Some aspects I could never understand about the pro-choice position...
In society, we are already not allowed to do what we want with your body.
"My body, my choice" implies you should be able to commit suicide at any given whim and so if you draw the implications of the logic to its end, it becomes an incoherent position.
On one end, we try to prevent a woman from killing herself because her life has inherent value, while simultaneously arguing that she should have full autonomy over her decisions. Her body, her choice is not an acceptable philosophy in other areas, such as self harm so the question becomes, is ending a baby's life an action that leads to her flourishing or harm?
There is disagreement in the literature and so regardless of the position you take, whether for good or bad we come the next line of argumentation which I believe comes with its own set of problems.
If I grant the premise of the argument that, "it's just a clump of cells" (and it's not, life starts at conception, simply for sake of argument), why on earth would we want to stop the process?
Imagine a seed that if left alone, grows into a beautiful tree which eventually holds a swing for a family, where beautiful memories are formed as they collect the delicious apples it produces. Since such a simple tree produces such joy and if we think an individual, knowing the good the tree brings, decided to stop the process by uprooting the seed we're an insensitive jerk, why do people talk about the beginnings of a baby as if it were of no more value than dirt to be tossed away?
Think of the implications of someone with such a mindset...
"Yeah, this biological material could become a beautiful baby, bringing joy to the world, but I've decided that instead of teaching young men to be responsible, guiding them to higher ideals about the greatness of being a father, accepting responsibility in a marriage for their family and instead of focusing on social systems to help struggling women, I say let's just end the process of a baby all together and create further societal decay."
Let's focus also for a moment on the premise that we have the right to determine which "clumps of cells" have the right to develop into humans and which do not.
Imagine if I had the ability to go back in time and moments before the event that would bring about your birth, I stop the process and end your life (I simply prevent your parents from ever meeting) and I come back to the present time, gleefully happy you are gone!
Now suppose I have a fellow time traveling friend who accuses me of murder and my response is,
"No, it's not murder. This person does not meet the criteria I have created to be worthy of life and thus I believe he doesn't have the right to live. Now, I would never stab anyone or anything, I'm not a monster and doi I simply went back to a point in time where I prevented his conception. I can't murder someone who doesn't exist!"
Now imagine the same scenario but of a mother thinking of carrying out an abortion, but in our timeline, she did not go through with it and so the person in question has reached adulthood. Let's make it a bit more personal and suppose that the mother of the person who was close to being aborted is you. Now think of what it says about me if I had the ability to go back in time and tried to persuade your mother to go through with the abortion.
"It's just a clump of cells at 1 week, there isn't even a heart beat or brain activity. You don't need to be ashamed of your decision, in fact you are the body that is producing the human and thus it should be you that has the right to determine if you want to allow what is inside of you to grow into fruition, even if it were an actual person, but I digress. The decision is yours and think about it. You are not ready to have a baby, think of the world you are bringing this child in to and the life it should have in comparison to what you could give it. The reality is, this is an act of mercy not only for you, but for the almost human in your womb."
In our scenario, suppose my arguments work and she goes through with the procedure, your remains are disposed of and I come back to this timeline, where I am pleased you are no longer among us. For whatever reason I felt you did not deserve to live, but instead of harming you now in the present moment, I went back to a point in time where society didn't even consider you human in your development and as a result, does not consider it murder or immoral.
I had the ability then to get rid of you, while simultaneously doing nothing morally evil in societys eyes...
Did I commit an evil action?
If you say yes, then you agree that we don't have the right to terminate life at any stage, regardless of what we believe about it's humanity.
If you say no, then if I had such power to go back in time and manipulate circumstances to prevent your birth I do you no wrong by preventing your existence.
Would you, being alive now object?
If I do nothing wrong by terminating you as a "clump of cells" how can you object to my decision if I had such power to carry it out?
We do the same with the unborn every day when we decide to terminate the process that would bring about a potential human.
And so it seems obvious to me that even the "clump of cells" is worthy of protection simply because of the premise of what it will become and the intrinsic value of what it would become, a human individual.
How monstrous is it of us to know what the cells become and then choose to end it, simply because you don't want to take responsibility for the life you created recklessly over a one night stand because you are not ready?
Even in the cases of rape and incest (though they are the slim minority of abortions and can not justify abortion in consenual sexual relations), while I can give a pass of grace for the woman who is suffering and would not condemn such a one for going through with it in such a tragic time of suffering, the point still stands.
Just what are we trying to end? It's not the same as preventing a tree from growing, we are talking about the termination of a potential (from this perspective) human life. Let it also be noted that even the victims of such horrific crimes as rape and incest that give birth to the baby are happy they did, even though the circumstances of the conception were unjust.
And so I end, simply reiterating that the logical implications of pro-choice are incoherent and based on premises that are inherently monstrous which cannot be lived out consistently and is a failed philosophy that is destructive to the human race which needs to end.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27
No comments:
Post a Comment