^The time it takes to read this article.
This article above outlines 39 major Pro-Choice arguments, many of which are redundant or straw man even the weakest Pro-Choice arguments. I am not going to make a paragraph response to all 39 of the “debunks”, this article will only go through the first 8, which consist of 52 line-by-line claims.
Because the arguments presented were so bad, I will be working on an article where I, as a pro-choicer, attempt to make a decent pro-life argument and respond to hypothetical debunks from pro-choicers. (Comment below if you have suggestions) I probably won’t content farm this website again since it feels bad…
*I’m also not accountable for any spelling errors made in the numbered points; those are from the original article that attempted to debunk pro-choice arguments.
Part One: Arguments Concerning Life, Humanity, and Personhood
If there is uncertainty about when human life begins, the benefit of the doubt should go to preserving life.
This is an appeal to ignorance that also presupposes the axiom that all living organisms should be granted ontological moral value. From a site titled “Christian Life Resources”, they do a great job in assuming the viewer is a devout believer in Jesus so they don’t have to substantiate any of their premises.
Medical textbooks and scientific reference work consistently agree that human life begins at conception.
Nice, an appeal to authority. Nobody disputes that human life begins at conception. The only thing disputed here is whether or not all human life has equal moral value, something which still has to be proven. It’s circular reasoning. You also can’t start off by making an appeal to ignorance surrounding the nature of human life and then make an argument clearing up that same ignorance. You can’t have your carrot cake and eat it too.
Some of the world’s most prominent scientists and physicians testified to a U.S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception.
#2: New look, same great appeal to authority and consequent-affirming logic.
Many other prominent scientists and physicians have likewise affirmed with certainty that human life begins at conception.
#3: New look, same great paraphrased edition of #2.
The possibility of human cloning does nothing to discredit the fact that all humans conceived in a conventional manner began their lives at conception
Yeah, of course it doesn’t! It’s just that the imaginary clones start their lives out in a state of personhood, while the fetus doesn’t. A whole lot of goalpost-moving for a whole lot of missing.
A body part is defined by the common genetic code it shares with the rest of its body; the unborn’s genetic code differs from his mother’s.
Wait, combining two different genetic codes creates a new, discernible organism? Who could’ve known! (anyways back to the topic of abortion)
The child may die and the mother lives, or the mother may die and the child lives, proving they are two separate individuals.
A white blood cell may die, but you still live. Semantically failing to define what an individual is while making false equivalencies between what “humans”, “individuals”, and “persons” are proves nothing except that you need to pay your employees more. Even then, that’s irrelevant because the child living while the mother dies happens in cases where the child is mature enough to have already qualified for personhood. 93% of abortions occur in the first trimester of pregnancy, way before this is possible. (Plus the 9-month abortion double-bind)
The unborn child takes an active role in his own development, controlling the course of the pregnancy and the time of birth.
So they buffed fetuses in the new life update patch notes? Wow, I guess fetuses get to invest premium in-game currency to unlock their own skill paths and attributes now. (minus the fact that they’re completely unconscious until 32 weeks in)
Being inside something is not the same as being part of something.
Really funny semantics. Depending on what metric or interaction you are defining that system as, that relationship can change. No logical extrapolation can be really made from the majority of these filler arguments.
Human beings should not be discriminated against because of their place of residence.
If I kill a red blood cell (which is part of the human species), am I discriminating against the species based on their place of residence? Every single cell in your body is a member of the human species, so taking medication that can kill some of them must be a genocide directed towards a certain sub-group of the human species.
There is a substantial scientific reason to believe frozen embryos are persons, and should be granted the same rights as older, larger, and less vulnerable persons.
Ok, I wonder what that substantial scientific reason is?
Christian Life Resources: Nah, just trust me bro.
Like toddler and adolescent, the terms embryo and fetus do not refer to nonhumans, but to humans at particular stages of development.
Unlike toddlers and adolescents, the terms embryo and fetus refer to nonpersons, not persons at a particular stage of development. Affirming the consequent, yet again.
Semantics affect perceptions, but they do not change realities; a baby is a baby no matter what we call her.
Really nice how semantics is being brought up when the entire article makes arguments stemming from terribly illogical abuses of even the most basic of semantics. This is just #12 with a new look, but the same great circular reasoning.
