On March 15, Live Action published an article entitled “Abortionists Agree – Abortion Is Killing.” It contained quotes from a number of abortion providers who have publicly admitted that abortion takes human lives. The point of the article was that, while pro-choice activists often deny that unborn babies are living humans, the doctors aborting them know this full well.
It was not surprising to me that some pro-life websites wanted to republish the article. What did surprise me was that a pro-choice blog posted it as well.
Under the title “Again, so Bloody What?,” this blog posted the article in its entirety – including all the quotes from the abortionists. The article was not edited in any way.
At the end of it, the blogger posted:
“Pay special attention to:”
And then she quoted:
But is the unborn baby sleeping in her mother’s womb really an aggressor? Except in very rare cases, a woman’s life is not endangered by a pregnancy. And unless the pregnancy is a result of rape (which is a factor in only 1% of all abortions) the woman’s own actions (along with those of the baby’s father) resulted in the baby developing where he or she is. The baby may be unwanted, but she is not truly an intruder if the woman’s own actions are responsible for her presence in the womb.
She wrote her response:
Yes, the baby is an aggressor, yes, the baby is an intruder. It is sheer hypocrisy to mention the woman’s own actions, because if abstinence/celibacy was viable for most people instead of a dedicated minority of priests and other ascetics, Catholics (and the like) wouldn’t have large families. If mass celibacy was viable, banning abortion wouldn’t help to increase birthrates, a goal openly stated when fighting a rising median age, a demography lopsided to old.
Nevertheless, the hard fact is that elderly poople [sic] with dementia are in the same class as the fetuses. Not just ethically, but also demographically, killing is a two-way street.
She seems to be saying, in a somewhat convoluted way, that abortion may be killing babies (and she uses the word “baby” without hesitation), but abortion is justified anyway because the baby is an intruder into a woman’s womb. She puts the baby in a class of people (which to her, includes the elderly) who are disposable.
Pro-lifers tend to be taken aback when confronted with pro-choicers who concede the baby’s humanity but still say it is all right to kill him/her. We tend to think that if we can just convince people that abortion is killing, they will sympathize with the child and oppose abortion. In reality, there are some pro-choice activists who know it’s a baby – and don’t really care.
A previous article on Live Action quoted some well-known pro-choicers who support legalized abortion while admitting that it is murder. Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the largest abortion provider in the U.K., summed up this position when she said:
We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?
Often when a pro-choice activist comes out and says that unborn babies are human, but their lives don’t matter and it should be legal to kill them, pro-lifers don’t quite know what to say. It seems so obvious, so self-evident, that innocent human beings should be protected from violence that a pro-lifer can be at a loss for words. The horror of realizing that someone supports the killing of babies – and knows it – can be enough to shock a pro-life person into silence.
Pro-lifers need to be prepared when, while dialoging with pro-choice people, some of them come right out and admit that killing babies is okay.
If a pro-choicer is so hardened that he or she doesn’t care about the baby, it may be a good idea to talk about the harm that abortion does to the mother. If a pro-choice person sees abortion as pitting the baby against the mother, it is often the baby who loses. But abortion does not only hurt babies; it hurts their mothers as well – along with fathers, siblings, grandparents, etc. It might also be a good time to talk about the services pro-lifers offer women – the pregnancy centers that help them in times of need, the healing retreats for post-abortion women, etc. These arguments will probably not convert the pro-choicer on the spot – likely, nothing can – but they may give him or her something to think about. It is also possible that a pro-choicer taking such a radical view may be post-abortive herself. Perhaps she cannot deny to herself that she made a decision to destroy a life – but she silences her conscience by dehumanizing the baby and declaring her worthless.
Whatever the motive behind such a belief, pro-lifers need to stand firm. The unborn baby is not an aggressor against the mother. Pregnancy is a natural process, abortion an unnatural one. Abortion does not simply expel an intruder; it brutally tears apart a child. While pregnancy is not and never will be a punishment for sex, it is a consequence of it. Very few women do not know how babies are made.
It is true that the burden of bearing a child falls disproportionately on the woman. Is this unjust? Perhaps – but nature cannot be changed. Pregnancy is also always a temporary condition. All pregnancies will end – naturally or unnaturally. Abortion is forever.
Human beings are not disposable. Pro-lifers must stand firm in the belief that life is precious and should never be destroyed unless every imaginable alternative has been exhausted.
