“You shall not kill,” is a law with ancient roots, mostly known as one of the Ten Commandments. It is a religious idea but a little reflection reveals its critical applications for civic order. Those who fail to accept its demands tend to find themselves serving long prison sentences, or dead.
Does the law apply to abortion? Americans are dramatically divided on the question, with opinions greatly influenced by the number of months of pregnancy. Apparently, the durationof development of the unborn is a factor in determining whether an unborn human is actually a person. Is this widely embraced idea scientifically reasonable? Is this what could be considered a nuanced application of the law?
Let us back-track a little and consider run-of-the-mill murder. Murder is never permissible. Murderers will attempt to justify their actions, but juries are not persuaded by such arguments as, “He made me mad,” or, “He stole my iPhone.” Murderers always have reasons for killing but murder is defined as killing without a compelling reason.
One reason for killing that is considered compelling is self defense. But even self defense is not carte blanche to kill. The responsibility to avoid killing remains. Is it possible to negotiate? Is there opportunity to escape? Perhaps the one being attacked is armed and can stop the killer by wounding him.
When we look closely at killing as self defense, we see that it is not an exception to the law. It is a recognition that self defense is a means of preserving life. This is what makes it a nuanced application of the law. A nuance embraces the fundamental principle of the law but recognizes that it is not always possible to follow the law to the letter. A conscientious objector to self defense may say, “It is better that I allow myself to be killed than to kill.” While there is something admirable in this sentiment, it is logically problematic in that submission to murder makes a person an accomplice or, at least, an enabler. The dilemma of the situation is that someone is likely to be killed.
War is a corollary to this situation but on a greater scale. War is always a bad idea, but it is not always the worst idea. Nations, left unchecked, will rob, rape and plunder their neighbors. To be sure, we should not be warring over such issues as high taxes on tea, but the point of boundaries is to limit international exploitation.
The other major nuance related to killing has to do with intent. An elderly man drove over a child who had run into the street from between two parked cars. The boy was killed. The elderly man was not punished. We make allowances for people who accidentally kill, not because we think it’s okay, but because we recognize that humans sometimes make terrible mistakes. Sometimes people are powerless to avoid accidents. At the same time, we do call upon people to exercise care and caution. If the man had been driving at 60 miles per hour, even though killing the child would still have been an accident, his high speed would have been careless neglect. Some punishment would have rightly been assigned to him. Again, it’s not that the rule of not killing has been cancelled. It has been stretched, if you will, to account for circumstances.
There do seem to be nuances that legitimately apply to killing. Is it possible there are similar nuances that apply to abortion? Let’s look at some examples that lack merit, then at some examples with merit, and then at the popular arguments used to justify abortion.
It has been noted that we kill animals all the time. Humans are animals. Therefore, why should we be troubled about killing unborn humans? The problem with this argument is that, “Humans are animals,” is true only if understood in a very narrow biological sense. A full biological consideration would acknowledge the astonishing differences between humans and other animals. For example, place a newborn into any nation and that child will learn local language skills by the age of two that are superior to the language skills any other creature will ever develop. Add in such phenomena as creativity and the ability to build on knowledge and the wide chasm that separates humans from the other animals begins to become obvious. It is easy to accommodate people with tender consciences who do not want to harm animals. It is quite another matter to reverse the sentiment and say that harming animals justifies harming humans.
A similar argument notes that we routinely slaughter animals, causing them at least as much pain as aborted children experience. This argument is simply irrelevant. It would justify any and all murders as long as the victims were anesthetized prior to being killed. The fundamental problem with killing is not the related pain but the life that has been taken.
There are nuanced concerns that do apply to abortion. One has to do with rape. Pregnancy from rape presents a real moral dilemma. It would take a great deal of courage and grace for a woman bear the child of her rapist, but it is not right that we should demand this of any woman. Even so, the law, “you shall not kill,” cannot simply be dismissed. The guilt and punishment for the death of such a child should fall to the rapist. He should be punished for raping and he should be punished for the murder of his aborted child.
