She responded, “Well, abortion is tough. It’s not like anybody really wants one.” I then asked, “What makes it tough? Why wouldn’t someone want one?” She went off on an emotional flurry which she concluded with these words: “It’s a tough thing to kill your baby.” The moment she said it, she caught herself. But it was too late. In an unguarded moment she had used the “b-word”—baby. She revealed the true reason why in her conscience she knew what everyone knows if they allow themselves to come to terms with it — abortion is wrong because it is always the killing of a child. And no reason to kill a child is a good one.
Why is “I personally oppose abortion, but…” position so popular among politicians? Because they are trying to make pro-lifers like them because they don’t feel good about abortion, and pro-choicers like them because they won’t do anything to restrict abortion.
The only good reason for feeling bad about abortion is that it kills an innocent child. If it doesn’t, there’s no need to feel bad. But if it does, then you should not just refrain from it yourself, you should oppose others doing it also. You should favor laws to restrict it, for exactly the same reason you favor laws to restrict rape, child molesting, and murder. My point is not simply that this position is cowardly, though certainly it is. My point is that it is utterly illogical.
Typically merged into this argument of “personally opposed but in favor of free choice” is the recognition that abortion is legal. Therefore we need to respect a person’s right to choose it. But what kind of logic is this? What is legal is not always right. Civil law does not determine morality. Moral codes shouldn’t be changed to fit the law, laws should be changed to fit moral codes.
Can anyone seriously believe that abortion was immoral on January 21, 1973, and moral on January 23, 1973? If abortion killed children before the law changed, it continues to kill children after the law changed. Law or no law, either abortion has always been right and always will be, or it has always been wrong and always will be.
In the last century, slaveowners argued that the slaves were theirs and they had the right to do with them as they wished. They claimed that their personal rights and freedom of choice were at stake. They said slaves were not fully persons. They said they would experience economic hardship if they were not allowed to have slaves, and they developed slogans to gain sympathy for their cause. They maintained that others could choose not to have slaves, but had no right to impose their anti-slavery morality on them. Above all, they argued, slavery was perfectly legal, so no one had the right to oppose it.
This point of view was given further legal support in the Dred Scott decision of 1857. The Supreme Court voted 7–2 that slaves were not legal persons and were therefore not protected under the Constitution. In 1973, the Supreme Court, by another 7–2 decision, determined that unborn children also were not legal persons and therefore not protected under the Constitution. In 1857, the chief justice of the Supreme Court said, “A black man has no right which the white man is bound to respect.” Despite slavery’s legality, however, Abraham Lincoln challenged its morality. “If slavery is not wrong,” he said, “then nothing is wrong.”
In the 1940s a German doctor could kill Jews legally, while in America he would have been prosecuted for murder. As of the 1970s an American doctor could kill unborn babies legally, while in Germany he would have been prosecuted for murder. Laws change. Truth, justice and human rights don’t.
This article is adapted from ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments (Multnomah Publishers, updated and revised 2000), by Randy Alcorn.
by Randy Alcorn
“I’m personally against abortion, but I’m still pro-choice. It’s a legal alternative and we don’t have the right to keep it from anyone. Everyone’s free to believe what they want, but we shouldn’t try to impose it on others.”
This reasoning strikes most people as perfectly logical. It seems to reflect balance. On the one hand, people holding this position retain their sense of decency. They aren’t personally comfortable with the killing of preborn children. On the other hand, they retain their sense of tolerance. They’re not going to impose their position on anyone else. No wonder so many people — among them politicians — state this as if it they are taking the ultimate moral high ground.
But suppose drug-dealing were legalized, as some have advocated. Then suppose you heard someone argue this way for selling cocaine: “I’m personally not in favor of drug-dealing, but this is a matter for a drug-dealer to decide between himself and his attorney. Lots of religious people are against drug-dealing, but they have no right to force the anti-cocaine morality on others. We don’t want to go back to the days when drug-dealing was done in back alleys and people died from poorly mixed cocaine, and when only rich people could get drugs and poor people couldn’t. It’s better now that qualified drug dealers can safely give cocaine to our children. I personally wouldn’t buy drugs, so I’m not pro-drugs, you understand, I’m just prochoice about drug-dealing.”
On hearing this all of us would know that it’s entirely fair to say this person is pro-drugs. In terms of moral impact, there is no significant difference between people who are in favor of drug-dealing and people who don’t like it personally but believe it should be legal. Someone who is pro-choice about rape might argue that this is not the same as being pro-rape. But what is the real difference? Wouldn’t being prochoice about rape allow and effectively promote the legitimacy of rape?
Those who were pro-choice about slavery fancied that their moral position was sound as long as they didn’t own slaves. Yet it was not just the pro-slavery position, but the pro-choice-about-slavery position, that resulted in the exploitation, beatings, and deaths of innocent people in this country. Similarly, most Germans did not actually favor the killing of Jews. Unfortunately, few did anything to stop that killing.
In ancient Rome it was legal for fathers to kill their newborn children by setting them out to die of exposure or to be eaten by wild beasts. While many people would not do this to their own children, they recognized the rights of others to do so. Early Christians saw this “right” as a wrong, and when they found such children, they took them into their homes to care for them.
Some people have the illusion that being personally opposed to abortion while believing others should be free to choose it is some kind of compromise between the pro-abortion and pro-life positions. It isn’t. Pro-choice people vote the same as pro-abortion people. Both oppose legal protection for the innocent unborn. Both are willing for children to die by abortion and must take responsibility for the killing of those babies even if they do not participate directly. To the baby who dies it makes no difference whether those who refused to protect her were pro-abortion or merely pro-choice.
The only good reason for not being willing to commit an abortion ourselves is a reason that demands we be against other people choosing to do so. If abortion doesn’t kill children, then let’s not oppose it in the first place. But if it does kill children, why would we defend another’s right to do it?
Every time I hear a politician say she is personally against abortion but favors another’s right to abortion, I am confused. This position is self-contradictory and morally baffling. It’s exactly like saying, “I’m personally against child abuse, but I defend my neighbor’s right to abuse his child if that is his choice.” Or “I’m personally against genocide, but if others want to kill off an entire race, that’s none of my business.”
I’ve often heard people say, “Don’t call me pro-abortion. I’m not pro-abortion, I’m pro-choice.” My response to this statement is always the same: “Why are you opposed to being called pro-abortion? Is there something wrong with abortion?”
A Los Angeles radio talk show host who was angry about my book interviewed me. She kept saying what terrible people pro-lifers are. She was offended that we would call people like her “pro-abortion” instead of “pro-choice.” So I asked her, “Why don’t you want to be called pro-abortion? What’s wrong with abortion?”
