LifeCare Center For Women - Pro-Abortion Arguments

LifeCare Center for Women

LifeNotes

Excerpts used by permission from Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments by Randy Alcorn. Visit his website at www.cpm.org.

Pro-Abortion Argument:
The unborn isn't a person with meaningful life. It's only inches in size, and can't even think; it's less advanced than an animal.

Pro-Life Answer:
Personhood is not a matter of size, skill, or degree of intelligence.

Pro-choice advocates argue that a child aborted in the first trimester may be less than an inch or two in size, or less than an ounce or two in weight. But what measure of personhood is size? Is an NBA player more of a person than someone half his size? If a two hundred pound man loses fifty pounds does he lose one fourth of his personhood? Scales and rulers are no measurement of human nature or worth.

Joseph Fletcher maintains an "individual" is not a "person" unless he has an IQ of at least 40. British anthropologist Ashley Montague says no one becomes human until he is molded by social and cultural influences. By this he means that more intelligent and educated people (such as himself) are more human than the inferior elements of society (such as some of the rest of us).

If personhood is determined by one's current capabilities, then someone who is unconscious or sick could be killed immediately because he is not demonstrating superior intellect and skills. "But give the man time and he'll be able to function as a person." Give the baby time and so will she.

Age, size, IQ or stage of development are simply differences in degree, not in kind. Our kind is humanity. We are human beings. We posses certain skills to differing degrees at different stages of development. When we reach maturation there are many different degrees of skills and levels of IQ. But none of these make some people better or more human than others. None make some qualified to live, and others unqualified.

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