Abortion-Inducing Drugs

In her latest article on the Kavanaugh nomination, Ann Althouse discusses the question about what exactly birth control is supposed to do. Much of the pro-life movement wants to distance itself from the birth control discussion for obvious reasons; however, there is a link.

In the mind of many, abortion is just another form of birth control, only instead of preventing conception, fertilization or implantation, the abortion component of the debate has been limited to discussing the medical procedure needed to remove a baby/fetus from the womb after the pregnancy is discovered.

Abortion, Technically

The term abortion can be applied to any of the following things:

• A doctor going in prior to delivery and removing the baby from inside the mother’s uterus.
  
• A still birth
• A miscarriage

Basically, it’s any way that a pregnancy leaves the uterus that didn’t result in a birth. We don’t typically refer to miscarriages as abortions because our common usage has become to mean the procedures that the doctor uses to remove the baby from the womb.

What’s a little more tricky is what happens before pregnancy, which is considered the point in which a fertilized egg implants into the uterine lining.

What Birth Control Does

Most birth control acts in two phases– prevent fertilization by preventing ovulation and prevent implantation in case of fertilization. If it was always only the first item (preventing fertilization) then there would be no issue, but this is where it gets problematic for some.

Rational Extension

Many on the pro-life side state that they believe that life begins at conception– which usually means fertilization. That would mean that if an egg were fertilized, but the uterine lining was shrunk by the birth control then you would be killing that baby. The difficult part is that this can happen naturally as well.

Pro-life people do not get upset about spontaneous abortion (miscarriage, still birth, etc) because it’s outside of the mother’s control– as far as we know. What they do get upset about is if you take or do something to intentionally cause the baby to die.

Many on the pro-life side ignore this rational line of thought, choosing to refer conception to after implantation, which gets rid of the issue, but presents the question of “what is that group of cells before it’s implanted” and the idea that conception is really not a medical term.

Fighting Birth Control Is Not a Winning Issue

While many in America are turning against abortion– especially in the latter months, if the pro-life movement attempted to change the nature of the argument and argue that birth control was as bad as abortion, they’d be mocked and lose all the gains they have made.

Why?

Because Americans want to have sex outside of marriage relationship with whomever they want and not bear the chance of having a baby.

This is where the fight needs to be had.