Of all the moral issues, the most pressing are those involving life and death. And of the life-and-death issues, the one that involves the taking of the most lives is abortion.
There are three basic positions on abortion, and they all center around the question of the human status of the unborn. Those who believe the unborn are subhuman, favor abortion on demand. On the other hand, those who hold that the unborn are fully human are against all forms of abortion as such. And those who argue that the unborn is a potential human, favor abortion in specified circumstances.
The status of the unborn is crucial to the various views, for if the unborn are truly human, then the prohibition against taking human life applies to them as well. On the other hand, if the unborn are merely appendages or extensions of their mothers’ bodies, then abortion is no more serious than an appendectomy.
Another important issue is the relationship between the right to life and the right of privacy. If human life takes precedence over personal privacy, then aborting a human fetus on the basis of the ‘right to privacy’ is unjustified. If, on the other hand, the mother’s right to privacy takes priority over the baby’s right to life, then abortion is justified.
[I believe that there are many who, in the case of abortion, hold the ‘privacy’ right higher than the ‘life’ right.]
Abortion on demand was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in two major decisions (Doe v. Bolten and Roe v. Wade) in 1973. In these decisions, the Court argued that the woman’s right to privacy prevails over the states’ interest in regulating abortions. As a result of these two decisions, abortion for any reason became legal in all fifty states. The 
‘Webster’ decision (1989) gave states more regulatory rights but did not outlaw abortion. Likewise, the ‘Gonzalez’ partial-birth abortion prohibition (2000) only forbids abortion for babies partly, but not completely, out of the womb.
The pro-abortionist’s self-designation as ‘pro-choice’ places emphasis on the right of the mother to decide whether she wants to have a baby. It reveals the belief that the right to privacy is dominant in the decision. Many proponents believe that no unwanted baby should ever be born. No woman should be forced to have a child against her will.
The Supreme Court clearly based its decision on this assumption, referring to the unborn as merely “a potential human life”. At the same time, the Court also recognized explicitly that if the right of personhood is established, the “appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
[We will not be addressing the scriptural grounds for human life beginning at conception. I. The following reading will be helpful in discussing this topic with one who disregards the Bible, but does try and make their decision based upon logic and fairness.]
Arguments for viewing the fetus as subhuman
- The argument from self-consciousness. It is argued by some that a baby is not a human until it possesses self-consciousness. Since no infant in the womb is self-conscious, this would argue in favor of a subhuman status for the unborn, and on this ground abortion would be permissible.
If self-consciousness is essential to humanness, then those who are in a state of dreamless sleep or in a coma are not human. But, [when they awake] they would be nonhumans becoming humans again, which is absurd.
[What is the test for ‘self-consciousness’? How do they know that a pre-born baby is not aware of itself? It’s mere conjecture…they are just guessing. Also, does a 2 day old infant have self-awareness? How do you prove this?]
- The argument from physical dependence. Another reason sometimes given by proponents of abortion is that the baby is an extension of the mother’s body, and the mother has the right to control her own body and reproductive system. Since the baby is intruding on the mother’s physical domain, she has the right to [have the intruder removed]. [We, apparently, have the legal right to have any part of our body removed by a surgeon, as long as it deemed medically reasonable. Some have their wisdom teeth taken out when they are proposing no medical problem. Some have breast tissue removed simply for cosmetic reasons.]
It is a scientific fact that embryos are not physical extensions of their mothers. From the moment of conception, they have their own gender, and slightly more than half are male, while the mother is female. Beginning about forty days after conception, they have their own individual brain waves, which they keep until death. Within a few weeks of conception, they have their own blood type, which may differ from the mother’s, and their own unique fingerprints. Finally, the embryo is only ‘nesting’ in the mother’s womb. Birth simply changes the method of receiving food and oxygen.
- The argument from the safety of the mother. Here it is argued that illegal abortion is dangerous. Figures ranging between five and ten thousand maternal deaths from illegal abortions are offered as evidence. By legalizing abortion, thousands of mothers can be saved from death by rusty coat hangers in back alleys.
Legalizing abortion has not saved thousands of mothers from dying, but has killed millions of babies. Before the legalization of abortion in 1973, there were not thousands of women dying each year from illegal abortions. The U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics reported that in 1973 there were only 45 maternal deaths from abortion. One of the original leaders of the abortion movement, Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, later admitted that proponents of abortion lied about the statistics. The maternal death rate for childbirth is only 1 in 10,000 births. The child mortality rate from successful abortions is 100 %. It is the most fatal operation in America. If the embryo is human, then saving even hundreds of mothers would not justify killing millions of babies. Abortion has taken the lives of near 1.3 million babies a year since 1973 in the U.S.. So the net effect of legalizing abortion has been to arrange that these deaths occur more sanitarily and professionally.
- The argument from abuse and neglect. Unwanted pregnancies lead to unwanted children, and unwanted children become abused children. Abortion will help prevent child abuse.
If the unborn is human, then abortion is child abuse of the worst kind – abuse by cruel death. Between 1973 and 1982, child abuse increased more than 500 % [(right when legalized abortion was at its peak)]. One study showed that 91 % of abused children were [originally] wanted children.
- The argument from deformity. Why should any child be [forced to be] born deformed? Why should the family or society be forced to care for deformed children? Abortion based on prenatal tests can eliminate these unnecessary and undesirable births. Furthermore, abortionists argue that concern for the genetic purity of the human race should lead us to weed out bad genes from the human gene pool, from which all future human beings will come.
If the unborn are human, then abortion of the deformed is no more justified than infanticide or euthanasia for genetic reasons. Abortion of the handicapped is not promoted by handicapped people. At last count, there was not a single organization for parents of handicapped children on record as favoring abortion of the handicapped.
- The argument from the right to privacy. The Supreme Court declared in Roe v. Wade that a woman’s right to privacy over her own body is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Others argue the same thing on ethical grounds. They reason that just as we have the right to evict an unwanted guest from our home, a woman likewise has the right to eject an unwanted baby from her womb.
Justifying abortion on the grounds of privacy makes good sense only if the embryo is not a human being. We do not have the right to privately kill human beings. Abortion of human beings is significantly different from evicting someone from our home. Abortion is more like killing an indigent person in our home because that person will not leave. With the exception of criminal rape, no pregnancy is unwilled. If one consents to intercourse, then one is responsible for the result of that free act. So, to carry the illustration through, in 99 % [+] of abortions the ‘guest’ was invited to begin with. This being the case, abortion is more like [having a sign on our door] inviting indigent guests to our home and then [after we find out they are in the house with us, brutally] killing them (or evicting them to a sure death [in the wilderness where there is no food, no shelter, and no heat]) simply because they are not wanted [there].
- The argument from rape. Pro-choice advocates insist that no woman should be forced to have a child against her will. It is immoral to add the necessity of pregnancy to the indignity of being raped. [Thus, since the woman had no choice in the matter (i.e. rape), then she is totally without blame if she were to become pregnant, and should have the right not to continue with the pregnancy.]
The rape of the mother does not justify the murder of the child. If the unborn is a human, then intentionally taking its innocent life is murder…[even if the mother was raped]. So here again the real issue is the human status of the unborn. But appealing to sympathy for the rape victim does not avoid the question of justice for the abortion’s victim. Abortion does not take away the evil of the rape; it adds another evil to it. We should punish the guilty rapist, not the innocent baby. Furthermore, even if abortion were justified in a few extreme cases such as rape, this would in no way justify abortion on demand, such as the roe v. Wade court permitted.
If the rape victim receives immediate medical treatment, the conception can be avoided in all cases (since conception does not occur immediately). The figure for [pregnancies resulting from] criminal rape is well under 1 %. But in cases where pregnancy does occur, about half of rape victims want to have the baby. Should the mother not want the baby, there are people waiting to adopt babies. Adoption, not abortion, is the better alternative. [God can change something that was meant for evil, into something positively wonderful…a child becoming a follower of Jesus Christ!]
Ironically, the woman (Norma McCorvey) whose generic name was ‘Jane Roe’, whose alleged rape led to the Roe v. Wade case that overthrew antiabortion laws in the United States, has subsequently admitted that she lied, thus undermining the original claim behind the case.
- The argument concerning the autonomous rights of the mother and her consent to [sexual intimacy]. This claim is that a woman’s consent to [intimacy] is not thereby a consent to pregnancy. [This follows the same mindset as the ‘argument from rape’ situation.]
It is known that pregnancy is a possible result of physical intimacy, thus the mother is giving tacit consent to having the baby when she is involved with intimacy. At the minimum, she is playing Russian Roulette and is responsible if the trigger goes off. The unborn’s right to life takes precedence over the mother’s desire not to be pregnant, whether she knew she was going to become pregnant or not.
9 . The argument from the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Blackmun argued that according to [this amendment], individuals have a right to privacy and liberty, and that to pass laws outlawing abortion is to infringe upon an individual’s right to privacy and liberty. He also argued that the unborn are not considered persons under the 14th Amendment.
The reasons are that the U.S. Constitution does not define a person. He then argues that in all of the instances where the term ‘person’ is used, it is always in reference to a postnatal individual with no possible prenatal applications.
Blackmun refers only to cases that applied to already-existing persons. [This is an argument from ‘silence’. The Constitution does not say that an unborn is not a person. It does not state anything on this. The Constitution supports the personhood of the unborn as much as it is against it. Just because the use of ‘person’ isn’t referred to in a prenatal state, that does not mean that it can not be used that way. No where does the Constitution state that the unborn is ‘not’ a person.]
- The argument that society determines when a person’s life begins. Some abortionists insist that an individual becomes a person only when a society accepts one as a person. And since our society dictates that someone is a person at birth, it follows that only then does someone have human rights. They claim that this is evident since only after a person’s birth is one named, allowed to fulfill societal functions, and accepted into the family.
There are many Eastern cultures that celebrate the personhood of a fetus from conception. If society determines personhood, then an Eastern [unborn] child would be a person and a Western [unborn] child would not. What then of Eastern pregnant woman living in the West. [One or both of these stances are incorrect….both cannot be correct…if one follows ‘absolutism’…]
- The argument from inability to know when human life begins. Many pro-choice advocates argue that even if the law protects the life of a human being, and abortion would be morally wrong if it is the killing of an innocent human being, still we cannot know with absolute certainty when a new human organism/being has been formed. Therefore, because we do not know when the new individual organism begins to exist, forming a new human being, it would be foolish dogmatism to rule in favor of the fetus being a person.
The laws of logic demand that we know either that it is a human organism and person or that it is not; either our knowledge is a fact or it is not. Hence, there are four possibilities: 1) The organism is a person, and we know it. 2) the organism is a person, and we do not know it. 3) The organism is not a person, and we do not know it. 4) The organism is not a person, and we do know it.
From # 1 it is clear that if we know it is a person and we kill it, then it is a homicide.
From # 2 it would at least be manslaughter. People cannot plead ignorance because they didn’t know a person was there; they didn’t know there wasn’t one there either. In the Pastor Rick Warren pre-election interview, President Obama claimed that it is ‘above my pay grade’ to know whether 
life begins at conception; if so, then it is also above his pay grade to know that it does not begin at conception.
From # 3 the fetus is not a person, but that is not known with certainty. This seems to be just as irresponsible as the second case. The abortionists should be charged with manslaughter, for they did not know, but it is still an act of criminal negligence.
From # 4 abortion [would] be reasonable, legal, and responsible. But it is contrary to fact, since nobody really knows this with any kind of certainty. The organism may be a human person, and if it may be a human person, then killing it is a culpable crime. Thus, in the end, the skeptical argument fails because abortionists are still culpable in all cases. For if the unborn is or may be a human person, then abortion is either homicide, manslaughter, or a heinous crime. Certainly, what is conceived by a human, born as a human, and grows as a human should be given the benefit of the doubt that it is a human!