Guest Post: Abortion: Setting the Record Straight

Today's post is by Guest Author Ben Williamson.

Abortion can be an emotionally stirring topic for many people, especially Christians. Many times people will appeal to emotionally charged insults or victimize a certain individual(or individuals) in the debate. But is there a way to limit the role emotions play in how Christians interact with those who are for abortion? I believe there is and I base it on two factors. First, by the nature of the people involved, people don’t have to strictly rely on their emotional reactions for this issue. People have emotions, but they also have heads. They can think and arrive at rational conclusions. Can our emotions affect our thinking abilities? Absolutely. But we are not required to just stick with our feelings if we’re to make a successful case for our pro-life position. Second, in my experiences with different people, I have discovered that if I am calm and resolute in defending the pro-life position, the person listening to me most likely will also be calm and composed. I think that sometimes people – on both sides – get too emotionally tangled up because at least one of them have a difficult time sustaining their emotional filters. I don’t think the abortion issue is unique in this case. I think the same principle applies even to counseling situations or giving advice to someone who might be on the verge of making a tragic mistake.

So what can pro-lifers do in this discussion? There are two things that are simple and yet compelling if presented the right way. First, it is absolutely critical that the issue dividing the pro-life and pro-abortion advocates be clarified and not muddled by irrelevancies. As apologist Scott Klusendorf points out in The Case for Life, “If you think a particular argument for elective abortion begs the question regarding the status of the unborn, here’s how to clarify things: Ask if this particular justification for abortion also works as a justification for killing toddlers. If not, the argument assumes that the unborn are not fully human.” (The Case for Life, P. 25, Para. 1). With that being said, the issue needs to be about the humanity or personhood status of the unborn. Since hardly anybody appeals to bodily rights, economic conveniences, or rights to privacy to justify killing infants and toddlers, to appeal to those circumstances in the case of abortion is to assume the unborn are not human persons. Second, when defending the claim that the unborn are human persons, and hence deserving of the right to life and legal protection, use the acronym S.L.E.D. That word stands for Size, Level of Development, Environment, & Degree of Dependency. A simple and clear way to use this to defend the personhood of the unborn is by claiming the following:

o   Unborns, infants, and toddlers have different sizes, levels of development, come from different environments, and have different degrees of dependency.

o   Hardly anybody thinks that one is morally justified in killing someone based on a difference reflected in SLED.

o   Since the unborn undergoes those changes just as infants and toddlers do, it follows that those changes cannot be used to justify killing the unborn but sparing the infants and toddlers.

In a nutshell, peoples’ value and personhood do not depend on their sizes, levels of development, environments, and degrees of dependency.

Conclusion

So if you are for the pro-life position and want to be adequately prepared to defend it, then first gather your emotions and set them apart in the debate as best you can. Second, be calm and have your thoughts together. People are more apt to listen to you if you are not coming off as aggressive or hostile. Third, clarify the issue and refuse to be distracted by side issues. Fourth, get familiar with the acronym S.L.E.D. and practice it before you begin talking with people about it. And last, spend some time in prayer and ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit so that you will not only be a powerful communicator of an important truth but bringing glory and honor to Him. Since we are born again, we must take care to represent Christ as he actually is. I’d like to end this with a verse from Colossians 4:6: Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

Ben Williamson is very interested in philosophy, theology, and New Testament studies. He studies frequently the NT-era evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as important cultural and ethical issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage.

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Atheists and the Need for God to Exist for Moral Epistemology

          Typically, an atheist will ask, “Why can’t an atheist know and do good without God?” The usual (and quite helpful) response is that, yes, atheists can know and do good without acknowledging God in their lives. However, the main point is the foundation or grounding of the good—and that is plausibly not anything other than God. While this response is adequate, and frames the debate in terms of ontology rather than epistemology, I want to focus a bit on the epistemological claim. I want to say, as a word of warning, that I mean no offense to any atheists, skeptics, agnostics, or non-Christians. If you can read this in a spirit of charity, you may be able even to agree with what I am saying!

            I happen to think the atheist often does not, in fact, know his moral obligations and duties. Further than this, there are some moral obligations that bear upon him that he cannot know, even in principle, if God is excluded from the moral epistemology. Now, in a certain sense, no atheist can escape God from his moral epistemology. This is because, as a part of our design, moral knowledge is built in a priori, as a function of how we are to operate. With God as the designer and giver of the moral law, humans everywhere will, if operating correctly, apprehend the moral law.[1]

            I hold to a divine command theory of ethics. This means that our moral obligations are constituted by God’s commands. These commands are given in part through the deliverances of a properly functioning conscience. Many of them, however, are deduced from God’s Word. It should strike the reader as obvious that atheists do not accept the Bible as the Word of God. In that case, it just follows that there are some commands that are incumbent upon humanity that the atheist will not even recognize.

            Take the example of doing all to the glory of God (cf. 1 Cor. 10:31). For more than one reason, this is not something that immediately shows itself in the consciences of people a priori. It strikes even “veteran” Christians as an insight of morality that each and every aspect of their lives, even down to what they eat or drink, is to be consecrated to God. It then becomes obvious that atheists do not know this moral command, and thus a crucial point of moral obligation is not a part of the atheist’s moral epistemology.[2]

            Moreover, as odd as the claim that atheists cannot, even in principle, know certain moral obligations upon them is, we actually see myriad examples in everyday life. Consider the fact that atheists and Christians are at odds on a great many moral issues. Abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and homosexual behavior, raising children, etc. All of these issues exhibit a great controversy between atheists and Christians. Yet Christians derive these moral commands (both obligations and prohibitions) either directly or indirectly from Scripture, coupled with moral intuition. In some cases, it is either not possible or very weak to make a case for certain of these positions on an atheistic epistemology. So I think it follows as obvious there are some positions that, given atheist commitments, are impossible for atheists to know. In that case, it follows they do need God for their moral epistemology.

            One final application to make: this applies not only to atheists, but even (in certain cases) to all non-Christians. This is not meant to show that God exists. It is just an interesting avenue to explore, as entailments of my personal positions.

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[1] I do understand, of course, that there are psychopaths, who do not perceive moral right and wrong. This is obviously not the norm.

[2] I am using “know” here in the sense of “justified true belief.” Presumably, the atheist does not believe God exists, and so does not believe he has the moral obligation to fulfill this command, even if he is aware the Bible teaches it.

Ethical Argument Against Abortion

I have not before entered the waters on the abortion debate, but it seems to me to be a moral issue; either it is permissible to abort a baby or it is not. I contend that it is impermissible to abort a baby at any stage, given a few basic assumptions. I will briefly sketch an argument for this.

1.      If something is a person, it has intrinsic moral value.

2.      Whatever has intrinsic moral value ought not to be killed unless there is a morally-sufficient reason.

3.      Human beings are persons.

4.      Therefore, human beings have intrinsic moral value.

5.      Therefore, human beings ought not to be killed unless there is a morally-sufficient reason.

6.      It is not morally permissible to end the life of an innocent human being to save one’s own.

7.      Unborn babies are innocent human beings.

8.      Therefore, unborn babies are persons.

9.      Therefore, unborn babies have intrinsic moral value.

10.  Therefore, unborn babies ought not to be killed unless there is a morally-sufficient reason.

11.  Therefore, it is not morally permissible to end the life of an unborn baby to save one’s own.

A few brief comments are needed. First, I ask that one lay aside emotion and rhetoric and look it from a stance of pure logic and reason. Second, please notice that, so long as the premises are true, a woman’s right to choose or psychological reasons to be against abortion or sexism are simply irrelevant. Third, statements 4, 5, and 8-11 are conclusions of deductively-valid arguments and cannot be denied. Premise 1 could be denied in the case that one declares there are no objective moral values. However, most people who take this road in hopes of preserving abortion do not realize that I can just say, “Well then it’s not morally impermissible for me to restrict a woman’s right to choose, is it?” In any case, most people will be forced to agree there are moral truths. Someone could affirm objective moral values but deny that persons have intrinsic moral worth; this would be something I could not even begin to grasp.

Premise 2 seems reasonable enough on any moral theory; one could affirm it even if there are never any morally-sufficient reasons for killing anything of intrinsic moral worth. Most will agree with premise 3. Some might object that not all human beings are truly persons, but I struggle with saying certain human beings are non-persons. In any case, some non-arbitrary definition ought to be applied that does not marginalize the mentally disabled, or someone who was in a car accident, etc.

It is also difficult to argue with (6). When we say “innocent,” we are using it in a univocal sense in this argument, and it means “morally innocent with respect to a particular situation.” Suppose two men were struggling in the ocean with only one life preserver. We would rightly be appalled at one man if he were to drown the other just for the opportunity to save his own life. Now suppose a crazed terrorist has kidnapped someone to launch them from a cannonball directly into you. The speed and impact will kill you both. Is it morally permissible then just to kill the other innocent party? Perhaps someone would do it, in desperation, but the right answer is no. Just because it’s one or both of you who will die doesn’t make it right to kill an innocent party. Finally, (7) is almost true by definition, at least biologically and morally. For an unborn baby, or fetus, is not biologically different from a human.[1] Moreover, the unborn baby is innocent in the relevant sense. But then we see abortion is not morally permissible.

So we have seen it is not morally permissible to abort an unborn baby. Notice we did not appeal to women’s rights (or lack thereof), death of the mother, or in the cases of rape, incest, or other terrible things. We did not minimize any of these things. But it is incontrovertible that these things are not relevant to the argument above. The cost of denying any of these premises is too high, epistemically, compared to rejecting abortion. But if none of the premises are denied, then all of the conclusions follow.

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[1] How curious would it be to say two humans can reproduce something non-human, biologically, that somehow later turns into a human! Moreover, it is just genetically human.