For the moment—and perhaps only for the moment—health care reform legislation in at least one chamber of Congress does not allow funding for elective abortion. Thanks to pressure from a small number of pro-life Democrats and all House Republicans, the Stupak Amendment was attached to HR 3962 before initial passage on November 7. The Amendment states that the government-administered health plan (i.e., “the public option”) will not cover abortion unless it’s needed to save a woman’s life or she is a victim of rape or incest.

But that could change any day now. The Senate version of the bill does not contain the Stupak provision and if a majority of House Democrats get their way, the final House version won’t either. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DFla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, is “confident” that when the bill comes back from conference committee, the Stupak language won’t be there.¹ Meanwhile,

despite his protestations to the contrary, there’s no denying that President Obama campaigned on a promise to put “reproductive health care” that includes abortion coverage at the center of his reform plan.² In short, defenders of human life have good reason to be concerned.

Nevertheless, some critics of the pro-life view contend that those of us opposed to abortion should set aside our scruples in favor of the overall good that state-run healthcare brings. (That it will bring “good” is debatable, but I digress.) For example, Richard, an agnostic blogger and friend from my high school days, posted the following on my Facebook page during our discussion of the bill:

If you don’t like aspects of the plan, offer some comprehensive alternatives. All you are doing is promoting the status quo. If your plan is to reject the whole plan because it has something you don’t like, then no plan will ever get implemented. We will continue until the current plan collapses. There are far more indirect ways to kill people within the current situation than abortion. The unborn may be your priority, but the practical results of a stalemate will be a choice for others to die. And even if the state doesn’t pay for abortion, abortion will continue. I don’t think abortion is a good idea, but I also don’t believe legislation against it is the best way to prevent it. I think your energies would be far more effective elsewhere. To me the anti-abortion issue and the gay rights issue is [sic] simply two ways to raise outrage among Christians to raise money.

There’s no denying that biblical Christianity places a strong emphasis on caring for the poor, working for justice, and helping the oppressed. Anyone who thinks differently may want to consider how important these actions are to God. (See, e.g., Jer. 5:26-28; 9:24; Isa. 1:16-17,21,23; 58:6-7; 61:8; Ps. 94:1-23; Provo 24:1-12; Matt. 25:41-46.) However, is a legitimate concern for justice enough for pro-life Christians to set aside their scruples and throw their support behind health care legislation that funds abortion?

Perhaps, if … if what?

If the unborn are not human. Yet it’s precisely this question —Are the unborn human?—that Richard and those like him either ignore or dismiss when pitching a national health care plan that allows abortion. For this reason, their appeal to pro-lifers suffers from a number of glaring flaws.

First, notice that Richard confuses moral claims with preference ones. He writes: “If your plan is to reject the whole plan because it has something you don’t like, then no plan will ever get implemented.” The problem is, pro-life advocates like me oppose this plan not because we dislike abortion (indeed, one could like abortion and still argue it’s immoral), but because we think abortion is morally wrong. Now, if he wants to argue that we’re mistaken about that, so be it. Let him make that case. But notice he does no such thing. He simply changes the kind of claim the pro-lifer makes— “abortion is wrong” to one he likes better (paraphrase): “Hey, pro-lifer, abortion is something you just don’t like.” In short, Richard hasn’t refuted the pro-life view; he’s merely changed the terms of engagement, as if we were talking about our favorite baseball teams instead of who lives and who dies.

Second, Richard’s objection to pro-life concerns over health care legislation is question-begging. More than once, he simply assumes the unborn are not human. For example, suppose the bill in question was near perfect, but funded the destruction of two-year-olds to provide comprehensive health care for the rest of us. Can you imagine, even for a moment, Richard saying, “Well, let’s not reject the whole just because of something we don’t like.” The only reason he argues this way about a health plan that funds the destruction of the unborn is because he’s assuming, without argument, that they are not human like the rest of us. That’s precisely the point he must argue, however, for his case to succeed logically.

Third, there’s this unsupported claim: “The unborn may be your priority, but the practical results of a stalemate will be a choice for others to die.” Really? How so? Richard makes no attempt to defend what he says here. I guess we’re to take it on faith. Notice again the question-begging nature of his claim: he assumes the unborn are not human, though he has yet to offer any argument for that. For example, suppose he rejects health care legislation that cuts costs by starving disabled toddlers to death, with parental consent, of course. Suppose further I reply, “Well, toddlers may be your priority, but the practical results of a stalemate will be a choice for others to die.” I doubt that would satisfy him. He would insist that toddlers were humans with rights we can’t trample on to benefit others. I agree. So why doesn’t he argue that same way about the unborn? It’s easy: he assumes they are not human like toddlers. But again, he offers no real argument for that.

