STORY: Here is a fictional story about two doctors. Doctor A asked Doctor B: “I am considering to terminate a pregnancy and I want your opinion. The father has syphilis, the mother has tuberculosis. Of the four children already born, the first was blind, the second died, the third was deaf and dumb, and the fourth also has tuberculosis. What would you have done?” Doctor B replied, “I would have ended the pregnancy by abortion.” Now, if you are the doctor, what would you do?
Here is the end of the story. Doctor A said, “If I follow your advice, I would have murdered Beethoven.”
Background:
In Canada, there are over 100,000 abortions each year. The number has increased more than 5 times since 1970. In the US, there are over 1 million abortions each year. In both countries, the rate is about 1 abortion every 4 livebirths. The total is over 40 million since 1973.
Some countries (such as China and USSR) use abortion as a means of birth control. The estimated abortion rate in USSR is more than 3 abortions per livebirth. The total number of abortions in the world is estimated to be over 50 million a year. Of these, China has about 10 million. In the last quarter century, the world has killed one billion preborn children.
Terminology
A human life begins when a sperm and an ovum join to form a zygote. As a zygote grows, it becomes an embryo. About 7 weeks later, it is called a fetus.
· While an abortion can occur naturally (called spontaneous abortion, due to defects, diseases, or infections), the ethical issue surrounds deliberate induced abortions.
Methods used
Early abortions (those in the first trimester) are usually done with dilation and curettage (D &C ) or suction. Abortionists use more complex methods to kill preborn babies in the second and third trimesters. These include dilation and evacuation (D & E), saline, dilation and extraction (D & X), prostaglandin, hysterotomy, and intercardiac injection abortions.
o Abortion is the one defining issue that separates the two sides. The pro-life side can also be described as “pro-God” because the more committed a Christian is, the more likely that he/she will be pro-life.
o However, “pro-choice” people were not really upholding choice.
Once a pregnant woman puts herself under their influence (such as Planned Parenthood), they try to entice you to have an abortion.
If pro-life people publicly denounce abortion, “pro-choice” people would either silence you (such as destroying billboards) or labelled you as extremist (using words like bigot, ideologue, radical, fundamentalist, ultraconservative, intolerant, anti-progress, narrow-minded). These terms are used deliberately by “pro-choice” people to arouse negative feelings towards pro-life people in order to isolate, marginalize and silence them from the society.
A good example of the venomous words used by secular humanists can be seen from how science fiction author Isaac Asimov ridiculed Christian conservative leaders as “ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make of themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us.”
Because of these intolerant actions (choice for them but no choice for others), a more accurate description of them is “anti-life” people.
o The first part of the verse refers to premature birth. Some argue that it means miscarriage or death of the child. If so, the baby is valued less than an adult as the punishment is only a compensation.
o However, the law of “life for life and eye for eye” is already prescribed for any adult victim just 10 verses before (Ex 21:12). Since this passage refers only to pregnant women, “the life” must refer to the life of the baby.
· Abortionists argue for bodily autonomy and freedom of choice to abort unwanted babies. But the choice should be birth control, not killing babies. Reasons such as freedom or better lifestyle can never justify killing a life.
· Question: When does life begin?
· There are different opinions: at conception, at 8 weeks, when viable (able to survive outside the mother), or at birth
· With the recent advance in microbiology, an honest scientist will confirm that life begins at conception (as most biology textbooks confirm).
o immediately after conception: unique and genetically similar with the parents [with genetic individuality and hereditary uniqueness]
o 4 weeks after conception: formation of organs and starting of heart beats [with functional individuality]
o 6 weeks after conception: movement of body and limbs [with behavioural individuality]
o 8 weeks after conception: presence of brain waves and response to stimuli (can feel pain and try to avoid the needle during abortion procedure as shown in the film “Silent Scream”), all organs present, original embryo subdivided into 1 billion cells [with psychic individuality and social individuality]
o Thus after 8 weeks, the baby is fully an individual.
· Most abortions are performed between 9 to 12 weeks. Premature babies delivered after 22-24 weeks are viable (able to survive) but abortion is permitted even after such time.
· Abortionists argue that only a “person” has the right to life but a preborn child is only a “potential” person (only with capacity of being an “actual” person later). They argue that a preborn child only becomes an individual person at birth.
