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Psych and Theo Podcast
Welcome to the "Psych and Theo Podcast". We’re your hosts, Sam and Tim. Join us as we tackle cultural issues by providing insightful discussions from both a theological and psychological perspective.
From celebrity pastors and church controversies to hot-button topics like abortion, gay marriage, and gender identity, we address these issues with grace, humor, knowledge, and wisdom. If you’re looking for thought-provoking conversations on church culture, pop culture, mental health, moral issues, and all things related to the Bible, then you’ve come to the right place.
We do our best to bring our unique perspectives to navigating the complexities of faith and culture through the lens of theology and psychology.
If you’re ready to challenge your thinking and deepen your understanding, then follow us on the "Psych and Theo Podcast." Subscribe now and join the conversation!”
Psych and Theo Podcast
Ep. 27 - The Abortion Debate, Part 1: Can the Pro-Choice Stance Hold Up Against Biblical and Logical Scrutiny?
Can the Pro-Choice stance withstand the logical scrutiny of the SLED test? Join us for a thought-provoking journey as we dissect the controversial topic of abortion, particularly focusing on the divergence of opinions among Christians and nonbelievers. In this episode, we tackle the crucial distinction between biological life and personhood, examining the debate on whether personhood begins at conception. Our discussion is grounded in a thorough analysis of biblical passages and aims to bring clarity to this sensitive issue with a commitment to truth and grace.
We explore the biblical perspective on the value and personhood of the unborn through key scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments. We delve into the Mosaic Law in Exodus 21 and the New Testament narratives of Jesus and John the Baptist, illustrating how the Bible consistently portrays unborn life as valuable and imbued with personhood from conception. Furthermore, we address common objections raised by pro-choice advocates, emphasizing the difference between accidental harm leading to miscarriage and intentional termination of pregnancy. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the biblical stance on this issue.
Shifting gears, we present effective pro-life arguments that don't rely on scripture for those engaging with non-Christian audiences. Using the SLED test, we highlight the logical inconsistencies in the pro-choice stance and affirm the personhood of the unborn. We also examine Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous analogy and the moral responsibilities in the abortion debate through a "quadra lemma" framework. Finally, we offer practical strategies for discussing abortion with confidence and respect, equipping you to navigate these challenging conversations thoughtfully. Don't miss out on gaining the tools for a more informed and compassionate dialogue on this contentious topic.
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All right, everyone, welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast. We have started season two with a bang, with a lot of hot topics, and this is actually one topic that we have not covered since we've started the podcast. I mean, we're definitely over 20 plus episodes in and this is an even more intriguing or interesting topic to discuss because it's going to come up the next couple of months. We're recording now in August, almost September, and the election is coming up, and one of the things that Tim and I were discussing was you know, there's something that always gets Christians riled up, not just with you know, each other, but also with nonbelievers, and this topic is the topic of abortion, and we're going to do this as a three-part series where we're going to discuss biblical versus non-biblical arguments, we're going to address or refute, provide an episode refuting pro-choice arguments, and then we're going to talk about the psychological effects of abortion on women, or abortion and mental health.
Speaker 1:So we will be having this series and I'm thinking that we're going to get a lot of comments and again, we're trying to address all of these topics with truth and grace. We really want to communicate what the Bible teaches, what the research is showing on the effects on women and the culture and so on. So yeah, as you think through these topics, feel free to ask questions and maybe a different angle that we may not have addressed. But yeah, tim, I mean, as we engage in this topic, what are your thoughts on it, as this seems to bring division, even among Christians, and sometimes I don't even know why we're even fighting over this. But there are Christians who think that there are biblical reasons to have abortion and I guess that's what we're going to get into today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Well, the Bible has a lot to say about life. It has a lot to say about things like murder and the taking of innocent life. But a lot of people get tripped up because the Bible doesn't say anything explicitly about abortion. It doesn't use that term, it doesn't address that practice of intentionally killing the unborn or terminating an unborn pregnancy intentionally. So there's a lot of misconceptions and confusion questions around this topic. But I think if we were to look at the whole picture of Scripture and then drill into some of the specific passages that come up in this debate, I think what will emerge is a picture that the Bible does consider the unborn to be sacred and worthy of life and worthy of protection.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, absolutely. So there's that confusion with some Christians who think that there is reasons, or maybe they just don't know what the biblical arguments are for it. So why don't we start there, like what are the common biblical arguments for the pro-life position?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So right out of the gate, we need to establish a few premises or a few principles first, because, believe it or not, christians can get things wrong and they can actually get off on the wrong foot. One of the biggest misnomers in this debate about abortion and I see Christians do this all the time, well-meaning, you know, but they'll begin with a premise that they'll say life begins at conception or they'll say this is about life. But when we're talking about abortion, the first thing we need to hone in on is that we're actually talking not just about life but about personhood, and that's important because life could mean really anything.
Speaker 2:It's a general term that could mean biological life. It doesn't necessarily mean the life of a soul. But a person, a human being, is not just biological life. They're a person, and a person is a soul. A person is a moral agent that is valued and loved by God. A soul, a person, is a moral agent that is valued and loved by God.