Fourth, we get this odd claim: “And even if the state doesn’t pay for abortion, abortion will continue.” Of course it will, just like alcoholism continues even though the state doesn’t provide free beer. The more precise question is: will abortion rates remain unchanged when the state pays instead of the individual? It’s logical to assume that when something desirable is free, more people will get it. Yet Richard advances no argument showing why we should doubt this.

Fifth, Richard says he “doesn’t think abortion is a good idea,” but legislation is not the best way to prevent it. He contends that pro-lifers would be far more effective spending their energies “elsewhere.” Oh? Where might that be? We’re not told. But there are bigger problems with his argument. For starters, he never says why he thinks abortion is not a good idea. That is, if abortion doesn’t take the life of a defenseless human, why be opposed at all? But if it does take the life of a human without justification, why is legislating against it a bad idea? Again, we’re given no answer. Moreover, pro-lifers are not out to merely “prevent” elective abortion. We want to make it unthinkable the way that killing toddlers is unthinkable to anyone with a functioning conscience. In other words, merely reducing abortion isn’t necessarily pro-life.³ A society that has fewer abortions, but protects the legal killing of unborn humans would still be deeply immoral. Imagine a nineteenth-century lawmaker who said that slavery was a bad idea, but owning slaves should remain legal. If those in power adopted his thinking, would this be a good society? A 1982 editorial in The Detroit News sums the problem up nicely: “President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln in the White House, opposed slavery more than 100 years ago for what we today might consider morally oblique reasons. It wasn’t that he minded the wrong done to blacks. He was concerned that slavery bred unwholesome class distinctions among whites by creating privileges for the rich. Mr. Johnson once ‘wish[ed] to God [that] every head of a family in the United States had one slave to take the drudgery and menial service off his family.”‘⁴

Again, it seems Richard can only argue that abortion is not a good idea, but that legislating against it is mistaken, because he assumes the unborn are not human, like slaves are. But that’s the question that must be resolved before trumpeting the virtues of this particular health care bill.

Richard concludes by telling us what really bugs him. “To me the anti-abortion issue and the gay rights issue is [sic] simply two ways to raise outrage among Christians to raise money.” Forget for the moment that he offers no evidence for his claim. I can reply to his charge with one word: So? Maybe we do and maybe we don’t use these issues to raise money. Either way, how does this refute pro-life claims that the unborn are human, and it’s wrong to kill them with state cash?⁵ What we have here is a classic case of the genetic fallacy—that is, faulting an idea for its origins rather than its substance. Instead of telling us why pro-lifers are wrong about the humanity of the unborn, Richard jumps right to our alleged motivation for opposing abortion. As Greg Koukl points out, this just won’t work. “Psychological motivations give you information about the one who believes, but they tell you nothing about the truth of his beliefs.”⁶

Pro-lifers should care about justice. Our Lord demands that we do. As a result, I’m willing to consider the virtues of any health care plan. But there’s one question Richard and those like him must answer before I’ll sign up.

—Scott Klusendorf

Scott Klusendorf is president of Life Training Institute and author of The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Crossway, 2009).

notes

1 Michael O’Brien, “Senior Democrat Is ‘Confident’ That Stupak Amendment Will Be Stripped,” The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room, November 9, 2009. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- room/news/66969-senior-dem-confident- stupakamendment-will-be-stripped

2 Planned Parenthood says president Obama promised to “put reproductive health care at the center” of health reform, http://www.politifact.com/truth-ometerlsratemems/2009/nov/10/planned-parenrhood/planned-parenthood-says-obama-promised-put-reprodu/.

3 See Frank Beckwith, “Why ‘Reducing the Number of Abortions’ nor Necessarily ProLife,” Moral Accountability, February 12,2009.

http://www.moralaccountability.com/abortion-reduction-debate/why-reducing-the-numberof-abortions-not-necessarily-prolife.

4 “Tax Funding for Slavery? Then Why for Abortion?” Detroit News, February 9, 1982. Reprinted at: http://www.141.org/library/tax-slav. html.

5 For more on defending pro-life views, see Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping

Christians to Engage the Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009).

