Abortion; it’s been in the news a lot here lately due to the court leaks and the supposed upcoming overturning of Roe v. Wade. It’s a highly controversial topic with strong opinions on both sides of the aisle, but really, it shouldn’t be. Now, it should be mentioned that I am a white, Christian, middle-class, straight man and have been told quite frequently that my opinion on the matter isn’t wanted, needed, or valued. And I have been told that I need to (in a direct quote) “Sit down and shut up!” and “No uterus, no opinion!”
However, it really shouldn’t be an issue to admit that abortion is a moral issue to many people and in the square of public debate, moral issues are and should be debated by all people, regardless of sex or any other difference. I am also a conservative Libertarian. So when it comes to personal rights or liberty, I am very stern in my thoughts about rights and the values put forth by many libertarian ideals. So with that in mind, I am going to be writing about abortion today.
There’s an app I have been really enjoying lately called Rumble Debate. It’s an app where they give you topics to discuss and then you can have a one-on-one debate with someone who disagrees about the selected topic. Then others can vote on who they believe won a completed debate. For a person like me (who loves a good debate) it’s a fantastically fun app. You might believe that it just descends into complete chaos 99% of the time, like nearly every other argument online, but I have mostly been pleasantly surprised at the civility of the debates I have had so far.
That being said, they recently opened a debate on whether or not you agree with the Supreme Court ruling on Roe and I have been very unimpressed with the arguments I have had from those who disagree with me and have found very few people who are willing to really have a true conversation with me about it. It’s rare that they even have answers to my points and questions. Most of the time, I have presented some of my points and they have just refused to address them. So let me share some of the thoughts about abortion I have gathered throughout the years and see what you think.
1. Abortion ends a human life:
It seems like this shouldn’t even be a point that needs to be made, but I am making it because so many don’t want to actually acknowledge this aspect. Let’s face the reality here, the entity within a woman has human DNA, is a male or female (though most of the time it’s in there), has human features (through the majority of the time it’s in there), and most certainly is alive. From nearly every standard we have, it is alive. So when an abortion happens, this ends a human life.
2. Lack of development is a terrible argument:
The issue with this idea that is often thrown around is that you can extend it to humans outside of the womb. I have often heard it said that because the entity is an embryo, fetus, zygote, etc; it is not ending a human life and is not murder or killing. This is a very weak argument because my son who is only two and a half is not fully developed. I should also mention that he is very expensive and often loud, so am I free to kill him?
He is not fully developed, so does that make it okay? I really hope you say no. Beyond that, the human brain technically doesn’t finish its development until around the age of 28 years, so many of you reading this aren’t fully developed either. Should your mommy or daddy have the right to kill you right now? I mean, technically you aren’t fully developed. You laugh, but it’s completely true.
3. Location is a bad argument:
I have heard said a lot that because the entity is within a woman’s body, she should have the right to get rid of (murder) said entity. However, my personal location does not rid me of my right to live. I recently took a trip to Virginia with the 4th graders of the school I work at. My right to be alive did not end when I passed into a new state.
It doesn’t end when I leave my house. It didn’t end when I took a trip to South Korea several years ago. This is a God-given right that doesn’t end when a person changes locations or is in a specific location. Neither should the human entity within a woman lose its God-given right to life just because of its location within a womb.
4. Dependency is a poor argument:
This is one of the most popular arguments that pro-choice advocates like to make. Because the entity is dependent on the woman for survival, ending that dependency is neither murder nor ending a human life because that life was dependent on another human for its survival. However, that’s a very poor argument because once again, we can extend it beyond the womb.
Let’s take my son again, just a year or so ago, my son was breastfeeding from my wife (which is one of the most amazing things God ever came up with), and I would argue that he was (and still is) completely dependent on her for his survival. Without her body (literally) he would have died. He had to have her to live.
But even without the milk side of things, many people require others for survival. I had friends who had severely mentally handicapped children who completely depend on others for their survival and will for the entirety of their lives. Can we kill these people? They depend on other human bodies to live. I hope you would say no.
5. Consciousness or awareness are flawed arguments:
I haven’t heard this argument made as much, but if you dig long enough with someone, this one might come up. Either way though, it’s a poor excuse for murder. You will hear the pro-choice side say that because the entity is not conscious, or is not aware, it is not murder to remove and kill said entity. It’s a terrible argument because there are many people who don’t have a consciousness or awareness.
