Chapter 8: Controlling Misogynists
The View from Pro-Choice Activists
Cut through culture’s confusion to see abortion for what it is and gain the clarity needed to advocate for righteousness in the midst of today’s greatest evils
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: There is no constitutional right to abortion
-the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade in a 6-3 decision was overturned
-pro-life Christians celebrated the Dobbs decision as an incredible win
-pro-choice culture displayed outrage, indignation, and dismay
-pro-choice claimed the Supreme court has just taken away women’s rights
“After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had” (Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan).
“From the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A state can force her to bring a pregnancy to term even at the steepest personal and familial costs” (Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan).
***the narrative that women were being stripped of basic reproductive rights, effectively putting their bodies under the control of the government forcing them to give birth, was an emotionally powerful motivator for the pro-choice cause
-activists seized on the opportunity to label those who are pro-life forced birthers
-they drew parallels to the dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (in which a theocratic government forces subservient women to bear children)
-there were rallies and protests across the country and turned social media into a platform for rage
-pro-choice culture that the pro-life movement is closely associated with Christianity
-media outlets tried to convince Christians they don’t have to be pro-life
-media outlets tried to tell the public that it pro-life was just a reflection of religious extremists
Ex. Rolling Stone Headline: Think Christianity is anti-abortion? Think again. Extremists have sought to use religion as a tool to dominate women’s bodies, but Christians have a long history of being in favor of abortion rights.”
***culture’s message was quite clear after the Dobbs decision that women had lost important rights and religious people were to blame
***Dobbs didn’t make abortion illegal, it only gave abortion policy decisions back to the individual states
Understanding the lost rights of the Dobbs decision:
-the cultural narrative on abortion revolves around the language rights
-we need to establish what rights were lost
-and if the loss of rights is inherently a bad thing
1973 Roe v. Wade
-the Supreme Court had concluded that a right to privacy is inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
-justices inferred that privacy included “a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy”
-the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, was far removed from granting abortion rights
-its purpose was to grant citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States-including formerly enslaved persons
****14th Amendment: enslaved persons = equal protection under the law
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
-the Constitution does not explicitly mention any right to privacy
-justices stated that there is an implied right to privacy
-justices then inferred that privacy would include a woman’s right to “terminate” her pregnancy
-so that is how a constitutional right to abortion was found
2022, Dobbs decision
-the ruling that Roe was “egregiously wrong” and its reasoning “exceptionally weak” and an “abuse of judicial authority”
“The only legitimate unenumerated rights (rights not explicitly stated in the Constitution) are those ‘deeply roped in the Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty’” (Justice Alito).
-the justices in Dobbs weren’t making a statement about the morality of abortion
-the justices were not making abortion illegal
-the justices weren’t’ trying to reflect popular opinion on the subject
***they were concluding that a judicial error had been made in Roe because the Court at the time had asserted a constitutional right that didn’t exist
-if there is no constitutional right to abortion then abortion policies going forward would necessarily fall under the jurisdiction of individual states
****a constitutional right to abortion was “lost”
-all 50 states have the option to give women unfettered rights to kill their preborn babies
-the court simply concluded that the Constitution itself doesn’t confer that right
***Is the loss of rights inherently bad?
-to understand the difference between God=given and government given rights
1-God-given rights are those that precede any human law
-they are rights that every human being is entitled to by virtue of their humanity
-the Founding Fathers in America referenced such rights in the Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
-the US Constitution was designed to protect those rights from government violation
-these God-given rights are, by definition, objectively good because they’re rooted in the authority and nature of a perfect God
-the loss of God-given rights, therefore, is inherently bad
-a person losing something good to which they’re entitled by their Creator
2-Government-given rights can arbitrarily given and taken away at the discretion of those in power because these rights aren’t rooted in an authority higher than the state
-government-given rights are not necessarily good
-Americans had the government-given right to hold slaves
-the government later took away that right
-no one today laments the loss of slaveholding rights because we recognize that it was a right people shouldn’t have had in the first place
1896, Plessy v. Ferguson
-the Court affirmed the right of states to maintain racially segregated public facilities, in a doctrine of "separate but equal”
-in 1954, the court reversed the ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education stating that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal
-whether the loss of government-given right is good or bad it depends on whether the right itself is good or bad
***if it’s a right to do evil by enslaving another human as property then the loss of that right is actually a good thing
-so when people are outraged or indignant over the idea that women “lost rights” we need to remember that losing government given rights isn’t necessarily bad
-the language has a strong emotional pull, but as Christians, we need to think more deeply
***Is the government-given right to kill a preborn baby an objectively good right we should want to protect?
Abortion isn’t Complicated:
-Christians are the religious group most often associated with the pro-life movement
BUT
-many Christians believe abortion is such a complicated issue that we should agree to disagree in order to not drive women away from church
***the morality of abortion isn’t complicated
-the circumstances that lead to unwanted pregnancies may be complicated, but the circumstances don’t change the morality of ending a life
-abortion is emotionally complicated but not morally so
-separating a person’s circumstances can result in a person feeling the desire or need to sexually assault someone else
-societies determine that rape is wrong and make it illegal accordingly–no matter what kind of awful like circumstances a perpetrator may have had that contributed to their actions
***Is it morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being?
-the Bible unequivocally condemns the intentional taking of innocent human life
-It is the 6th Commandment given to Moses in Exodus 20:13
“Thou shall not kill”
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9”6).
“Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked” (Exodus 23:7).
“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are abominations to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood” (Proverbs 6: 16-17).
***we know from both the Bible and science that preborn babies are, indeed, human
-the Bible doesn’t explicitly state that the preborn are human, but it speaks that we assume as much
Ex.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you: I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).
“You formed my inward parts: you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13).
“The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name” (Isaiah 49:1).
“He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15).
“When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1: 41).
-science of embryology affirms that human embryos are not creatures of a different kind from human beings, but are human beings at different stage of development
“Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, the zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell (capable of giving rise to any cell type) marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”
-the moment sperm and egg come together, a unique human being is formed
-pro-choice activists try to avoid the implications of this undeniable fact
-they claim there are certain criteria a human must meet to have the value we normally associate with humanity
-humanity = a “person” with the right to life
-the Bible makes no such distinction in value between humans
-pro-choice do not look the the Bible as their authority for truth
-nor do they recognize the differences in human characteristics as a reason not to kill an unborn human
***four key differences between embryos and adults are nonessential
1-size
-toddlers are smaller than adults but we do not justify the killing of toddlers so why do we use body (embryo) size to determine value
2-level of development
-the argument is that embryos are less developed than adults
-toddlers are also less developed than adults
-there is no sliding scale of human value as we develop mentally and physically throughout childhood
3-environment
-we don’t accept the killing of toddlers based on where they are located
-it is rationalized to accept the killing of an embryo based on where they are located
-the journey of 8 inches down the birth canal changes the essential nature of the preborn from a being we can kill to one we can’t
4-degree of dependency
-embryos depend on their mothers for survival, but so do toddlers
-dependance on another human doesn’t determine when it’s acceptable to kill someone–if it did we should be free to kill toddlers as well
-pre-born babies are human beings
-there’s no logically consistent reason to assign a lesser value to their lives based on the differences
Pro-life Rationale:
-it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being
-abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being
-therefor, abortion is morally wrong
-abortion is the intentional taking of innocent life so it’s murder
***Christians should recognize abortion as one of the greatest acts of evil against individual humans and the common good today
This is a government-given right we should unequivocally seek to eliminate
Beyond Lost Rights: Breaking Down the Charges
1-abortion is murder
2-nearly everyone agrees that murder is morally wrong
-culture is overwhelmingly in favor of having the choice to abort
-culture also is not just in favor of having the choice, but enraged at those who are opposed to it
-culture is not saying that killing is not with making the case that murder is never ever morally wrong
-culture is making the case for they are okay with the murder of certain categories of humans and don’t feel the need to offer further justification for their pro-choice position
“Pro-choice advocates primarily frame the debate from the perspective of the woman, whereas pro-life advocates primarily form it from the perspective of the preborn baby.”
-pro-choice advocates focus on the (alleged) harm to women that comes from not having the right to abort
-pro-life advocates focus on the harm to preborn babies that comes from women having the right to abort
-culture is overwhelmingly pro-choice despite believing murder is wrong because it typically isn’t even thinking about abortion as an issue of harm to preborn babies
-it’s thinking of it as an issue of harm to women
-that distinction is also the source of the emotional outrage on the subject
-culture doesn’t only see Christians and other pro-life advocates as wrong; it sees them as misogynistic oppressors
***The central question is whether it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human?
-pro-choice are okay with the morality of abortion when it only claims to the harm done to women
-pro-life look at the morality of abortion as dictated by what happens to the baby
***the alleged harm done to women in taking away their right to abortion is equal to or greater than the harm done to a baby in taking away their life
Claim 1: Pro-life advocates want to control women’s bodies (my body my choice)
-this is questioning the motivation of the person’s position
Ex. if it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human then it’s morally wrong regardless why any given person hold that position
The claim:
-pro-life advocates are harming women by oppressively trying to control their bodies
-this fails in logic because there are societal laws that are against murder
-we have collectively agreed that it’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being
-preborn babies are indeed “others”---unique humans with their own set of DNA
-if it is morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being, therefore it’s not harmful to have laws on whether women can use their bodies to do so
Claim 2: Pro-life policies impose trauma on women and kids because kids are being forced into a world in bad circumstances
-ending abortion will bring nothing but pain for not only women but children
-children will be born to parents who can’t afford them
-children will be born to parents who are not ready and will end up in foster care
-more poor kids will be born
-more kids will be abuses
-more kids will be traumatized
***consider the logic to this claim
-First, does it harm women if they’re unable to kill a preborn baby and consequently have to raise that child in less than desirable circumstances?
