The Abortion Of Human Rights
There are very few issues more contentious than this one.
Many strong feelings on both sides of the debate. One side claims the other is murdering babies. The other side retorts back a violation of civil liberties and abuse of a woman’s freedom.
I would like to take a step back and try to appeal to calmer thinking on both sides. But if you read my blog regularly and happen to peruse the Facebook comments, you know I am not very good at calming people.
Controversy, I do well.
Needless to say, I think some simple observations need to be made.
On the Pro-Life side, the Bible is most often quoted.
Many verses are cited. Overall, the argument is that God forms the new human life, in His Image, in the womb. Therefore, people should not mess with it – not from the beginning – not from conception – not ever.
Personally, I now believe this, but often don’t appreciate the arguments given by Christians.
One such weak attempt is in Psalm 139. Verse 13 says God “wove us together in our mother’s womb”. However, two verses later it says that God made us in the depths of the earth. Huh? Now, I’m an earthworm? I think Christians should see the obvious metaphors in the scriptures and not try to use the Bible as a biology book.
“I think Christians should see the obvious metaphors in the scriptures and not try to use the Bible as a biology book. ”
Again, I agree with the Pro-Life position, but I don’t appreciate the weak arguments.
It’s OK for Christians to simply take it by faith that humanity is made in the Image of the Creator God and humans have unfathomable value because of it – starting from the miraculous beginnings, which by the way involve so much incredibly elegant biology that it could not possibly have developed without a Designer – No Way. That atheist concept breaks the laws of physics. But alas, a discussion for another blog and another time.
So now let’s point the question back to the Pro-Choice individual.
For any woman, it is all about her freedom – specifically over her own body. No one should have the right to tell any woman what to do with her own body, including any formative processes within. Similarly, no one has any right over the cheeseburger I ate for lunch, or the extra weight it is now forming in me.
On the surface, I cannot imagine disagreeing with this principle.
Now, some people find my cheeseburger analogy offensive. But why should it be? If after conception, the growth inside a woman is inanimate, then there should be no greater emotional attachment than that of a wart or a cyst, or even the fat that may grow in me because of a cheeseburger. If this analogy offends you, then I think you are proving my point.
But is that all we are talking about? We all know the core issue. At some point, the inanimate growth becomes something of great value – a human being.
There is no other relevant issue. When is post-conception growth considered to be human?
Unlike my cheeseburger, at some point a pregnant woman is growing a human. Accordingly, that human has human rights which need to be protected by any civilized society.
So what is the defining line? Christians call that line at conception. What do Pro-Choice people consider that line to be? Hmm. It seems nearly 50 years after Roe v Wade, it is still unclear.
The state of New York (and a number of other states) recently defined the humanity line quite succinctly. Abortions in those states can now be performed up to the day before birth. That means a woman can schedule her C-Section on Friday, change her mind and abort her baby on Thursday – all perfectly within the law and her freedom of choice. However, if she has the baby on Friday and smothers her little one on Saturday, she goes to prison for murder.
The absurdity of this is palpable.
Just to make the point even more ludicrous. What if that mother goes into labor and delivers on Wednesday before she can make either appointment? Did she have a human baby? Or did she deliver a non-human growth scheduled for the Thursday abortion?
Even the most ardent Pro-Choice person can recognize this timeline farce.
Now remember, this is a very heated debate. So by the time I get this far in any discussion, the Pro-Choice argument is usually bolstered with difficult elements to elicit emotional compassion on the situation. Rape is cited, or preventing a child from being born into an abusive home. Well, I was born into an abusive home. I am glad my mother didn’t abort me even though it meant I suffered greatly in childhood. My story: https://www.lizherenow.com/.
I fail to see how tragic stories, like my own, give anyone the right to steal human life. According to this thinking, the best way to save me from growing up with a psychotic mother who violently abused me and my siblings was to end my life before I was born? Those people would have “saved” me by killing me.
Seriously? That’s the solution?
I am very glad no one was allowed that “solution” for me.
Christians have a clearly defined line. I agree with it. I vote that way. I pray that way. But I also admit I take it by faith, not by science.
Therefore, I am willing to listen to where the alternative line is from those who don’t share my faith.
So where is it? A day before natural birth? That’s horrifying. So when? Fifty years of heated disputing has still delivered no legitimate alternative and/or scientific answer. Ultimately, this debate begs a much bigger question
“What is it to be human?”
Our atheist culture doesn’t have the ability to assign any value to human life. The abortion debate is simply a moniker of what has been happening to modern culture since Nietzsche declared “God is dead”. With that pronouncement, modern society killed God and lost its solid foundation of human identity.
Nietzsche launched the abortion of human identity, and resultingly human rights.
The Pro-Life/Pro-Choice conflict is simply a continued remnant of what he began.
The atheism of our world today leaves the debate completely unsolvable. Atheism’s world view assigns no value or meaning to human life. And with the material sciences as the atheist’s only recognized reality, there is no way to even know what humans are – that metaphysical consciousness that doesn’t show up on an MRI, PET, CT, or any other diagnostic test. This continued obliviousness to the essence of humanity shows the inadequacy of atheist thinking. Our culture, pickled in atheistic scientism, cannot even define humanity – when it actually begins. Nor does it know what happens to that life when the body stops functioning.
“Our culture, pickled in atheistic scientism, cannot even define humanity – when it actually begins. Nor does it know what happens to that life when the body stops functioning. ”
For more on this, please read the next blog “Help, Science Can’t Find Me!”