Speaker 2:So when we are talking about abortion, it's imprecise to say well, we believe life begins at conception. The problem with that statement is not that it's wrong, it's just too general, because almost no one disagrees that biological life begins at conception. What they disagree about is whether personhood, that is, moral, rational agency, begins at conception. Okay, so that's the key crux of this debate is a pro-life person, if they're wise to this issue, will argue that personhood begins at conception, because if we can show that the, the zygote and then the fetus you know the zygote, from the point of conception, is a person, then therefore it's worthy of protection. It's, it has the same value and sacredness about it that an adult human being would yeah, but isn't that an argument that pro-choicers make, that life doesn't actually begin at conception.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what creates the whole debate, because they start arguing about 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks. They start talking about you know, when does it actually feel? And all these different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, if they're arguing, if someone is saying life doesn't begin at conception, they're just really being precise with their language. What they really mean is personhood doesn't begin at conception. They're just really being imprecise with their language. What they really mean is personhood doesn't begin at conception, Because what they're really arguing is that the fetus is not a person.
Speaker 1:Right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what they really mean. They're just imprecise in what they're saying.
Speaker 1:So it's not fruitful for Christians to engage in the conversation about when life begins. You're saying it's better to start from a place of defining personhood.
Speaker 2:Pete, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Pete Good good.
Speaker 2:Pete Yep. Okay, so with that in mind, then we need to begin with a basic syllogism, and this is how we would start this argument. Now, this is an intramural debate. This is, if we're talking to people who take the Bible seriously, who, if you were to show them biblical arguments, they would be persuaded by those biblical arguments. We're not necessarily dealing right now with people who don't accept the Bible as God's word, because using a biblical argument on them probably isn't going to work unless God gets a hold of their heart.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if we're just talking with other believers about what the bible says, uh, then we would make an argument sort of like this the bible prohibits the killing of innocent persons. I think everyone agrees on that one. Uh, that's premise one. Premise two the unborn are innocent persons. Therefore, the by this is the conclusion. Therefore, the Bible prohibits the killing of the unborn. If the unborn are innocent persons and the Bible prohibits the killing of innocent persons, then the Bible prohibits the killing of the unborn. That follows logically. So that's what we got to show. Now the the challenge people are going to take issue with. Premise two the claim that the unborn are persons. Okay, so the goal here for the pro-life christian is to show that there's a continuity of personhood from beginning to end of that biological life. There's a continuity of personhood, in other words, a continuity of personhood from conception to adulthood and then death. All right, that's so that's we got to show biblical evidence for that?
Speaker 1:uh, that's what that's, so that's what we'll get into, okay yeah, and I guess you know one thing that came up right now. So are you seeing? Because I think so are you seeing? Because I think some Christians, or maybe many Christians, try to argue from a biological standpoint or what the science says in a way, but they don't really have. It sounds like what we're building up to is that the Bible does actually have a lot to say about life and about when Begins, and personhood specifically. And I think I guess I'm confused because I don't know how Christians are debating personhood. Now, again, this goes back into maybe many of our conversations that we had before, where people who are Christian by name but not Christian in practice. I know that's a whole other debate but hopefully, for those of you who are listening, this helps clarify and we, you know Tim specifically providing substance and evidence for how the Bible defends life and personhood, or personhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. So I'm speaking as someone who you know, I'm speaking as an ethicist, so I'm trying to be precise in what I say. But in the general vernacular people are throwing out terms like life begins in the womb. You know, life begins at conception. What I'm saying is what they really mean is we're talking about persons that the zygote, which is, you know, the organism that is you, that is at the point of conception, a sperm and an egg fuse together and they become a zygote and then eventually that becomes an embryo and a fetus. That entity is a person, is a moral agent. They may not exercise the capacities, the innate capacities, that they have, but if they're allowed to develop naturally, then they will eventually exercise those capacities. So that's what we mean by a person. Now, I think that's generally what Christians mean when they say life begins at conception. That's what they mean. They're just. You know, I'm trying to be a little bit more precise in what I say, just so people can understand the kind of argument that I'm making here.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, and I think that's important. I mean, it's a very clear and necessary distinction, so no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good, yeah, so let's get into this. Does the Bible show evidence of that continuity of personhood? If you think about a human being on a continuum from let's start at the end of their life, let's say the average person was like 76, 77, I don't know what the average age of death is let's just say 80 years old. 80 years old, point of death. That's the one end of the continuum. The other end of that continuum, the very beginning, is conception, and we need to show that there's a continuity of personhood. That personhood doesn't pop up at some midpoint in that continuum, but it's from beginning to end. It's the same person. God sees them as the same person. Okay, so we'll make scriptural arguments for that and then we can make some logical arguments after that. You know with some. So some people will argue that personhood begins sometime after you know conception. So we can address that. Okay, so let's get into some general biblical arguments.
Speaker 2:Number one is that the unborn are said to be known by God. There's a few passages that reference this. Jeremiah 1.5 is a really famous one, psalm 139.13 is another one, and these passages talk about God knowing someone in the womb, and not just that he knows them, but that he is the one that is knitting them together. So God is the one working to knit this person together and that he knows them. And knowing implies personhood. He speaks to like Jeremiah. He speaks to Jeremiah as though he knew him from then, before Jeremiah knew. He knew Before Jeremiah knew himself, you know. So that knowing implies that God is seeing this unborn entity as a person. So God knows them. In other words, you might say it this way God knows them in the same way that he knows children and in the same way that he knows adults. He knows the unborn okay.
