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The Central Question in the Abortion Debate is Still: Is This a Human Being?
Life News ^ | 7/8/14 | Ben Williamson

Posted on 07/08/2014 10:06:52 AM PDT by wagglebee

It is absolutely critical that the issue dividing the pro-lifers and abortion advocates be clarified and not muddled by irrelevancies. As author Scott Klusendorf points out in The Case for Life: “If you think a particular argument for elective abortion begs the question regarding the status of the unborn, here’s how to clarify things: Ask if this particular justification for abortion also works as a justification for killing toddlers. If not, the argument assumes that the unborn are not fully human.” (The Case for Life, p. 25, para. 1). Since hardly anybody appeals to bodily rights, economic conveniences, or rights to privacy to justify killing infants and toddlers, to appeal to those circumstances in the case of abortion is to assume the unborn are not human persons.

Let me give an illustration that can help clarify this. Bob and Debbie are hanging out over coffee and the topic of abortion comes up in the conversation. Debbie says, “I think the woman should be allowed to have an abortion because what if she can’t raise the child due to her economic situation?” Bob doesn’t think that reason is good enough. “But it’s wrong to have an abortion because you are killing a child. Don’t you think that’s something the woman should consider?” Debbie, however, wasn’t very impressed with Bob’s question. She kept insisting that the woman should not be prevented from having an abortion because it was her body and her rights.

ultrasound4d16

Now, what was Debbie’s underlying assumption when she said that women should be permitted to have an abortion due to financial issues? She was assuming that the unborn was not a human being without giving any argument for it. This is called begging the question. In logic, when one begs the question, he or she is assuming the very thing they are trying to prove or frontloading a hidden assumption without defending it. In philosophical issues, every assumption is open for questioning and no one is exempt.

Here is how that assumption can be exposed. Debbie tells Bob, “It’s not your place to tell women what they can or cannot do with their bodies. It’s a fundamental right to being a woman to have an abortion.” Now suppose Bob were to turn around and say, “All right. Let’s imagine that I have a two-year-old girl who has terrible health issues and has cost us great financial distress. We are considering on killing her in the privacy of our home. It’s nobody’s place to tell us what we can do with our two year old.” Debbie will have to say that she is opposed to that because she generally believes, along with most people, that the toddler is a human being. But what was Bob’s point here? He was exposing her hidden assumption that she was not defending: that the unborn is a not a human being. Since Debbie would not use the same reasons, she gave for abortion, for killing an infant, newborn, or toddler, it follows that the real issue is not the mother’s poverty but what the unborn is.

Or sometimes you might hear someone say to a pro-lifer, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” The reduction of the issue of abortion to choosing between different preferences has become too common in our culture. People quite readily make the abortion debate a debate over one’s own personal and private preferences. What exactly is wrong with the above line? There are at least three problems with it.

First, it does not take into account what the pro-life advocate is actually claiming. Pro-life advocates are not saying that they merely dislike abortion. They are saying that abortion unjustifiably kills an innocent and defenseless human being. So reducing the topic of abortion to a matter of taste is to fail to understand what exactly is being claimed here.

Second, the person saying that also fails to understand the difference between preference and moral claims. Preference claims are simply descriptions of a person’s state of what they like or dislike. It has little or nothing to do with what they ought or ought not do. Statements like “I like chocolate ice cream,” “Gummy bears taste better than teddy grahams,” or “Apple pie is better than lemon pie” are all preference claims. There isn’t any demand or obligation that you could infer from any of those statements. Most of us would probably think it would be odd if I were to say “You’re wrong for liking chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla ice cream” because we all intuitively realize that the contents in that claim are purely preference-based.

Third, the statement – if meant to be an argument for abortion choice – is a bad argument because it begs the question. The statement is true only if the unborn are not human beings. But that is precisely the topic of the debate! And if the unborn are not human beings, you don’t need the argument.

So in conclusion, the central issue in the abortion debate is whether the unborn is a human being or a person. This is supported by the fact that most – if not all – reasons given to support abortion are question begging and do not address the real issue. The purpose of using a toddler as an example is to force the real issue to the forefront.

LifeNews Note: Ben Williamson writes for Secular Pro-Life.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; moralabsolutes; personhood; prolife
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The left will do ANYTHING to avoid acknowledging that their victims are actually human beings.
1 posted on 07/08/2014 10:06:52 AM PDT by wagglebee
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To: Coleus; narses; Salvation
Pro-Life Ping
2 posted on 07/08/2014 10:07:37 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 185JHP; 230FMJ; AKA Elena; APatientMan; Albion Wilde; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


3 posted on 07/08/2014 10:07:57 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
"No one, neither the patient receiving an abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at anytime, unaware that they are ending a life."

quote from the late Dr. William Harrison, Los Angeles abortionist

Abortionist: One of My Patients Had Nine Abortions and There's Nothing Wrong With That

4 posted on 07/08/2014 10:11:40 AM PDT by workerbee (The President of the United States is PUBLIC ENEMY #1)
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To: wagglebee
These Godless people claim "settled science" with regard to "climate change" (sic). And yet they adamantly refuse to acknowledge authentic and true SETTLED SCIENCE with regard to the miracle of human conception, development and birth ...

