Posted by
Russell Neglia on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:46:55 PM
“Abortion is a complex question,” according to many
pro-choice advocates. If I
had a quarter every time I’ve heard this I’d be a millionaire. What surprises me about this statement
is not that pro-choice people repeat this hackneyed phrase ad nauseum, but the fact that no one, even pro-life advocates,
ever challenge this meaningless phrase.
What is so complex about abortion?
Either life begins at conception or it does not; either the unborn is a
human or it’s a piece of tissue.
If life begins at conception and the unborn is a human being, then that
life is a human life that deserves all the rights that you and I have. The comment that abortion is a complex
issue is a non-issue; it’s just plain false and misleading.
I know, I know, the pro-choice advocates will say that a
life the size of a period on this page is not the same as a baby that is one
day-old. Let’s analyze this line
of reasoning. Since when did size
determine the worth of your life?
Would you say that Shaquille O’Neill’s life, at 7 feet tall, is worth
more than, say a little newborn baby at 20 inches? Is that little baby less human than, say a two year-old?
Size is not the issue, the unborn is the issue.
Scott
Klusendorf has written a brilliant little book called Pro-Life 101: A Step-by-step Guide to Making your
Case Persuasively
where he makes the “SLED” argument (Size, Level of Development, Environment,
Degree of Development). Klusendorf
makes the argument that none of these differences diminish the human dignity of
any human life. When it comes to
level of development, what difference does it make? A toddler is less developed than an adolescent, an
adolescent less development than and adult. If we decided to give human dignity by our size, then any one
of us could have been killed at any moment in our life before adulthood. Every one of us started as a singe cell
zygote. Klusendorf is a brilliant
and eloquent spokesman for the pro-life cause and I highly recommend him as a
speaker at a pro-life function.
Whenever man or governments decide when a person gets rights,
be very worried because if man or government give rights, they can take them
away just as easily as they gave them.
Human dignity is not a right obtained by man or any form of government,
it is a God given right, period.
Human dignity starts at the beginning of life – conception. How can killing a human life be
complex? It is not complex, but
very, very simple. If you don’t believe
that life begins at conception, I suppose you could make an argument, but if it
does not begin at conception when does it begin? It would have to be determined by man or government. But how would you determine when it
would be? It would have to be a
subjective determination.
Princeton University, Bioethics Professor, Peter
Singer, says that you should have about 28 days to determine if a newborn
should live or die. Do you think
this is a reasonable position? How so?
Fortunately, we do
know when life begins; we know it by science and by what our Church
teaches. It is no longer an
opinion. Science has determined
that human life begins at conception.
In my previous posts on this blog I’ve listed countless links where you
can check the documentation of this fact.
You will not find any credible person who will argue that science has
not established this fact. Just
the other day Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Majority Leader of the United States
Senate, made a flat out stupid comment that the Roman Catholic Church has not
been able to establish when life begins.
This lie was quickly pointed out by some U.S. Bishops, such as the
Bishop of Denver, Charles Chaput and the Bishops of New York and Washington DC.
When Barack Obama was asked at the Saddleback Church Forum
on August 17, 2008, about when a baby should get human rights, he answered that
this question “was above his pay grade.”
He further stated that he is pro-choice, not because he likes abortion
but because women make these decisions with difficulty. Difficulty? How can the killing of a human being be made with
difficulty? Is it difficult to
decide to kill your two-year-old? This is just plain nonsense, irrational,
self-delusional and just dishonest.