6 Gregory Koukl, ” Is God Just an Idea?”, http://www.str.orglsite/News2 ?page=NewsArticle&id=6067.

Exodus 21:22–25 is a favorite of abortion advocates, though it does little to bolster their case. The passage reads in the nasb as follows: “And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage [“gives birth prematurely” in nasb 1995 update], yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” Abortion advocates argue that this Scripture proves the unborn are not fully human because the penalty for accidentally killing a fetus is less than the penalty for killing its mother.

This argument, however, is flawed on several counts. First, assuming for the sake of argument that the pro-abortion interpretation of this passage is correct (i.e., that the unborn’s death is treated differently from the mother’s), it still does not follow that the unborn are not fully human. The preceding verses (21:20–21) present a situation where a master unintentionally kills his slave and escapes with no penalty at all (the lack of intent being proven by the interval between the blow and the death), and yet it hardly follows that Scripture considers the slave less than human.

Second, this passage does not even remotely suggest that a woman can willfully kill her unborn child through elective abortion. Nothing in the context supports this claim. At best, the text assigns a lesser penalty for accidentally killing a fetus than for accidentally killing its mother. It simply does not follow from this that a woman may deliberately kill her child through abortion.

Third, the pro-abortion interpretation of this passage (that a lesser penalty applies for accidental fetal death) is highly questionable. When read in the original Hebrew, the passage seems to convey that both the mother and the child are covered by the lex talionis — the law of retribution. According to Hebrew scholar Gleason Archer, “There is no second class status attached to the fetus under this [lex talionis] rule. The fetus is just as valuable as the mother.”²⁷

Taken together, the cultural, exegetical, philosophical, and scientific considerations we’ve examined prove that the Bible need not explicitly say elective abortion is wrong before we can know it is wrong. Although the Bible does not say “Thou shalt not abort,” it does prohibit the unjust taking of human life, which applies to the unborn as it does to other humans.

Do humans come to be at one point, but come to be valuable only later by virtue of some acquired property (i.e., characteristic)? In his article, “Personhood, the Bible, and the Abortion Debate,” Paul D. Simmons concedes that zygotes (early embryos) are biologically human, but he denies they are “complex” or “developed enough” to qualify as “persons” in a biblical sense. “No one can deny the continuum from fertilization to maturity and adulthood,” writes Simmons. “That does not mean, however, that every step on the continuum has the same value or constitutes the same entity.”¹⁷

Simmons’s larger purpose is to defend abortion rights by telling us who does and does not bear God’s image. He argues that humans bear that image (and hence, have value as “persons”) not by virtue of the kind of thing they are (members of a natural kind or species), but only because of an acquired property, in this case, the immediate capacity for self-awareness. A “person,” he contends, “has capacities of reflective choice, relational responses, social experience, moral perception, and self-awareness.”¹⁸ Zygotes, as mere clusters of human cells, do not have this capacity and therefore do not bear God’s image.

Three counterexamples underscore the arbitrary nature of Simmons’s claim. First, newborns cannot make conscious, reflective choices until several months after birth.¹⁹ What principled reason, therefore, can Simmons give for saying infanticide is wrong? Peter Singer points out in Practical Ethics that if self-awareness makes one valuable as a person, and newborns like fetuses lack that property, it follows that both fetus and newborn are disqualified. One cannot arbitrary draw a line at birth to spare the newborn.²⁰

Abraham Lincoln raised a similar point with slavery, noting that any argument used to disqualify blacks as valuable human beings works equally well to disqualify whites:

You say “A” is white and “B” is black. It is color, then: the lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are a slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly — you mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again: By this rule you are to be a slave to the first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own.

But you say it is a question of interest, and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.²¹

In short, Simmons cannot account for basic human equality. As George and Lee point out, if humans are valuable only because of some acquired property such as skin color or self-awareness and not in virtue of the kind of thing they are, then it follows that since these acquired properties come in varying degrees, basic human rights also come in varying degrees. Do we really want to say that those with more self-awareness are more human (and more valuable) than those with less? This relegates the proposition “all men and women are created equal” to the ash heap of history.²² Theologically, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development (acquired properties), they are nonetheless equally valuable because they have in common a nature made in God’s image. Humans are equally valuable by virtue of being equally human.