· In the dictionary, the definition of a person is simply “a human being.” Therefore, any human life is a person.
· But abortionists add more qualifications, including independence, consciousness, self-consciousness, rationality, freedom to act on one’s own reasons, capacity to communicate with others, capacity to make moral judgments, etc. That is why some abortionists will not grant an infant personhood until he/she is one year old. In other words, deliberate killing of an infant before his/her first birthday can still regarded as non-criminal (such as animal rights activist Peter Singer who teaches in Princeton University).
· According to one abortionist: “The criteria for personhood is an entity that has the actual, not merely potential capacity for consciousness, complex, sophisticated perception, rationality, self-awareness and self-motivated behavior ... when an unwanted or defective infant is born into a society which cannot afford and/or is not willing to care for it, then its destruction is permissible.”
· An even more extreme position: “A woman can produce a baby in the most squalid circumstances of being homeless, poor, mentally defective and physically ill. The products of conception when they are born at term are then only potentially human.” Then, it is possible to declare the whole populations of crowded or poor cities and even entire developing countries to be sub-human or non-human. Moreover, some living persons in the world will not qualify as persons based on all the criteria, e.g. people relying on tube feeding.
· These are all arbitrary criteria with no scientific support.
· According to the Pascal’s wager, wager on the existence of God is the only wise wager. The principle can be applied to the case of abortion. If you are not sure whether the preborn baby is a human being, to avoid abortion is the only wise decision. Otherwise, you are risking murder. Example: Imagine that behind one of two screens stood a person and you are given a gun to make a shot through one of the screens. If you missed the person, you win $1 million. If you shot the person, you commit a murder. Would you do it?
Public opinion surveys, 1989
The following
demonstrates how the question can directly influence the answer..
US survey published on the July 17, 1989 issue of Newsweek (Newsweek
Poll)
“The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional
right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would
you like to see the decision overturned?” (58% No, 31% Yes)
Anti-life
people can say that 58% of Americans support abortion.
Do you think abortion should be legal in any circumstances? 29% yes
Legal in certain circumstances?
51% yes
Anti-life
people can say that 80% of Americans support abortion.
In
fact, most Americans believe that abortions should be restricted by some
conditions.
Do you support or
oppose the following restrictions on abortion?
Medical
test must show fetus unable to survive outside the womb? 54% support, 33%
opposed
Teenagers
must have parent’s permission? 75% support, 22% opposed
Women
seeking abortions must be counselled on the dangers and on alternatives to
abortion? 88% support, 9% opposed
No
public funds for abortion, except to save a woman’s life? 61% support, 34%
opposed
No
abortions in public facilities, except to save a woman’s life? 54% support, 41%
opposed
· In the US, only an estimated 0.04% of abortions were done for rape or incest; 0.1% for fetal deformity; less than 1% were done for the physical health of the mother; 99% were done for the “mental health of the mother” (another term for abortion-on-demand).
o Death of the mother may cause the subsequent death of the baby.
o A greater loss would be experienced by others if the mother dies because of existing emotional attachment and social relations.
o But with improved modern medical techniques (such as Caesarean section), it is highly unlikely that any pregnancies would endanger the mother’s life.
· As Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger stated, “Our objective is unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children.”
· They are targets of frequent attack by “pro-choice” feminist groups.
· 70% of those who sought counselling from Planned Parenthood ended up having an abortion, compared to 24% of those who sought counselling from Crisis Pregnancy Centres.
Work of “Birthright” in Canada and
US and “Alternatives to Abortion International”
counselling
women with an unplanned pregnancy
offering
emergency help to those in despair
giving
advice on practical problems
finding
accommodation for mothers both before and after their child’s birth
helping
to secure employment for them
granting
financial help
providing
personal support groups
arranging
adoption of their children if they do not want to keep the child after birth
Partial-birth abortion, an inhuman and extremely cruel procedure
It is defined as “an abortion in the second or third trimester of pregnancy in which the death of the fetus is induced after it has passed partway through the birth canal.”
It includes the following steps:
Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby’s leg with forceps.
The baby’s leg is pulled out into the birth canal.
The abortionist delivers the baby’s entire body, except for the head.
The abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole.
The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child’s brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed.