My opposition to voluntary pregnancy termination (commonly known as abortion) goes like this: All human beings—irrespective of their ability or inability to defend themselves—have an inviolable dignity.
It is morally unacceptable to murder a living human being. (Indeed, it’s reprehensible to desecrate the body of a human being who has died.)
Murder is the unjust taking of a human life. Voluntary pregnancy termination is the taking of a human life at an early stage of development.
Murder is always wrong.
Some argue that a living human being is only a person when they are older, such as when they can speak and think. One argument mistakenly claims that an embryo or fetus cannot feel pain, and thus, it is claimed that killing them would be morally acceptable. But to accept this would violate the first premise. Taking the life of a human being at any early stage of development, such as the zygotic or embryonic stage, is particularly unacceptable because they are defenseless. Aggression—or violence without just cause—is always unacceptable. But aggression visited upon the defenseless by the strong is particularly heinous.
Therefore, voluntary pregnancy termination is murder, and is therefore always unacceptable because it involves also aggression by the strong toward the weak.
[Sarcasm font on] No Bibles, papal encyclicals, or other religious paraphernalia were used in the construction of this argument. I assure you that I wouldn’t want any of my rosaries to touch anyone’s ovaries. [Sarcasm off] I have to think that whoever or whatever allowed the pro-abortion lobby to get so sloppy in argument is not actually as stupid as they often look. People deserve the best arguments we can give them, instead of euphemism and misdirection.
A note: I have chosen the term “voluntary pregnancy termination” to avoid the misdirection often employed by abortion advocates in the medical community, where “abortion” often refers incorrectly to any pregnancy loss. I’m also fully cognizant of various no-win scenarios (which we tend to call “double effect” in the philosophical tradition) and these involve the end of a pregnancy, but are not voluntary. Also, taking an action which involves the unintended death of a person in a no-win scenario is distinct from taking the life directly.
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