2. They cause many students to become angry over things that aren’t even true.
I have written this letter—indeed, this series of letters—to you in the hope that you will not get stuck in the second of those two traps. Life is too short to spend being angry about things that aren’t even true. Most of your professors fail to understand that. They think they’re working to overturn false criminal convictions, but really many criminologists are fostering false personal convictions about race and other important matters. In the process, they sentence their students to a life of self-righteous anger with little chance of parole.
Author’s note: As of this writing, 18 million black babies have been aborted since the Furman case. Not one of them has committed a crime. None has been afforded due process. Professor Bohm has remained mute on that issue. Instead, he continues to claim that the execution of hundreds of black murderers over a span of several decades is an effort to control the black population by “extermination or threat of extermination.” During the same time frame, slightly more than half of those executed have been white. Meanwhile, as I pointed out in my last letter, approximately half of all black pregnancies end in abortion.
LETTER 8
How to Slay Goliath with Just One Stone
Dear Zach,
Abortion is the issue where all the progressives’ noblest claims—to be fighting for racial equality, to care sincerely about the weakest among us, to have beliefs grounded in reason and science—are shown up for the sham they really are.
Whenever I end up in an extended argument about abortion, I find that there are about six points I can expect to encounter before the argument has come to term, so to speak. But, fortunately, the six arguments all suffer from one fatal flaw, which makes them somewhat easy to rebut as long as the proponent of life stays focused on the central question of the abortion debate: “Are the unborn human?”
I’ve listed the six arguments below—along with specific common-sense rebuttals to each.
Zach, this issue is really the most obvious weak point of the progressive outlook that you’ve adopted at college. Here’s where it becomes crystal clear that the conservative Christians you’ve come to despise are actually the ones on the right side of history—and that they have reason and science on their side, too. And I know that the abortion issue is the weak point in your own personal progressive armor—I’ve noticed that it’s the one issue where you haven’t been willing to defend progressive views against un- “enlightened” conservative Christian opinion. So I urge you to consider these arguments, and to reconsider the question of who really wishes to defend the weakest among us, and who wishes to deny their humanity:1. “It’s my body, my choice.”
This argument is extremely easy to dismantle because the unborn baby has its own distinct genetic code, which is generating growth from conception. Not only is there unique DNA, but also in 100 percent of abortions the baby already has a detectable heartbeat. Doctors will not even perform abortions until six or seven weeks into the pregnancy—in order to protect the health of the mother. The doctor wants to be able to account for and remove all of the baby’s body parts because if some small portion of the baby remains in the mother’s body, it could cause a deadly infection. The irony is lost on most of these so-called health-care professionals.
So the woman who says “my body, my choice” is in the absurd position of arguing that she has two noses, four legs, two brains, and two skeletal systems. This kind of absurdity requires no further elaboration. It is nothing more than feminist foot-stomping to assert the “my body, my choice” argument, a kind of “mine, mine” argument that is unbecoming from anyone over the age of two.
2. “Back-alley abortions will increase if abortion is illegal.”
This argument, like the first, simply assumes that the unborn are not persons. If they were persons, then the abortion choice advocate would be in the awkward position of arguing that someone has a right to commit murder in a safe and sterile environment. This hardly survives the straight-face test. But if for some reason your opponent can’t see its absurdity, tell him the following: “I’m planning to rob the Wells Fargo Bank across the street but there is ice all over the sidewalk. I’m afraid I might slip and fall during my escape. Could you call them and tell them to salt the sidewalk before I commit the robbery? And hurry up. I need the cash!”
Proponents of this argument often quote appalling statistics—that when abortion was illegal 10,000 women per year died using coat-hangers on themselves in back alleys. But those numbers are both false and irrelevant. Within a few years after abortion was made a constitutional right, the number of abortions skyrocketed. Over a million more babies were being killed per year within just a few years after Roe v. Wade. The fact that they were killed in a sterile, well-lit environment did not make them any less dead. Please review argument #1.
3. “It is wrong to force a woman to bring an unwanted baby into the world.”
Put simply, there is no such thing as an “unwanted baby.” If a baby is unwanted by its mother, there is always, and I mean always, someone else who would want to adopt the baby. It is very difficult to adopt a baby in this country because so many children are unnecessarily aborted. But there is something even more sick and twisted about the “unwanted baby” excuse—it insinuates that abortion prevents child abuse. But abortion is child abuse—the most severe kind, where the baby ends up dead. Please review argument #1 before reading further.