Conception To Birth -- Visualized ...

5 posted on 07/08/2014 10:12:35 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: wagglebee
It's self-evident that they are a human being.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED EQUAL, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

6 posted on 07/08/2014 10:14:13 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: wagglebee
"The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment."

-- Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe vs. Wade, 1973


7 posted on 07/08/2014 10:15:31 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: wagglebee

http://www.equalprotectionforposterity.com/


8 posted on 07/08/2014 10:15:58 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: wagglebee

The very sad fact is; I think they are very much aware that it is Human Life.
The more fundamental problem is that they do not hold it to be sacred.


9 posted on 07/08/2014 10:33:21 AM PDT by Ouchthatonehurt ("When you're going through hell, keep going." - Sir Winston Churchill)
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To: wagglebee

Absurd. Go to a farmer’s newly planted corn field and pluck up all of the sprouts. Then when he gets upset you can argue that it wasn’t “corn”, just “sprouts”. Ridiculous. Of course they’re human. We have to be the most wicked people in history, systematically killing our own young.


10 posted on 07/08/2014 10:36:33 AM PDT by youngidiot (God help us.)
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To: EternalVigilance
"The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment."

What Blackmun totally avoids is any opinion on what exactly the unborn child IS if not a person? Did he believe that there was doubt? Did he think that the unborn child could turn out to be, for instance, a giraffe and not a person?

Perhaps Blackmun believed that unborn children are nothing more than "clumps of cells." But, isn't EVERY PERSON just a "clump of cells" when you get right down to it?

11 posted on 07/08/2014 10:37:28 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Blackmun isn’t even that, anymore, as he screams in Hell where he belongs. He pushed Rowe v Wade through for the feminist agenda being pushed by the globalist who wanted America destroyed. Blackmun didn’t care if these alive unborn are human beings or not. He was god when he sentenced them to slaughter.


12 posted on 07/08/2014 10:41:08 AM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: wagglebee

And the Mona Lisa is just clumps of paint on a canvas.


13 posted on 07/08/2014 10:41:39 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: wagglebee

Exodus Ch XXI refers to an unborn child as “yelodehah” literally, her child. Now, the KJV delicately translates that as “her fruit,” but the original Hebrew makes it clear that it ain’t an orange.


14 posted on 07/08/2014 10:42:14 AM PDT by Daveinyork
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To: wagglebee

Those ‘science minded’ Left will twist into pretzels to never acknowledge what this ‘Godless (L)[’tarian]’ can see as self-evident:

Human egg + human sperm != puppy (no matter what position those two met under) /s

The incubation period neither changes the outcome.

One more pox I lay upon the feet of those that have come before me; ever letting it get this far/bad before my birth.


15 posted on 07/08/2014 10:50:41 AM PDT by i_robot73 (Give me one example and I will show where gov't is the root of the problem(s).)
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To: wagglebee

This is the problem. We have to remove the issue of “Life” from the argument. The central issue is really one of EQUAL RIGHTS. Granting that the pregnancy is the result of a consensual meeting of two people (Sorry we have to allow exceptions for rape and incest) and of course that the pregnancy is healthy ... the key point of interest is at what time do the RIGHTS of the two parties split and become unequal? This must become the argument.

At the moment of conception the rights of the two parties are essentially split and become unequal. The Woman maintains ALL her rights while the Man looses many of his options without consent.

The true issue of “Choice” must focus on the choice to risk pregnancy by engaging in consensual activities. If we are to consider that choice a “Right” then it comes with incumbent “DUTY” attached. Right to choose, Duty to live with the consequences.


16 posted on 07/08/2014 11:08:01 AM PDT by gtwizard
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To: gtwizard; EternalVigilance; Dr. Brian Kopp; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; Coleus; narses; ...
Sorry we have to allow exceptions for rape and incest)

WHY?

Rape and incest (except in cases of murder, where there is not pregnancy) are NON-CAPITAL CRIMES. Why should the child be put to death for the crimes of his or her father?

the key point of interest is at what time do the RIGHTS of the two parties split and become unequal?

The rights of the mother and child NEVER become unequal. Both have an absolute right to life.

17 posted on 07/08/2014 11:16:10 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: gtwizard
You've bought the emotional lib argument instead of seeking facts. Pregnancy from forcible rape and incest is rare. You can look it up.

The child is always innocent. Why do you believe there is ever any situation where the child should be murdered?

18 posted on 07/08/2014 11:34:33 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
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To: wagglebee

I disagree. They know it’s a human being. That’s why they go to such great lengths to dehumanize the baby, like calling it a fetus. I don’t even like the term that the pro-lifers use of unborn. I prefer pre-born. When they argued in favor of partial birth abortion, no one can tell me that they didn’t know that there was a live, fully formed human being that was being ripped apart.


19 posted on 07/08/2014 11:35:16 AM PDT by murron (Proud Mom of a Marine Vet)
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To: wagglebee
More human than human.

human
1.
of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or having the nature of people: human frailty.

20 posted on 07/08/2014 11:51:15 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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