Undoubtedly someone who reads this has had an abortion. I love you and would be honored to help you. If you are in a crisis pregnancy, I would be honored to help you (and have worked with crisis pregnancy groups in the past). But as our country is dealing with an issue that is so impactful, the discussion must be straight forward.

With the latest political developments, I'm so absolutely appalled at the horrific turn our country has taken that I'm breathless. I'm shocked. I'm angry.

A child is a human life. It is of infinite worth.

If a woman’s life is actually in danger, there’s an actual equal value proposition, and I understand that as a heartbreaking situation with different parameters than most we encounter. I also understand that women bear the far greater burden of pregnancy—and that is a complex part of the legality—but I don’t believe it’s a morally complex issue.

This subject came up today in a group I'm in and my thoughts were too long and unwieldy to post there. So—in a completely non-academic stream—here are the points that have formed over decades of thinking about this issue, watching our culture devolve, and being amongst those who long predicted the obvious end game of all of this.

  1. It's not your body anyone is talking about.
  2. That life begins at conception is an issue of science, not religion. Per Maureen Condic, Ph.D.:

    The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications).

  3. There is no doctrine on when the spirit enters the body. I dare say that, “We don't know, so it's OK to kill it.” is a morally vacant position.
  4. I am the product of an unwanted pregnancy. I would not prefer to be dead. Even though life is hard and even though my birth mother didn’t want me.
  5. The pretty, purified euphemisms used around abortion are dishonest, at very least. This isn’t about “choice” or “women’s rights” or “reproductive health.” It’s about the “choice to end the life of a baby” or a “woman’s legal right to end the life of her baby” or “reproductive death.”
  6. Do you oppose sex trafficking? Do you think it should be illegal? I’m going to say there’s an unqualified yes to that. So…do you demand that all those who said yes (you!):
    1. Personally participate in child-rescue sting operations?
    2. Personally adopt all the rescued children?
    3. Personally pay for the stings and rescued children?
    4. Personally ensure that everyone who might one day buy a sex slave get adequate education and training about how to not buy a sex slave?

    I loathe when pro-aborts claim that in order to have a rational/ethical position on an issue one must take personal responsibility for all the actions of others.

    It’s utterly irrational and impossible. Of course, that’s the point. Purposefully demand something that cannot be accomplished as some kind of “proof” that the person with the position doesn’t “care enough” to be granted the right to have a position in order to avoid the actual discussion. It’s fallacious ad hominem that proves nothing.

    Most of you likely even opposed to drunk driving. But somehow you are not parked in front of every bar every night to drive home all the people who throw back too many.

    The logic is so incredibly flawed.

  7. If you support the legality of abortion (however you want to parse that), you should at very least be well informed on the actual medical process, just as you would be with any other procedure you were supporting. The baby is burned, dismembered, has their skull impaled, etc. It's a horrific process for both the mother and the baby. But the baby dies.
  8. Claiming that you support abortion legally but not morally is untenable. We aren’t talking about drinking coffee or screwing around with whomever you choose. We are talking about life and death. It is the single most significant issue we deal with as a society.

    Do any of you claim that you “support wife-beating legally but not morally”? Or even that you “support men leaving their wives and children and refusing to support them legally but not morally”? None of you do. Yet when it comes to an actual human being brutally killed, you are suddenly passive about what immoral things should be legal. Because you'd never want to impose our morality on someone else. So, you'll have to just tolerate the slaughter of babies and look the other way.

  9. Aborting a child because they might have pain or might have a hard life or might feel bad because they were “unloved” would be laughable if it were not lethal.

    Someone might have a tough life (who doesn’t?) so they will be better off dead, you know, so they don’t risk dealing with crap?

    Guys, that is what this is saying. This is the pretense of compassion for possible suffering that is addressed by killing the other person so they don’t have to risk suffering.

    All of you are going to suffer sometime during the rest of your lives. 100% certainty. Should someone else be allowed to decide to end your life if they don’t want to deal with that risk? (Because as of today, all of you are willing to deal with that risk…or you wouldn’t be reading this.)

  10. Aborting a child because they won’t survive long after birth isn’t compassion. None of us will survive indefinitely. Should someone else have the right to put us to death so it won’t be such a bother to them or so they won’t have to deal with our natural death?Which sounds worse to you personally?
    1. Live birth; palliative care; tenderness from people who love you; die naturally
    2. Dismemberment or scissors crammed in the base of your skull followed by brains being sucked into a bucket

    Which would you chose for yourself? Why would you choose differently for an innocent baby?

  11. Whether or not a pregnant woman has difficulty making the decision to abort a child doesn’t change the outcome to the child.
  12. If you believe God will not allow anyone to be robbed of life due to the actions of others in abortion, you cannot believe in murder—unless God sanctions it.

    In other words, there is no such thing as murder because everyone whose life is ended at the hand of another will be reincarnated (or something?) and still get to live that full life. So it doesn’t really impact the victim.But we do believe in agency. Even in agency that impacts others in the worst possible ways.

  13. Whether or not there is adequate (whatever that means) sex ed doesn’t change the moral value of a life.
  14. Whether or not there is “access” to birth control doesn’t change the moral value of a life. And, for the love of all that is holy, people, condoms cost 50¢ a pop—and work remarkably well when used correctly—how much “access” do you need?
  15. If someone hurts me, it does not justify me in hurting someone innocent.

May God have mercy on us.