The very idea that we would murder children to prevent child abuse, which usually takes the form of simple battery, elevates intellectual laziness to an art. It is the intellectual equivalent of promoting arson in order to prevent burglary. It is true that burglary rates will decrease when we have burned down everyone’s houses, but by now you get the point.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that abortion has not been an effective means of stopping child abuse (even if we exclude abortion from the definition of child abuse). In 1973, there were 167,000 reported instances of child abuse. By 1982, reported instances of child abuse had risen to 929,000. That is an increase of over 500 percent in less than a decade. When will liberals take responsibility for this unmitigated disaster?
4. “It is wrong for a woman to be forced to bring a handicapped baby into the world.”
It is frequently suggested that abortion is morally permissible when doctors discover, prior to birth, that a baby suffers from certain physical handicaps such as Down syndrome or cerebral palsy. My response usually goes something like this:
“I agree that there are far too many handicapped people in the world. Every summer I take busloads of people who are wheelchair-bound on a trip to the Grand Canyon. We enjoy the view for a few minutes before I roll them off the edge of the Canyon. They are usually dead long before they hit the bottom. That is a good thing for them and for society as a whole. It is better to be dead than to be handicapped. Whether they realize it or not, their lives are not worth living.”
This scenario provokes a strong reaction—as it should. Something about it makes advocates of aborting the handicapped look grossly insensitive. This is usually when they argue that they are not killing a handicapped person but rather preventing a handicapped person from ever being born. Please review argument #1.
The last time I spoke on this topic at Summit Ministries, a handsome, intelligent, and athletic 6’2” African American student approached me and told me, “I was misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy before I was born. The doctors were wrong. I am so glad my mother had me. Thank you for your speech.”
5. “It is wrong for a woman to be forced to give birth to a baby she cannot afford.”
This argument is also remarkably callous—so much so that it is difficult to understand how those who make it could describe themselves as “liberal.” Do we really need to start reassigning Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal to underline how profoundly sick and distasteful this argument really is? Swift wrote—satirically of course—a proposal that suggested peop
le eat their babies in order to relieve their hunger and poverty. Serious arguments in favor of “choice” often sound chillingly similar.
For those who have never read Swift, I like to point to a more contemporary example. In the 80s, a punk rock band called The Dead Kennedys wrote a song called “Kill the Poor” in which they mockingly suggested that we kill poor people as a means of eliminating poverty. That would certainly eliminate poverty. But is it really an acceptable solution? Of course not. That was their point.
It’s a good idea to confront the advocates of legal abortion with the question of whether it is permissible to kill to eliminate poverty. In response, they typically say something like this: “No, I would never advocate killing the poor. I would advocate abortion to prevent them from becoming poor people in the first place.” They are trapped once again in the untenable position of denying the personhood of the unborn. Please review argument #1.
Of course, there is another aspect to the poverty-as-a-defense-of-abortion argument. It is the crass argument that the mother cannot “afford” the baby. This raises another fundamental question: “Is it permissible to kill a person in order to alleviate financial stress?” If so, I’d like to kill the banker who holds my mortgage. Just kidding. Of course, I cannot do that anyway since a) he is a middle-aged man and b) the Supreme Court does not authorize abortions in the 200th trimester—at least, they haven’t yet!
6. “It is wrong to force a woman to give birth to a baby after she has been a victim of rape (or incest, which is almost always statutory rape).”
Whenever I hear an argument for the rape exception, I think of my friend Laura. She was adopted, and in her twenties she wanted to locate her birth mother and learn about the circumstances of her adoption. When she did, she found out that she was the product of a rape. I don’t have the audacity to tell her an abortionist should have killed her. I leave that to the compassionate liberals who oversimplify the rape issue.
Actually, “oversimplify” is too kind a term. They are exploiting the rape issue in order to avoid the central question of the debate: “Is the unborn child—yes, even the product of a rape-human?” I say, “Of course!” And Laura agrees with me. If you disagree, then you may take it up with her or with others conceived in rape, such as attorney and pro-life advocate Rebecca Kiessling. Their lives are hardly useless. And because their mothers had the courage to bear them, they have made a profound difference in this world—including saving countless lives with their pro-life testimony.
Whenever the issue of the rape exception is raised, it is well worth mentioning Kennedy v. Louisiana, decided by the Supreme Court in 2008. The Court spared Kennedy from execution on the grounds that it would be “cruel and unusual punishment” to execute a man who had not killed anyone. This was a brutal rape case-indeed, among the worst I’ve ever studied. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified at Kennedy’s trial that Kennedy had raped his eight-year-old stepdaughter savagely, to the point of causing permanent physical damage. In fact, a laceration to the left wall of her vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina and caused her rectum to protrude into her vaginal structure. Put simply, Kennedy raped, sodomized, and viciously tortured the little girl. Thankfully, he was easily convicted for doing so. There is no question whatsoever about his guilt.
