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CLAIM:
WHEN RESPONDING TO WOMEN WHO WERE ABUSED AND FORCED TO GET ABORTIONS TO COVER IT UP: Isn’t that the point of pro-choice? Women can choose if they want an abortion or not. You’re saying, isn’t it awful these women didn’t have a choice? Well, that applies to both sides. You agree, then, that women should have a choice. Period.

REBUTTAL:
Let’s clarify the language in this claim.

Euphemism: “The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant” ~ Merriam-Webster

Specious: “Having a false look of truth or genuineness” ~ Merriam-Webster

The term “choice” is a euphemism. It sounds better than terminating, killing, ending, aborting, or whatever other adjective we would typically use to describe what happens in an abortion to the child developing in the womb. It shifts attention away from that “unpleasant” event and focuses on popular notions of freedom and rights, oblivious to the plight of the object of abortion.

This linguistic “slight of hand” is called a “specious” argument. It looks genuine and appealing. After all, who is against the freedom to make choices? The problem is that it shifts attention away from what is happening in the womb and focuses only on the freedom to decide what can happen within the womb.

Let’s examine what is happening in the womb.

In 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of overturning state laws restricting abortion and making open abortion the law of the land, it argued that there was no solid evidence in religion and science about when life begins. Not so anymore.

The theological, biological, and cultural consensus has been reached that life exists within the womb in a pregnancy.

Theologically
The Bible defines human life as existing within the womb (Psalm 139:13-16; Job 10:11-12; Jeremiah 1:5; Isaiah 49:1,5; Luke 1:41-44). In other words, biblically speaking, in a pregnancy, human life grows in the womb.

Some have tried to shave a few days off humanity by arguing that pregnancy is what you have only when the developing embryo implants in the uterine lining of the womb. Biblically speaking, that reasoning does not hold up. Scripture testifies:

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)

In pregnancy, you already have human life from the point of fertilization (conception). It is such an objective reality that God’s word assigns culpability for sin at conception. Such culpability is a big deal to any reader of God’s word. Life begins at conception.

Biological
We have learned a lot about the biology of human life since 1973. We now know the following to be confirmed biological facts:

• At conception, the genetic structure of the new life is different from that of the mother.
• Through cell division, the new life forms a heart and blood vessels within the first 16 days; by three weeks, that heart is pumping.
• By the 9th week, all the major organs will be in place.
• Fetal brain activity can be observed around six weeks after conception.
• In about 50% of all pregnancies, the sex of the child in the womb will be different than that of the mother.
• About 35-40% of the children developing in the womb have a different blood type than the mother.
• Some fetal surgery has been done as early as 16 weeks into the pregnancy.

Biologically, from conception, a mother is carrying a new human life that is growing, maturing, and moving from the fallopian tube into the uterine cavity and then embedding in the uterine wall. At full term, that same developing child typically is delivered vaginally into the hands of the medical staff. That child will continue to mature and change until its life naturally ends, most commonly as an adult around 85 years old. Biologically, life is a continuum from conception until death. It is a separate human being from the mother whose womb carries the child.

Cultural
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its Roe v. Wade abortion decision, the mantra from abortion advocates was that religion, science, and philosophy differed on whether it is a human life. Some advocates were so fixated on this argument that they even claimed that if it could be proven to be a human life, then abortion should be outlawed. It was a disingenuous statement.

In October of 1995, feminist and abortion rights advocate, Naomi Wolf, wrote,

We need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death.”¹Naomi Wolf. “Rethinking Abortion Rhetoric: Our Bodies, Our Souls.: The New Republic, October 16, 1995.

She was not alone in this conviction. Thirteen years later, film critic and social commentator Camille Paglia had this to say:

I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.²Camille Paglia. “Fresh Blood for the Vampire.” The Salon. September 10, 2008.

Five years later, another social commentator, Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing for the same Internet magazine, had this to say:

I believe that life starts at conception. And it’s never stopped me from being pro-choice…Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.³Mary Elizabeth Williamson. “So What if Abortion Ends Life?” The Salon. January 23, 2013.

Some abortion advocates have called the unborn child “parasitic” for its dependence on its mother as a host body. So, when does that life cease to be parasitic? Born infants rely on others for food and diaper changes. Toddlers depend on their parents for care. While many teenagers think they are ready for independence, they rely on adults for schooling, housing, and transportation. We recognize that children need the mentoring and care of parents and guardians. Calling that relationship parasitic is trying to inflame an illogical argument. I think the word is “specious!”

The real questions ignored by the so-called “pro-choice” perspective are:

• Where do we draw the line?
• Who draws that line?
• Why draw the line there?

The “pro-choice” position sounds like an argument for women to control their bodies, but it actually is an argument for the right to terminate some lives that might be dependent on them. Biblically, there is no room for that right. Biologically, there must be logic for drawing the line permitting abortion where it is drawn. Right now, no such logical argument exists other than when pitted against the life of the mother and a decision must be made to preserve the life that can be preserved.

Finally, culturally, all of us who inhabit this land have a right to say whether or not we want people to decide on their own who lives and who dies. It is not a private choice – not when the choice being made involves killing a life.

One final thought.

The abortion rights movement has robbed women of their preeminent role and honor as the sustainers of humanity. They surrendered their preeminence in the quest for equality with their male counterparts. In doing so, they have been bluffed into accepting the demotion as a promotion, and we are all the worse for it.