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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.
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Psych and Theo Podcast
Ep. 28 - The Abortion Debate, Part 2: When Does Personhood Begin?
Can the moment of conception really define when personhood begins? Join us on the Psych and Theo podcast as we, alongside our insightful guest Tim, tackle this profound question that sits at the heart of the abortion debate. We challenge the traditional thresholds of birth and viability, arguing for a consistent view of personhood that starts right at conception. This episode digs deep into the scientific and philosophical dimensions of this issue, questioning whether advancements in technology should influence our definition of personhood and how these views shape the broader discourse on abortion rights.
As we navigate this complex terrain, we confront the moral implications of conception and its potential exceptions, like twinning. Using engaging analogies and examining the controversial ideas of philosopher Peter Singer, we consider whether developmental milestones or rational capacities should determine personhood. The conversation further explores the significance of recognizing a fetus as a separate biological entity, shedding light on how our understanding of personhood impacts ethical considerations around unwanted pregnancies, disabilities, and the heartbreaking cases of rape or incest.
Stories have the power to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and our lived experiences, and we harness this power by sharing moving testimonies from individuals who have survived abortion or faced difficult beginnings. These narratives, coupled with biblical arguments, aim to resonate emotionally and intellectually, inviting listeners to engage with this critical issue. We conclude by hinting at our upcoming exploration of the intersection between abortion and mental health, promising another thought-provoking discussion that you won't want to miss.
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All right, all right. Welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast. We are in part two of our abortion series and today we're talking about refuting pro-choice arguments. Our good friend Tim did an excellent job presenting the biblical and non-biblical arguments that Christians often make and provided some good background and good foundation for us to develop those arguments. And now we're going to directly address how to refute those pro-choice arguments. So, tim, it seems like we're just moving further into these very difficult waters to have these discussions with pro-choice and pro-life arguments on both sides, especially coming now around election season. So, yeah, load us up with these pro-choice arguments. How do we counter the more popular ones?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you haven't listened to part one of this series, then go back and listen to that, because we lay out biblical arguments for the pro-life position and then we respond to biblical arguments of the pro-choice position and then we also give you some non-biblical pro-life arguments, that is like natural law type arguments. So we give you all that, I think the first place that we should start. If you listened to that episode, you would know that we focused on this point that we need to talk about personhood, showing that there's a continuity of personhood from conception all the way to adulthood and then to death, and that continuity of personhood there's lots of evidence for that at the Bible of verbs and that we can say really confers dignity to the unborn. Now there's a common refrain from the pro-choice community that will say that, well, personhood doesn't begin at conception, it begins sometime later, because, well, you know, an unborn person can't feel anything, or they don't have a heartbeat, or they can't think and speak or whatever, until much later in development. So why would we think that a zygote that's only been conceived less than 24 hours is a person? So let's get into that first to look at what are our options.
Speaker 2:I asked in the first episode, for everyone to imagine that continuum from conception all the way to adulthood and to death, that continuity of personhood from beginning to end. What if personhood, what if we suppose that personhood enters at some other point on that continuum? What does that do? Okay, does that make sense? Or what's the best explanation for why personhood might begin at the beginning? Okay, so let's look at our options for when personhood begins. I'm going to start from birth and back all the way up to conception, okay, so the first option is birth. Okay, well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna start from birth and back all the way up to conception. Okay, so the first option is birth. Okay, when a baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut, maybe that's when personhood begins and then, therefore, that that person is worthy of legal protection and has rights and is a moral agent, all other things.
Speaker 2:The main problem with this is that there's no essential change between the fetus and it's called a fetus up to the point when it's born, between the fetus's nature prior to or just following birth. The only change is location and whether or not the umbilical cord is attached. The baby is either inside the womb or outside the womb, and it's either attached by umbilical cord is attached. The baby is either inside the womb or outside the womb and it's either attached by umbilical cord or not. And, as we showed in the first episode on this series, that it doesn't really make sense to say that well, five minutes before the umbilical cord is cut it's not a person, but then five minutes afterward it is Like what essential change has been made here. It doesn't make any sense, but then five minutes afterward it is Like what essential change has been made here.