Speaker 2:Another point would be that the life of the unborn now we'll get into this a little bit with objections but the life of the unborn is protected. This is my position on this passage I'm about to mention. But the life of the unborn is protected by the same punishment for injury or death that would be for an adult, and we get this from exodus 21, verses 22 and 23. Now there's a lot of debate about that passage, so I'll get into that when we get into objections. Uh, but if you take my position, then the bible is saying that if, if someone accidentally kills or causes the miscarriage of an unborn, that their life should be taken. That's, that's my position on what that passage is saying. Um, some other?
Speaker 1:things, christ old testament thing, or is that?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's yeah yeah, that's, that's an exodus 21. It's in the in the mosaic law. Yeah, so the? So right there we see evidence that in the mosaic law there was value given to the unborn. Yeah, okay. So another one was that christ, christ himself is is given the language of personhood as being considered a human being, a human person almost immediately from the point of conception. We, you get this from matthew, uh 1, chapter 18, and then luke, uh one, uh, luke 135. Here.
Speaker 2:Mary, she has just conceived, um, jesus doesn't have a heartbeat yet. He, he doesn't have little fingers and toes, he's not somewhere along the the line of neonatal development. She's, it's almost immediately, and we know this because she's. She hasn't yet gone to see elizabeth yet, or she's actually, you know, on her way to see elizabeth. So this is within like the first couple days of the angel visiting her and saying that, hey, you're going to conceive and bear a child, and mary is talking about this child in the womb as though he's a person. So that's, that's significant. We should not ignore that and say, oh well, she's just talking about prophecy or whatever. She's talking about the entity that's inside her womb and has only been there for a couple days at most, and she knows this immediately. So most women don't know that they're pregnant until several weeks later. And Mary knows this because an angel has told her and she is considering this to be a child, that's good yeah.
Speaker 2:So another one is that unborn persons, or unborn children, I should say they're described as having personal characteristics like well, like Jesus, okay when, or sorry, not Jesus John the Baptist, when Mary and Elizabeth come together and they're talking about their pregnancies, elizabeth John is a little bit further along than Jesus, but he's still unborn and it says he leaps for joy in the womb of Elizabeth. So that's evidence right there that John supernaturally I'm not sure how that works but he has some sort of excitement and joy because he's around his cousin who is the Messiah. Yeah, now there's a little bit of an unclear passage in the Old Testament that refers to sin. That's Psalm 51.5. It says in sin, my mother conceived me, Uh. So there you see the word conception, that's, conceiving being used.
Speaker 2:So personhood is extending, or at least it seems to be extending, all the way back to conception and there's a moral category of sin being being inserted. Now, uh, uh, there's some debate about whether, like in sin, my mother conceived me, refers to the mother as in like she was sinning when she conceived the, the child. You know, it's a little bit unclear, but what we do know is that conception, like he's saying, at conception, like I'm there, and there's this moral category of sin that's there too yeah, yeah so that's interesting yeah, you, you mentioned that, um, of how they would speak personhood or about their, their babies in the womb.
Speaker 1:So both um jesus and and john, and you know it.
Speaker 1:Just it just kind of hit me right now, mike, the way that today's culture talks about babies or being pregnant or just the process itself, how much of a difference that makes to how we perceive bringing in a new life.
Speaker 1:And again, this might be a conversation that we get into a little bit later, but I just found that interesting that even if we go back 20, 30, 30, 40 years ago, the way that people would speak or the way that mothers would speak about their babies was nothing like it is today. I mean, today it's all of this weight and burden carried along with it, and I think most people understood that it's a difficult thing to raise a child, but the way it's seen with so much negativity today to raise a child, but the way it's seen with so much negativity today, it's such a I don't know. It's very dark and very sad to see how they speak about it. So, as you were talking about Mary and Elizabeth, I can imagine them being so full of joy, or maybe they did have some way knowing that she was going to you know. Raise Jesus, the Son of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say in the modern conversations there's a lot of inconsistency.
Speaker 2:Um, it seems to be like uh well, the value of the unborn is determined by what the mother thinks exactly of that unborn and so, uh, they'll sometimes, um, you'll see pro-choice advocates speaking out both sides of their mouth where they'll talk about the fetus not being a person, it's not a human being, but if they want to have a child then they're like I'm, you know, they're super excited, I'm pregnant, I'm having a baby, you know. So it's just, it's really inconsistent, yeah. So here's some other points. The unborn are called children and named by God before birth. In many instances you see this in Genesis 25, 22 to 23.
Speaker 2:Judges 13, I'm just going to read them Judges 13, 2 through 7, isaiah 49, 1, luke 1, 41, that's in verse 44. And then chapter 2, 12 and 16, there's a referring to Jesus. Another point the Hebrew word geber. If you're thinking, in English transliteration it's G-E-B-E-R but it's pronounced geber. That Hebrew word is used to refer to children in the womb and children outside the womb, like a small boy or even a man, an adult man, and you see this in exodus 10, 10, deuteronomy 22, 5, judges 5, 30 and job 3, 3. You see that hebrew word being used interchangeably for a man, a child and a human being in the womb meaning?
Speaker 1:what meaning personhood?
