The Substance View

I have given you my own basic argument for the pro-life position. But now I’d like to examine two more arguments, what I consider to be the two strongest arguments for the pro-life position. The first is by a Catholic philosopher, whose argument is grounded in intuitions that most people agree with. The next argument will be by an atheist (I’ll leave who it is a mystery, but those who are well-read in the abortion issue will likely know who I’m talking about).

Philosophy in the Abortion Issue, Part III

Now we’ve seen what goes into an argument, and how to possibly respond to an argument. We’ve also seen some arguments that commit logical fallacies, which is simply an error in reasoning. Now we’ll look at some arguments that are simply bad arguments, from both sides of the abortion fence.

Philosophy in the Abortion Issue, Part II

Now that we’ve learned what goes into making an argument, let’s talk about how to respond to an argument. First, a bit about why philosophy is necessary.

An Answer to Some Questions for Pro-Lifers

I’m writing this in response to an article written by Atheist blogger Adam Lee, called Questions for Pro-Lifers. Please read his article before reading this one, or it may not make much sense.

Philosophy in the Abortion Issue, Part I

Science can be a wonderful tool in the pro-life advocate’s arsenal. However, science can’t dictate morality, it can only inform morality. Science can tell us that something we are harming or killing is human; science can’t tell us that it’s wrong to kill that human. So while we can demonstrate scientifically that the unborn are living human organisms from fertilization, we must turn to philosophy to demonstrate whether we can or can not kill that living human organism.

Some Exposure (Not the Indecent Kind)

I started this blog to create a space where I could write articles designed to help people share the pro-life position effectively and in a winsome manner. Ever since starting this blog, my articles have started appearing elsewhere.

Should Men Stay Out of the Abortion Issue?

Does this sound familiar: “Seventy percent of pro-lifers are men, and 100% will never be pregnant!”? How about this: “Pro-lifers are nothing but old white men who want to send women back to the dark ages where they are pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, breastfeeding twins!”?

Does the Bible Justify Abortion?

To be clear, abortion is not a religious issue. I have written several posts against abortion using science and philosophy. But you’ll occasionally find someone who uses the Bible to justify abortion. You’ll even encounter Atheists who try to use the Bible to justify abortion if they know a Christian is arguing against it. You just want to stare back and them and ask, “why are you using the Bible to justify abortion?! You don’t believe in the Bible!” Those wacky Atheists.

What is RU486?

This is an article that I wrote for the Life Network Australia website. You can see the article here.

Most people who are familiar with the abortion issue are familiar with surgical methods of abortion (such as D&E). But what you might not be as familiar with is RU486, which is essentially an abortion in a convenient pill. RU486 is also known by its more generic name, Mifepristone. RU486 can be effective on its own, but it is usually followed up with a second drug, Prostaglandin, to induce the uterus to contract and expel the shriveled corpse.

Is Abortion Permissible in the Hard Cases? Part III

One of the most tragic things in life is when a woman or a child dies during pregnancy or childbirth. Thankfully, technology has advanced to the point where the death rate from a pregnancy-related complication is extremely low. Less than 1% of pregnant women die from a pregnancy-related complication or in childbirth. [1]

Is Abortion Permissible in the Hard Cases? Part II

As I have previously shown, abortions because of fetal disability or deformity cannot be morally justified. But now we’ll look at another hard case, the cases of rape and incest.

Is Abortion Permissible in the Hard Cases? Part I

Now we get to the really tough questions about abortion. Can we justify abortion in the really hard cases? Some might say that certain situations are so bad that even if we grant that the preborn are full human persons, we should still allow abortions to be legal, either for the sake of the woman or because it is assumed that a child would not want to grow up in one of these situations.

Responding to an Article About Pro-Life Atheists

There's an article I was recently made aware of about pro-life atheists using unsound science, written by Marco Rosaire Rossi. You may want to read it first or this article won't make much sense.

Bodily Rights Arguments

So far we’ve considered three different objections to the pro-life case: that the preborn are not humans biologically, that the preborn are human but are not persons, and that the preborn are humans biologically but are not full-fledged human beings in a morally relevant sense. That is, when someone claims the preborn are human but not persons, they agree that they are human biologically but they do not have rights as other people do (such as the right to life). When someone claims they are human biologically but not in a morally relevant sense, they accept that they belong to the species Homo Sapien but are not part of the “human community” at large. Thus, even though there is a zygote, you don’t actually come “into existence” until some later point in development (such as when you are conscious or able to survive independently of the mother).

Pro-Choice Graphic

There’s a graphic that’s been going around trying to illustrate that the unborn are not persons. There are four panels: the top-left panel has an egg on a plate to illustrate that it’s not a chicken, the top-right panel has an acorn to illustrate that it’s not a tree, the bottom-left panel has a caterpillar spinning silk to illustrate that it’s not a dress, and the bottom-right panel has a sperm fertilizing an egg to show that it’s not a person.

When Does Personhood Begin? Part II

Previously we looked at some of the arguments and assumptions made to assert that the unborn either are not humans or are not “persons”.

When Does Personhood Begin? Part I

Once you have established that the unborn are human from fertilization, the next step is to ask when we should assign basic human rights to a human individual [1]. The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights since without it you can’t enjoy any other rights. It’s pretty difficult to enjoy freedom of speech if you’re not alive to speak in the first place.

Response to a Video on Abortion

This is a response to a video on YouTube entitled RE: Abortion Argument by FredericBayer. In the comments on his video, he claims to “pwn” a pro-lifer at logic. But as I’ll point out, his arguments are rife with logical fallacies and incoherencies.

Response to a Logical Argument for Abortion

This is a response to a video on YouTube I came across entitled Is Abortion Murder? The Logical Answer! by video blogger DixonRants.

What is the Unborn?

Before you can even answer the question of whether or not abortion is moral, you must first decide what the unborn is. For as Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason observes, if the unborn is not human, then no justification for abortion is necessary. It would be no different from having a mole removed or a tooth pulled. But if the unborn is human, then no justification for abortion is adequate.

Why Are Sex-Selective Abortions Morally Problematic?

Currently, abortion is generally legal in the United States through all nine months of pregnancy (except in about 11 states) for generally any reason. Our government recently decided to vote on whether or not to ban sex-selection abortions, but ultimately decided not to ban them.

Thought Experiment: The Burning IVF Facility

Dean Stretton imagines a case in which an emergency arises and a person is faced with the choice of rescuing ten frozen human embryos or five adult patients. Since virtually everyone would choose to save the adult patients rather than the embryos, this indicates that the patients have a higher moral status than the frozen human embryos. [1]

Where Do We Draw the Line?

A few months ago, there was a woman named Bei Bei Shuai who was abandoned while pregnant by her boyfriend, who was actually married to another woman. Distraught, this woman, who was pregnant, took rat poison in an attempt to kill herself. Friends convinced her to seek help at a hospital, but it was already too late for the unborn child. She received treatment for the poison and gave birth on New Year's Eve, but the child died four days later.

What's in a Name?

I should probably start off by giving a brief background of my pro-life history. I've always been pro-life. However, I've never exactly known all the facts behind it. I grew up as a Christian and that probably weighed heavily on just why I believed that abortion was wrong. Yet it wasn't until about the year 2000 or 2001 that I really started to get into it.