Speaker 2:Okay, it doesn't make any sense. So conferring personhood at the point of birth doesn't seem to make any sense, logical sense, because there's no essential change to the fetus. Okay, so let's back up a little bit more. What about viability? That gets thrown on? That term gets thrown around a lot Like well, it's no longer longer by the point. It's viable when the fetus is viable outside the womb, then it's a person. Okay, before that point it's not really a person. Viability usually occurs 24 to 26 weeks in neonatal development, 24 to 26 weeks after conception.
Speaker 2:Here's the problem. One there's no clear point at which a fetus goes from non-viability to viability. There's no clear point there. And as science advances it's pushing viability back into earlier stages. So this poses a problem for the viability argument as an indicator of personhood. Because would we say that personhood depends on science, like depends on scientific advancement, that the more advanced science science is. That's what will, that's when we can determine. Not, we're sorry, not determined, but that's when we actually will. Um, that's what makes a person a person. Does that make sense? It doesn't make sense. I don't know. Do you follow that? Do I need it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah. Well, I think, though, the way that I understood that was people think that, because we're going to continue to grow in our understanding of science, that we'll get to some point where we'll have a defining moment here's what defines viability but there's not going to be any point along that, that, that stage of life that we're going to say, oh, it's here here. Did I understand that correctly?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and so as? And would we really want to live in a world where my personhood depends on science or the science, scientific technology?
Speaker 1:yeah, because I mean generations before us. They didn't have it and kind of understood that it was like yeah.
Speaker 2:So let's, yeah, let's suppose, like, a generation prior, viability was at 26 weeks or maybe a little later. But now, with scientific advancement which I don't actually know when, when we would consider. But let's suppose science advances to the point where viability is at 15 weeks. Okay, okay, let's just suppose that you know hypothetically into the future, would we say that 40 years ago they weren't persons at 16 weeks? You know what I'm saying? That's not, it doesn't make sense, it's not logical, it's not consistent. So let's back up even more.
Speaker 2:This term is called a quickening, or like sentience, where or I should say, quickening sentience is the next one, a quickening or are like sentience, where or I should say, quickening sentience is the next one. But quickening means the point at which a mother feels the fetus move, and that might be like 16 to 17 weeks, uh, and that some people say well, that's when we know that it's moving. Well, that's okay, that's a person, okay, we know then that it's a person. The problem is that the fetus's essence has not changed. That's it. That's not dependent on whether the baby moves or not. Okay, there's no essential change to the fetus from the day before it decides to move its arm and the mother feels that, movement or not, there's no essential, essential change there. So it confuses the nature. This argument confuses the nature of the fetus with what the mother knows about the fetus. It's confusion of knowledge and being, or ontology. So something, just because I know or don't know something doesn't change the nature of that thing.
Speaker 1:Right, that's right. Maybe, for our audience, who you know, one of the, a couple of the words that you've been using Tim zygote, embryo fetus these aren't bad, these are. These aren't bad words. These are stages of development. So we're still referring to the baby just in its different stage of development Cause I think sometimes we feel awkward saying that because it removes personhood somehow from the baby. But we're not. We're using it as it's a stage of development.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good point. Okay, so let's go back a little further. Sentience this is the point at which the fetus is capable of experiencing sensations, especially pain. That may be anywhere from 8 to 13 weeks. Okay, so the argument is that if the fetus cannot feel pain, then it is not harmed by abortion. So there's two problems with this One this confuses the experience of harm with the reality of harm. So someone can do harm to another person without the person experiencing harm if they don't know about it. That's the problem. Another person without the person experiencing harm if they don't know about it that's the problem. So it's like what they don't know won't hurt them. So imagine if, uh, imagine if I have, I I'm knocked unconscious and I have no ability to feel pain and you cut off my arm yeah have you harmed me, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, you have armed me, yeah, yeah, okay. Or vice versa. Maybe I cut off your arm. Okay, whatever, I like my arms. Problem number two by this criteria persons who are unconscious or in a vegetative state, as I just mentioned, but in a vegetative state they're no longer sentient, they can't feel anything and therefore their personhood may not be intact. Do you follow that? So someone who may be unconscious or vegetative for just a definite period of time, not indefinitely we would question their personhood under this standard.
Speaker 2:So just because, someone cannot feel pain doesn't mean they are not harmed.