Speaker 2:womb. Meaning what? Meaning personhood, or yeah, as in considered, it's a, it's a person, okay, yeah, uh, similarly there's a, the greek word used, uh, mostly in the new testament. I I'm sure this word is probably used in the greek septuagint, uh, though I can't I don't have that note in front of me so I can't say for sure but it's called brefos, it's b-b-r-e-p-h-o-s. It's used also to describe a baby inside the womb and outside the womb. Again. Luke, chapter 1, 41, the passage I just mentioned. Luke 1, luke 2, but also luke 18, 15, acts 7, 19 and then second timothy 3, 15. These are used for, you know, describing human beings in and outside the womb. So these are all data points. Yeah, uh, that we're collecting.
Speaker 2:Now you know my strategy when, when talking about this topic or any others, is I use kind of two, two prong strategy at once. I build a cumulative case, but then I'm also able to retreat to a minimal case. So I'm going to, I'm stacking up all my data points right now and we'll see if any of them get knocked down. But at the bare minimum, you know if, if I have to concede a few points, I still think I've made my case that the unborn are at the point of conception, are considered human persons that God knows, loves and wants us to protect. Okay, so those human persons that god knows, loves and wants us to protect, okay, so those, those are some biblical data points.
Speaker 1:Uh, on the pro-choice or, sorry, on the pro-life side good, good and actually well, it's so real quick because I know I had um. Well, I mean, I guess this is going to turn into any of our other um in our next topic, but I think, um, I don't know. I I'm trying to see what, what would be the next logical point from here. So you build up the case and after that, objections?
Speaker 2:let's take on some. Yeah, let's take on some objections okay, so I didn't know you wanted to do that in the uh refuting well, let's just we're, let's just go with the biblical objections right now, okay, yeah, so there's a few, um, there's a few passages that are uh controversial, let's say, and often get debated about whether the bible considers the unborn to be equal, uh, with an adult human.
Speaker 2:So right here there's already a shift. In the end of the debate A pro-choice person is going to point to a few passages. Exodus 21, 22 to 23 is going to be one of them. Numbers 5, 27 is going to be another one. And right away they are going to point to these passages because they both might refer to miscarriages, because they both might refer to miscarriages and they're going to point to these passages to try to argue that abortion is okay. And that's a shift in the debate, because a miscarriage is not the same thing Now. A miscarriage, technically, is a spontaneous abortion, but it's not a surgical abortion in the way that we think of today, like the intentional termination of the unborn. So there's already a shift in the debate and what a pro-choice argument from the Bible is going to do is try to show that these two passages don't prove that the unborn are of equal value to a child outside the womb or an adult. Okay, interesting. Now I would say, even if you prove that, it still doesn't show that abortion is okay or morally permissible. So they're jumping, so let's get into this, okay.
Speaker 2:So Exodus 21, verses 22 and 23, describe a situation in which two men are fighting and he says if they're fighting and they accidentally strike a woman who's a pregnant woman and she now this there's some translation. Some translations say if she miscarries and there's no harm that follows, then the guy's going to pay a fine, but if harm follows, then it's lex talionis, life for life. Lex talionis is the law code eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. So whatever harm was done, that harm shall be done to that man. Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, okay, life. Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, okay. So what it's saying is that two men are fighting. One of them accidentally, accidentally, strikes a pregnant woman, and then it says the.
Speaker 2:The hebrew word is yatsa, which means to um, causes her, uh, her child to come forth, and there's there's some debate about whether this means miscarry or premature birth. And so because of that debate, then there's debate over what harm refers to, whether that harm refers to the child. If there's no harm, then the guy will pay a fine. If there is harm, then he is, then it's life for life. Tooth, tooth, eye for eye, okay. So right away there's a burden of proof to show that this passage means miscarriage and not premature birth.
Speaker 2:Okay, with the miscarriage argument, that that yatsa means miscarriage, is that there's. There's other words and I, man, I, I should have wrote that down. I'm looking forward to my notes and I can't find it. But, um, the problem is that there's other words that the hebrew uses for miscarriage, talking about animals, miscarrying and everything things. So we kind of have there's a word, I think I don't want to say it because it came out I think it's shekol, but don't quote me on that. But there is a word that is more accurate, more precisely pointing to miscarriage. Okay, but gatsah means to come forth, and that could mean premature birth. Um, so that's, that's problem number one with the miscarriage argument.
Speaker 1:Uh, what you're thinking is specifically referring to a miscarriage yeah, if, yeah, if they're, if they argue so.
Speaker 2:The pro-choice position wants to show that this passage is saying that if a man accidentally causes a miscarriage, then he only has to pay a fine. He's not punished by death for causing a miscarriage, and so therefore the unborn are not of the same value as a human being. That's the argument they make. Now here's the non sequitur. It doesn't follow from that that abortion and the intentional termination of a human life is morally permissible. Because, again, this is an accident that happens, and there are other instances in the law where, when you cause the accidental death of a human being, you don't necessarily, like, have to die, uh, because there.
Speaker 2:So there's an instance I don't remember where this is, but it's a very. It's a famous uh law case where two men are, you know, chopping down a tree and one is swinging his axe and the axe head flies off and hits another guy and it kills him. So that's an accident. Okay, then the man that did this, he can flee to one of the cities of refuge and he can remain there safely until the high priest dies, and then at that point sin is atoned for and so the family cannot require his life Now if he's not in the city of refuge and they get him.
