President Ronald Reagan, said the following regarding life and abortion:
“The real question today is not when human life begins, but, ‘What is the value of human life?’ The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.”
President Ronald Reagan, “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” The Human Life Review, 1983-Spring, Online
Regardless of how poignant President Reagan’s sentiments were/are, it does not categorically answer the question of when is the starting point of human life… or does it? If there is clear evidence that the aborted baby was previously alive (e.g. “body”…”parts”) then would it not follow that the pro-choice position has the responsibility of proving life hadn’t started in spite of the clear evidence to the contrary? If this evidence cannot be clearly demonstrated, then why would “pro-lifers” let the proposition that the baby is not alive even be stated? It would seem that the strength of the pro-choice view is the silence of not knowing or, at least, avoiding the question all together. Pro-choice adherents have the responsibility to show why life does not start at conception more than pro-life people should have to show that it does!
In other words, the proposition that life begins at conception must stand since the abortion procedure reveals powerful evidence that life did exist and that this developing life was stopped (i.e. killed) due to process of the abortion.
In other words, the proposition of life beginning at conception must stand since the evidence produced when that proposition is violated (the abortion procedure) reveals evidence to the contrary. At the very least the pro-choice position has a responsibility, both morally and intellectually, to show how a baby is not alive until a certain period of time or admit they are taking the life of another human being.
Questions
1. Do you think that the pro-choice position has relinquished ground in this area of thinking?
2. Is there a fallacy to my logic?
I think the logic is sound. Just as the burden of proof belongs to the prosecutor in a court of law, the burden of proof in this case should belong to the one “prosecuting” the abortion.
An analogy I’ve heard comes to mind here…
Imagine you’re in charge of a demolition crew. You have a building rigged with explosives, ready to be detonated. Then you’re told that there’s somebody in the building.
You’ve been responsible — you’ve fenced in the area, posted signs warning of the danger, sounded sirens to alert anyone who might be there — and yet you have to admit to the possibility that despite your best efforts, somebody might be in the building.
Which takes precedence: your “right” to blow up the building, or your responsibility to protect human life?
I somewhat like this line of reasoning but I want to throw out one possible objection to it. The way it is worded seems to say that it is the burden of proof for the pro-choice side to say that life does not begin at conception. However, this begs the question of what exactly makes up human life. If the pro-life movement doesn’t give a definition of what it means to be a living human then we have setup an impossible standard for the pro-choice movement to hit. This, of course, is the crux of the issue not only with abortion but also with euthenasia of brain dead individuals, etc.
So, while I think your argument is somewhat valid, I don’t think it proves anything to the other side because we have different definitions of what human life is.
There are also scientific issues with saying that life begins at conception and the definition of human life. For one, twins from the same fertilized egg form around day 4 or 5. Thus at conception it is not necessarily a single human life even though from our current scientific observations it is identical to one at that time.
Good points Matt. Do you think an argument from teleology would be more effective?
I agree. You are right. A definition of human life is still fundamental to the discussion. We still need a common definition to find resolution. Do you have a suggested starting point for a definition of life? That being said, I think it is valid to still not surrender ground regarding the burden of proof relating to formed body parts that hold strong evidence for some basic definition of “life.”
I once worked with a youth pastor whose insisted that if someone wanted to argue that a baby in the womb was not a human life (in it’s earliest stages of development), then one should argue in response that there is therefore no need to have an abortion. If it is not a human life, then its continued development will produce an iguana, or a hamster, or some other delightful pet that can be let into the wild to fend for itself.
A popular trend amongst pro-abortion folk is to change the argument. Given that arguing against it being human life is incredibly difficult (impossible from any rational perspective) the argument then becomes that an unborn baby is not a person. Thus, it is not extended the protections of personhood (i.e. LIFE, liberty, yada yada yada….).
Now you’ve got to get into the definition of person… any body want to go down that rabbit hole??
I often wonder what the news headline would be if NASA found a 2 hour old developing zygote on Mars…
“Potential Life Found On Mars!”?
Is the undeveloped brain of an aborted baby to be considered evidence that a mind previously existed?