Speaker 2:Right, okay so sentience cannot be the determining factor for personhood is the point. So let's back up even further. Brain activity this is about 45 days into gestation, or the the development. Okay, this is the point at which the fetus's brain begins to function. Since brain activity is used to determine clinical death. This is the argument, since it's used to determine clinical death. This is the argument. Since it's used to determine clinical death, it follows. It actually doesn't follow, but it follows. They say it follows that it should be used to determine the beginning of life as well. So here's problem number one.
Speaker 2:The distinction between the lack of brain activity in a fetus and brain death is that the latter is a permanent condition, while the former is a temporary condition. The fetus is only temporarily lacking brain activity. The person who actually died is permanently lacking brain activity. If the fetus is allowed to develop, it will eventually have that brain activity. Because the fetus's lack of brain activity is a result of what we call a latent capacity, like sleeping. It's like a sleeping, it's dormant capacity. That has not yet been. Here's a philosophical term. It's not yet been actualized, it's not yet been brought forth. The fetus has that capacity for brain activity before 45 days, but it has not yet been activated, but it still has the nature. It's in its nature to do that.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so brain activity cannot be the determining factor for personhood? Okay, since the fetus has that latent capacity already, it just hasn't been actuated.
Speaker 1:And Tim, I guess just as a not necessarily clarifying question. But it seems that these arguments haven't held their ground, or don't hold ground for quite a long time. So why do people still hold on to these, like I mean? The arguments against them make sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, a lot of it is that they just don't know these arguments A lot of people just don't know, or they have. A lot of it is that they just don't know these arguments A lot of people just don't know, or they have. They're very inconsistent, like they just they'll just be stubborn and they'll say, like I had someone many years ago say to me I don't care, it doesn't have a heartbeat, I'm not going to, I don't think it's a person and nothing would change them. I kept kept saying it doesn't matter, like the heartbeat can't be the determining factor of personhood, and they're like I don't care, like for them, that was their line in the sand and it didn't matter if it made no sense.
Speaker 1:So sometimes it's emotional yeah, yeah and I would say most of it is, is that yeah, so there's one more.
Speaker 2:There's one more option before we get to conception Okay, the. The only other option is implantation, and that is the point at which the now this is the embryo. It's a five to seven days after conception, the embryo implants itself on the uterine wall. The argument those who would say this this is what determines personhood. The argument goes that there are other products of conception which are not persons. So products of conception could be something, that's things that are not the zygote itself, that result from conception but aren't persons I'm blanking on the term, so just follow me here. Other products of conception that are not persons. This is the argument that they make. So conception is not a sufficient condition for personhood.
Speaker 2:Just because conception results from fertilization doesn't mean that therefore, personhood follows. They say that a zygote can split into twins after conception and this implies that unique personhood does not begin at conception. So this is a little bit sophisticated. So they'll say, okay, when fertilization happens. There's lots of different things, products, that come from this. One of them is this zygote, but the zygote itself could split into two and then therefore, you have two persons. So they would say it doesn't follow that at fertilization. You have a unique person there, because it could split into two persons, because that's an interesting argument, okay, but here's the problems with it.
Speaker 2:Just because one, just because there's other products of conception that are not persons, it doesn't follow that conception does not produce a person. So you could have lots of products of conception that are not persons. It doesn't follow that conception does not produce a person. So you could have lots of products of conception, but one of them could still be a person, right, yeah, uh, just because conception produces a person, it does not follow that all products of conception are persons either. Okay, so let's, if I, if I like, uh, go and I bake. I'm like in the kitchen, I'm like making a meal. Not everything that I'm making is going to be a cake, but one thing I make is going to be a cake, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's important to distinguish between like necessary and sufficient conditions here. If I say like if I, if I, I make up, put all these like cake batters material together, it's going to make a cake, uh, but there's other products that come out of that, like a dirty spatula and a bowl and other things like.
Speaker 2:That's not the cake, but there's still a cake there right, okay so problem number two is that it's not a contradiction to say that two persons can exist in one zygote prior to splitting. All right. So when we say human life or personhood begins at conception, we're claiming that at least one person is there in the zygote. At minimum one person is there, yeah one person is there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just because the zygote can split into two persons doesn't mean that there's not personhood there at the point of conception. Okay, so they're trying to argue that because there's not one singular, unique person, that therefore life or that therefore, you know, human, it's not a human being and it's not a person worthy of protection. That doesn't follow. No it's not a human being and it's not a person worthy of protection. That doesn't follow.