Another nuance related to abortion is the possible loss of life of the mother. In the case where doctors are convinced that abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother, abortion is the right thing to do. Furthermore, this choice should not be left to the mother. No mother should have to decide whether she should live or her child should live. The decision should be made by the doctors, in consultation with the mother’s closest relatives. Again, though, this decision is not made as if it were an exception to the law about killing. It is a moral dilemma that recognizes that either choice results in death. It tilts in favor of saving the mother’s life, not because she has more intrinsic value than her child but because she has more relational value to all those who already know her, love her, and need her.
The popular arguments that favor abortions are mere dodges. Kamala Harris’ argument was that women should have the right to control their own bodies. This is a whiff. Women have the right and should control their own bodies. Abortion is not about a woman’s body, though. It is about a child’s body. Women do not abort their own bodies; they abort children’s bodies. The question is whether women should have the right to decide if their children live or die. We often hear the line, “Women should be trusted.” Really? We should trust the judgment of women who would end the lives of their own children? Do we argue that women should be trusted about whether they ought to rob banks?
We will not delve into the arguments about heartbeats or evidences of mental activity or viability in this discussion. These arguments reveal a great deal about the progress of science in terms of its ability to measure, and its ability to approximate the nurture of the womb, but they fail to address the question of the humanity of the unborn child, and they fail to address whether the child is alive. (In fact, these arguments only confirm the child is alive. If the child were not alive there would be no question about abortion in the first place.)
Nuanced arguments in favor of abortion, aside from rape and life-threatening situations for mothers, do not exist. And, yet, abortion continues to be widely practiced. Why?
The big problem with ending abortion is the vested interest in its continuation. This vested interest is not fundamentally a financial investment, though the abortion industry certainly is big business. The big investment in abortion is of a more personal nature. Since 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade, there have been more than 63 million abortions in the United States. This suggests that roughly half the population has either had an abortion, has provided abortions, has supported someone in getting an abortion, or has pressured someone into getting an abortion. This represents a long mountain range of psychological resistance to the idea that abortion is something evil.
There is a second aspect to this personal vested interest. It is America’s dirty secret nursery crime: The children must pay so adults can play. Our culture has settled into the idea, as displayed by such still popular sitcoms as “Friends”, that intercourse is no more than the exclamation point on a successful date. This mindset has created the need for a foolproof escape plan from the inconvenient connection between sex and pregnancy. The plan reveals that many people would rather kill their own children than exercise meaningful discipline in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. This is not nuance. It is a lame excuse. It is one of many reasons that the law: “Do not kill.” had to be written in the first place.
Surely most people would rather not experience or take part in an abortion. Many have gone forward with abortions, regretting the action from the first, but feeling incapable and/or ill-equipped to choose the alternative. But inconvenience, even severe inconvenience does not qualify as nuance to the question of killing. There are no hardships presented by a newborn that are not presented by a one-year-old and, yet, (thankfully) we do not tell ourselves we have the right to rid ourselves of our one-year-olds.
Are pro-life advocates on the “wrong side of history”? Whenever this phrase pops up a second question needs to be asked: what prophet is being consulted as to history’s ultimate direction?
Is the populace tired of the fight? No doubt. William Wilberforce grew very tired of fighting against the slave trade. But he persisted, and he was right to do so.
Are pro-lifers simply emotional? This is a curious charge that assumes that “emotional” is the opposite of “rational”. Emotions are physiological manifestations of a person’s thoughts. A person can be as emotionless as Spock and utterly wrong on a question, or can be gratingly histrionic and in the right.
Emotions, unchecked, can limit a person’s ability to hear other perspectives, but the emotions themselves are manifestations of ideas. The emotions only suggest how dearly a person clings to those ideas. Emotions are the tail, while the dog is thoughts. Calling an argument emotional doesn’t actually mean anything. The question remains: Why is a person emotional?
A lack of emotion can be as suggestive of a problem as does melodramatics. One who murders without empathy or guilt is a psychopath. What can it mean when the world is indifferent to the loss of millions of young lives each year through the abortion process? Surely this is only possible because people have convinced themselves that the unborn are not humans. But it is a false conviction with terrible consequences, many of which we have yet to realize.
What power will level the mountain range of collective psychological resistance? Who will be God’s agents? This is not clear. What is certain is that the issue will not go away. There can be no peace with the practice of child sacrifice.
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