A pro-life perspective

By Dr. Robert Parchment, Contributor

"IF YOU know a woman who was pregnant, who had eight kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind and one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?" If you said, yes, she should abort, you just killed Beethoven.

Most abortion advocates are eager to argue, but there are some questions they don't want to be asked. Specifically, they do not want to defend abortion itself, because if they tried they would lose.

Whenever abortion advocates engage in a public debate, they are targeting the great majority of the country who are undecided and largely uniformed on the issue. Abortion advocates will present "choice" as an expression of social justice and fairness, themes that win broad support.

At the same time, they attempt to portray the pro-life position as narrow, intolerant and unfair.

Unfortunately for the past two decades, pro-life activities have largely failed to exploit these weaknesses. They have allowed abortion advocates to frame public discussions of the issue rendering their own arguments impotent.

I would like to pose six questions in the abortion debate in terms that will reveal the abortion arguments as manipulative, unreasonable and callous.

Pro-abortionists say the unborn child is part of the mother's body. If that is so why does the child possess a completely different genetic code and often a different blood type? How do you explain the fact that it has its own immune system? Since the baby's code is always different from the mother's it is obvious that the unborn baby is a completely separate individual.

If we use the absence of brain waves to determine that a person's life has ended, why shouldn't we use the presence to determine that someone's life has begun. Abortion advocates will usually try to avoid answering by saying that there is not a clear medical consensus about when characteristically 'human' brain waves occur. They will say that some scientists believe "human" brain waves cannot be measured until the fifth or sixth month of gestation. This is a smokescreen.

We are now seeing the unborn being treated for disease, given blood transfusions and even operated on. When a doctor does one of these procedures who is the patient? The unborn baby has a heartbeat at three weeks and brain waves at six weeks. The unborn baby is complete.

Why is it that the abortion advocates say that they want women to have all their options, but they fight so hard against laws requiring totally informed consent. I believe abortion advocates couldn't care less about women making informed decisions, just choosing abortion. Now what would be the problem in telling the mother things about the unborn child - that it has hair, fingernails, a heartbeat,that it sucks its thumb, that it's a girl or boy?

What rights do you feel a father should have in an abortion decision? I want to show that this is not just a woman's issue. Most people believe a father should have some rights in the decision. How can anyone, other than these radical abortionists, say that a father does not have equal rights in whether his child is killed or not, but they also say that if the mother decides to let it live - he has equal responsibility to pay for it's upbringing?

Let's look at a hypothetical situation. Two women become pregnant on the same day. Six months later woman (A) has a premature healthy baby and woman (B) is still pregnant. One week later each decides she doesn't want her baby. Why should woman (B) be allowed to kill her baby and not woman (A)? The abortion advocates will usually say the difference is that one has been born, and the other hasn't. Being born simply refers to where the baby is located.

In conclusion, I believe that the great majority of us have doubts about the issues of abortion; however, if nothing else, I have tried to show you, that one is better off taking the risk of being pro-life and wrong, than being pro-abortion and wrong.

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