Fully grown adults who are in a coma don’t have consciousness or awareness during that time. They still retain a right to life. You can’t just go through and stab people who are in a coma. That’s still murder. Beyond that, everyone sleeps and quite frankly, you are neither conscious nor aware while you are asleep. Should it be fine to stab you while you sleep? I thought not.
6. The Rape/Incest argument does work:
If a person is raped or there is an incestual pregnancy the pro-choice folks will often call the pro-life people monsters for suggesting that the woman be “forced” to carry the child to term, saying that it re-traumatizes the woman over and over again. I’m not going to say that it wouldn’t re-traumatize a woman to carry the child to term. However, saving her from further trauma is not a free license to end the life within her.
If we understand that the entity within a woman is a living human life, then ending her life is morally wrong regardless of the trauma its allowance to live brings others. It continues to have the right to live. The man who committed this evil upon a woman does not and should not give license to murder an innocent child. That child should not be punished for the evil their father committed.
That evil lasts, long after the actual act is done. That evil may even be lasting into the birth of a child that came from that original evil. It’s a terrible thing, but awful things happen in life. All we can do is love and support the woman through the pregnancy and birth of the child. All these pregnancies should be automatically put up for free adoption right after birth unless the woman wants the child.
Closing argument:
I understand why the pro-choice folks are passionate about this. I’m convinced most of them have the best intentions. They want women to be able to lead productive and happy lives and an unexpected child can certainly impact that. However, no one’s life or quality of life should supersede another’s life or quality of life. People have equal rights. All peoples have a right to live, including those entities within a womb.
D. Michl Lowe
Author D. Michl Lowe 
Would you allow a 14 year old adopt a child? And since pregnancy can cause physical harm, including death to the woman, do you have the right to force a women to risk her life?
Are you for free contraception? and are you for supporting women and children with funds for good food, good housing, good schools, good medical care, etc?
Please also explain why you have no problem with your god killing actual children per your bible.
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Hi, thank you for commenting. Let me take each of your statements one at a time. First off, no of course I wouldn’t allow a 14 year old to adopt. That being said, 14 year olds and other ages do make mistakes. Some of those mistakes will last them a lifetime. That’s unfortunate, but sometimes unfortunate things happen in life. At times, things happen to people that risk their lives. That’s again something that happens in life. It’s not right to murder another human to reduce risk to another human.
You’re 2nd question is a good one, but odd. If we are talking about kids in high school, then I am fairly sure we already offer free condoms at most high schools from the school nurse. I think my local high schools offer this for free (I will actually check). However, handing out food, housing, and free medical care is a little much, (school is already free). Good schooling though, it’s interesting you would mention that, I am all for equal school funding not bound by school districts. I am also for school choice so that people can have the option to send their kids to any school they feel gives their child the best chance. Much of what you are suggesting here already exists in one form or another in our current social welfare systems, but hasn’t done a great job at decreasing poverty in our country. I have ideas about how to address these issues, but honestly it’s a little long to really get into on a reply, maybe I will write an article about that. It would be interesting to hear your response to some of those ideas. Thanks for idea.
Your last comment is also interesting. Beyond staring at the beginning that I am a Christian and then mentioning that in the US we believe rights a “God given” none of my arguments are based on my religion at all. So I’m not sure why God’s behavior in the Bible has anything to do with talking about human rights here on earth except that I believe humans have rights. I would venture to say that you believe humans have rights as well since you seem to care about the suffering of human women. As such, I would say that if you want to talk about religion or spiritual beliefs that’s great, but let’s move it over to one of my posts about that subject and stick to the topic on this one. 😊
Thank you for your post. I appreciate you taking the time to read it and then to comment.
D. Michl
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“First off, no of course I wouldn’t allow a 14 year old to adopt. “
Yet, you want to force a 14 year old to have a child because of your religion. And it’s interesting that you blame the 14 year old for “mistakes”, aka incest and rape. You seem to have no problem at all forcing a child to risk her life so you can pretend you care about life. You are quite a hypocrite. You have yet to explain why *you* have the right to force someone to risk their life. Risk does happen but why do you have the right to increase it for your opinion? Why not trust your god to judge?
You want the “unfortunate thing” to happen to the child, but not to the fertilized egg, embryo, fetus, and just shrug your shoulders on the harm you are doing. You might also consider your god has no problem in killing other humans to “reduce risk” to others, quite a few times in the old testament. Is it wrong for your god to do this?
I’m guessing you consider the following my second question: “Are you for free contraception? and are you for supporting women and children with funds for good food, good housing, good schools, good medical care, etc?
No, “we” don’t offer free condoms at most high schools. We don’t thanks to conservative Christians like you having a fit about the most basic sex education. Conservative Christians have caused the problem of people being ignorant on how sex and reproduction works.
“However, handing out food, housing, and free medical care is a little much,”
And of course you don’t want to support those children you insist people have. This is no surprise at all, despite your supposed messiah saying you should help the poor, sick, etc. You again are just another hypocrite.
School isn’t free; it is paid for by taxes and it benefits everyone. And of course you want equal funding for the ignorance promoted by religions, well, at least for conservative Christians. I’m sure you’d have a fit if a madrassa was funded by everyone.
You also claim that welfare systems haven’t “done a great job at reducing poverty”. It actually has since kids can get food, subsidized housing, etc. Could it be better? Of course. We still have poverty; I know this quite well from growing up in Appalachia. Let’s see, conservatives have fought having a decent minimum wage. Do you support raising that? We know it works. I will guess you do not.
My last comment was “Please also explain why you have no problem with your god killing actual children per your bible.” And yes, it is an interesting one since it shows how a Christian can think. It’s no surprise that you want to have a god that can kill people without question since it would be inconvenient to question your god’s actions.
You are a Christian, and your arguments are indeed based on your religion since you think you know when life starts and it is only your opinion. You of course ignore your bible when it says that life starts at the first breath since that is inconvenient for your desire to force your beliefs on others. We also see that your idea about abortion and forcing women to give birth is based on the very Christian idea of punishment. And then we have you making this direct claim that it is indeed about your religion: “This is a God given right that doesn’t end when a person changes locations or is in a specific location.” That is your assumption and your religious belief. So I *am* sticking with the topic here.
Humans do have rights, no god needed to “give” them (and again, here we have your religion claimed as fact). Humans have slowly realized that other humans are the same as them and we realize that what we want for ourselves is what we should want for others.
It’s also interesting that you claim to be this: “I am also a conservative Libertarian.” Which always ends up being a conservative who wants freedom to do what he wants and to be able to limit the freedom of anyone who disagrees with him. Again, pure hypocrisy.
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Hi again! Yes, many of the 14 year olds make mistakes and get pregnant. That does happen. Is there rape and incest? Of course. I already addressed that though and you didn’t exactly dispute what I said about it. It’s not about forcing anything on anyone. It’s about helping a person through a difficult situation, which I personally have often done and encourage others to be a good human as well.
You keep mentioning my religion. I’m not sure why that’s so important to you. I don’t need my religion to talk about why abortion is wrong and I didn’t talk about religion. I live in WV which is often considered backwards, but I just contacted one of my fellow school counselors and they confirmed at the least our local high-school students have access to free condoms. I am for sex eduction for students. Not for like k-4th, but starting in 5th grade and I feel like that’s an important thing to provide to students.
Providing free stuff doesn’t help people long term. I do believe that the responsibility of caring for the less fortunate should be a personal responsibility. I personally give to charities and organizations that help the less fortunate. I personally give to organizations that help to support pregnant women and women who are struggling raising children that weren’t planned. I give from every paycheck. Do you support women in this way? I hope you do.
I believe we should do away with all minimum wage restrictions. 😊 I know that most likely doesn’t sit well with you, but I believe businesses and in return people do better when two people negotiate an agreed upon rate of pay.
I spoke about rights being endowed by God because our Declaration of Independence states exactly that.
“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.”
My beliefs might inform my reasons, but yours do as well. All people argue for their side of arguments based on their beliefs. Even if those beliefs aren’t religiously based. I would assume your beliefs are not based on religion and that’s fine, but they are based on your ideas of morality. Things you believe are right and wrong. We all do that. You seem to be hung up on the why I believe something and not the how I believe. The how is more important in this particular argument because there are things we can agree on. My main argument boils down to this, I believe the entity within a woman is a human and deserves human rights. You don’t believe the entity within a woman is worth human rights. That’s what this argument boils down to. You can assume I have ill intentions towards people, but I don’t. I assume you have good intentions (to help women), I just believe your way of doing that isn’t a good way of doing it because it negatively effects another person (the unborn person). Thanks again for commenting.
D. Michl
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I’ll be back to continue this but I do have a question about this claim of yours “It’s not about forcing anything on anyone. It’s about helping a person through a difficult situation, which I personally have often done and encourage others to be a good human as well.”
so forcing a girl into a possibly deadly situation is okay by you, correct?
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You seem to be intent on punishing people for making a mistake, and again, forcing children into potentially deadly situations. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and your religion is most assuredly not “right”. And you don’t care about rape or incest either, it seems. I do dispute what you say about rape and incest and your need to force people to do what you want them to. You don’t want to help anyone, D. You want to control them. It is not being a good human to tell someone that you want them to potentially die so your imaginary god is happy.
Yep, I do keep mentioning you are a Christian. It is important to me to know what your worldview is and that worldview that you and so many others want to force on me. You do indeed need your religion to explain why you think abortion is wrong and I’ve already quoted you doing so. You did talk about religion with your nonsense about “god given” rights. A recording medium like this is inconvenient for you when you want to falsely claim you didn’t do something you did.
West Virginia is indeed backwards but not as some. Please let me know what is your local high school and I will be happy to contact them too to double check your claim. You see, D, I have had far too many Chrsitian lie to me about such things. I could be quite wrong and will happily admit so.
Now, I did do some research and have found that programs that do allow students to get condoms have been challenged by conservative Christians. No one else. The courts have happily denied the challenges since the US isn’t a Christian nation, but a secular one. However, only 20 states allow sex education with mention of contraception and gee, why is that? Yep, conservative Christians. It has taken the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and others to force states to require coherent sex education. There is also no reason to not educate k-4th, at least on the basics of how reproduction works, what consent means, etc.
You make the common excuse that providing “free stuff” doesn’t help people long term. That is not the case, and unsurprisingly, you don’t want to help people long term either. It would be nice if taking care of people was everyone’s personal responsibility but it is not, and that’s why we have the gov’t that we can pool resources and use them. I will guess that you only give to Christian charities and organizations, and yes, they largely require some religious acceptance to help people. And yep, I do give to organizations that help women and children, that don’t require anything from those that are helped. It’s rather amusing that you assumed I wouldn’t do this.
ROFL, yep, it doesn’t surprise me at all that you would be happy if no one had to pay a fair wage for a day’s work. That’s the typical selfishness and greed of a conservative Christian. Alas, some people have no chance to negotiate for pay. West Virginia is notorious for employers exploiting their employees since there is no place else to go. That’s why unions are useful (and yes, I do know they can also be corrupt). I know all about the history of coal mining.
Alas, for you the Declaration of Independence isn’t about your god, nor does it say what you claim, when you tried to lie that it was against abortion in your rather amusing attempt to claim that location was important. You also ignore the Declaration when convenient depending on your religious-based claims of when “life” is.
Your belief is your reason to falsely claim that life begins at conception, that a fertilized egg/embryo/fetus is the same as a child, and that you have some right to deny the choice of a woman. Your religion is based on the idea that women are at best second-class citizens and at worst property. And then we have you first claiming this “ Beyond staring at the beginning that I am a Christian and then mentioning that in the US we believe rights a “God given” none of my arguments are based on my religion at all.” and when I pointed out how false this was, you finally admit “All people argue for their side of arguments based on their beliefs.”
Now, if I hadn’t address this, you would still be trying to make false claims. You also fail to realize that your beliefs are based on nothing but opinion, and that does not make them the same as those beliefs based on fact. It is not morality that says a child isn’t the same as a fertilized egg, just like morality doesn’t say that an acorn isn’t an oak tree.
The how you believe is by others telling you that your version of one religion is true. You have no evidence for that claim.
You do indeed believe that the entity within a woman is a human and deserves human rights. You have nothing to support that, only your particular interpretation of your bible the sole source of your religion. What is within a woman is a potential human being, nothing more or less. You have no problem in saying that this potential human being is worth more than a actual human being and demand that women be forced to agree with you. You also don’t want to support those supposed human beings when you demand they are brought into existence. I don’t assume that you have ill intentions toward people; I know you do since you do not care about the risk to the woman.
