If you've ever seen The Princess Bride, you will remember that there is a scene where the Man in Black faces down the Intellectual Villain Vizzini in a battle of wits. The Man in Black shows Vizzini that he has Iocaine powder, which "is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man." He takes two glasses filled with wine (presumably) and the Iocaine powder and turns his back to Vizzini. After pouring the Iocaine powder, he turns back around and says, "All right: where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead."
What does Vizzini do? With one glass in front of Vizzini and one in front of the Man in Black, Vizzini speaks his thoughts and contemplates whether the Man in Black would put the poison closest to him or farthest away. After some extensive thought, he exclaims and points behind the Man in Black and says, "What in the world can that be?" and switches the glasses.
They drink. Vizzini dies. The Man in Black lives.
How? What you have just witnessed is a false dichotomy. It's a logical fallacy that happens when you assume you only have a limited number of choices when more exist. In this example, Vizzini assumes that the poison is in one of the two glasses. In reality, the poison was placed in both glasses and the Man in Black had built up an immunity to Iocaine. So in fact a third choice exists! Choose neither glass! Even a fourth choice exists, choose both glasses. And there might even be more.
Just like the example here, we are often told by authorities we must choose. In politics, we use labels to illustrate these dichotomies: Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, rich or poor, black or white, native or immigrant, salary or hourly, union or non-union and the list goes on.
In the recent news, a gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood killing three people and injuring nine. Immediately after the news was released, several people tweeted that they supported him and that what he did was right. This incident is not isolated. Every time an attack has happened on perceived abortionists there are allies in the cause that exclaim such acts are noble.
While conservatives (see what I did there?) like Mike Huckabee called it an act of terrorism, I wondered if in fact, the gunman was justified. How could I even ponder such a notion? Am I callous or just psycho? Again, another false dichotomy. I just wanted to know if, based on certain presuppositions, such actions were just.
First of all, what is a presupposition? It is a thing that is taken for granted in advance. For example, when a Christian argues that the New Testament is the word of God, they presuppose that God exists.
So what kind of presuppositions does a gunman like Robert Dear (the gunman) have? Well, let's suppose that he is pro-life and not pro-choice and that he believes in "promoting respect for the worth and dignity of every individual human being, born or unborn, including unborn children from their beginning." That line is from the National Right to Life organization, which does not condone violence as a means to an end. But what if you truly believed that an unborn child is just as worthy to live as a born child. Would you not equate an abortion to murder? This is not far fetched as several states like Alaska and Arkansas have tried to establish that abortions are murder. Most of my Christian friends would equate abortion to murder.
Let us say that you're walking near downtown and look down an alley and a man is wielding a knife in the traditional Psycho position over an unsuspecting woman. Let us say you had the strength and training to stop him. Let's presuppose you are brave and unafraid of putting your life on the line for that woman. Would you stop him? Of course you would (unless you're a pacifist in the strictest sense). Why? Because he is about to murder an innocent woman.
Let us say that the woman is an unborn child and the man is a woman carrying the child. Let us say the woman is on her way to an abortion clinic to kill the child. Would it be justified to kill the woman to save the child? Would it be justified to kill the doctors and nurses that would participate the in procedure? If we are equating lives here, does it not make sense to do everything in our power, even putting out lives on the line, for that unborn child?
If an unborn child's life worth equals a born child's life worth and the killing of a born child is murder, then killing an unborn child is murder. I think that is a logical statement. Let's take it another step. If murder is punishable by death and being an accomplice to murder is murder and punishable with death, then the women and doctors that participate in abortions should die. So whose job is it to carry out the punishment? Is it the government's? I believe this is where most people draw a line and do not cross.
What happens when the government fails to act? Martin Luther King, Jr said, "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." In 2000, the United States celebrated the birth of John Brown, who killed slave owners to free slaves even though slavery was legal. Since then, many authorities in the United States including Henry David Thoreau have commended the man. PBS.org ends its article with a quote from Thoreau: "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature..."
Was John Brown a hero? Many think so. No Southerners of course, though they are clearly okay with breaking the law since they fired upon a United States fort in South Carolina which in turn started the Civil War which claimed over 300,000 lives. In the United States we have a history of breaking the law when it doesn't suit us and decades later we look back and think, "it was the right thing to do."
I must stop for a moment to make some disclaimers. Dear killed indiscriminately and none of the victims have been reported to have been at the clinic to participate in an abortion. And his motives seem to be loosely connected with those I have previously mentioned, but not all of them. I do not believe that Dear is a hero for what he did nor do I condone killing patients and doctors of abortion clinics as I will explain later.
