The Abortion Debate Is Over... Or Is It?

In public discussions about abortion there seems to be a “dead end pattern” to the dialogue. The constant refrain from pro-choice advocates goes something like this: “Abortion is legal, deal with it.” or “If you don’t like abortion then don’t get one but you can’t deny others their rights.” There is a confident air of finality to pro-choice rebuttals as if they are arguing that the earth is round, or the sun is the center of our solar system. They truly believe the debate about abortion is over and that they have won. But the debate is not over. In fact, the debate about abortion has yet to begin.

Allow me to explain.

Think back to the last time you discussed abortion with someone who was pro-choice. Did the conversation center around the act of (and therefore morality of) destroying a child in the womb? Or did you find yourself arguing over secondary issues such as: women’s rights, healthcare, rape, and incest? My money is on the latter. Now ask yourself this: in hindsight, was your debate really about abortion or was it about a secondary issue?

Don’t get me wrong, all these secondary issues are important and many of them are heartbreakingly tragic. As a husband and father I understand the gravity of these painful realities. But they are, nonetheless, secondary. This is the point in the conversation where rabid pro-choicers will generally try to paint me as a heartless, misogynist who kicks puppies and leaves the toilet seat up. But let’s be honest, you could debate something as benign as aspirin vs. Tylenol and they would probably still accuse you of being a racist bigot. Also, in the spirit of full disclosure I do have a bad habit of leaving the toilet seat up.

Hate me if you must but I will go even one step further. I assert the claim that it is important to keep rape, incest and women’s health secondary when discussing abortion - because they are significant in their own right. It is because rape is a horrific tragedy that it deserves its own discussion rather than being a footnote in a debate about abortion. The same goes for incest, women’s health and all of the above. We’re not making these issues secondary; we are making them the primary concern of a separate discussion.

Once you get past secondary issues you can finally cut to the core of the abortion debate. In doing so you find that there is only one question that matters: does the act of destroying a child in the womb end a human life? The answer is a simple yes or no but the ramifications of that answer are world-shattering. If the answer is yes (and I believe it is), then are there really any secondary issues that can rationalize infanticide? As tragic and emotional as they may be, do they justify the murder of a child? I assume that the average person would answer no to that question and rightly so.

Maybe you are someone who would answer no to the original question, asserting that abortion is not murder. If so, that’s a great place to begin a meaningful conversation with someone on the other side of the aisle. Debating that question and that question alone, is the only conversation that constitutes a true debate about abortion.

It sounds simple, but it is not. Keeping a pro-choicer on the topic of abortion is like wrestling a greased pig.  The pro-choice mind has been trained to immediately segue the conversation into any one of a whole subset of secondary issues. It is how we as a country managed to legalize the greatest evil our world has ever known. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we have used bad arguments to pigeonhole the abortion debate. For most people it is a tactic that is learned at a very young age.

As a teacher I encounter this strategy all the time in dealing with children. When a child is caught red-handed doing something they know is wrong they will never attempt to justify the wrong that they did. In the same way, pro-choicers won’t try to argue that abortion is a good thing because they know inherently that it is evil. What they do instead is point to a secondary issue that is also evil and use it in an attempt to rationalize the evil of abortion. Likewise, a child who is in trouble won’t attempt to claim that what they did was a good thing; instead they will try to vindicate their wrong by drawing attention to a separate incident that is also wrong. You can imagine how these excuses go: “But he pushed me first… But she called me a name… But he was cheating…” and so on. I guess what I am saying is that we all start out with a pro-choice mindset; the only difference is that some of us grow up.

I have learned to treat pro-choice people the same way I treat children at school. If something is wrong, it can’t be justified by another wrong. A secondary issue, tragic as it may be, does not justify the evil of abortion. The debate about abortion is summarized with one question: Is abortion murder? That is the only question that truly matters in this discussion. 

So let the real debate (finally) begin.