On September 11, 2001—a day Time magazine
called the bloodiest day on American soil since the Civil War—two jumbo jets
slammed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, another crashed
into the western section of the Pentagon, and a third was forced down in a
field in Pennsylvania when the terrorist pilots were overwhelmed by courageous
passengers.
To put the toll in perspective, in the
Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, 168 people died. In New York City on 9/11, twice
as many firefighters and policemen alone were crushed under 500,000 tons of
cement and steel. On that other “day of infamy,” December 7, 1941, 2,335
servicemen lost their lives at Pearl Harbor. More victims than that—2,977—were
buried beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and that
field in Pennsylvania.
Of course, this is old news. Here’s something
you may not have known. Time magazine was wrong. September 11,
2001 was not the bloodiest day on American soil since the Civil War. In truth,
the number of human lives crushed out on 9/11 is less, on average, than the
number of children who have died every single day, day after day, for over 47
years through abortion right here on American soil.
The fact is, roughly half of pregnancies in
this country are unplanned, and roughly half of those end in abortion.
Consequently, the most dangerous place for a baby to be in America is resting
in her mother’s womb.
In this Solid Ground, I want to
show you how to make that location a safer place by teaching you how to use
precisely placed questions to challenge the moral legitimacy of the pro-choice
view in conversations you have with others.[i] It’s a general approach I call
“Street Tactics.”[ii]
My basic strategy when making the pro-life
case is to focus on the single, decisive, defining issue in the debate, an
approach I call “Only One Question.” Here is how I initiate my plan in
conversation.
“Daddy,
Can I Kill This?”
The very first set of questions I use in
conversation on this issue sets the stage for my larger strategy. It should be
your first move, too.
“Consider this
analogy,” I offer. “Your child comes up behind you while
you’re working at some task and asks, ‘Daddy/Mommy, can I kill this?’
What is the one question you must ask before you can answer their question?”
“I need to ask them,
‘What is it?’”[iii]
“Exactly. The reason
is obvious. First we have to know what we’re killing before we
know if it’s okay to kill it. If it’s a spider, smash it. If
it’s their little brother, time for a talk. Does that make sense?”
“Sure, so far.”
“So let’s apply that
reasoning to the abortion question using our vital question ‘What is it?’ If
the unborn is not a human being, then no justification for abortion is necessary.[iv] Do as you wish. Remove the offending
tissue. Have the abortion. Do you agree with that?”
“Of course I do. I’m
pro-choice.”
“Good. Next step.
However, if the unborn is a human being, then no justification
for abortion is adequate.”[v]
“Well, I’m not sure
about that one. What are you getting at?”
“Fair enough. Let me
clarify with another question. Though the answer may seem obvious, and I don’t
mean to patronize you, here it is. Do you think it’s okay to kill a defenseless
human being for the reasons most people give to justify abortions: because they
have a right to privacy or choice, because the human being is too expensive,
because they just don’t want to take care of him, because he interferes with
their career, etc.?”
“Of course not. But a
fetus isn’t a human.”
“We’ll get to that in
a minute. So in principle, then, you agree with those two general statements I
asked you about?”
“Well, I guess—so
far.”
Pushback
This is progress, of course, but conversations
like this do not always go smoothly. Often, there’s resistance, so I’ve
included an extended conversation below as a tutorial for two reasons.
First, it provides a general model for how you
might navigate objections on this point. Second, it reinforces our conviction
that answering only one question is the key to resolving the abortion issue.
The dialogue starts with a pro-abortion challenge:[vi]
“Abortion is a private
choice between a woman and her doctor.”
“Do you mind if I ask
you a question? Do we allow parents to abuse their children if done in privacy
or with the consent of their doctor?”
“Of course not, but
that’s not fair. Those children are human beings.”
“I agree. But that
shows that the issue isn’t really privacy at all but rather whether or not the
unborn is a human being, right?’”
“But many poor women
can’t afford to raise another child.”
“Yes, I understand.
But when kids get too expensive, can we kill them?”
“Of course not, but
aborting a fetus is not the same as killing a kid.”
“So once again, the
real question is, ‘What is the unborn? Is a fetus a human just like a
youngster?’”