-a mother can certainly struggle emotionally, physically, or financially
-raising a child may even require a vastly different path in life than the one a would would have
***but that is true for every mom who gives birth to babies they want
-moms can cherish their kids and struggle to raise them
-the circumstances then, aren’t harmful
-some circumstances are simply unwelcome by moms who have an undesired pregnancy
-hardship doesn’t justify murder
-this logic is not applied to a toddler
***no one says the toddler would be better off dead
Claim 3: Pro-life policies force a woman to bear her rapist’s child
-people instinctively want to minimize the suffering of rape and incest victims by not requiring them to give birth (which seems like further trauma)
***two wrongs do not make it right
-the woman who is a victim of violence is a tragic moral wrong
-an abortion then is an additional victim of violence which is another tragic moral wrong
-the only just response to rape and incest is to punish the criminal not the innocent preborn baby
-pro-life ministries offer counseling to women who are victims of rape or incest and can help with the placement of a child for adoption if desired
Claim 4: Pro-life policies cause women to die because they can’t get lifesaving abortion care
-a tubal ectopic pregnancy is not an intentional abortion but a medical emergency that can be fatal to mother so therefore the embryo will need to be removed through surgical removal or medication
***there is not one state law that prevents a physician from treating an ectopic pregnancy to save the mom’s life-including in states that restrict abortion
-there is a distinction between a miscarriage and abortion
-treatment of a miscarriage has never been limited
-a miscarriage is a spontaneous and naturally occurring death of a developing baby
-an abortion is the intentional killing of the developing baby
***ending a preborn baby’s life is morally justified in saving the mother’s life if we’re going to maintain consistency with the stand that it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being at any other time
***the sole intent of an abortion is to produce a dead baby–that is why it’s called a “failed abortion” when the baby survives
Bringing Moral Clarity to Light:
Culture:
-culture claims the Supreme Court had stripped women of their basic reproductive rights and set them back decades in progress toward gender equality
-women will be forced to give birth by a government that controlled what they could or couldn’t do with their own bodies
-they will be forced to bear their rapist’s child
-they would die for not being able to access to lifesaving care when pregnancies threatened their lives
-women are being oppressed and that is the gravest moral outrage
Pro-life
-you must have clarity that abortion is murder
-be able to rebut the claims of the morally, logically, or factually confused
-we do not agree to disagree
-do not be blinded by culture’s darkness
-be alert, educated, and ready to expose the truth on abortion
Responses to challenges on abortion:
1-pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion (I don’t love abortion, but women should have the right to choose)
-slavery was morally wrong but still claimed to be pro-choice on the matter (pro-choice doesn’t meant pro-slavery)
2-pro-life laws are racist because rich white women will still be able to get abortions even if abortion is outlawed
-this presupposes that the ability to have an abortion is a good thing
-it presupposes that if not everyone has access to it is a bad thing
-if abortion is indeed murder then it’s not racist to have laws against it even if certain groups are better able to skirt around the law
3-pro-life advocates are hypocrites who don’t care about the lives of babies after they’re born
-pro-life advocates are opposed to abortion because they believe that it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being
Ex. a person can morally oppose rape, but not become a rape victim advocate and still hold the moral position-these people are not called hypocrites
-Christian do love and care about all people
-there are Christians ministries that exist to provide support families in need
4-you should keep your religion out of my uterus
-ask for the definition of religion
-ask if a society should ever allow laws that are based on values held by religious people
-ask if we should only allow laws based on values held by atheists
-ask if it’s okay to pass laws that incorporate values held by religious people
-ask which ones should be allowed and which obese should not
***as a society, we make laws all the time that are based on values held by religious people
Ex. we outlaw murder and murder is considered morally wrong by nearly every religious group, so we are not legislating anyone’s personal religion when we pass laws against murder
5-men have no right to tell a woman what she can or can’t do with her body
-ask if this principle applies to other issues other than abortion
-ask if men should have a say in whether women can use their bodies to drink and drive
-in a democracy, both men and women vote on what they believe is best for society
-pro-life advocates believe it is morally wrong to kill a preborn human being just as it’s morally wrong to kill any other human being
-the gender of a person holding a position has no bearing on the morality of the action itself
What to do:
-stay informed about abortion-related bills in your state and take action accordingly
-vote against any bill supporting the destruction of life
-bring awareness about pending legislation at your church and everyone you know
-many Christians do not stay up to date on legislation
-we must work together to educate others about important votes
-pray for, volunteer with, or donate to your local pro-life women's health clinics (also known as a crisis pregnancy center)
-volunteer with a mobile pregnancy clinic or start one at your own church (a women’s health clinic on wheels)
-bring a speaker to your church, school, or event to help get more Christ-followers passionate about pro-life advocacy
-host a pro-life book study group at your church or on your own
-create a fundraiser for pro-life organization of your choosing
-buy products from companies committed to a pro-life position