Speaker 2:Well, tough luck. Yeah, so the family was allowed to basically pursue him, but he was allowed to stay in the city of refuge and that city did not have to give him up. So there's an instance of causing the accidental death of a human being and it not being required that that person die. Okay, but does that mean that the guy who got killed by the axe head accidentally wasn't a person? Do you see the point? Like the guy who was killed in that accident, he had the misfortune of getting hit in the head with an axe, a flying axe.
Speaker 3:He's still a person, right flying axe, he's still a person, right, right it's still.
Speaker 2:It's still a moral uh problem that he died. So this, even if we concede and I don't concede but even if we do concede that this that exodus 21, 22 is saying that a man only has to pay a fine if he causes a miscarriage that in no way shows that the intentional terminating of an unborn person or of an unborn child is morally permissible. It doesn't show that at all. What it does show is that this was still a crime and it's punishable by a fine. It's just saying this was an accident, this was still a crime and it's punishable by a fine.
Speaker 2:It's just saying this was an accident. Now that's that is the best case scenario for the pro-choice position is that this, this passage, is showing that it's a crime to cause a miscarriage. I haven't heard very many people make that argument, but that's my argument, and uh, so if anyone steals it it's recorded here, first folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that just it actually dawned on me a few days ago as I was kind of reviewing this. I'm like this doesn't actually even show that abortion is morally permissible. It just shows that a miscarriage, even if we concede this is what I'm talking about where, even if I have to give up this passage and concede it, it still doesn't make it, doesn't make the case for the pro-choice position at all Falls short, very short. So that's the best case. Worst case is this passage is saying that if a man, even he, accidentally causes a miscarriage and that so the yatsah, that the, the woman's child, comes forth prematurely and is born prematurely and no harm follows, then he pays the fine. But if harm follows and the and the child dies, then that man's life is forfeit too. That's the worst case scenario for the pro-choice position yeah, tim.
Speaker 1:Are there any examples in scripture that do uh show any type of of actual abortion? Now I know?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, yeah, well, there's. Well, there's one that pro-choice advocates will point to. Okay, we can get into that. Yeah, yeah, that that's uh, numbers 527.
Speaker 2:So this is a, this is a. So this is one of those casuistry or case law situations where it's describing a woman who's I'm drawing a blank on the exact context. I think it's a woman who the husband suspects her of being unfaithful, her of of being unfaithful, so she's brought before the high priest and she's caused to drink this toxin or this you know concoction. And if she is, um, if she's innocent, then no, no, nothing will happen to her, she'll be fine, but if she's guilty, then it's it. It says some translations say her womb, or her like what's inside of her, like her womb will come forth and she will miscarry. That's like the pro-choice advocates will seize on translations that say that. However, the Hebrew word there is again. I don't know why I didn't write this down Again. I don't know why I didn't write this down, but the Hebrew word behind that actually is better translated thigh or loins, not womb, because it's the same Hebrew word where it refers to Abraham's thigh or refers in other places to a person's lo. They're see the seed of their fertility. And so what? This the the situation of this woman having to drink the concoction to, and sort of like proving whether or not she's innocent or not. If she's guilty, what it's, what she's doing, is it's, or what the what the potion will do is cause her to be infertile. So basically, like, part of her, part of her actual womb will come out. She's not pregnant, just part of her actual womb will come out. She's not pregnant, just part of her actual womb will come out and she will be infertile.
Speaker 2:And we, we know this is the better translation, because the very next clause in this, in this passage, says if she's innocent, then she will basically conceive and have children. So she's not, she hasn't conceived yet. Yeah, I should probably just. You want to just read it? Let me see if I can pull it up here quickly. You said it's in numbers. Yeah, I would warn people that the niv is probably probably the worst translation for some of these passages. The niv is not a terrible translation, but it's one of the worst for these. Okay, so I'm actually going to read it. From the niv.
Speaker 2:It says if she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result, when she has made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry and she will become a curse. So you see how the NIV translates that Her womb will miscarry and she will become a curse. You see how the niv translates that her womb will miscarry, yeah. So the here's how the esv translate this.
Speaker 2:Translate this uh, the she's. If she drinks it, blah, blah, blah. You know, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain and her womb shall swell and her thigh shall follow. See that word thigh shall fall away and the woman shall become a curse among her people. So it translates as thigh, because the hebrew word there and I should have my net bible pulled up, but I don't but the hebrew word there more likely refers to the seat of one's fertility, not a, a child in the womb. Yeah. So it's saying if she drinks it, she's going to become infertile, she ain't going to have any children, but if she's innocent, she will be able to have children. After this, she will be able to conceive and have children.
Speaker 1:Yeah so it's the ending to that story later down.
Speaker 2:Well, it's it's case law, so it's not actually referring to a specific person yeah, it's just like if this happens, then do this, and if this happens to do that, that's case law got it, yeah. So those are the main objections that a pro-choice argument would point to in scripture. To say, see the bible, uh, talks about abortion. Know, that would be an example of the Bible permitting abortion. You know, if a wife becomes pregnant by another man, then abort the child. But that's not that saying at all, pete.
Speaker 1:No, that's good. That's good and you know, for a lot of people who are listening they may not have known those passages. Now you have some in your tool belt to be able to address or bring up. But also, when we're talking to people who maybe are not Christian or who don't believe in the Bible, are there pro-life arguments that do not rely on scripture or need or yeah?