“Why do you insist on
being so simplistic? Killing defenseless human beings is one thing. Aborting a
fetus is another.”
“So we’re agreed: If
abortion actually killed a defenseless human being, then the issue wouldn’t be
complex at all. The question is, ‘What is the unborn?’”
“Do you really think a
woman should be forced to bring an unwanted child into the world?”
“Many homeless people
are unwanted. Can we kill them?”
“But it’s not the
same.”
“That’s the issue,
then, isn’t it? Are they the same? If the unborn are truly human like the
homeless, then we can’t just kill them to get them out of the way. We’re back
to my first question, ‘What is the unborn?’”
“But you still
shouldn’t force your morality on women.”
“I get your point, but
would you ‘force your morality’ on a mother who was physically abusing her
two-year-old?”
“Sure, but that’s not
the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re
assuming the unborn is human like a two-year-old.”
“And you’re assuming
she’s not. You see, this is not really about privacy, or economic hardship, or
complexity, or not being wanted, or forcing morality. The real question is,
‘What is the unborn?’ Answer that question, and you’ve automatically answered
the others.”
You might think of other concerns I haven’t
mentioned. Each can be dispatched with a simple test question. Ask, “What would
be the relevance of this objection if we were talking about a clear-case
example of a human being?”
Note, I have not made the case yet that the
unborn is a human being. That will come shortly. I’m merely
pointing out there’s just one issue to resolve, not many. Answering the one
question “What is the unborn?” answers almost all the others.
Hopefully, you’ve been somewhat successful at
this point in helping the pro-abortion person understand your point about the
single, decisive, defining issue in this controversy. It’s time for our next
step. We started with the strategic foundation of our
argument. Next I want you to see the moral foundation.
Moral
Logic
I want you to be crystal clear on the simple
moral logic of the pro-life position.[vii] It is the ethical bedrock of the
view. Here it is:
Premise 1: It’s wrong
to intentionally take the life of an innocent human being.
Premise 2: Abortion
intentionally takes the life of an innocent human being.
Therefore: Abortion is
wrong.
Notice a couple of things immediately. First,
the form of the argument is right. The conclusion follows
naturally and logically from the first two statements. That’s easy to see.
This, then, is a valid argument. So far, so good. If the premises turn
out to be true, then it is also a sound argument—that is,
completely reliable based on the simple force of logic. But are the premises
true? That’s where controversy comes in.
The first premise seems obviously correct. Few
would dispute this commonsense moral notion as a general rule. If you want to
be more precise to cover possible exceptions, you could add the phrase “…for
the reasons most people give to justify abortion.” We clearly do not consider
killing justified because our victim stood in the way of our career, was a
financial burden, had a physical defect, interfered with our personal freedoms,
etc.
Your initial pushback, then, is going to be
about the accuracy of premise two. As we saw above, you’re going to encounter
resistance to the claim that the unborn are bona fide human beings. Our
questions, then, are designed to help your friend see that the unborn are
1) alive and growing, 2) distinct from their
mothers (i.e., not the mother’s body, strictly speaking), and 3)
individual human beings.
Here’s how that conversation might look, with
the pro-abortion person initiating the challenge:
“The government
shouldn’t tell me what I can do with my own body.”
“Can the government
say what you can do with your body concerning your two-year-old?”
“That’s different.
He’s outside my body. We’re talking about my uterus. They can’t dictate what I
do with my uterus any more than they can force me to donate my kidney.”
“I agree with you,[viii] but that has nothing to do with the
pro-life view. Pro-lifers are not asking you to give up your uterus. Pro-lifers
are saying the government should be able to protect a growing human being inside your
body just like it does a growing human being outside your
body.”
“But we’re talking
about my uterus, not a human being like an infant.”
“I thought we were
talking about what was in your uterus.”
“Okay, but that’s not
a human being.”
“It isn’t? Then what
is it?”
“It’s just tissue, I
guess. Nobody knows.”
“Well, let me ask you
a few questions about this mysterious thing inside the uterus of a pregnant
woman. Is this thing alive?”
“No one really knows
when life begins.”
“That wasn’t quite the
question. I asked if it was alive, not when life begins. So let me ask another
way. Is this unidentified thing inside a pregnant woman’s uterus growing?”
“Yes, it’s growing.”
“How can it be growing
if it’s not alive?”
“Hmm… Okay, you’ve
made your point. It’s alive. It’s living tissue, part of my own body, and the
government has no say over my tissue growing in my body.”
“I’m sympathetic with
that point in principle, but I don’t think this tissue that’s in your
body is actually part of your body, strictly speaking.”
“Of course it is.”
“Did you ever watch
CSI?”
“Sure.”
“When the forensic
pathologist finds remains of a human body, how do they know which person the
remains belong to?”
“They do a matching
DNA test.”
“Right. If the DNA
from the tissue matches the DNA sample from a known individual, then they know
the tissue was part of their body.”
“Right.”
“So if you were
pregnant, and someone took a DNA test of the piece of tissue growing in your
uterus, would its DNA match your DNA?”
“Well…no.”
“Right. Then whatever
is growing inside a pregnant woman’s body is not part of her body,
is it? It’s tissue from a different body with different DNA.”
“I guess so.”
“So here’s the next
question: What kind of foreign thing would be growing inside your uterus if you
were pregnant.”
“I can’t say for
sure.”
“Well, let’s go back
to CSI again. If forensic pathologists found a piece of tissue at a crime
scene, how would they know if that tissue came from a human being or from some
other creature?”
“I guess they’d do
another DNA test.”
“Right, but this test
isn’t looking to identify a certain individual, but rather a
certain kind of individual—maybe a human or maybe some other
organism, right?”
“Okay.”
“So if we took a piece
of tissue from that living thing growing in your uterus that is not you but
something else, what kind of DNA do you think it would have?”
“I don’t know. I’m not
a scientist.”
“You don’t need to be
a scientist to know the answer to my question. Let me ask it another way. What
kinds of things naturally and predictably grow inside a pregnant woman’s
uterus?”
“Well, offspring.”
“Good. So we agree on
that. Now, if there’s an ‘offspring’ growing in a woman’s uterus, what kind
of offspring do you think it is?”
“I guess it would be a
human offspring. But that doesn’t mean it’s a human being. An acorn is not an
oak.”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s a seed.”
“Right. What kind of
seed?”
“An oak seed.”
“Right. An acorn is an
oak in the seed stage, and a full-grown tree is an oak in a mature stage. But
they’re both oaks, right?”
“But the unborn is
just a zygote, or a fetus, or whatever.”
“Right, but what kind of
zygote, or fetus, or whatever?”
“Human?”
“Exactly. So it looks
like we know a lot about what’s growing inside a pregnant woman’s uterus, don’t
we? It’s not merely her tissue, but her human offspring.
Someone else—an unborn human being—is in there at varying stages of
development. So now that we’ve solved that mystery, let me take this a step
further. Do you think the government should be allowed to protect your
offspring when the child is outside of your body but not when
he’s inside your body?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Tell me, why should
the government be allowed to protect your offspring on the outside of
your body?”
“Because children are
valuable.”
“Right, I agree. But
that creates a problem for you now, doesn’t it?”
“How so?”
“Well if your children
are valuable outside your body—say, right after they’re born—why aren’t those
same children valuable just a couple of inches away, hidden inside your body?
Why does the location of your child make any difference to
the value of your child?”
You see how this works. Of course, those who
have strong pro-abortion convictions are not likely to change their minds
immediately, but your tactical questions have forced them to think about the
facts that really matter instead of parrying with rhetoric that simply obscures
the real issue.
At this point, you’re going to encounter
another dodge. Since you’ve clearly established that abortion kills an actual
human being (the second premise of our argument), the only recourse the
pro-choice person has is to modify his commitment to the first premise of our
moral logic: It’s wrong to intentionally take the life of an innocent human
being.
Here’s the common counter: It’s not really
wrong to kill a human being. It’s only wrong to kill a human person,
and the unborn are not real persons, only potential persons.
The
“Personhood” Shell Game
At this point, you must, without
exception, ask this question: “What’s the difference?” Ask what the precise
differences are between a disposable human being and a valuable human person.
