I
n modern times, abortion has become a politically polarized issue: The Left is deemed pro-choice and the Right, pro-life. Unfortunately, this politicization causes many people to accept one view without applying critical and skeptical inquiry to the issue itself. I feel as though many college students subscribe to the pro-choice ideology simply because it is the “liberal” thing to do. My goal in this article is to express what I consider to be some of the legitimate arguments against abortion. I do not aim to necessarily change opinions, but I do seek to elevate the level of discourse.
The crux of the abortion debate rests on the issue of when life begins. Doctors, politicians, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with this question for many years, and I will not pretend to offer the answer. However, amidst the ambiguity, I will argue that the best standard, in terms of both morality and policy, is that life begins at conception. When an egg and sperm meet and attach to a woman’s uterine wall, a process begins that will inevitably end in human life. Even if you don’t want to call this early batch of cells “life,” it must be recognized that this particular batch of cells is unlike any other in a meaningful way. These cells will eventually become an embryo, then a fetus, then a baby, then a child and ultimately a fully-functioning sentient human being. There is no other batch of cells on earth that is capable of such development. It is easy to get caught up in the semantics of the word “life,” but what matters in this specific argument is the concept of potentiality—call it what you will, these cells are uniquely human insofar as they will result in human life.
The problem with any other standard is arbitrariness. From the moment that egg, sperm and uterine wall are one, there is no other legitimate point at which we can say, “Now life has begun.” Even if a standard could be agreed upon by democratic means, it would be impossible to apply to all cases; 28 weeks for one baby could be substantially different than 28 for another. And is it really the number of weeks that makes one baby more alive than another? Even the Supreme Court’s standard of viability (when the baby can live outside the mother’s womb) varies from case to case and is nearly impossible to determine.
If we examine abortion from the perspective that life begins at conception, it becomes clear that when a baby is aborted, human life is destroyed. A human being who is already on the path to live a normal life is prevented from doing so. Unless pro-choice advocates can offer a better determination for the beginning of life, it seems impossible to differentiate between killing a baby one week after birth from aborting a baby one week before birth. Thus, if you oppose infanticide, you must either oppose abortion or offer a non-arbitrary standard for the start of life.
Here, one might make the typical objection: What about condoms and birth control? In both of these cases, the standard of life has not been met. A sperm or egg alone will not lead to a human being—it is the combination of these two things, in addition to their attachment to the uterine wall, which are the necessary conditions for life.
With this standard of life in mind, I want to address some possible reasons why a woman could want an abortion and explain why they aren’t satisfactory. It is worth pointing out that, in the status quo, a woman can have an abortion for good, bad or no reason at all. But even if we do not assert bad faith, we must examine the commonly accepted justifications and see if they make sense.
Some argue that the law ought to make an exception for women who seek an abortion for financial or social reasons. It seems clear that these concerns do not weigh against the life of a human being. Even if one argues that the child will bring unbearable financial hardship, the mother always has the option of giving her child to an adoption agency at birth. This same logic applies if a young or unmarried woman is afraid of the social consequences of being pregnant or having a child. In either case, convenience doesn’t figure into ethics.
Pro-choice proponents also argue that there should be a legal exception for victims of rape. I cannot imagine the physical or psychological effects of such a horrible crime, but rape itself is not the focus here. Instead, we must consider the human life within the woman who was victimized. By having an abortion, the woman is, in effect, punishing her unborn child for a crime that he/she did not commit. Any argument for or against abortion cannot depend on the fact that the woman in question was impregnated against her will. Rape is a terrible crime and has long-term, irreversible consequences—but terminating the life of a third party who committed no wrongful action is still unjustified.
Another argument advanced by pro-choice advocates concerns the value of life. They claim that we value life based upon quality and experience—since this unborn child has no experience, we should allow the mother to have an abortion if she so chooses. The problem with this argument relies on a simple thought experiment. Let us imagine a 30-year-old man in a coma. Pretend that he is not only in a coma, but he has amnesia (i.e. he won’t be able to remember anything that happened before he became comatose). Now, imagine that we know, with nearly 100 percent certainty, that this man will come out of his coma. Are we justified in killing him? It seems that we are not. This man seems analogous to an unborn child—he has no experience, is not currently in possession of higher-level faculties of reasoning and will inevitably get both of these things. For the same intuitive reason it isn’t okay to kill the 30-year-old man, it also isn’t okay to kill an unborn baby.
In closing, I would like to remind you, friendly reader, that I advance these points for the sake of discussion. This is a heated issue and deserves impersonal, reasonable debate. All of these arguments are the product of my own reflections and thus are open to error—many of them, especially the thought experiment, rely on the intuitive assumption that life has value, something I have not had the space to substantially defend. Anyhow, I hope this article sparks interesting conversations as opposed to impassioned ones.