(Crossing Lake Michigan on The Badger)
When it comes to abortion, I am Pro-Life.
I believe that the conceptus/embryo/fetus is human life. It's human life that is innocent. It's human life that is defenseless. I believe it is morally wrong to kill an innocent, defenseless, human life. I am Pro-Life.
When it comes to abortion, I am Pro-Choice.
The abortionist movement believes the mother has the moral right to choose to kill an innocent, defenseless human being. But this ignores the inborn human life, and their freedom to choose.
I believe the inborn human life has a right to choose. If anyone has the right to choose, it ought to be the human that is about to be executed. Therefore, I am Pro-Choice.
But isn't a conceptus/embryo/fetus cognitively incapable of making any choice? Correct. But a newborn baby is also cognitively incapable of making any choice. The inability to make a choice for life, or for death, is not cognitively accessible to a human life until they are... how old?
I believe the following reasoning fails.
1. The conceptus/embryo/fetus is incapable of making choices.
2. Therefore, it is not immoral to make the choice for them, and terminate them.
This argument morally fails because it would include infanticide. (*See, e.g., the debates surrounding atheist Peter Singer's beliefs about the morality of involuntary euthanasia, where Singer makes an arguably false distinction between "person" and "human life.")
I believe it is morally right to wait until a human life can exercise its own right to choose between life or death. Why not give them the choice of whether they want to live or not? Upon meeting a person struggling with this choice, a vast majority of counselors and pastors will help the person choose life. But once more, that will be their choice.
I am bringing the word 'choice' back into the Pro-Life camp. The life-or-death choice belongs to the inborn human life. That's how it should be.
I would counsel them to choose life, and walk with them on the road that leads to life.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you
that I have set before you life and death,
blessings and curses.
Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.
Deut, 30:19
In this regard, I am Pro-Choice as well as Pro-Life.
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