Now, before you go shooting up your own local abortion clinic, I want you to think back to Vizzini, who believed that he only had two choices and died because of it. Let us look at the other side of the dichotomy: Pro Choice.
Just like Pro Lifers have the National Right to Life Organization, Pro Choicers have the National Abortion Federation. Have you ever stopped to ask why someone would want an abortion? Is there ever, in fact, a good reason to have an abortion? Just like we have justified homicide (for example when a police officer shoots an armed suspect), is there ever justified abortion?
Most pro life politicians that oppose abortion usually have a clause that makes an exception for rape, incest, and endangerment to the mother. Why those exceptions? In every one of those scenarios, the mother gets priority over the child. There are even atheists that oppose abortion because it elevates the importance of the mother's life over the child's. Is it fair that a woman should go through with her pregnancy that she had no say in? Is it fair for an ignorant woman who has unprotected sex with a close relative to have one? What about when the mother's life is in danger? Do you presuppose that the mother's life is more important? Is it because you have known her longer? Does knowing someone longer or more intimately give their life more meaning or give it more importance?
In each case, is it not a matter of convenience that the mother is getting an abortion? Certainly, being raped and then enduring nine months of pregnancy followed by the excruciating pain of childbirth is inconvenient. Or is it more? Is it because she has to deal with the stigma of pregnancy? Is it because she will undoubtedly have irreversible physical changes to her body? Is it because it will be painful emotionally and physically?
It seems to me that in the case of incest, rape, or endangerment to the mother, if I say that abortion is acceptable (even if it is detestable), then I must accept the underlying reasons as justifiable in other circumstances like the mother is in an abusive relationship or cannot afford the OB/GYN visits, will lose her job, or any of the other myriad of excuses women have. Doesn't it really comes down to what is best for the mother?
Maybe that takes it too far. Maybe there are no circumstances in which abortion is acceptable. In that case, what should we do about it? Should we force women to wear chastity belts to deter pregnancy? Should we hold them in shackles until they give birth to their babies? I would say that if you choose those alternatives then you raise the unborn child to an even more important position than that of the mother. By forcing or coercing the mother into a life of long-term pregnancy, the child is given more than equal importance.
Does that mean Pro Choice is correct?
There is more to the choice of pro life and pro choice than logic. Most Pro Lifers in the United States are Christian and argue from the authority of the Bible. It isn't logic that wins the day. It's scripture. So what exactly does the Bible say about abortion?
The most famous verse used by Christians to oppose abortion is Psalm 139:13-14 written by David: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (NIV).
Jeremiah 1:5 explains how God forms us in the womb: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" (NIV).
There is Job 31:15 that says, "Did not he that made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?" (NIV).
Clearly the Bible says, at least allegorically, that God makes us in the womb. There are other verses that speak of the blessing of childbirth, but I think those are not relevant here. While a born child may be a blessing, it says nothing of the unborn child. Like me, you probably look at these verses and think, we cannot harm something that God makes. Up to what point though? And why unborn humans? What about other things that God creates...like plants or animals? Primates share 96% of the same DNA, but I don't hear any complaints about aborting primate fetuses though I'm sure they exist.
When it comes to Jeremiah, God is speaking specifically about a prophet. You might argue, "what if you're aborting a prophet?" Then my response would be something like this: If God chooses a prophet to be born and the prophet is aborted, then God did not choose that unborn child to be a prophet.
Those verses are the ones that come up when you search for "bible verses about abortion." Most of the sites are pro life and only display verses that support their point of view. There are others, however, that provide insight into how God views the unborn.
The Law of Moses in Exodus 21, talks about what happens when a man hurts a woman to the point where she miscarriages. Is the penalty death? What happens if he accidentally kills the woman? "When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe" (ESV).
In other words, if a man accidentally kills a woman it is murder, but if a man accidentally kills an unborn child, it is a misdemeanor. God clearly places more importance on the life of a woman and he does not consider the death of an unborn child murder.
Numbers 5:21-22 states that a child born of adultery should be aborted: "May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries" (NIV).
A lot of the argument for not aborting unborn children comes from the idea that humans have souls. And many pro lifers believe that the spirit enters the body at conception. But the Bible says that we do not know when the Spirit enters the body:
"As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything" - Ecclesiastes 11:5 (RSV)
I have often argued that because we do not know when, then it is better to assume that it happens at conception, but we really have no idea. Other verses in the Bible point to an infant being a person at about one month of age:
"And the Lord said to Moses, “Number all the first-born males of the people of Israel, from a month old and upward, taking their number by names." - Numbers 3:40 (RSV)
"If the person is from a month old up to five years old, your valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver" -Leviticus 27:6 (RSV)
These verses actually make some sense in the light of our past. Consider the number of natural abortions over the course of our history. Even today, the chance of having a miscarriage in the first trimester is 50%. In 2009, in just the United States, 1,087,000 unborn children were aborted due to miscarriage. Yes, over a million in just the U.S. That is more than the number of people that die of heart disease, strokes, and accidents.