Speaker 3:There's at least one person there, but you could have identical twins that come out of that. That's right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you run down the list, it was birth viability, quickening sentience, brain activity and implantation were like the six main arguments for when personhood begins, and all those are pre-birth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's a pre-birth. Okay, but we showed that all of those don't really make sense for determining the personhood of the of the unborn. So the only option left is conception, because conception is the only place where what we what we would call the radical break occurs. That's the only time where the sperm and the egg fuse together to become the zygote, and the zygote becomes a separate biological entity with its own genetic code, so it is a separate entity from the mother. It doesn't become a separate entity somewhere along the way. It's right there. When that happens, it is that by virtue of its nature, at the point of conception. So its essence doesn't change, its personhood doesn't change. It's at that point that it becomes a separate biological entity with all of the latent capacities for adult human personhood within it. So that's why we say conception is the only place where it really makes sense to confer personhood on the unborn.
Speaker 1:So if we really, if we really narrow this down, the only way that pro-choicers would be able to break down our arguments would be that they would have to define the line of personhood Right. They would need, they would need to, it sounds like, because everything is based off of that. When is personhood conferred onto the baby, onto the you know? So they can't make that argument, which is why everything falls apart.
Speaker 2:Well, the consistent ones will probably try to argue that personhood begins sometime later, after birth, when like rational, when a person like a child becomes like rational and can actually think for itself and everything. This is a peter singer. Uh, yeah, I think it's peter singer. Yeah, he makes this. He's very famous for making this argument that two-year-olds may not actually be persons because they can't really think she says that yeah, I mean, yeah, her arguments, so then they would fall under the line of it's OK to kill them.
Speaker 1:I've heard people say that.
Speaker 2:I think he would say, maybe theoretically I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't think he's saying, go and kill children now, but I think he's saying it in a theoretical sense, like they're not really persons like we are. So you could follow that to its logical conclusion.
Speaker 1:as people have pointed out, yeah, to me this goes into that debate. Was it in here in virginia? What a couple years ago. Where? What do you do if a baby's outside of the womb? It's alive? Do you kill it or not like it's? That whole falls into that realm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was thinking about that yeah, that that is the logical implication of denying personhood at conception. Is that eventually, like, if you follow the logical implications, then there's there's no non-arbitrary point at which to confer personhood, which is to say that at any point after conception, that you choose to confer personhood, it's just an arbitrary choice. And if it's an arbitrary choice then it can change Right, right, and the left, the political left, has moved that all the way to just before birth, sometimes after birth. Yeah, okay, so let's get into some quick objections. I think this episode will be a little bit shorter, but there's seven main objections. These don't cover every possible thing someone could say, but there's seven big objections that someone will make arguing for pro-choice laws and why abortion should be morally permitted. And the main objection is this A woman has a right to choose what to do with her body. So you see this a lot like my body, my choice, keep your laws off my body. So the objection is essentially that a woman has a right to do what she wants with her body. Okay, well, this objection. You can probably see where this is going.
Speaker 2:If we say that the zygote is a separate biological entity, it's a separate organism from the mother, then what we're talking about is not just one body, but two. So this objection confuses the difference between the fetus being inside the woman's body and being a part of the woman's body. What we say is the fetus is not part of the woman's body. It's its own entity. It has its own body, its own distinct genetic code. It's just it. It finds itself inside the woman's body Naturally. That is the natural place for it to be. But it is an innocent moral agent. It did not choose to be there. That is its natural place to be until it develops and can be born. So when a woman has an abortion, she's not harming necessarily part of her body. She, her body could be harmed in the process, but what she is, what he, she and the doctor are doing they're terminating the life and the body of a separate entity. That's what abortion actually is. It's not part of the woman's body, it's not just a clump of cells in the woman's body.
Speaker 2:Okay, objection number two people will say if abortion is outlawed, women will be forced to have back alley abortions. You see this a lot at the state level right now because after roe v wade was overturned in 2022, now Now states are fighting this out and you see this a lot. The progressive left will bring these arguments out to say if abortion is outlawed here, then young girls are going to be forced to have these pregnancies and they're going to be forced to go into back alleys. So this is the back alley abortion argument. Is the back alley abortion argument, just in a very grotesque way. You'll see the pro-choice people carrying around coat hangers and saying we're going to have coat hanger abortions now if abortion is outlawed here.
