This Page: Abortion Answers to Pro-abortion Rhetoric Notes / Further Reading

Mind Games Survival Course Manual

5. Answers to pro-abortion rhetoric

   1. Every woman has a right to control her own body.

      1. "Every woman"

         At least half of aborted fetuses are female; some females are aborted because they are female. They don't mean "every" woman, they mean powerful women.

      2. "Has a right"

         No one has absolute legal right over his/her own body: e.g., drunk driver/car; child with chicken pox/classroom; streaker/public; suicide, drugs.

      3. "To control"

         Control can and should be exerted before conception occurs. Abstinence is 100 percent effective.

      4. "Her own body"

         Pregnancy means there are two bodies, one within the other. To an extent, the unborn baby controls the mother's body. The fetus would be rejected as foreign tissue from the womb if it weren't for the placenta, which is a fetal organ that the baby's very existence places in the mother's body to protect itself!

   2. Every child a wanted child.

      1. Relegates child to the status of an object, having to compete in a consumer- oriented society as a costly luxury. Do we get a new house or have this baby?

      2. For years women have protested their treatment as objects in a chauvinistic world; now that women are gaining the recognition of value that was inherent all along, many are giving unborn babies with the same callous treatment.

   3. Termination of pregnancy

      1. Euphemisms allow us to deal with concepts in the abstract rather than face the realities. "Termination of pregnancy" is far more acceptable to our consciences than "to poison, mutilate, or shred pre-born babies."

      2. "Mass of tissue," "blob," "fetus," "embryo," "uterine contents," "birth matter," and "the products of conception" are all terms that contribute to the depersonalization of a process that we don't want to call "killing."

   4. Freedom to Choose

      1. "I wouldn't have an abortion myself, but I support the right of others to choose."

         Substitute other socially unacceptable behaviors: "I wouldn't rape anyone myself, but I support the right of others to choose;" "I wouldn't own a slave myself, but I support the right of others to choose;" "I wouldn't commit adultery myself, but I support the right of others to cheat on their spouses."

      2. The situation of abortion is similar to the situation of Adam and Eve, who had the freedom to choose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but not have the right to do so--it had been forbidden by God.

      3. If abortion is about "freedom to choose," what about:

         1. The right of fathers to choose to save their unborn children, a right now denied by Supreme Court decision?{5}

         2. The right of parents to choose not to fund the abortion procedure as now required by many states?

         3. The right of parents to choose to be involved in an abortion decision made by a minor daughter, a right now prohibited by the Supreme Court decision of July 1, 1976?

         4. The right of unborn children to live?

      4. What is legal is not always right.

   5. If abortion is illegal, women will die from back-alley abortions.

      1. Before abortion was legal, 90 percent of abortions were done by physicians in their offices.

      2. It is not true that tens of thousands of women were dying from illegal abortions before abortion was legalized.

      3. Women still die from legal abortions.

      4. If abortion became illegal, abortions would still be performed with medical equipment, not coat hangers.

Notes

1. Paedagogus 2:10, 96, 1

2. Ann Speckhard, "The Psycho-Social Aspects of Stress Following Abortion," doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Minnesota.

3. Nancy Michels, Helping Women Recover from Abortion (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany, 1988), 76.

4. C. Everett Koop, "The Slide to Auschwitz," in Ronald Reagan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1984), 45--46.

5. Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri vs. Danforth, 1 July 1976.

For Further Reading

Alcorn, Randy. Pro-life Answers to Pro-choice Arguments. Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1992.

Garton, Jean. Who Broke the Baby? Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany, 1988.

Michels, Nancy. Helping Women Recover from Abortion. Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany, 1988.

Schaeffer, Francis and C. Everett Koop. Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1983.

Young, Curt. The Least of These. Chicago: Moody Press, 1984.

Web Site

Last Harvest Ministries is an excellent outreach to those needing forgiveness, healing and restoration from abortion. It also has a good number of links to other abortion-related ministries and organizations. Look them up at:

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