From the moment of conception, the unborn is not simple but very complex.
“Wow, it’s very complex. Therefore, you must trust me and everything I say about it.” Appeal to ignorance and futility.
Prior to the first trimester, the unborn already has every body part she will ever have.
Prior to infancy, babies will already have had every single stem cell “she” will ever have. Also, what’s the matter with assuming babies to be girls?
Every abortion stops a beating heart and terminates measurable brain waves.
Nice, not being able to understand overlaps and disjunctions within defined groups really makes for great arguments against abortion. Just because all people have those criteria and all people have moral value doesn’t mean that anything that satisfies those criteria is automatically a person with moral value.
Even in the earliest surgical abortions, the unborn child is clearly human in appearance.
Cool, it looks like a human! (subjective and vague, but not to the people paid to write listicles defending pro-life arguments at Christian Life Resources)
Even before the unborn is obviously human in appearance, she is what she is – a human being.
Are we going to get GTA 6 before we get an actual argument in which the conclusion logically follows from the premises and extrapolations? Any functioning arguments? Seems like more false equivocations and semantics abuse.
No matter how much better it sounds, “terminating a pregnancy” is still terminating a life.
No matter how much better it sounds, terminating a mushroom is still terminating a life. The foundational postulate for all of these arguments goes, “all viewers of Christian Life Resources are ignorant and feel the need to validate themselves and/or own liberal family members at dinner table debates”.
The ovum and sperm are each a product of another’s body; unlike the fertilized egg, neither is an independent entity.
How would you even define independence? Trying to define ova and sperm as dependent and a fertilized egg as independent because the first two are mutually dependent to create the fertilized egg is a circular definition. Stop with the semantics.
The physical remains after an abortion indicate the end not of a potential life but of actual life.
Potential life is literally just a bunch of amino acids or compounds that have the potential to form self-replicating systems. (No pro-choicer will ever be stupid enough to argue that single-celled organisms are not alive) Thank you for educating us on how a fetus is alive. Now tell us why it has intrinsic moral value that makes abortion ontologically bad.
Something nonhuman does not become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human must be human from the beginning.
Nobody ever rejected the idea of a fetus not being a member of the human species. Actually, this irrelevant point can even be debunked since there’s a brightline between nonliving and living systems, but I digress.
Comparing preborn and adults to acorns and oaks is dehumanizing and misleading.
I wonder what an analogy is! Comparing [preborns:adults::acorns:oaks] is an analogy showing similar distinctions in developmental processes. Nobody is saying that a fetus is as valuable as an acorn, nobody except the straw man being put up.
Even if the analogy were valid, scientifically speaking an acorn is simply a little oak tree, just as an embryo is a little person.
No proof as to why an acorn is simply a smaller oak tree. Then this is an analogical abuse since you’re applying the analogy to aspects such as moral worth obtained from personhood that the analogy doesn’t cover.
Personhood is properly defined by membership in the human species, not by stage of development within that species.
Finally, the past 25 points have been a rephrasing of this one, though this one also fails to prove why personhood is defined by membership in the human species.
Personhood is not a matter of size, skill, or degree of intelligence.
Actually, it is! Moral interactivity is contingent on consciousness, which is intertwined with the intelligent ability to be a moral agent that a fetus doesn’t have. Anything to add more points to the article.
The unborn’s status should be determined on an objective basis, not on subjective or self-serving definitions of personhood.
Here’s an objective definition: fetuses are not people until 26-32 weeks in.
It is a scientific fact that there are thought processes at work in unborn babies.
Yeah sure they do, 24 to 28 weeks in. Just allow abortions anytime before that. Problem solved.
If the unborn’s value can be compared to that of an animal, there is no reason not to also compare the value of born people to animals.
Why do the straw men keep appearing? Even then, we’re discussing moral value here, and the unborn’s moral value specifically is comparable to that of single-celled organisms until shortly before birth, where a double-bind happens.
Even if someone believes people are no better than animals, why would they abhor the killing of young animals, while advocating the killing of young children?
People are animals. Nobody is telling people to get pregnant so they can kill the fetus for fun. A fetus is not a young child. They’re literally just hiring anyone at this point.