Speaker 2:So here's two things. One, it's a fallacious appeal to pity, not to say pity doesn't have its place, but we don't make laws based on pity. It also begs the question, since it assumes that the fetus does not have a right to life. If the fetus is a human being, as we have been arguing, then this argument goes out the window. Argument goes out the window. Uh, the argument, this pro-choice argument, this objection, assumes that we must make society safe for killing certain individuals who lack that right to life to accommodate others. So if we define the fetus as not a human being, then we can accommodate other people by killing that thing mm-hmm uh, does that make sense?
Speaker 2:so again it it always. The pro-choice side always has to define or assume that the unborn is not a person. If it is a person, then you're talking about the intentional killing of millions of persons right to accommodate a few also-. I miss the personhood. Yeah, yeah. So here's another one Objection, number three Unwanted pregnancies will create overwhelming financial hardships on poor families and societies. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Okay. So first, this confuses eliminating a problem with finding the solution to that problem. So the solution to unwanted pregnancies is not to kill unborn babies but to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Okay, so if you were to ask poll people like hey, who wants unwanted pregnancies? Like what society wants unwanted? No one, okay. So what we're arguing about is what's the best way to address the problem. And the pro-choice side is saying terminate the pregnancies. The pro-life side is saying reduce or eliminate as much as possible unwanted pregnancies, because then you're setting up a situation where women are encouraged or tempted to go get abortions. Okay, so that's the confusion.
Speaker 2:Second, the argument again assumes that the fetus doesn't have a right to life, like if they did. If they did assume that the fetus had a right to life, then financial burden is irrelevant, since we're talking about the terminating of a human life. Societies tolerate many people who are financially burdensome simply because they possess that right to life. We think about handicapped people, elderly people, disabled people. We care for them because we see them as persons, even though financially it's burdensome. So again, they have to define the fetus as a non-person. Okay, any questions before I keep going?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, you're good objection number four society should not force women to bring unwanted children into the world. Okay, this hinges on the pro-choice assumption that, again, the fetus is not a person. Do you see this assumption running through all these objections? Yep, uh, if the fetus is not is a person, then its unwantedness is irrelevant to its right to life. So if I'm, if I'm a person, just because I'm not wanted, doesn't mean I don't have a right to life. I have a right not to be killed, like I necessarily. I don't necessarily have a right to be wanted, okay, but I don't have a right to be killed yeah yeah, same thing goes for the fetus yeah
Speaker 2:so this gets into, like, the adoption argument. Um, you know, a, a a woman may not be able to, uh, able to afford to care for the child, or she may not just be in a life situation to care for the child, okay, and so therefore she may not want the child once it's born. In that case, she can give it up for adoption. What doesn't follow from this is if the woman doesn't want this child, she does not then have the right to kill the child. You see that, like, if the child's six months old and she doesn't want it, she doesn't.
Speaker 2:Let's even, okay, let's back it up, because we have stories of of, um, unfortunately, you know, um, some mothers like, uh, horrifically, just let's just say, disposing of their newborn children in very grotesque ways, okay, horrendous ways. Our society prosecutes those people because, again, just because you don't want the child doesn't mean you have a right to kill the child. Yeah, and if we're going to apply that standard to a three-day-old baby, then why would we not apply that standard to a baby who's three days from birth? Yeah, or even further back, okay, so we've got to be consistent. Just because something isn't unwanted doesn't mean it loses its right to life. Objection five A lot of people being unwanted.