Jason, please define “mind.”
BDAG, the standard Greek-English lexicon of the NT and early Christian literature, lists 3 definitions for the semantic field of “nous” (“mind”). I think the first of these will suffice for our purposes:
nous = the faculty of intelletual perception — a) mind, intellect, as the side of life contrasted with physical existence, the higher, mental part of a human being that initiates thoughts and plans…. b)understanding, mind, as faculty of thinking
When pro-choice individuals say it is not an individual it is only a clump of cells. (Individual Human Cells no arguement) However, when your dealing with someone who doesn’t want to hear or understand rational debate; what do you do?
What does it matter that “a mind previously existed”?
It matters because by “alive” we must mean more than simple living tissue, unless we want to subscribe to a naturalistic worldview. (A naturalistic worldview denies the existence of all non-material reality.)
The point of my question above is to indicate a weakness in Dan’s argument. Dan makes an unwarranted logic jump from “dead body parts” to “living person.” The most that we can unquestionably deduce from “dead body parts” is “previously alive body parts.” However, unless we hold to a purely naturalistic worldview, a person consists of more than “alive body parts.”
In other words, Dan’s argument side-steps the issue of the non-physical component of humanity (mind, soul, spirit, whatever you want to call it). Physical body parts are not in themselves evidence of non-physical realities. The physical existence of the beginnings of the development of a brain is not evidence of a non-physical mind. Thus, I think it is unlikely that any serious pro-choice advocate would be convinced by Dan’s argument that the burden of proof is theirs to show that the baby was previously “alive,” since by “alive” we mean more than mere living tissue.
Yes, but Jason, the physical existence of the beginnings of development of anything is evidence of life.
Assessing “personhood” according to some kind of measure of noetic capacity only confuses the issue and ends up helping the pro-abortion side of the debate — not because it makes that side stronger, but because it dilutes the force of the central question: is it human, and is it alive?
Similarly, a definition of “personhood” that is based on noetic capacity is also going lend support to those who would “euthanize” (read: kill) profoundly brain-damaged people of any pre- or post-birth age.
I think this whole “personhood” thing is a red herring anyway. Before you decide it’s worth going down that road, you need to establish a definition of “person” that is distinct from “human being” in some sort of useful sense.
Remember the basic question: is it human, and is it alive? Any honest biologist must concede that a metabolizing zygote/embryo/fetus arising from human reproduction is both.
Does human life, then, consist of only a physical, material reality? Are we just flesh and bones? Are our thought processes and emotions reducible to mechanistic explanations?
If not, then how is the mere existence of physical developing human organs clear evidence of the non-physical reality of “human life”?
[I do not think that we have to define “personhood” in terms of noetic capacity in order to recognize that human life has a non-physical component. The noetic capacity (or “mind”) of a person is only one aspect of the non-physical element of humanity. I phrased my original question using the “mind” as only one example of the non-physical side of human life, because the “mind” is more readily associated with the physical brain than broader terms such as “soul” or “spirit.”]
I have been thinking about this debate for a few days now (hence not responding for a while) and I think one of the dangers of this type of argument is that we are conceding to their worldview in making the definitions.
As Christians, man is created in God’s image and however we ultimately define this, there is a spiritual aspect which the world is not going to accept. While we can attempt to define personhood without it, this leaves us open to them “scientifically” finding a time after conception when life begins that may not be acceptable to us and we would then have to change our definition of life. This constant redefinition would continue to weaken our point and stance.
On the other hand if we attempt to define personhood in a way that cannot be “scientifically” proven then they will state that our definition is unprovable.
While I want to make an apologetic defense against abortion, I am very wary of the dangers that the type of defense outlined above would make. To answer Hugh’s question, I think the same would hold true for a teleological argument because a teleological argument is diametrically opposed to a naturalistic worldview so they basically would just throw it out.
This eventually gets into the issue of apologetic theories, which I think has been talked through on these blogs before. So … I don’t know how to answer the question without going to a book that they are not going to accept. And it is even harder in this case because the Bible doesn’t even speak directly to the issue of when life begins and we as Christians have to admit that we are just being cautious about exactly when it occurs (conception vs later) since we do know that they are life at some point and that murder is wrong.
I think we are all realizing the clear truth that the secular worldview is not compatible with the Christian worldview. The original point of “life” existing due to the evidence of developed body parts was the extent to which I was trying to push. When we expand the discussion to a definition of life we will find ourselves fighting on several fronts that include many of the issues mentioned in your entries.
Can we all agree that some baseline “life” did exist as evidenced through the abortion extraction producing developed body parts? Is this not a fundamental, logical argument that we must not ignore or concede? It may be only a first-base point, but is it not a good, plain point to begin? In my opinion, the definition of what is “life” or “personhood” is related but not essential. Any rational thinking person should concede that an abortion stops/kills a developing “life.”
Edna,
I would not ram the issue of abortion down the throat of someone who clearly does not want to know. I would address an even greater need, his or her need of a Savior from their sin. I would try to show them how they relate to God through His relational standards – the Law of God. To help you understand what I mean check out this
I would also pray regularly and befriend this person to the degree they would let me.
Thanks for jumping in!
To Matt’s point, the naturalistic worldview that most people formally hold could not account for a right to life at any stage of development. If we are just meat machines, then let the strong survive and exploit the weak. But to borrow loosely from Francis Schaeffer’s thinking…
The natural man cannot live consistently within his own stated worldview. He knows intuitively that murder is wrong. It seems to be built into our conscience as image-bearers (I think Rom. 2:15 is speaking to this). So, if the unbeliever is going to borrow from our worldview and hold that murder is wrong, it seems to me that we can go ahead and press him to at least be consistent on this narrow issue. Then, I think we can argue on scientific terms that nothing occurs between conception and birth where the developing life becomes human and worthy of protection. I recognize that this is philosophically untidy, but we do live in a fallen world.
I think the ‘personhood’ question muddies the water, and we’re best off steering them back to the one question… What is the unborn? The only scientifically rigorous answer is ‘a developing human being’ like any of us.
I think this illustration and ensuing discussion still captures my take on the ‘one question’ issue.
I agree wholeheartedly with Matt’s discussion (response 15). This is precisely the point I was slowing trying to drive at, if I understand Matt correctly.
Dan, I agree that extracted body parts are evidence that some “baseline life” did exist prior to the abortion. However, the same observation would be true if we aborted a hamster. Does that fact make hamster abortion morally wrong? No. Why? Because there is a fundamental difference between human life and hamster life. Thus, I don’t think “baseline life” is a good starting point, because, as Matt suggested, it concedes too much to the naturalistic worldview.
Thus the definition of “human life” or “human being” or “person” is indeed essential to the argument, especially if we want to use this argument to say that the pro-choice advocates have a “moral responsibility” to prove that what they are doing is not murder.
Furthermore, if you use the “baseline life” argument as your starting point, what’s your next step? Do you not have to show that there is something unique about this “baseline life” that makes it morally wrong to terminate that life? Are we not now back to needing to define “human life”?
To Eric’s point — how does answering the question “What is the unborn?” with “a developing human being like the rest of us” avoid the “personhood” question?
I’m not sure it does avoid it. Most will concede that we and they, in fact, have “personhood” and that we are still developing (getting better all the time, to quote from the Beatles)! Thus, when labeling an unborn child that way the implication is there that, while on a much smaller scale, the “personhood” is there and is still developing. It assumes the answer and places the burden back on the one who want to end that life to prove that it does not have “personhood.”
‘Human’ is more of an ontological category while ‘person’ is more of a legal category. Legal categories are more subject to arbitrary definition. All we have to do is define ‘person’ as necessarily having some particular level of brain activity and self-awareness and we have defined certain humans out of personhood. ‘Human’ as a category is not vulnerable to that sort of redefinition. Even after we are dead, we are still human.
My point with the ‘What is the unborn?’ question is that the answer is a human being. And thus, borrowing from STR’s ‘moral logic of the pro-life position’…
It’s wrong to take the life of an human being without adequate justification. Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being. Abortion is wrong.
If the unborn is not a human being, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human being, no justification for abortion is adequate.
Jason wrote:
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making a conscious decision to “play in the other guy’s sandbox,” after a fashion. As Greg Koukl says, “give their worldview a test-drive” and see if it passes or fails.
To expand on Eric’s earlier point about Schaeffer (author’s emphasis):
— Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There, found in The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy, pp. 132, 140
It seems to me that it is not “conceding too much to the naturalistic worldview” to come under the shelter of the roof provided by that worldview for the explicit purpose of defeating it.
In this case, there is sufficient evidence within the naturalistic worldview to both (A) prove that abortion takes the life of a human being, and (B) prove that the naturalistic worldview is fatally flawed. However, as a tactical and practical matter, it’s enough to deal with one thing at a time: I don’t think it’s necessary to reform someone’s entire worldview before you tackle the fact that lives are being lost as a result of that worldview.
What is the concern about this “concession?” Is it because it would be somehow illegitimate or inconsistent to return to advance the Christian worldview once you’ve defeated the other worldview? If so, how does that follow?
Ah… here is part of the reason we are talking past each other. I am using the term “person” as an ontological category rather than a legal category. I do think that a “person,” when used as an ontological term, necessarily has a non-physical component. This does not equate, however, to an individual needing a certain level of brain activity to be considered a “person.” After we are dead, we are still “persons,” because our non-physical side continues to exist in an intermediate state until the resurrection.
I have no problem with STR’s “moral logic” argument as you have framed it. It’s simple deductive logic. However, this argument assumes the very point that Dan’s original “body parts” argument is trying to prove (within reason): that the unborn human is alive.
Lest anyone is confused about my position, let me be abundantly clear: I am firmly against abortion. Life and even “personhood” begins at conception and develops over time. But I hold to these beliefs by appeal to biblical-theological categories, not by empirical evidence.
The weakness I am pointing out with Dan’s argument is simply that he is trying to find common ground with those of the opposite viewpoint and to use that common ground as a starting point to argue that they have a moral obligation.
In the first stage of Dan’s argument, I don’t think that you can reason your way from the evidence of physical body parts to the conclusion of “living person” without appealing to biblical-theological considerations. But if you immediately have to appeal to biblical-theological considerations for your starting point to have any force, have you really found a common ground to start from?
In the second stage of Dan’s argument, he suggests that the pro-choice advocates have a moral obligation to disprove that the unborn was “alive.” But what does “alive” mean? In the worldview of the pro-choice advocate, “alive” means simply the physical side of life. They don’t care if the unborn is “alive” physically — it’s not “murder” unless the unborn is more than an “alive” clump of human cells. [Otherwise, removing your kidney would be murder (it’s human and it’s “alive” in the physical sense.)] Thus, we are immediately back needing to prove that the unborn is more than a physical life — and that feat we can only accomplish by appeal to biblical-theological considerations. Empirical evidence cannot prove non-physical realities.
Jason, I would agree that we are arguing in the realm of metaphysics and not ’empirical evidence.’ But, are you saying that we have nothing to say about abortion to the person who rejects the authority of the Bible?
To Hugh’s questions —
I commend the tactic of test-driving the opponent’s worldview to demonstrate how it falls apart. However, this does not seem to be the nature of Dan’s argument. To test-drive the pro-choice worldview, we would have to start with something like the proposition that “what is in the womb is just a clump of cells,” and work from there to demonstrate how this cannot be using naturalistic presuppositions, until we reach a point which is clearly contradictory to reality.
Rather, Dan’s claim that “Dead body parts are clear evidence of previous life” rests on the presupposition that “life is nothing more than body parts,” if is argument is to have any moral force to a pro-choice advocate. This is what I mean by conceding too much to the opposing worldview. He is trying to argue his *own* worldview by starting with the opponent’s presuppositions. You cannot concede to your opponents presuppositions and then hope to succeed in defending your own worldview. This is why I say that the evidence of body parts is not a good starting point.
To Eric’s question —
I think we can confront them with the fallacies of their worldview, and then present the biblical worldview over against their own worldview. In doing so, we establish the authority of the Bible. So it’s not as if we don’t have anything to say to them. We have the only worldview which is consistent with reality. We have the only true answer to give them.
If we agree that the realm is metaphysics, the only sure authority is the Bible.
I’m not sure I’d agree with that. I guess it depends on exactly what ‘only sure authority’ means. It may be the only ‘authority’ but it is not the only source of knowing metaphysical truths.
First, there are lots of metaphysical questions that the Bible doesn’t address. Does that mean that we cannot know them? For example, isn’t ‘2 + 2 = 4’ a metaphysical statement? To my knowledge, the law of non-contradiction is not expressed in the Scriptures. Can we therefore not be sure of it?
Second, that’s a metaphysical statement that I’m not sure comes from Bible itself, opening it to the charge of being self-refuting.
[My apologies for taking things even further off of Dan’s topic, but I suppose these questions are impossible to avoid when dealing with such issues.]
The worldview which the Bible presents provides the presuppositions which make logic, science, math, etc. possible. In that sense, the Bible is the underlying authority to whatever conclusions we may draw from these disciplines. People who draw conclusions from these disciplines and reject the Bible are operating on a borrowed biblical worldview whether they like it or not.
The law of non-contradiction holds because God created a universe in which it holds; it holds true in reality because it holds true in the mind of God, as demonstrated by the character of God described in the Scriptures. People can reject the biblical worldview and still hold to the laws of logic. But does their worldview give them the right to hold to the laws of logic?
The Bible does present itself as the Word of God, and is therefore the ultimate arbiter of truth, metaphysical or otherwise. The Bible as a closed canon is also currently our only source of knowing the Word of God. I do believe that the Bible therefore presents itself as the only sure authority. Thus, the argument is not self-refuting.
There is one clarification/correction I would like to make to my discussion, which had not occurred to me fully until last night…
I repeatedly argued that physical body parts are not evidence of the non-physical element of human life. This claim, however, rests on the presuppositions of either a naturalist epistemology (empiricism) or a Kantian epistemology (take your pick), neither of which is biblical. In Romans 1, Paul argues that people are under the wrath of God because they have suppressed God’s revelation of himself in his creation. Paul assumes that people can infer a non-physical reality (God) from a physical reality (creation).
So I do think that we can presume non-physical realities based on physical realities, but we have to do so based on biblical parameters. For example, we cannot infer the (alleged) non-physical reality of a crystal’s healing powers (vis a vis the New Age movement) from the physical reality of the crystal. On the other hand, since we know that the Bible teaches that there is a non-physical element of human life (as I have tried to establish above), and since we know that normally this non-physical element operates in unity with the physical element of life, we can reasonably infer that where there is a (developing) body which is physically alive, there is a (developing) non-physical element of life also. This is not to say that at conception there is a fully-developed soul/mind; but nonetheless it is reasonable to conclude that there probably is the beginnings of one, even if we can’t prove directly from Scripture that this is the case.
But notice that I need the Bible’s revelation that there is a non-physical side to human life in order to make the inference about the nature of the life of the developing unborn baby from its physical body parts. Thus, Dan’s “body parts” argument should be reasonably convincing to Christians who have biblical presuppositions. [In fact, I would suggest that Dan may not even have to say that his argument only gives evidence of “baseline life.”] If the purpose of Dan’s argument is to encourage Christians in their pro-life stance, then it is a fine argument.
On the other hand, I still think that Dan’s “body parts” argument does not have any force with those operating under naturalist or Kantian worldviews, i.e., with those who categorically reject the presupposition that we can infer the non-physical from the physical. They will concede that it is physical life in the sense that it is a clump of cells which is organically alive. However, Dan’s argument does not address their fundamental presupposition that this physical reality does not imply a (non-physical) human life exists in connection with those cells.
Of course, as Eric pointed out in another connection (response 18), your average person on the street is probably inconsistent in his/her worldview. Given that reality, in practice Dan’s argument might convince some pro-choice advocates. Go ahead and try it if you feel so compelled!