California Christian Apologetics Conference (VII)

For my third and final elective I opted for "The Case for Pro-Life" with Sean McDowell. Sean is quite skilled at doing presentations in a straightforward, understandable, and logically sound manner. And this one was no different. For those who don't know me, abortion is my pet social issue. There are a lot of things that are noble to fight for, like to end poverty in America or something, but those just seem to be less serious to me. To be sure, homeless people don't exactly have it going for them, but it's WAY better in America than elsewhere. For example, I have heard that 30,000-40,000 people die every day of starvation. That is huge! And dying of starvation is not something that sneaks up on you. Hunger slowly overtakes you and you suffer for a long time. Now you might say, "Well, Evan, then why isn't your pet issue helping those overseas who are starving?" And I'll answer by saying that although it is huge deal that we should be concerned about, it doesn't have quite the same sting to me as millions being heartlessly slaughtered by their parents… LEGALLY. Somehow this just gets to me. It could also be that it is happening in America, so it seems more real and urgent. Anyways, I attended this session mostly to refresh my memory on some of the reasons for believing the unborn is a human person.

Also, I should add that I am so thankful God has saved me. If I were not a Christian, what hope could I give the abortionist? For the woman who has killed her baby, what reconciliation could there be? For the man who has encouraged his girlfriend to go through with murder for the sake of making his own life easier, what comfort could there be? It would be a hopeless case I think, because I would be trying to get them to admit they were a murderer without having a solution to the issue of their guilt and sin. Who is ever going to do that? Who would go so far as to admit that they had taken an innocent human's life for their own comfort when they could hide behind the pro-choice movement? None. No one in their carnal state that is. But those holy who God has set aside will see their sin and be converted. That is what I hope for!

Sean had 3 main cases for the pro-life position that he outlined (I love outlines) for us.

The first was the Biblical background of abortion. This case is important because 1) It's the word of God for crying out loud! And 2) because people are going to use the Bible to further their agenda however they can. We need to make sure that they don't legalize baby-killing with Bible twisting. It is good to be able to explain why the Bible is implicitly against abortion even though it is not explicitly against it. First of all, abortion was unimaginable to Israelite women. I mean, it wasn't even a consideration! Children were considered a blessing from God (Ps 127:3). They knew that God is the sovereign ruler over conception in the womb (Gen 29:33). And furthermore, it was viewed as a curse to remain childless. There was no incentive to kill that which was being "intricately woven in the depths of the earth" (Psalm 139:15).

Also, Scripture makes no distinction between the potential life of the fetus and the actual life of the newborn. In the NT the word "brephos" is often use to describe the unborn, the newborn, and younger children. In the OT, "geber" was used to refer to a person at conception but also to a grown man. They all have the same basic nature: human persons! Therefore, we can see that God views all stages of human development equally in the sense that they all bear His image! Furthermore, the Bible repeatedly refers to conception as the beginning of life (Gen 4:1, Job 3:3, Psalm 51:5), and (this was quite fantastic to ponder) God relates in a personal way to the unborn! For example, Job 31:15 says "Did not he who made me in the womb make him, and the same one fashioned us in the womb?" And Ps 139:13-14 says, "For you formed me in my inward parts, you wove me in my mother's womb."

Secondly, Sean shared the scientific case for pro-life. The question here is, how do you know the unborn is human in scientific terms? Well, first of all, the unborn is clearly alive! There is no period of non-life from mating to birth! The sperm is alive, the egg is alive, and then they join and that conceived child (what they called a fetus) is alive! The unborn is growing biologically; it has metabolism; it has reaction to stimuli. Also, abortion clearly kills something. No one denies this. Of course, this blunt language won't be used. In order to soften the issue, "terminate" is the word of choice. This all seems to make a clear case that the unborn is living. However, even if we're not sure, who gets the benefit of the doubt? Should we risk killing an innocent human being in order to make someone's life more comfortable?