Speaker 2:have a biblical foundation. Let me pull those up right now. So there's actually several, so let me give you. There's two that I really like to use. One is called the SLED test.
Speaker 2:Sled test, scriptural argument that someone can use, and again, but it's along the same lines as demonstrating the continuity of personhood. What this shows is that, or what it argues, is that there is no essential differences between an, a zygote or, you know, an unborn human being and an adult human being. The only differences are size, that's s, level, level of development, l E, environment and D degree of dependency. So S, l, E, d, sled, size, level of development, environment and degree of dependency. So imagine, if you will, a human being on a spectrum. Remember that continuum I referenced. Yeah, so imagine, think of it this way. Um, let me back up a little bit from the sled test. What we want to show, if we're not using the bible and we're just talking to someone who doesn't accept the bible, what we want to show, then is that the, the prenatal organism, the unborn, is a person. They're a moral agent, just like we are. Uh, there's a few ways that we can show that, and SLED is one of them. Now, I use the SLED test.
Speaker 2:When someone, when they deny that the unborn is a person Okay, so here's someone can take a few different responses to when you say the unborn is a person, they could say no, it's not. Or they could say I don't know. Or they can say it is, but I'm still going to kill it, right, yeah, you know. So when we're talking about, uh, someone who denies the personhood of the unborn, they say no, no, it's not a person. You can use the SLED test, because what the SLED test does is it says that there's no essential differences between the unborn human and an adult human. So again now imagine that continuum from conception all the way to 80-year-old person dying. On that continuum there's no point at which personhood enters. It's from beginning to end and at no point like. The only difference on that continuum is size, the size of the person, the level of development, their environment or their location, you might say and their degree of dependency that's good you could.
Speaker 2:You can imagine like a child, like a, a two-year-old child, is extremely dependent on their parent. They're in a different location. Let's, let's back up a little bit. Let's just say a six-month-old. A six-month-old child can barely speak, probably can't speak at all. Yeah, like they're in a different location than the unborn, but they're extremely dependent. A six-month-old child can barely speak, probably can't speak at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they're in a different location than the unborn, but they're extremely dependent. They're really small, but they're in a different location, environment, than the unborn. But does that mean that they're not a person? Would you say? A six-month-old is not a person. In fact, the pro-choice community, they will.
Speaker 2:I've heard them say this to my face. I've been, you know, interviewed some of them. They'll say I say, at what point does the unborn, or does a, basically a baby, just become a person deserving of legal protection? They say, when the umbilical cord is cut, yeah, so, so that seems to be really arbitrary. We can get into that, so, okay, so five minutes after the umbilical cord is cut, it's a human person and a moral agent, but five minutes before that it's not. How does that make sense? Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:So the SLED test is really effective for this is that, if you can, can you show an essential difference? That's the key, that there's a change in the essence of this biological organism from conception all the way to adult death. Is there any change essential in its essence or its nature? And the answer is no, it's not. It's the same organism. It's the same biological organism all the way through and that's what the sled test shows.
Speaker 2:It's a really simple, easy argument to show them that if you're going to deny the personhood of the unborn, then the logical implication is that you would have to deny the personhood of a child, a or an adult if they become extremely dependent or their environment changes or their level of development changes or maybe their size changes. You know, it's like when we say that small people are less persons, like, are we prepared, yeah, are we prepared to say that an old person who has lived their life and now they're extremely dependent on other people to take care of them, are we prepared to say that they are less of a person or not a person at all? Some secular societies are prepared to say that, but we are not and I'm not. So it's showing the logical inconsistencies of denying the personhood of the unborn. If you affirm the personhood of the born, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I've seen even wild arguments to say how useful is this person now and that determines their worth or personhood. So a baby isn't really doing much for society, isn't really doing much for the mom or the dad, it's actually a burden on them, or someone who's old and dying, and they'll make crazy arguments like that. Well, if they can't really function and if they're not really cognizant of themselves, they'll make that argument, I think with people who have Alzheimer's or something like that. So there's some extreme views on that as well and you know, I think those are easier arguments to break down. But I mean just to show the extremes that people will go to to make this argument for pro-choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean yeah, I mean yeah, they'll go to extremes, but again we want to show we shouldn't get distracted by some of the extreme arguments we just want to be disciplined and show the inconsistency in their arguments, and sled test is a really easy way to do that.
Speaker 2:If they deny the personhood of the unborn, now let's say they're going to play ignorant. And they say, hey, you know what, I don't know. I'm not going to deny that it's a person, I'm just going to say I don't know. And they say, hey, you know what I don't know. I'm not going to deny that it's a person, I'm just going to say I don't know. And they're going to say, you don't know either. No one knows. And so then we shouldn't force our laws on women's bodies and all those kind of arguments. So let's get into this. I call this the skepticism or doubt argument. We're going to doubt the personhood of the unborn. For this kind of objection, I like to use something peter kreft came up with. He's a catholic philosopher, and it's called the quadra lemma. Now, the sled test was actually developed by a evangelical ethicist, called a moral philosopher, called uh, his name is greg kukul, so he he runs a website called stand, stand to reason. Really effective apologist and moral philosopher, really smart guy, really sharp. Uh, peter kraft, catholic philosopher, came up with this argument for the quadra lemma now a quadra lemma has four options. If you come up with like a moral problem, you, you have four options. A dilemma is two options, okay so, quad four, okay. So imagine a scenario. Now, craig is a little bit different of a scenario, but I like to use. I like to use, I came up with my own when I was giving this talk and I'm kind of proud of it. So so imagine you're like you're driving on a dark country road, okay, and you're almost out of gas and you got like maybe 10 miles left on your tank and you're trying to get to a gas station. You can't turn around to go back because you're like 30 miles from a gas station. Okay, dark country road, no cell service. Sorry, you're not driving. Your friend is driving. This is important. You're in the passenger seat. Your friend is driving, this is important.
