Why Does Prolife Persuasion Still Matter and Abortion is Unthinkable?

“Mommy, can I smash it with a hammer?” asked the boy. Mom, sees the roach, and says, “Yes, please do.” In the back of her mind she’s also thinking it’s time to call the pest control folks. If the “it” was the boy’s little sister, Mom’s answer would be “No, not ever!” Mom would then have to grapple how to help a child see the value of human life. What is it? I think this is the operative question in the abortion discussion.

 Planned Parenthood counselor may say abortion is a legal and safe way to terminate a pregnancy, but what is it that is being terminated? What is the “it” inside the womb?
My contention is that the “it” inside the womb is a human life. It is a living person at one stage of human development. That is the “it” inside the womb. This is the basis for the Pro-life resistance to abortion on demand as a means of birth control.

Hank Hanegraaff indicates that, “The living baby in the mother’s womb is a human being because he or she is the product of human parents and has a totally distinct human genetic code. This truth that abortion terminates the life of a human being is substantiated by science” [1]. This is far from just the opinion of the Bible Answer Man; rather, Hank’s assertion is based upon credible research. For example, He cites, Dr. Micheline Matthew-Roth, a principal research associate at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Medicine, who said, “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life” [2].

Even the Scriptures corroborate the notion that life begins at conception. David declared: 

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well. 

(Psalm 139:13-14, ESV)

Given the value of human life, and it is a life that is inside the womb, perhaps we can never really settle for a legal, safe and rare option. It may appear to be a noble thing—reducing the number of abortions—but then why not just take off killing the life inside the womb off the table altogether? Abortion should be unthinkable as opposed to legal safe and rare. Doing whatever we can to preserve life inside and outside the womb is more a step in the right direction.

Pro-life persuasion still matters because preserving life inside the womb is the right thing to do.

WGN
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Notes:

1. Hank Hanegraaff, “Practical Apologetics: Annihilating Abortion Arguments,” http://www.equip.org/articles/practical-apologetics-annihilating-abortion-arguments/ 

2. Ibid, cf. The Human Life Bill, S. 158, Report Together with Additional and Minority Views to the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, made by its Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 97th Congress. 1st Session (1981), 11.