(Oregon Right to Life) — As a pro-life advocate, have you ever heard pro-choice people argue that access to legal abortion is necessary because of difficult or traumatic circumstances like poverty, bad foster care experiences, or child abuse?
These arguments often sound something like this:
“Banning abortion would mean that women will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies and give birth in situations where they’re just not prepared to be a parent or to have another child. Babies will be born into households with drug addiction, domestic abuse, and poverty. They might end up in the foster system, which can cause additional trauma. If you care about kids, you shouldn’t want them to have to endure situations like that. So, you should support the right to choose.”
This framework is popular among pro-choice people because it is rooted – at least to some degree – in a real sense of compassion and empathy. It also seems to put pro-life advocates into a corner when we say we love and care for babies and children, even though we support banning something which, according to pro-choice activists, would reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering.
Of course, you probably already see that there are major holes in this pro-choice argument. That’s because it’s founded on premises that are misguided, false, and dangerous.
As persuasive pro-life advocates, we’ll want to help pro-choice people see why potential future suffering cannot morally justify abortion.
Below are some guidelines for reasonably and compassionately defending the pro-life position against this kind of argument.
- Acknowledge their concerns. It can be tempting to jump right in and defend the rights of the unborn, or point out that many foster parents truly love the children they care for, or that many people rise above difficult circumstances in childhood. Those things are all certainly true. But it’s always helpful to find common ground first and affirm the real issues raised by the pro-choice person.
You might say something along these lines:“I want to start off by completely agreeing with you on a big part of what you said. No child should have to experience abuse or trauma, and it’s devastating to hear the real-life stories of children who traumatized by being shuffled in and out of foster homes, or who are harmed by their own parents. I completely agree that, as a society, we should work to protect all kids from any kind of abuse or violence. The thing is, I don’t think abortion does that. I’d like to share a comparison that will show what I mean.”
- Kindly but clearly point out the problem with the pro-choice argument. Here, you can use a strategy that pro-life apologists call “trotting out a toddler.” That means showing how, if the circumstances wouldn’t justify ending the life of a born child, they also can’t justify ending the life of an unborn child. This strategy is effective because it draws out the real problem at issue in any conflict about abortion: Whether or not the unborn are human beings with the same right to life as anyone else.
You might consider responding with something like this:“While we should definitely work to prevent human suffering, there are some real moral limits to what we can and can’t do. Let’s say that, instead of the unborn, we’re talking about a two-year-old in an abusive homes, or a child currently in the foster system. If someone suggested we could prevent future harm or trauma to these children by simply killing them now, I’m pretty positive we would both agree that that would be completely wrong and absolutely abhorrent. Those examples help to show that we can never intentionally harm or kill an innocent human being for any reason – regardless of the circumstances.”
- Show how this argument applies to abortion. At this point, you might hear your pro-choice friend both agree with you that killing born children would be wrong, but also assert that abortion is different because the child hasn’t been born yet. This is where you can talk about the humanity of the unborn and why the two scenarios really aren’t as different as they might seem.
That might sound something like this:“I completely hear you that a fetus or embryo hasn’t been born yet, and I see how that would make it seem like these scenarios are very different. But the science of embryology is clear that the unborn are unique, living human beings from fertilization – they’re just at an earlier level of development than the two-year-old or the child in foster care. So, if it’s wrong to kill a born child in these circumstances, it’s also wrong to end the life of an unborn human being.”
- Be prepared for the counter-argument: Here, a pro-choice person might respond that that might be well and good…but if you really cared about children, you should a) adopt as many as possible, and/or b) support a raft of political and economic policies like universal childcare, higher taxes to buoy social welfare programs, etc. This is a move to take the conversation further off-topic, so don’t take the bait! Briefly address the challenges, then bring things back to the real topic.
You can respond by saying something like this:“I hear you, but, respectfully, I don’t think that’s quite a fair critique. Adoption is wonderful, but you can oppose abortion without being an adoptive parent, just like you can oppose child abuse without adopting every child from a bad home. I also absolutely believe in working toward a culture where children are always protected from violence and people have access to economic security. But reasonable and caring people can and do disagree about the best policies for doing that – and that’s okay! We don’t actually need to be on the same page about every social policy to agree with the basic point that intentionally killing an innocent human being is always wrong. If we start with that premise, I believe we’ll be in a great spot to move on and have these political and economic conversations together.”
Key Takeaway: As you may have noticed, the critical move in any conversation about abortion is to politely yet firmly bring things back to the primary point: the humanity of the unborn and their right to life. Other issues, while important, deal with secondary concerns – not abortion itself. So don’t let these important discussions get derailed! Bring them back on topic using consistent reasoning and genuinely empathetic language. And if things get really contentious, it’s always okay to kindly step away and table the conversation for another time!
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These tips for answering pro-choice arguments are inspired by the work of the Equal Rights Institute and pro-life apologists including Trent Horn and Scott Klusendorf. To expand your knowledge of pro-life apologetics, we encourage you to search for ERI, Trent Horn, and Scott Klusendorf on social media. We also offer free access to ERI’s “Equipped for Life” apologetics course. To access the course, email Community Outreach Director Makyra Williamson at [email protected].