Speaker 2:You're, you're in the passenger seat and you guys roll up on this object in the road that looks like a human being laying across the road. It's a really skinny road. It's like one of those back country roads. You can't drive around it because there's brush on either side. So, like you're kind of stuck, you have a choice to make. Uh, you can, you should kind of decide what to do. Well, as you're deliberating, what do we do? Like, is this a? Is this guy? Okay, like what is it? Is it even a person? Your friend just floors it and he just runs over this object and keeps going and you're like, what'd you do?
Speaker 2:right like, what did you do? And you're panicking like and he just, he just looks at you, says we didn't know it was a person.
Speaker 2:Okay, now you can already kind of see like wait a minute you didn't know it wasn't a yeah, it's like okay, we, we don't know it was a person, we don't know it wasn't a person either. Okay, there's a problem here. So yeah, so this is. This is what kreft calls a quadrolemma. There's an objective claim and a subjective or epistemological claim. Okay, so the objective or ontological claim is this Either the object is a human being or it's not. It's a living human being or it's not. Pretty clear. There's two options Either it is or it isn't. The subjective or epistemological claim is the driver. Your friend either knows what the object is or he doesn't know what the object is. So that gives you four options. Let's say it is a living human being and the driver knows that and he chooses to run over the human in the road.
Speaker 2:Well, that's attempted murder or at best like second degree murder. Yeah, let's say so that there's a moral problem there. We would say that's morally wrong. Right, can we all agree on that? If you know it's a living human being in the road and you choose to run it over, that's wrong okay here's.
Speaker 2:Here's the second option. The object is not a living person and the driver knows that it's not a living person. Okay, so he knows it and it's. He knows that it's not a living person and he chooses to run over it. Well then, running over it is not morally irresponsible. We would all agree on that. It's like it's just some like pile of clothes, it's fine okay.
Speaker 2:But again, with this argument, the pro-choice person is not claiming that they know, they're claiming they don't know, okay. So now we got to move down into the two options where the driver doesn't know. So let's say it's a living human person in the road and the driver doesn't know that but chooses to run over it anyways. Well then, the driver is at least guilty of manslaughter, or, if he kills him, yeah, vehicular assault, vehicular homicide.
Speaker 2:He's guilty of some sort of homicide if that guy dies yep but let's say and here's the tricky part let's say the object in the road is not a living human person and the driver doesn't know that and he runs it over. What would we say to that? Well, he didn't necessarily commit murder, but we would still say that he's morally irresponsible, would we not? Because you're running over something that could be a human being, but and you don't know that you got lucky, but you still did something that was morally irresponsible. At least Do you follow that logic? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So let's now put that in the context of the unborn. So either the unborn is a person or is not a person, and either you know it's a person or you don't know it's a person. If you know it's a person and you intentionally kill it, you're killing a person, you're knowingly killing a person, an innocent person, and that is murder. If it's not a person and you know it's not a person, well then you're not doing anything morally wrong. But again, that's not the claim being made here. It's not a person, well then you're not doing anything morally wrong, but again, that's not the claim being made here.
Speaker 2:But if the unborn is a person and you don't, and you can't claim to know one way or the other, then you're and you kill it, then it's at least manslaughter, negligent homicide, if it's not a person and and you're choosing to terminate it and you don't know whether it's a person or not, then you might get lucky, but you're still morally irresponsible. Do you follow that? Yeah, yeah, so that's the quadrolima. When someone says, well, we can't know either way, well then the morally responsible thing to do is to not terminate it because it could be a person.
Speaker 1:By your own words, you don't know. So it's possible, and I think people just get to a point where they just don't care about being morally responsible. That, okay, well, I'll be morally responsible because I didn't.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know, yeah I guess I should update my argument for the I just don't care. I just don't care. Response. Well then, we would say that you're just a murderer like, or you're just a callous. You're just callous. At that point you know you have disregard for human life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good argument, what was that? So the second one was caught. So the first one is called the sled test. S L E D.
Speaker 2:And the second one is called the quad dilemma. Like think dilemma, but quad, so quad dilemma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Both are really really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One more argument that someone will make is is saying that, well, I know it's a person, so they're not going to deny it, they're not going to doubt it. They're going to say okay, I know it's a person, but the woman is, is acting in some sort of self-defense or self-preservation, okay, and so the fetus is a person, but the woman has a right to self-defense. They'll use that term self-defense in some way. Okay. Now my response to that is there's a false analogy and a slippery slope that we can point out here.