But the high court ruled that Kennedy’s execution would violate the Eighth Amendment because of “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” This decision rested largely on the fact that most states reject the idea of execution for rape—even the rape of a young child, even accompanied by other aggravating factors. As a result, this is the position in which we find ourselves: When a woman is raped she has a constitutional right to an abortion. And the rapist has a constitutional right to life. But the unborn baby has no rights whatsoever.
The Kennedy case helps us to better understand another frequently employed argument for the rape exception—that a woman has a right to abort in order to rid her of the memory of a horrible event. But this argument is both logically and factually flawed.
Logically speaking, the woman, if granted the right to kill one person, should be entitled to kill the rapist. She should not be entitled to kill the baby! Any assertion to the contrary can be justified only by denying the personhood of the unborn. Once again, review argument #1.
Factually speaking, there is simply no merit to the argument that abortions either soothe the conscience or assuage the memory of rape victims. In the first place, too many women feel guilty and blame themselves in the aftermath of rape, and getting an abortion adds another layer of guilt and trauma. Only the birth of the child can provide healing—even if the child is immediately given up for adoption. Philosophers since Socrates have been pointing out that it is better to suffer evil than to inflict it. Planned Parenthood counselors are never inclined to raise this point. They profit from the infliction of evil upon the innocent. And they use rape victims to justify their occupation.
After I have finished making all the points I wish to make, I always extend the following offer to my opponent: “If I agree to write in the exception for rape, will you be willing to lobby for the law banning all other abortions?” In all of my years discussing abortion, no one has taken me up on the offer. Their reaction always shows that they were never in favor of keeping abortion legal in order to protect victims of rape. They are simply using these women for political purposes.
Zach, a movement that both denies the personhood of the defenseless unborn and uses rape victims for political purposes is not one worth belonging to.
LETTER 9
Trading Live Babies for Government Programs
Zach,
Welcome back to campus. I hope the beginning of the fall semester is going well for you. Thank you for coming by my office during registration last week. It was good to see you, and even better to hear your thoughts on the points I made about abortion in my last letter. I’m impressed by your open-minded attitude on the issue, and I appreciate your interest in continuing our discussion of that and related issues during this academic year.
Recently, a former university student sent me a video of a speech I gave on abortion a few years ago. Any speech given on a liberal university campus is likely to be contentious, given that many schools have a history of allowing protestors to shout down speakers with whom they disagree. But because my speech was on abortion, it was particularly contentious.
After the speech, which took place at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was over, we had a Q&A session that was tame by comparison. In fact, it was slightly boring. The only highlight of the session was my exchange with a graduate student. Below, I have reproduced the exchange to the best of my ability:Student: In your speech, you say that you are opposed to abortion under virtually every circumstance. If you are not willing to preserve the legality of abortion then I was just wondering whether you would support any of the following programs, which would ease the repercussions of making abortion illegal. For example, would you support national health care in order to provide medical check-ups for women? Also, would you support a national daycare program for those who cannot afford to stay home with their babies? As an educator, you know the importance of education. So I am wondering if you would support additional sex education programs in our public school system. And, since not everyone goes to school, would you support publicly funded sex education classes for adults?
Me: Ma’am.
Student: I’m not finished yet.
Me: I know you aren’t finished, but most people just ask one question and you are firing off a number of them. I think I can save you some time by answering all of your questions with one simple answer: No, I would not.
Student: Why aren’t you willing to support any of these measures?
Me: Because each one includes either the word “national” or the word “public.”
Student: I don’t understand.
Me: Well, put simply, each time you use
the word “national” you are referring to the national government. Each time you use the word “public” you are referring to the local government. Either way, you are suggesting you will drop your support for abortion in exchange for more government spending. Now let me ask you a question. Are you a graduate student?
Student: I am.
Me: What is your major?
Student: Public Policy and Administration.
At this point in the exchange, the student tried to shout more questions out as I spoke to her. So I moved on to the next student. But had I been able to stop her barrage of questions, I would have ended the exchange this way:Me: Well, there we have it. All of the government programs you recommend would be run by people with Masters in Public Administration, or MPA, degrees. What you are really asking me is whether I would be willing to trade government jobs for live babies. I think that is truly shameful. I am here to help save lives, not to help grow the government. And if you concede that abortion takes life, then you should oppose it without any further financial incentive.
The exchange suggested to me that some feminists would be willing to drop their support of abortion rights if it meant they could profit from it by securing more government jobs. This could cause tension within the feminist movement, especially given that so many people are already profiting financially from the abortion trade. That will be the subject of our next correspondence.
Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don't Understand Page 4
