CLAIM:
The issue is that a fetus cannot survive without using someone else’s body. No one – not a baby, not an adult, not a cow or lizard or dog or dolphin – is allowed to use YOUR body to help their own body without your consent. No human gets to use someone else’s body against their will. It doesn’t matter that any particular “unborn” is a human… NO ONE, no matter how “small”, OWNS anyone else’s body, nor do they have ANY RIGHT to force them to do anything they don’t want to DO, with THEIR bodies!!
REBUTTAL:
Emotion vs. Reason
Abortion has been one of the most hotly debated issues of our time. Sadly, this has resulted in more smoke than fire as people try to win the argument without making the case.
In oratory presentations, this is done by yelling, pounding, pointing, crying, and other emotional outbursts that distract from the point. In written format, it is done using ALL CAPS and excessive exclamation marks. When you accidentally text someone with CAPS LOCK on, the recipient often replies, “Do not yell.” Yelling, in any dialog, does not win an argument. Resorting to emotional outbursts frequently hurts the credibility of the case being made.
The Straw Man Argument
When conflicts become emotional, it is common for the emotional party to make “straw man arguments.” These are arguments crafted to misrepresent the position of the other side.
To my knowledge, no one on the pro-life side is claiming that an unborn child “OWNS” anyone’s body. That unborn child also does not have the physical ability to exercise any “force” over the body of anyone else.
Ownership
Raising the ownership issue, however, does require some clarification. Regardless of positions taken on the abortion issue, if someone claims to be a Christian, there is ownership that is involved, though, perhaps, not what you are thinking.
Concerning ownership, God’s Word (the Bible) says this:
The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. (Psalm 24:1–2)
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
And if you are not God’s possession, then you are owned by the enemies of God:
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. (Romans 6:17)
Even though we live in a culture that is heavily focused on autonomous rights, any Christian identification usurps those notions and asks first, “What would please God?”
Survival
The claim is factually incorrect when it says, “A fetus cannot survive without using someone else’s body.” As of July 2, 2020, the youngest gestational age of a premature child to survive outside of the womb is 21 weeks and 1 day.1https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/12427-uab-hospital-delivers-record-breaking-premature-baby accessed11-5-24 Additionally, research is actively looking to create artificial wombs that can sustain the life of an unborn child that might otherwise have relied solely on the maternal support that comes with a pregnancy.2https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7216961/ accessed 11-5-243https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240717-artificial-placenta-a-new-lifeline-for-premature-babies accessed 11-5-24
Personhood of the Unborn Child
A central point of dispute in the abortion debate is whether the unborn child or fetus, is a person. If it were established that the unborn child is a person, then there would be competing rights between two people – the child and the mother. This claim ignores that issue and simply attempts to dehumanizes the unborn child by comparing it to a “cow or lizard or dog or dolphin.” Talking that way does not nullify the reality of personhood or human distinctiveness. It just avoids it.
Contextualizing Survival and Personhood
Debates about the survival rates and personhood of an unborn child reflect a human utilitarian approach to pregnancy. Regardless of its chances for independent survival, the unborn child biologically is a distinctively separate life from that of the mother. That unborn child can have a different blood type than the mother and even be a different gender than the mother. With advancements in artificial wombs and placenta, the mother could die midway through a pregnancy, and other technology could potentially sustain the child’s life to full gestational maturity.
Biblically, a Christian cannot be utilitarian in the view of the unborn child. The Bible talks about life and personhood existing within the womb (Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 1:39-44). The Bible even assigns accountability for sin to the moment of conception (Psalm 51:5). That life in the womb, in the eyes of God, its Creator, has comparable value to that of the host (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:4-5).
The Matter of Consent
The claim states, “No one…is allowed to use YOUR body to help their own body without your consent.” The claim confuses consent with intent.
A woman has the most consequential role in the world as the child-bearer. This ability is unique to her and her alone. Despite experiments to isolate her from the process, she holds that distinct position singularly.
She becomes that child-bearer through intercourse. Typically, this is consensual. She also can choose various options, natural and artificial, to prevent intercourse from resulting in a pregnancy. Using these options generally requires her consent.
Refusing consent to intercourse is the number one way to prevent pregnancy. Her consent to participate in intercourse might have been foremost for pleasure and companionship. Still, it does not nullify it as the primary means for her to be what only she can be – the bearer of children. To argue that her pregnancy lacked her consent really should be an argument to say her pregnancy was not her intent. In the same way, a fatal accident caused by drunk driving was not intentional, but it occurred because somewhere, some version of consent occurred that involved drinking and driving.
The activity resulting in pregnancy very much involved consent. The fact that the pregnancy was unintentional speaks more to irresponsibility than to some sort of “after the fact” entitlement to terminate a life.
A drunk driver’s regret for the consequences of consensual acts that led to the DWI fatality does not entitle that driver to a special dispensation of responsibility. Minimally, the claimant should be honest enough to request what is happening: a consensual act of intimacy resulted in a pregnancy, and because she does not now wish to be a child-bearer, she wants the right to terminate the life of her child. Historically, it was not unreasonable for society to say that mothers should not be given the right to end the lives of their children, inside or outside of the womb.
The Spiritual Dimension
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they could not undo it (Genesis 3:1-24). From that moment forward, history has been full of people who think wrongly, do bad things, and regret many things. Many of our mistakes, and we are all guilty of them (Romans 3:10), are foolish mistakes. We knew better and still did the wrong thing. Some consequences we can remedy with an apology or some form of retribution. Others seem irreparable. Friendships are destroyed, reputations are ruined, and maybe even lives are started or lost.
If all we had to live for was life in this world, how wretched would our existence be (Romans 7:24; 1 Corinthians 15:19). But what if there were more to life than what we have and get in this world? Well, there is, and that is where Jesus comes in.
All that is wrong in the world, which the Bible calls “sin,” requires retribution, as justice dictates. We do not meet God’s demand of perfection (Matthew 5:48). We could not solve the problem, so God sent his Son, Jesus, to pay the price of justice on our behalf (2 Corinthians 5:21). And when Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter morning, it was proof that all was well with God (Romans 4:25). The price had been paid.
That reality changes how we see life in this world. Like the Apostle Paul, we still make bad decisions and do wrong things, but we strive daily to rise above them (Philippians 3:12). Even when we fail, regardless of how it looks for things in this world, it works out (Romans 8:28).
Insisting on autonomy under the guise of reproductive rights does not change the reality that we are grasping hopelessly to create a heaven on earth, where injustice means the innocent and defenseless often must die. For our mistakes, Jesus paid the price. Our new perspective on life drives us to live for Him, for his honor and glory. It changes how we make decisions. Even an unplanned pregnancy creates a new default in us to think more of others than of ourselves (Philippians 2:3-5), confident that all is well because of Jesus.
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