Kerby Anderson

Now that an abortion bill has made its way to the U.S. Senate, we are seeing a number of pro-choice arguments surfacing on social media. Some are gotcha questions intended to trip up the pro-life movement. John Zmirak talks about readers of his commentaries that want to argue that he is not consistently pro-life since he is against abortion but favors the death penalty. He turns the argument around and says can we apply the same logic to pro-choice. Would we approve of a landlord’s choice not to rent to people of a race he doesn’t like? Would we approve of a worker’s choice to work at less than a legal minimum wage? The list can go on and on, but he explains that hardly anyone accuses pro-choice people of being inconsistent when they apply choice to abortion but don’t favor choice in every situation. Another pro-choice gotcha question comes from Patrick Tomlinson who asks who pro-lifers would save in the event of a fire at a fertility clinic: a thousand embryos or a 5-year-old child. Since they would obviously save the child, he concludes that pro-lifers really don’t believe an embryo and a child are of equal value. Professors Robert George (Princeton) and Christopher Tollefsen (University of South Carolina) answer this in their book, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. Their answer is longer than we can explain in less than two minutes, but here’s the gist of it. Every developmental biology textbook declares that human beings begin at conception. No, an embryo is not a “baby” but it is a living member of the species Homo sapiens. Unless deprived of a suitable environment or killed, this embryo will develop into an infant. That is what each of us did who is now an adult. By contrast, none of us were an ovum or spermatozoon. From the moment of conception, we deserve protection. Now that abortion is in the news, it would be wise for all Christians to review the reasons why they should be pro-life.