Speaker 1:Just for those who are listening there and we'll probably get to this a little bit later too that there's always resource. I mean, especially in the last couple of what? Five, 10 years, maybe that the resources for pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies, women who had considered abortion, I mean there's tons and I'll put that in the in the show notes. But just one here locally, blue Ridge Pregnancy Center, is a good one. You save the storks and obviously have live action with lila rose and so on. So just throwing some names out there, just so you know that there are resources as you speak with people about these different um arguments yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:So objection five is similar. It says society should not force women to bring uh disabled children into the world. Now, you see this, we We've seen this with. A couple years ago there was laws being passed or being promoted, let's say, to virtually eliminate Down syndrome. Down syndrome, yeah. So this is a really relevant objection. Okay the argument because, let's say, a couple discovers maybe it's not a couple, just a woman discovers that her child is going to have Down syndrome or cerebral palsy or something like that. Should she be forced to have to continue with that pregnancy? This is the objection. Okay, the problem is that if the fetus is not a person, then it's obviously not morally wrong to terminate it. Okay, not morally wrong to terminate it okay. However, if the fetus is a person, as we've been arguing, and the mother has a right to kill that fetus on the basis of its disability, then the argument can also be used to justify the killing of disabled children and disabled adults. Yeah, because person, it extends to them too. Okay, most pro-choice advocates are not uh willing to go that route to say, yeah, we should just terminate uh disabled children and disabled adults because they, they, they recognize that these human beings have a right to life, yeah, okay. So again, if they're going to extend, if they're going to recognize personhood in a disabled adult or a disabled child, why would they not recognize personhood in the unborn, disabled unborn or an unborn that has, you know, likelihood of being disabled? So, again, we're always pointing to the inconsistencies in the pro-choice argument.
Speaker 2:Two more objections. Objection number six women who are pregnant from rape or incest should not be forced to continue the pregnancy. This is the big one that you see with laws a lot, especially at the state level. These are two of the three big exceptions with laws. When you see pro-life laws being passed a lot of times. Usually exceptions are made for rape, incest and life of the mother.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what do we do with this kind of situation? So, number one how the pregnancy is conceived. Now, again, what I'm doing here is I'm putting forward a logical argument. I would, if you're dealing with a woman who has just experienced this, don't bring out my notes in the podcast and be like well, tim and Sam said this, you need to be really gentle and it requires a very delicate approach because that woman's been through a lot of trauma. Okay, so what we're doing is we're providing the basis, the logical and moral basis, for how to approach the situation. We're not telling you exactly how to do it. Okay, sam can do that. He's a counselor, I'll leave it to him. Okay, so what about this?
Speaker 2:Women who are pregnant from rape or incest should not be forced to continue the pregnancy. That's the objection. Well, one how a pregnancy started is irrelevant to the issue of personhood. How it starts is irrelevant to whether or not that unborn entity is a person. It either is a person or it's not. No matter how it got there, do you follow that? So let's recognize that, first of all, second, laws which contain exceptions for rape and incest may be effective in greatly restricting abortions, but we'll still have difficulty in determining whether a pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. So there's practical difficulties with laws that have these exceptions of how you determine that. Now, can they be determined? Yeah, sure, sometimes they can be, but there's a lot of practical difficulties there.
Speaker 2:But that first point is, I think, relevant for us, is that the unbornborn again did not choose to be there. It was placed there itself. Itself is a. It's an innocent, moral agent. So we're not, we're not just dealing with one innocent victim of a crime. We're dealing with two, yeah, the mother and the unborn.
Speaker 2:Um, so again, we can have arguments about what to do with the perpetrator and how severe the punishment should be, but what is not in dispute, at least from the pro-life side, is whether or not we're dealing with two innocent moral agents. So that's that's. We have to recognize that, and we in no other situation do we terminate the life of one innocent moral agent simply because of how they were put in that situation. Yeah, yeah, I hope that makes sense. So, yeah, so we shouldn't do that in this situation. That's a tough, it's really tough, but that's, you know, that is my position, that's the position of most evangelicals who approach the issue. I would say you know, the situations like that are extremely, extremely hard and women need a lot of help in those situations. But if we're dealing with the unborn, we're dealing with an innocent moral being as well, and there's lots of stories, there's lots of stories of people who were the product of rape or incest and they grew up. Their mothers did not choose abortion and they grew up to be amazing people.
Speaker 1:Strong advocates for the pro-abortion movement. Yeah, now there's some of that with the support system in our next episode as well, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The last objection is that restrictive abortion laws discriminate against poor or underprivileged women. Okay Again, if the fetus is a person, then the discrimination argument is irrelevant, because society has no obligation to provide equal opportunity to murder. Okay, so if we're talking about a person, then it doesn't matter if poor people have less access to commit murder.
