“Even if the unborn are human beings, they have fewer rights than the woman. No one should be expected to donate her body as a life support system for someone else.”

A.) Once we grant that the unborn are human beings, it should settle the question of their right to live.

B.) The right to live doesn’t increase with the age and size, otherwise toddlers and adolescents have less right to live than adults.

C.) The comparison between baby’s rights and mother’s rights is unequal. What is at stake in abortion is the mother’s lifestyle, as opposed to the baby’s life.

A.) Once we grant that the unborn are human beings, it should settle the question of their right to live.

One prochoice advocate, in the face of the overwhelming evidence, admitted to me that the unborn are human beings. He then added, “But that’s irrelevant to the issue of a woman’s right to have an abortion.”

But how can one’s humanity be irrelevant to the question of whether someone has the right to kill him? Wasn’t the black person’s humanity relevant to the issue of slavery, or the Jew’s humanity relevant to the ethics of the holocaust? Not only is the unborn’s humanity relevant, it is the single most relevant issue in the whole abortion debate.

Writing in the New York Times, Barbara Ehrenreich says, “A woman may think of her fetus as a person or as just cells depending on whether the pregnancy is wanted or not. This does not reflect moral confusion, but choice in action.”1

In this Alice-in-Wonderland approach, one’s choice is not made in light of scientific and moral realities. One’s choice is itself the only important reality, overshadowing all matters of fact. But if society operated this way, every killing of a person would be justifiable. The real issue would not be the worth of the person killed, but the free choice of the one doing the killing. If a man doesn’t want his wife, he can think of her as a nonperson. When he chooses to kill her this is not “moral confusion” but “choice in action.”

Ms. Ehrenreich goes on to say, “Moreover, a woman may think of the fetus as a person and still find it necessary and morally responsible to have an abortion.”2 We must not miss the implications of this viewpoint. It says that one may acknowledge the personhood of a fellow human being, yet feel that for one’s personal benefit it is legitimate—even “morally responsible”—to kill that other person. Though this is a logical conclusion of abortion-rights thinking, if carried out in our society it would mean the end of human rights and social justice.

B.) The right to live doesn’t increase with the age and size, otherwise toddlers and adolescents have less right to live than adults.

One author justifies some abortions based on his belief that “human worth and human rights grow with the physiological development.”3 If this is true, then human worth and rights continue to grow after birth, since we know physiological development continues after birth. Physical development continues year after year and takes on dramatic changes during adolescence. If human worth and rights grow with physiological development, then adults have a greater right to live than adolescents, who have a greater right to live than infants. It is morally preferable to kill an infant than a toddler, a toddler than a teenager, and a teenager than an adult.

C.) The comparison between baby’s rights and mother’s rights is unequal. What is at stake in abortion is the mother’s lifestyle, as opposed to the baby’s life.

Of course a child does not have more rights than her mother. Any two people are equal, and any two people have equal rights, Hence, a mother has every bit as much right to live is not an issue because her life is not in danger. (See previous blog)

The mother has not only the right to live, but also the right to the lifestyle of her choice—as long as that choice does not rob other people of even more fundamental rights, the most basic of which is the right to live. The right to a certain lifestyle is never absolute and unconditional. It is always governed by its effects on others.

Planned Parenthood states, “The desire to complete school or to continue working are common reasons women give for choosing to abort an unplanned pregnancy.”5 Completing school and working are desirable things in many cases, and pregnancy can make them difficult. But a woman normally can continue school and work during pregnancy. If she gives up a child for adoption she need not give up school or work. If she chooses to raise the child herself there are childcare options available if she must work outside the home. I am not suggesting this is ideal, nor do I say it callously, as I have worked with single mothers and know their difficulties. I am simply pointing out that there are alternatives, any one of which is preferable to an innocent child’s death. Regardless of the challenges, one person’s right to a preferred lifestyle is not greater than another person’s right to a life.

1. Cited by John Leo in “the Moral Complexity of Choice,” U.S News & World Report, 11 December 1989, 64.

2. Ibid.

3. William Tillman, Christian Ethics: A Primer (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1986), 114.

4. Peter Singer and Helen Kuhse, “On Letting Handicapped Infants Die,” in The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy, ed. James Rachels (New York: Random House, 1989), 146.

5. “Abortion: Facts at a Glance, ‘Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 1.

P.77 “Prolife Answers to Prochoice Arguments” By Randy Alcorn