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Wow… you are going to be super pissed when Roe v. Wade is overturned. Good luck with all your hate. Instead of tackling the topics, I laid out in the original article, you seem to think that trying to make straw man arguments will win you converts to your way of thinking. You try to put words in my mouth and then claim my intentions are evil. Sorry, that’s not how this works.
I also notice that you seem to think yourself very clever. You like to argue on others’ websites and post them on your own little blog. Does that make you feel important to believe that you have outwitted these other people? I have written my article because I believe what I wrote is correct. I am attempting to have an honest and wholesome conversation about the topic.
Thank you for your time. Good luck in a post-Roe world.
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Yep, I will be “super pissed” if Roe is overturned by wannabee theocrats like you. Alas, you still won’t get your way, and you will have only murdered more actual people, sacrificed to your ignorant religion.
I, of course, did address the topics in the original article and again, it’s always great fun to watch a Christian lie about something so petty. You have yet to show I’ve used strawman arguments, and again, you can’t since I didn’t.
Your intentions are indeed evil, and it is no surprise that you have no problem in wanting children to potentially die so you can get your way.
I am quite clever, and I am quite happy to put how Christians fail on my own blog. Why would I feel important for outwitting the dimwitted, like you? It’s not that I feel important at all. it is revealing just how horrible Christians and Christianity actually is.
It is quite the lie that you are attempting to have an honest and ROFL, “wholesome” conversation on the topic of abortion. You repeat lies just like every other wannabee theocrat who wants to force his desires on others.
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I’m curious. You keep calling me evil… what standard are you basing that assessment on?
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I see you are trying the argument from morality now. I can happily call you evil since I have morality. And yes, that morality is subjective, having been part of human thought for millenia and slowly, but surely getting better.
Humans have morality from the slow process of figuring out what helps and hinders civilization. Happily, we have moved on from the morality invented by humans in the bible, where they made believe that their god agreed with them that slavery was fine, genocide was fine and killing children for the actions of others was fine to what we have now.
Human morality needs some work. Still no god or its followers needed.
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However, since in your world view morality is subjective and based only on consensus or personal opinion, your ideas of morality are more valid than anyone else’s. So you calling me “evil” really has no meaning since star dust interacting with star dust is just that, dust interacting with dust and has no more meaning than that.
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D, your morality is just as subjective as mine is, but you try to lie and claim it is from some magical being. Alas, every Christian claims this and makes contradictory claims to yours on what morals this god wants.
None of you can show that some god approves of your nonsense. You also have the problem that you accept this god doing horrific acts that, hopefully, you would be appalled if a human did the same. This demonstrates your morality as being entirely subjective, dependent on who or what does something, rather than the objective morality of the act itself. This generally becomes a morality of might equals right for Christians.
Alas, for you, calling you evil has plenty of meaning. Your need to control others and force your false claims on them is nothing different from the Nazis, Stalin, etc. Happily, us humans do generally agree on morality, and you are the sad little outlier.
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So I read some of your blog. Apparently you grew up in the church. Are your parents still believers? Do you call them these types of names? Just curious.
Beyond that though, when you claim morality as you do, because you have no moral foundation to point to (imaginary or not) it all comes back to being an opinion. So when you say I am evil (which is laughable by the by) you are just stating your own opinion of evil. And honestly, when someone just insults you and makes fun of you (I tell my kids this, both my children and the kids in my schools) their opinion really shouldn’t matter much to you, they are just a bully. Someone who goes around online looking for fights and attempting to show how powerful they are by calling names and making fun of people’s belief systems. Perhaps you should think about throwing names around like evil when you have no idea who you are talking to. You don’t know me, my family, my community, and really you don’t know my beliefs either. You’ve read one of my articles (maybe even more) and you think you understand, but really you don’t. I don’t claim to understand you, but I do see what you are and have been doing online… this is your thing and that’s okay, but it is sad. I will pray for you. I will pray that hopefully your parents are still believers and that they will be able to reach you heart.
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Side note: we are well off the topic of the original article. So this particular thread is done. Thanks again for commenting.
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