Second, if the immediate capacity for consciousness makes one valuable, many nonhuman animals qualify as persons. This is Peter Singer’s point. Singer contends that a variety of nonhuman animals are rational, self-conscious beings that qualify as persons in the relevant sense of the term; consequently, dogs, cats, and pigs are valuable persons, while fetuses, newborns, and victims of Alzheimer’s disease are not. Singer concludes that to favor the preconscious infant over a self-conscious dog simply because the infant is biologically human makes one guilty of “speciesism,” a crime akin to racism.²³ It’s hard to see how Simmons can escape this same conclusion given his belief that God’s image in humans is grounded in the property of self-awareness per se rather than in human nature, which allows for self-consciousness among other capacities, given the right conditions.

Third, human embryos have a basic (root) capacity for self-consciousness, lacking only the immediate, or current, capacity for it. As George points out, human embryos possess this basic capacity by virtue of the kind of thing they are — members of a natural kind, a biological species — whose members (if not prevented by some extrinsic cause) in due course develop the immediate capacity for such mental acts.²⁴ We can, therefore, distinguish between two types of capacities for mental functions: (1) basic, or natural, and (2) immediate, or current. On what basis can Simmons require for the recognition of full moral respect the second sort of capacity, which is an accidental (i.e., nonessential) attribute, and not the first, which is grounded in the kind of thing one is?²⁵ I cannot think of any basis that is not arbitrary. One grows in the ability to perform mental acts only because one already is the kind of thing that grows into the ability to perform mental acts, that is, a human being. My thoughts and my feelings, indeed all of my functional mental abilities, cannot exist unless I first exist. I can exist without them, as, for example, when I am sleeping, but they cannot exist without me.²⁶

In the end, Simmons’s case for human value is ad hoc and arbitrary. It cannot answer why self-awareness is the biblically relevant factor rather than another, nor why a certain level of development is necessary.

The morality of abortion comes down to just one question: Is the unborn a member of the human family? If so, elective abortion is a serious moral wrong that violates biblical commands against the unjust taking of human life (Exod. 23:7; Ps. 106:37–38; Prov. 6:16–17; Matt. 5:21). It treats the unborn human being, made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26; 9:6; James 3:9), as nothing more than disposable tissue. Conversely, if the unborn are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled.

Scripture (we will grant) is silent on the humanity of the unborn (as it is on the humanity of whites, blacks, Asians, etc.); however, it is clear that we are not to take human life without justification. It follows that if a positive case can be made for the humanity of the unborn apart from Scripture (as, e.g., we know the French are humans apart from Scripture), we can logically conclude that biblical commands against the unjust taking of human life apply to the unborn as they do other human beings. At this point, science assists theology; that is to say, science gives us the facts we need to arrive at a theologically sound conclusion.

What the facts of science make clear is that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. True, they have yet to grow and mature, but they are whole human beings nonetheless. Leading embryology textbooks affirm this conclusion.¹²

An Embryo Is More than Human Cells

Abortion advocate Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, whose work is prominently featured in the literature of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, insists, however, that we gain no theological knowledge from these facts. “The fetus is biologically human only in the sense that any part of a human body is human: every cell carries the full genetic code. A severed hand is genetically human as well but we don’t call it a person.”¹³ In other words, Mollenkott would have us believe there is no difference in kind between a human embryo and each of our cells.

This is bad biology. Mollenkott is making the rather elementary mistake of confusing parts with wholes. The difference in kind between each of our cells and a human embryo is clear: an individual cell’s functions are subordinated to the survival of the larger organism of which it is merely a part. The human embryo, however, is already a whole human entity. Robert George and Patrick Lee argue that it makes no sense to say you were once a sperm or somatic cell when science clearly states that you were once a human embryo: “Somatic cells are not, and embryonic human beings are, distinct, self-integrating organisms capable of directing their own maturation as members of the human species.”¹⁴

Maureen Condic, assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah, points out that embryos are living human beings “precisely because they possess the single defining feature of human life that is lost in the moment of death — the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells.” Condic explains the important distinction between individual body parts and whole human embryos overlooked by Mollenkott: “The critical difference between a collection of cells and a living organism is the ability of an organism to act in a coordinated manner for the continued health and maintenance of the body as a whole. It is precisely this ability that breaks down at the moment of death, however death might occur. Dead bodies may have plenty of live cells, but their cells no longer function together in a coordinated manner.”¹⁵

From conception forward, human embryos clearly function as organisms. “Embryos are not merely collections of human cells, but living creatures with all the properties that define any organism as distinct from a group of cells; embryos are capable of growing, maturing, maintaining a physiologic balance between various organ systems, adapting to changing circumstances, and repairing injury. Mere groups of human cells [e.g., a severed hand] do nothing like this under any circumstances.”¹⁶