Speaker 2:If we're just talking about this and it's plain language, right, okay? So again, we're always coming back to is the fetus a person or not? So simply because wealthy people have the ability to circumvent laws against abortion is no reason to allow abortion in the first place.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, I mean the hidden piece behind all of this and you kind of alluded to it there is that behind all of this there's there's a business going on right the business of abortion, the business that planned parenthood. It's a business going on right, the business of abortion, the business of planned parenthood. It's a business, and what they're running on is making it seem as though yeah, I mean that the baby doesn't have personhood and they're building on that, you know, and that's how they're making their money. And now you get to choose your child's eye color and you get to choose their sex, and so again, it's all going back into that lane and therefore making it easier for people to make these decisions. But, as you pointed out, difficult circumstances, but still it always comes back to is the fetus, does it have personality? Yes or no?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Now there's one exception that we can point to, and that's the life of the mother, exception where, in certain rare cases, there are situations where the pregnancy itself is threatening the life of the mother. It could be like an ectopic pregnancy, or there's a life-threatening disease, the mother or the baby is developed, life-threatening disease, the mother or the baby is developed, and so it could be that if you delay and you allow the pregnancy to continue, both mother and child are going to be lost. So this is a true moral dilemma that you have to decide the least bad outcome in this situation, and in that case, what you're doing is this is where most moral philosophers, christian moral philosophers, would say this is the one exception in which abortion is morally permitted, because you're acting to save at least one life.
Speaker 2:If you don't act, both lives will be lost, and so you must act to save at least one life. And now some couples have decided I know there's stories of some where the mother said save the child, not me, and others where the couple decided we have children to take care of. We need to take care of those children. So you're choosing between the least bad outcome. You're not choosing to terminate the unborn because they're not wanted or they're going to cause a financial hardship or something like that. You're just simply choosing to save one life and so doing it.
Speaker 2:This is called the law of double effect. Like your, your intention is to save one life, but you have to take another life to do that. And those are rare cases, but they do happen. And so some sometimes Christians really lazily go into the arguments and they say well, there's no exceptions for abortion, and they don't really think about situations like this where the life of the mother actually is at stake. And those are true moral dilemmas and we have to recognize that we live in a fallen world and sometimes that's going to happen. If you don't choose something, you're going to lose both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that reminds me of a story I heard of a father who was going to have. You know, him and his wife were going to have their firstborn and they knew she was having some medical complications and at some point, you know, they were already doing the surgery I think had to be a C-section and so on. So they come out, ask the father. They said, hey, this is going to be, this is complicated and we need to save the life of one or the other. What do you want us to do here? Because the mother's life is at risk, the baby's life is at risk.
Speaker 1:And you know, to your point, which you were saying earlier, sometimes they would have to choose, okay, well, one or the other. He said I, I don't know. He said, try to save both of them. It's like, well, we can't do that, sir. I mean we can't just try, just try to save both of them. That's all I want you to do. And as they went back, the doctors went back into the operating room. He was praying and you know, both his wife and his son were saved and his son was born premature. But they saved both of them and I share that, only to say that these things do happen and that decision is not easy to make right, and obviously there's conversations that maybe the couple had beforehand.
Speaker 1:But when it comes down to when you actually have to make that decision, I mean you can only imagine the flood of thoughts that come into your mind. So, yeah, high pressure situations, very difficult situations, but I just thought I'd share that story, just so you guys know, you know that, um, that God has seen all of this and again for, for whatever reason, um, you know, learning to, uh, I don't know trust him in those, in those times, and I don't know what that looks like. I'm not saying to do one thing or the other.
Speaker 2:What I'm saying, I'm just trying to share a story which I'm sure there's plenty more and if you do have stories like that, please feel free to share that on the pod. Yeah, yeah, that's helpful. You know, stories help us connect truths to our human experience. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's stories are important because we're not just rational brains, you know, walking around just trying to be logical. We're emotional creatures too, and so having these stories helps you. Having stories of people who survive abortion, who are the products of rape or incest, and yet they, they grew up to be amazing advocates for the pro-life cause, all kinds of stories like that they're they're helpful, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, please be sure.
Speaker 2:Well, there you have it. You have biblical arguments for the pro-life position, you have responding to pro-choice positions and all the things in between. If we didn't answer something, perhaps our audience will have a question for us in the comments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Please share, guys. Thank you for tuning in. Next time we'll talk about abortion and mental health. We'll talk to you then.