Now that Sean showed clearly that the unborn is alive, the next step is to show that it is separate from the mother. You always hear it, right? "Women should have the right to do whatever they want with their own bodies. Well, if we can show that it actually isn't their body, then such an objection can get tossed out the window. This right is limited when it affects another body! It's illegal to kill someone, even if you're using your own body! Is this making sense? The case for this is pretty straightforward too. All we have to do really is just look at a bunch of ways the woman and her child are different: Gender (A woman can have a boy right?), Blood type, Race (Yes, white women CAN give birth to black babies – or vice versa), and DNA. Incidentally, this last one proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the unborn is human. It's not a dog, or kangaroo. It's human!

Now, how is anyone going to squirm out of this? Sometimes, you could get a confession that the unborn is indeed human, but it's not a person! That's where the philosophical case for pro-life comes in.

The philosophical case for pro-life addresses when exactly the unborn gains personhood and value. Before taking us into the positive case for the personhood of the unborn at conception, Sean presented us with common arguments for personhood coming at different time. The first is viability - the point at which a fetus can naturally survive outside the womb. This might make sense, but viability is changing. It gets earlier and earlier all the time as our technology increases. Therefore this has more to do with medical ability than the essence of a thing. The second proposal is brain waves - a dead person has no brain waves, so since the baby doesn't have them, we don't need to honor their life. But this misses what we've already determined – that the baby is indeed alive! It certainly isn't dead, otherwise you wouldn't be killing anything. A third option is sentience - the moment at which a fetus can feel sensations, specifically pain. But do lepers who cease to feel pain cease to be persons? How about those who are born who NEVER feel pain? Are they not persons? Of course not. This confuses the experience of harm with the reality of harm. The last one, and I think the weakest and least popular, is quickening – when the mother first feels the presence of the fetus inside her womb, then it becomes a person. But what about a mother who is in a coma? She NEVER feels the unborn in her womb. She isn't awake to tell anyone anyways. Besides, why does the baby's essence have anything to do with the mother's awareness of it?? Why should your value be defined by other's notice of you. Are popular people more of persons than people who aren't as well known? Of course not. We can see that all these suggestions fall apart. So what are the reasons we should believe personhood and human value begins at conception?

This argument I have heard before from Scott Klussendorf, a man who is very good at directing the conversation back to the actual issue: What is the unborn? He uses a simple acronym to outline his argument: SLED - the differences between an unborn and a newborn. The main question of the argument is whether any of these have a strong enough bearing on whether we can kill the unborn. S stands for size: The unborn is smaller than a newborn. Is Shaquille O'Neil more valuable than Hillary Clinton? Are men more valuable than women? The funny thing is, Dr. Seuss got it right a long time ago: "A person is a person, no matter how small!" - Dr. Seuss.

Second, L stands for Level of Development. The unborn is less developed than the newborn. But are teens less valuable than adults because they are less developed? Some might say they're less valuable for other reasons… but that's a different story J. The point is: we are always on a continuum of development and your value never changes! So value is not based on development.

The third letter, E, stands for Environment. The unborn is in a different location than the newborn. But this is a terrible reason for anything to gain personhood or value. Does your value as a person change based upon your address? Doubtful. What if you climbed in the swimming pool? Not a person anymore, sorry! Not at all! If a doctor killed a 24-week-old early delivered baby, that would be murder!! Why do we react differently when a mother does the same thing to her baby when it's only 6 inches away? We shouldn't; it's not any different.

The fourth and last letter D stands for degree of dependency. The unborn is dependent on the mother, therefore it's not a person. I don't see the logic there… but a good question to ask here is: Do you lose your value because you're in a coma? You're now dependant on the machines… so you're no longer a person? What if you go in for heart surgery and they plug you into a blood pumping machine. You're certainly dependent there! So we know that your value cannot depend on your dependency!

The force of this argument comes in that these are the only significant differences between the unborn and the newborn. Therefore, since we have proved that all significant differences are not sufficient reasons to believe that the unborn is less valuable than the newborn, we can conclude that they are not, in fact, different!

A final cry you may hear is, "But it doesn't LOOK human!!" …Of course it does! It looks as human as it can at that stage of development. Exactly as God intended it to be. Intricately woven. Knitted together.

So now that you're prepared, go do some pro-life evangelism!