If It’s Really a Baby, That Should Settle It

The single most important question when it comes to life in the womb is whether it’s alive and whether it’s human.  Since it’s both, that should settle the question.  Hence the reason that Justice Harry Blackman, in the Roe v. Wade decision, decided to duck it.

The foundational question to this debate is whether or not living children are killed by abortion.  Everything else is simply diversion.

The Illogical Dichotomy

Americans have set up a weird dichotomy when it comes to life in the womb.  The choice is not whether to or not the child inside is a baby, but whether or not the child is wanted—this is where the choice is made.

If the baby is wanted—it’s alive, it kicks and has a name.  If it’s not, it’s a blob of cells, a “product of conception” that can be removed.

A woman may think of her fetus as a person or as just cells depending on whether the pregnancy is wanted or not.  This does not reflect moral confusion, but choice in action. ¹

This is ridiculous.  Either the baby in the womb is, in fact, a person or it is not.  This is a scientific question, not something to be decided on feeling.

The Logical Result

The logical result of this kind of thinking is to say that there are certain cases where it is right, even morally responsible, to kill another person.  It is this kind of logic that some used to justify slavery—that there are people that are less than people, and it all depends upon another person’s choice.

Naomi Wolf takes a hard look at this dichotomy, and in the end she makes this bizarre statement:

Stop lying to yourselves about the unborn…these are real babies, just as real and just as precious when we don’t want them as when we do.  Keep that tragic fact in mind as you go ahead and kill them. ((Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” New Republic, 16 October 1993, www.epm.org/naomiwolf.html))

Does this make sense?  I mean, this is dehumanizing children.  It’s something I would expect to hear someone say about a cat or some animal that one was about to put to sleep, not a person that you’re about to kill.

This Is What It’s Come To

You see, this is the logical conclusion that a Pro-Abortionist must come to when confronted with the evidence.  It’s the end of a series of defenses that have been constructed because of the fact that the United States Supreme Court dodged the question.

You see, when it was hard to look into the womb, and the pictures were not clear, one could pretend that it wasn’t a baby.  They could set up their defense in that way.  They could construct their reasons, redefine the child to be something else, and they could live with what they were doing.

As the truth came out, it became necessary for them to figure out what side they stood on.  When faced with the facts, they had to decide to either switch sides, or to stand firm—regardless.

So we end up having women that wouldn’t be for slavery or the Holocaust stating that it’s ok to kill your own child, as long as you mourn the loss.  It’s okay to kill your children, because you should be free to have that choice.

They don’t think through the implications of their logic, or if they do, that’s even scarier.  Because it says that someone’s life isn’t precious because it’s unique, and that someone else may eventually decide whether we have a right to live or die simply because we need them for help.

1. Barbara Ehrenreich, Cited by John Leo in “The Moral Complexity of Choice,” U.S. News & World Report, 11 December 1989, 64 [↩]