What does the baby born twice tell us about abortion and life?

CNN has reported on a baby who was born twice. LynLee Boemer was removed from her mother’s womb at 23 weeks gestation so that doctors could perform a life-saving surgery on her. She was then returned to her mother’s womb and carried to term, at which time she emerged from the womb a second time.

LynLee’s case raises an interesting question. Could she have been aborted after being returned to her mother’s womb? There is obviously both a legal and moral dimension to this question. Under normal circumstances in the U.S. once a person is born, they are considered a “person” under the law and are entitled to all the protections of every other citizen. Would this baby fit that criterion? Would this baby lose that status of personhood once reentering the womb?

If the baby loses that status, why? If the baby retains that status, then what is the moral difference between the 23 week Lynlee Boemer in the womb for the second time and any other 23 week baby in the womb for the first time?

Do you see what I’m getting at? If LynLee’s life is precious and worthy of protection at 23 weeks, then every other unborn child’s life is precious and worthy of protection as well. Our laws and and our culture may not recognize that, but they should. Shouldn’t they?

We are told by the abortion proponents that the debate over abortion is about whether or not women have a right to control their own bodies. That’s a distortion. There is no real disagreement about that. Our disagreement is about whether or not it should be legal to kill someone else’s body.

Abortion proponents want the unborn excluded from the human community so that their lives can be taken for any or no reason at all. It doesn’t take much effort to see the moral bankruptcy of such thinking.

Every life is precious and valuable from conception to natural death. Little LynLee’s life reminds us of that.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published at the Denny Burk blog on October 24, 2016, and is reprinted here with permission.