Point out that it’s absolutely essential they answer your question and clarify
the distinction they’ve imposed. Here’s why.
Those who offer this personhood qualifier have
divided the human race into two distinct categories—human persons and human
non-persons. Those in the first group have full protection of the law. Those in
the second group, on the other hand, can be killed with impunity for virtually
any reason, oftentimes at government expense. Considering the grave
consequences of this divide, those who split humanity in this way must be
absolutely clear on which human beings are on which side of that line.
Some may answer by offering a list of
attributes they think are necessary to qualify a human being as
valuable—certain characteristics or capabilities that distinguish him from an
expendable human non-person. These lists vary in content, of course, with
different people championing different criteria.
At this point, other questions are necessary:
Where did you get the list? Who gets to decide which humans qualify and which
do not? Does everyone get to make up his own list of qualities needed to
transform a mere human into a valuable person? What about lists that exclude
Blacks, or Jews, or Muslim Serbs, or gypsies, or the mentally defective, or
gays—all examples of “human non-persons” of the past? What makes one person’s
list “better” than any other?
You see my point. The “personhood”
disqualifier has a dark past. It is nothing more than a crafty shell game,
legal legerdemain meant to disqualify some bona fide members of the human
family from being protected members of the human community. It’s a convenient
scheme for some to stigmatize others when it’s in their interest to
disenfranchise them.
This ruse has been tried before, and history
is strewn with the wreckage—from the Dred Scott decision of 1857 declaring
black slaves chattel property to the “Final Solution,” when the Third Reich
decreed that millions of humans had no inherent right to live and were
eliminated as lebensunwertes leben—“life unworthy of life.”
S.L.E.D.
The characteristics disqualifying the
personhood of the unborn usually fall in one of four categories: size or
physical appearance (the unborn doesn’t look like a person), level of
development (the unborn lacks the abilities real persons have), environment (the
unborn isn’t located in the same place as real persons),[ix] or degree of dependency (the
unborn is not “viable,” i.e., it’s too physically dependent on others to be a
person).
This list of distinctions, commonly known as
the “S.L.E.D.” test,[x] is riddled with difficulties since
each qualifier ends up disqualifying clear-case examples of valuable human
beings.
It turns out there is no meaningful moral
difference between a human being and a human person. All attempts to make this
distinction end in disaster. Your probing questions press that point.
One
Final Question
Here is your parting salvo. Ask, “Were you
ever an unborn child?” It doesn’t seem to make sense to say anyone was once a
sperm or an egg because neither by itself is a human being. Does it make sense,
though, to talk about the way we were before we were born?
“Did you turn in your mother’s womb, or kick
when you were startled by a loud noise? Did you suck your thumb? Were those
your experiences or someone else’s? If you were once the unborn child your
mother carried, then you must accept an undeniable truth: Killing that child
through abortion would have killed you. Not a potential you. Not a possible
you. Not a future you. Abortion would have killed you.”
And so the logic stands. You have shown:
- The unborn is a living being, separate from her mother.
- The kind of being she happens to be is human.
- Humans are valuable in themselves and not for what they
can do, for what they can be, or for what they can give to others.
- Abortion takes the life of a valuable, innocent, human
being without proper justification. Therefore, abortion is terribly wrong.
And you did it all with questions.
[i] By
the way, the points offered in this piece have been used effectively by
pro-lifers in school debates, Facebook and blog posts, articles, etc. Get more
resources by searching for “abortion” at str.org.
[iii] Some
might say the next question is “Why?” If they do, remind them their back is
turned, then ask, “Isn’t there a more important question to ask first?”
[iv] I
suggest that you memorize this statement.
[v] Memorize
this one, too.
[vii] I
use the phrase “moral logic” because this is a logically valid syllogism with
moral terms in both a premise and the conclusion.
[viii] Notice
how, as a tactical concern, I try to agree as often as I can with legitimate
points.
[ix] This
qualifier is implicit in abortion laws that distinguish between humans in the
womb and those outside the womb.
[x] The
S.L.E.D. Test was first introduced by Stephen Schwarz in the book The
Moral Question of Abortion.
