morally relevant.
2. In seeking to save the life of the mother we are not aiming at or intending the death of the pre-natal life.
iii. Cases of a cancerous uterus or ectopic pregnancy
iv. See the article: “Clearing Up Confusion About Ectopic Pregnancy and Abortion,” by Nick Bell at Human Defense Initiative (July 2, 2022)
b. Health of the mother
i. How is “health” defined?
ii. Doe v. Bolton (January 22, 1973) defined “health” so broadly as to include such factors: “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age.”
iii. “Warren Hern, M.D., who was quoted in USA Today on May 15, 1997 as saying, ‘I will certify that any pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s life and could cause “grievous injury” to her “physical health”’.”[3]
iv. Are there ways to specify the limits of health which are not as expansive and broad? I think so.
3. How do we respond to the argument, “It’s my body!”? As well as “we are valuing the fetus more than the mother.”?
· “It’s my body!”
a. Simplistic version: the pre-born human not your body
i. Connected to the woman’s body
ii. Pre-natal life is a unique being with rights
b. Personal autonomy is important, but we don’t live in a social vacuum
c. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “Violinist Argument” analogy: does it work?
i. Typically getting pregnant is not like rape (getting forcibly plugged into the violinist).
ii. “Unplugging” is not like the active act of killing pre-natal life by decapitation and dismemberment or poisoning.
iii. Violinist is a stranger; pre-born is a son or daughter to the mother
1. There are familial responsibilities
iv. Violinist is not in a natural state; child in the womb is exactly where she is supposed to be given her state of development
v. Responsibility Objection: we bear moral responsibility if we engage in an act which brings about a human life[4]
d. Do we have moral obligations that we did not consent to?
i. Finding a newborn on your step of cabin in wilderness
ii. Expressive Individualism vs. Embodied Relationality[5]
· “We are valuing the fetus more than the mother.”
o No, we are according both a value of life both have the right to life
4. Should we care just as much about frozen embryos as we do newborn babies?
a. “The pro-life view does not claim that the human zygote or the human fetus ‘possesses all the moral importance of a fully grown human being’.”[6]
b. Harm: Intrinsic aspects and Circumstantial aspects[7]
i. Illustration: Ryan and Lisa both buy a new Prius with cash
1. Both cars are stolen.
2. Intrinsically: both have lost the same thing a Prius of equal value
3. Circumstantially: worse for Ryan
a. Ryan is an Uber driver (sole income)
b. Lisa wasn’t planning on using car much prefer to walk and bike
ii. Comparing the deaths of pre-natal human being and a 20-year-old man
1. Intrinsically: Same they both lose their life
2. Circumstantially: Different
a. Loss of future goods
b. Loss of present goods (i.e., friends, knowledge, vigor of body, meaningful activity)
c. Social terms: some deaths are worse than others
i. Death of mother with small children vs. death of someone who is not a parent (all things being equal)
ii. Death of a president vs. death of someone without responsibilities to others (all things being equal)
c. Embryo Rescue Case attempts to show inconsistency of pro-life view
i. “Embryos and Five-Year Olds: Whom to Rescue” by Robert P. George and Christopher O. Tollefsen Public Discourse (October 19, 2017)
ii. No one is actively being put to death
iii. Triage situation and the decision is made on a number of different factors but there is no intention to kill anybody!
5. How should we respond to the “whole life” argument—i.e., Christians only care for the unborn life and don’t support policies that benefit all life?
a. “Only care for unborn life”
i. Not true!
· Pregnancy Resource Centers: 3-1 over Planned Parenthood Centers
· Almost 5-1 in AZ (according to CAP)
· Some states 11-1
· Adoption rates: Christians adopt twice as much as others (Barna Research 2013): 2% to 5%
- Also see my blog post "Caring for the Poor: Some Thoughts from Thaddeus Williams" for more statistics about Christians and churches helping people
ii. David French’s research “Are Christians Obsessed with Gays and Abortion?” March 14, 2011
· Where do Christians put their charitable dollars?
|
Pure Culture War Groups |
Christian Anti-poverty Groups |
|
Alliance Defending Freedom |
World Vision |
|
Family Research Council |
Compassion International |
|
National Right to Life |
Samaritan’s Purse |
|
Americans United for Life |
|
|
Focus on the Family |
|
|
Total: $195 million |
Total: $2.1 billion |
o ADF, FRC, NRL, AUL: $60 million
o Focus on the Family: $135 million
o World Vision: $1 billion
o Samaritan’s Purse (smallest): receipts larger than the 5 other culture war groups combined
b. “Policies that benefit all life”
i. This is a challenge for consistency on the part of pro-lifers. But any alleged inconsistency would not justify the taking of pre-born life.
ii. There can be policy disagreements even among people who hold to a consistent pro-life ethic regarding the pre-born.
iii. “Achieving consensus will be easier on the measures necessary to prohibit abortion—no pro-lifer can support lethal violence in the womb—but there is a legitimate diversity of views about which measures best address the so-called demand side of abortion… Pro-lifers can hold a range of views on, for example, paid family leave or child tax credits. We should debate these policies on the merits, not use them to cast others out of the pro-life movement.”[8] --Ryan Anderson & Alexandra DeSanctis
[1] Christopher Kaczor, “Abortion as Human Rights Violation,” in Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor, Abortion Rights: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 155.
[2] Christopher Kaczor, “Abortion as Human Rights Violation,” in Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor, Abortion Rights: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 157.
[3] O. Carter Snead, What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020), 152.
[4] See especially: C’zar Bernstein and Paul Manata, “Moral Responsibility and the Wrongness of Abortion,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 44 (2019), 243-262.
[5] For more on this see especially: O. Carter Snead, What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020).
[6] Christopher Kaczor, “Abortion as Human Rights Violation,” in Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor, Abortion Rights: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 211.
[7] See for more details: Christopher Kaczor, “Abortion as Human Rights Violation,” in Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor, Abortion Rights: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 124-125.