It is dangerous when people in power are free to determine whether other, less powerful lives are meaningful.
It is dangerous when people forming thoughts from faith-based beliefs are free to have their ideas and thoughts elevated onto the same playing field as those using real philosophy, science, and logic to shape their thoughts.
Arguments against the personhood of the unborn are shrouded in rationalization and denial.
What rationalization and what denial?
Christian Life Resources: You just gotta believe me.
Implantation is a gauge of personhood only if location, nutrition, and interfacing with others make us human.
Yeah, it’s not because being a member of the human species means having human DNA. Personhood is not dependent on that either, but note the false equivalency between the two that keeps coming up.
Quickening is a gauge of personhood only if someone’s reality or value is dependent upon being noticed by another.
I can copy and paste the same response from #33, and it would work fine. Do lazy articles require lazier responses?
Viability is an arbitrary concept. Why not associate personhood with a heartbeat, brain waves, or something else?
Why? Because personhood is a concept that is dependent on political, social, and moral interactions.
The point of viability changes because it depends on technology, not the unborn herself. Eventually, babies may be viable from the point of conception.
Self-sustainment is a stupid concept. Self-sustainment can be achieved by single-cellular organisms or any replicating life form, and in this context, it is literally just the ability of the fetus to survive outside of the womb.
In a broad sense, many born people are not viable because they are incapable of surviving without depending on others.
Viability doesn’t determine personhood. That is yet to be proven.
A child’s “breathing,” her intake of oxygen, begins long before birth.
Child breaths = is a person. I guess dogs are people now since they breathe, too.
Someone’s helplessness or dependency should motivate us to protect her, not to destroy her.
Circling back to the appeal to ignorance in #1. Abortion weighs the moral value of a fetus against the moral will of a woman, that is the actual area of debate.
Our recognition of birthdays is cultural, not scientific.
You can’t say that recognition of personhood is cultural, not scientific, after equating life with personhood and saying that life is scientifically defined. So I guess abortion can be legal in some cultures!
Some people do have funerals after a miscarriage.
Some people who are religiously motivated and believe crappy pro-life arguments, I would suppose.
Funerals are an expression of our subjective attachment to those who have died, not a measurement of their true worth.
Worth is subjective unless you prove that all living human beings have the same ontological worth that is inherent and universal. Thank you for contradicting the terrible point made in #41 with another terrible point.
There is nothing about birth that makes a baby essentially different than he was before birth.
There is something that happens 26-32 weeks into pregnancy that makes the baby completely different from who he was before 26-32 weeks in—it’s called consciousness. Also, what’s the matter with assuming babies to be boys now?
Children know that human life begins before birth.
Children know that single-celled organisms are alive. Enlightening.
Pregnant women know that human life begins before birth.
Another class of people understands that single-celled organisms are alive. Enlightening.
Doctors know that human life begins before birth.
Smarter people understand that single-celled organisms are alive.
Abortionists know that human life begins before birth.
This is infuriating. Such a stupid and lazy listicle.
Feminists know that human life begins before birth.
How low can you go?
Society knows that human life begins before birth.
A single-celled organism could’ve written a better article than this.
The media know that human life begins before birth.
*knows, not know. Can’t believe someone with a j*b took the time out of their day to write this and even made a 2nd grade-level spelling error.
Pro-choice advocates know that human life begins before birth.
This article does not deserve to even be on the internet.
If we can’t know that human life begins before birth, how can we know whether it begins at birth or later?
If human life doesn’t begin before birth, it can either begin at birth or after birth. A sperm is a human cell along with an egg, so of course, human life exists before birth. Nice but useless dichotomy, the Homo sapiens species emerged 300,000 years ago, and anatomically identical human beings emerged 70,000 years ago, so that’s the answer to that question
If you have any ideas on some actually good pro-life arguments or if you see that I’ve missed something, please leave a comment below! I respond to every single comment.
Tuff
Very interesting article and approach to tackling some commonly heard arguments. The pro-life arguments are rooted in science with a slight overlap in social topics. But I think a big one I'd be curious to see you unpack are the ethics and the morals for that side. I grew up in a religious community where people just felt it was morally wrong.