Speaker 2:A famous, famous, uh, feminist philosopher named judith thompson judith jarvis thompson who came up with this scenario where you got this blind violinist, um, this woman. She wakes up to find that she's been kidnapped and she's surgically attacked to a famous, a famous violinist. Okay, so this guy is loved by people? Okay, but this woman just wakes up one day, she's fine, I've been surgically attacked to this guy. The violinist needs to use her kidneys for nine months in order to live. If she disconnects him, he dies. She may choose to keep him alive and would be commended for doing so, but judith thompson asks is the woman required to keep the violinist alive? Okay, so that's, do you see how she's setting this up. You know, a woman just happens to find herself pregnant, you know.
Speaker 2:So Thompson asked the argument what about pregnancy? A woman suddenly finds herself pregnant, perhaps by accident or the product of rape, and we need to, you know, mention that. And so the unborn baby needs her body to survive. If she expels the unborn, it will die. She could keep it alive and would be commended for doing so, but is she morally required to keep the unborn baby alive? Okay, so that's Judas Thompson's argument. It's a powerful argument, you know. So we got to take some things to take some time to to dissect this. But so here's some things that we can point out. Or here's some things that Thompson points out as parallel between these two examples the blind violinist and then the unborn both catch the woman by surprise. Both are persons attached to the woman's body. They're separate bodies, but they're attached to the woman's body. Both need the woman for survival and both will be released in nine months. And so she says if you wouldn't require this woman to stay attached to the blind violinist, then why would you require this woman to stay attached to the unborn? Okay, so that's this self-defense rationalization.
Speaker 2:What we would point out is to say, say one, this this seems to be a false analogy and here's why the unborn, uh, like, the unborn is not aggressing on the woman or trespassing on the woman like a like a blind violinist would like. A blind violinist has no right to attach to, either get himself or his followers to attach this woman's body to his. He has no right to do that without her consent. Okay, the unborn is not in that kind of situation. So that, right away, yeah, right away, we're dealing with two, two moral agents who are themselves in different, uh, positions. Okay, uh, so the unborn is not himself trespassing on the woman.
Speaker 2:The woman's body is nurturing the unborn as a natural process. Like the violinist attaching himself to her, taking the power of her kidneys, is not a natural, that's not a natural thing. Okay, that's medical thing, but it's not a net. We wouldn't put that in the same category as a neonatal development. The woman's womb is the natural place for the unborn child to develop. Okay, so, right away, there's just a false analogy there. So I would say, yeah, it's along the same lines. The unborn is not an intruder, it's the womb. Is that natural environment? The unborn did not force himself or herself into that situation as the violinist or the violinist followers, whoever, whoever you know, set the situation up. The unborn didn't force himself into that situation so right away, like the unborn himself is thrown into this situation. Right, that is. The unborn is an innocent moral agent as well. Okay so, and the unborn is, again, is not a stranger to the mother as a violinist would be. The unborn actually actually holds half her genetic material. Okay so, uh, like one's obligation to the stranger, would not like, because the woman does not have any moral obligations to the violinist. That doesn't mean that she wouldn't have moral obligations to this child, because again, we're dealing with two different moral agents. One we know is innocent and that's the unborn.
Speaker 2:If you find yourself in a situation here's maybe a it's not a strict analogy, but it's a better analogy Someone leaves a baby on your front porch. You know, we in our society, we would look at that and we'd say, well, that may not be your child, but you at least have a duty to ensure the safety of that child until someone can take care of it, be that five minutes or five days or five weeks. You have a moral responsibility to do that, to care for that child. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, like the libertarians, well, my property rights I'm. I'm a libertarian. I deal with these libertarian arguments Like, well, it's my property rights, but you have moral obligations that, as a human being, you know, supersede your property rights.
Speaker 2:You know this intuitively as a human being, and most human beings would rise to that occasion. They would say, oh, my goodness, there's a baby on the porch, we got to care for this thing. We would look at the person who didn't care for that child and we would say they are morally reprehensible. Okay, now we wouldn't necessarily look at a woman who's been sexually assaulted and say like, condemn her for the choices that she's considering. Okay, so I want to be careful in saying that, yeah, so basically there's a significant moral distinction here between the woman choosing to disconnect from the violinist and disconnecting from quote unquote disconnecting from the unborn. Okay, vastly different moral distinctions. So consider the slippery slope here.
Speaker 2:If we're going to say that a mother, if a mother, has no moral obligations to their unborn, uh, why should they have any moral obligations to their children after they've been born? You follow that. Yeah, because those child, those children are. They're not. They may not be attached to her physically, but they are certainly attached to her uh in other ways yeah, not not physically, but in materially, financially. So why would we expect, why would we expect her to care for her children in that situation that the pro-choice uh community doesn't seem to have a good response for that? Yeah so uh points man. Yeah so those are all kind of quick responses to those uh what I think are. I think those are the three best non-biblical responses that you can engage with people on without getting bogged down in the science if you don't know the science right, right, yeah, yeah, that was good, super helpful, I mean I got some new tools for myself now yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so we're about an hour in.
Speaker 1:I think that probably, uh, yeah, maybe concludes this episode this is a good episode for those of you who are listening again. Some good arguments, both biblical and some logical arguments as well, and I think these will be fruitful for conversations and hopefully you feel more equipped to to encounter this, uh, this topic in a more Christian-loving way. All right, guys. Well, we'll see you at the next one.