If God cares so much about the unborn, why do so many not make it? And why does the Bible specifically neglect them?
That said, do unborn lives matter? Yes. Here's why...
Remember that an unborn child has the same DNA as a human being. Just because it cannot fend for itself does not make it nonhuman any more than a newborn that cannot survive without its mother. It has respiration. It cannot reproduce, but then neither can preschool children. Is it because it doesn't have formed legs and arms? What does that say about para and quadriplegics? Surely they are human. There is no argument that can declare that a fetus is not a human. It is.
Does that make abortion murder? Sometimes. If a mother's intent is to kill human beings and enjoys getting pregnant just to have an abortion, I would say, "yes." Should we kill her? Probably not. I would vouch for extensive therapy.
So when is it okay? Where is this third choice? If you force the mother to have the baby, then you are putting precedence on the child. If you allow the mother to abort the child, you are putting precedence on the mother. It seems like a no win situation and it likely explains why the debate has never been settled.
There is a saying that goes like this: "Mother knows best." I'm not talking about wicked stepmothers that kidnap magical-haired children in the middle of the night (ahem...Tangled). I submit to my wife's intuition regarding our children. In fact, science has proven that mother's intuition is real. According to the science journal PLOS ONE, "the bond between a pregnant mother and their unborn child is both physical and psychological."
Mothers do not generally have abortions because they want to murder their children. On the contrary, research has shown over and over that abortions typically happen because they do not have the financial resources to carry out the pregnancy or have any support from a partner. It would deal dramatic negative life changes or negatively impact education and employment. There are also health concerns. Bringing a child to term is more dangerous than an abortion. Nowhere in these studies did they find that mothers had abortions because they wanted to murder their unborn children.
I imagine that while it might make sense to have an abortion sometimes, that the decision is rarely easy or taken lightly. In the end, I defer to the mothers to make the best choices for themselves and their children, even the difficult ones.
I would like to address a fear that many in the pro life arena have--late term abortions. Like I said, unborn children are humans and it is certainly disturbing to see a nearly formed infant get aborted. Most would agree, and I could probably argue my point, that killing children because of the reasons that make abortion okay are not okay. Similarly, killing a healthy unborn child in at least the third trimester is probably not acceptable.
This is where it gets sticky because the child is still in the womb and the womb belongs to the mother. To force a mother to have a child, as I have argued before, places precedence on the unborn child and I do not believe that either life is more or less important than the other. What to do? Again, I would defer to the mother's intuition. If she has her mental faculties, and she is physically and emotionally healthy, and the baby is healthy, then I can see no reason why the mother at this point would want to abort her child. Should it be illegal? Probably not.
Christians, like most other human beings sometimes only see the extremes. In regards to abortion, many believe that if we legalize late-term abortions, that millions of 6-12 lb. babies will be aborted each year by mothers who waited until the last minute to decide not to give birth. In realty, less than 1% of all abortions are late-term and generally happen because of health reasons. While it can take up most of our thoughts as well as our conversation it is a very rare occurrence. You might argue that it is because state laws have limits on late-term abortions, but it actually has little or nothing to do with that.
Does this all make me pro choice? Some probably think so. I think I am both. I do not want abortions to happen any more than pro lifers. At the same time, I also think it's the mother's choice whether or not the child should be born given that she has the mental faculties to understand what she is doing.
Maybe instead of choosing one glass or the other, the real question is, how can we help prevent mothers from having to make that choice in the first place?
An additional thought:
I recently saw a debate on the soul and one of the debaters mentioned something I had not considered. What happens to a soul when you have twins? Does another soul get added? That isn't even the interesting question. Evidently you can have twins that merge again. Then what happens to the soul? The answer given by the debater that believed the soul entered at conception was that when the cells divide into twins, a new soul is given and when the twins merge, one of the souls dies. I do not have the answer, but it really hit home how little we know about how the soul works in regards to the unborn.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting/index.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/presupposition
http://www.nrlc.org/about/mission
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html
http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/bible.shtml
http://www.livescience.com/51744-miscarriage-science-facts-myths-mysteries.html
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/07-043471/en/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db136.htm
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/study-finds-living-cells-from-sons-living-inside-their-mothers-brains/story-fnet08ui-1226582508217
https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.html
http://www.bustle.com/articles/96884-the-narrative-around-late-term-abortion-is-riddled-with-inaccuracies-that-are-hurting-women
