What's wrong with abortion?

I (David) do not come to the Pro-life movement for some altruistic reason, I come through my own experience and suffering. Abortion ruined my life and the woman I was involved with. We chose abortion to "save our careers" but it ended up costing everything. My testimony is here.

This is a live baby.

This is abortion at 11 weeks.

Let's call this girl Sara. She will never skip or play hopscotch, go to a prom, or have her own family. This is not her choice. Every human tries to stay alive. Babies in utero swim away from the foresnips.

Step 1: ask "Is something being killed?"

Everyone familiar with biology will answer yes.

Step 2: ask "What is being killed?

Does she have DNA?

Is she growing?

Yes. So it is alive and is self directed.

These are all facts, not opinions. That means a human being is being killed. Every major abortion rights organization and doctor admits it is a human being.

Step 3: Explain how we justify killing a human being?

Abortion is not the first time this word game of personhood vs. humanity has been played with human life. During the slave trade, it was acknowledged that black people were human beings, but not "persons". During the Holocaust, Hitler acknowledged that Jews were human beings. That's why he performed horrible experiments on them, but he did not acknowledge their "personhood."

Step 5: Identify 4 reasons they claim these humans are not persons:

1. Size
2. Level of Development
3. Environment
4. Degree of Dependency

Show that these are not defensible reasons to deny personhood

Size

There was a song in the seventies that was titled, "Short People got no reason to live."  It became a big hit because it was so stupid. Everybody knows that a tiny gymnast is every bit as much a human as Magic Johnson the basketball player. Size has nothing to do with personhood.

Level of Development

A newborn is not as well developed as a toddler. I am more developed than toddler. The argument that a child in the womb is not a person when they are not fully developed does not make sense to me. That is what I looked like at 5 days old. And that's what you looked like too.

Environment

Yes the unborn baby lives in a unique environment. But I do not cease becoming a human when I travel to work, or home. Environment does not determine personhood.

Degree of Dependency

Yes the unborn is dependent on the mother, but so is the newborn. A person on dialysis is dependent. I am dependent on electricity. That does not determine my personhood. Clearly, dependency has nothing to do with personhood.

Step 6: Explain that Roe vs Wade became prolife

Step 7: Speak logically to the objection "It's my body, my choice"

If the unborn baby is part of the body of the mother, why does the doctor count all of the little broken off arms and legs of the baby to make sure none are left inside the mother. If they leave any part of the dead baby inside the mother, she could die. If its a boy, is the penis part of her body?

Step 8: When does life begin?

Men and women have 46 chromosomes in every cell of their bodies. When the sperm and the egg cells split off, they have 23 chromosomes each. They meet to make a new human being with 46 chromosomes.
(23 + 23 = 46 chromosomes = New Human Being).

What about Down's Syndrome?

Then there is one more chromosome, she's still human.

What about twins?

Then it is two humans. Which means it's even more of a crime to kill. They just haven't separated yet. You wouldn't kill Siamese twins.

Doesn't it take a few minutes to an hour to get all the chromosomes together?

The biggest computer in the world could not follow the first few minutes after fertilization. Fertilization is the miracle moment, and all 46 chromosomes are coming together. It's when life begins. It is a new human life.

Step 9: Explain why Catholics care about these babies?

The Bible makes it clear that it is wrong to stand by as innocent blood is shed (Deut 21:5, 7-9; Ezk 22:3-4, Is 1:15-16, Lev 18:21). Ruben rescued Joseph (Gn 37:21-22), Hebrew midwives rescued baby boys from the infanticide of Pharaoh (Ex 1:17). The soldiers of Saul rescued Jonathan from murder (1 Sam 14:45), Obadiah rescued 100 prophets from Jezebel. Esther risked her life to save her people from genocide.

Pope John Paul II writes:

The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life is not defended with maximum determination.

More facts:

• 33% of women who have abortions never see the doctor who tear their baby from the womb before or after the surgery.
• 23,000 couples in Canada and 230,000 couples in the US want to adopt children. Many go overseas to find babies because North Americans abort the majority of our unwanted babies.
• Most women think that adoption was the worst choice, they think a dead baby is better than a living baby that they give to another.
• Many women have had botched abortions with perforation of the uterus. Clinic in Canada was sued. The mother was left sterile.
• At 18 days the heart starts beating
• At 12 weeks babies yawn and walk
• At 26 weeks they scratch, cry and hiccup.