Frequently Asked Questions about Abortion

Topics:

• THE STATUS OF THE UNBORN
• THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE PREGNANCY
• SOCIAL & LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS

SOCIAL & LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS

Q. I’m pro-choice.  I wouldn’t have an abortion, but I don’t think I have the right to tell others what to do.  Don’t you think that’s reasonable?

A. Your statement may appear reasonable until you substitute “commit a rape” for “have an abortion.”  Our laws “tell others what to do” all the time.  We have laws against rape, murder, child abuse, stealing, etc.  Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being—why wouldn’t you want to tell others not to do that?  If you have a friend who is planning to have an abortion and you persuade her not to abort, you will have saved a human life.  You will also spare that woman physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences.  Your argument is the same one that some people had about slavery: if you don’t like slavery, don’t own a slave.  That supports slavery, just as you are supporting abortion by being indifferent to other people choosing to abort, even if you wouldn’t personally have an abortion.

Q. I think everyone in society should work to reduce the need for abortion, but isn’t it still a woman’s right?

A. If abortion is a woman's right, why try to reduce the frequency of exercising that right?  If there is nothing wrong with abortion, why remove the "need" for it?  If abortion is such a good idea, why are abortion supporters often uncomfortable with the frequency of abortion and/or abortions for any reason?  If everyone should work to reduce the need for abortion because it kills, then why would we ever consider that a “right”?

Q. Don’t impose your morality on me!

A. Well, don’t impose your morality on me by telling me not to impose my morality on you!  Do you see the self-refuting nature of your statement?

Governments “impose” morality on us every day by outlawing such acts as kidnapping, rape, and theft.  These laws are based on morals which protect vulnerable people from those who would choose to do them harm.  If we impose our morality on men by making it illegal for them to rape women, what’s wrong with imposing our morality on women by making it illegal for them to kill their unborn offspring?

Q. You’re a man and can’t get pregnant, so don’t tell me what to do!

A. What if you’re speaking to a woman who has been pregnant, what are you going to say then?  Your statement is a reflection that you don’t have a good argument because you’re attacking the character of the pro-life individual, instead of the arguments pro-lifers propose.

One does not have to experience something to know the moral and immoral ways of dealing with a situation.  For example, someone who has never been a parent may not be familiar the stress of dealing with a child who has colic.  If that individual confronted a stressed-out mother by saying, “It is wrong for you to beat your child,” we would consider it unreasonable for the mother to reply, “You’re not a parent and don’t know what it’s like, so don’t tell me what to do!”

Q. My friend is going to have an abortion regardless of what I think.  Should I at least support her by taking her to the clinic and holding her hand?

A. If your friend had a 6-month-old infant and was going to abuse that child regardless of what you think, should you support her by being there when she attacks him?

If you believe that abortion kills, then the right thing to do at the very least is to not facilitate or be involved with that abortion.  If you were to “support” her by taking her to the clinic, at some point in the future when your friend acknowledges her mistake she may ask, “If you knew what I was doing was wrong, then why did you support me in that?”  By firmly standing with the courage of your convictions and refusing to participate, you are speaking volumes to your friend.  You are communicating that you would rather risk losing her friendship than dropping your standards and helping her to do something that you know will hurt her and her child.  Furthermore, your decision could be enough to dissuade her from the abortion.

Q. What about all of the millions of people who are starving now?  The earth cannot support more people.

A. Should we make unborn people die because born people don’t have the will to solve difficult problems like starvation?  Starvation today is caused in part by corrupt and oppressive governments who use their people as pawns and who block and abuse the efforts of the relief agencies that have the resources to feed starving people.

Furthermore, if simply having a lot of people in an area means it is overpopulated, then some First-world places are more “overpopulated” than Third-world ones.  Writer Jim Peron points out that the population density (number of people per square kilometer) in China is less than that in the state of Maryland.  And the population density in the United Kingdom is almost the same as that in India.[xiv]  Why do we consider China and India to be overpopulated but not Maryland or the U.K.?

Peron goes on to illustrate just how much “room” there is in the world:

If everyone in the world moved...

...to the US state [sic] of Texas the population density per square mile would be 20,705... or almost the same as Paris, France (20,185) or Toronto, Canada (20,420). 

***

...to the United States the population density would be 1,531... this would be about the same as Mauritius, a popular resort site in the Indian Ocean.[xv]

Peron also points out that “world food production has [emphasis in original] regularly and consistently grown at a faster rate than world population.”[xvi]

If anything, problems lie in too few people not too many.  Some countries are providing financial incentives for couples to have children, in order to increase their population.

...60 countries, about a third of all nations, have fertility rates today below 2.1 children per woman, the number necessary to maintain a stable population. Half of those nations have levels of 1.5 or less. In Armenia, Italy, South Korea, and Japan, average fertility levels are now close to one child per woman.

Barring unforeseen change, at least 43 of these nations will have smaller populations in 2050 than they do today.[xvii]

Ultimately, however, we must ask ourselves if we would justify killing born people who are starving.  If not, then why kill unborn people?

Q. We don’t have the money to pay for handicapped children and sick children born prematurely.  Shouldn’t we just abort them?

A. It is simply untrue that we do not have the resources to care for sick babies.  Statistics Canada reported that in a fiscal year ending in March of 2002, $14.5 billion was spent in Canada on alcoholic beverages (spirits, wine, and beer).[xviii]  That same year it was reported that Canadians would spend almost $500 each for “specialty coffees.”[xix]  When that kind of money is spent on unnecessary items, one can hardly complain that there are no funds to ensure an individual’s necessary health care.  We have the means, we just don’t have the will, because we are a selfish nation.

Q. Isn’t abortion illegal after the first trimester?

A. No.  Abortions may occur in Canada throughout all 9 months of pregnancy.  In 1969, Canada had an abortion law that permitted abortions under certain circumstances, with the approval of a therapeutic abortion committee.  That was changed in 1988.  In that year, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the famous R. v. Morgentaler decision, struck down the 1969 law, which was not replaced by another law; this left no legal protection for the unborn. 

Q. If abortion becomes illegal, what about all the women who will die from back-alley abortions?

A. It is a myth that illegal abortions will make them unsafe to the point where many women will die from them.  In 1960—nine years before abortion was legalized in Canada and thirteen years before abortion became legal in the United States—Mary Calderone, then-medical director of Planned Parenthood in the United States, stated, “abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians.”[xx]  If illegal abortion was safe for women then, it would be safe for them now.

Even more important, though, is the question of whether we should legalize immoral acts and make them safe simply because people who currently commit those acts could be harmed in the process. 

In 1994, Susan Smith killed her two toddlers in South Carolina, by putting them in the backseat of her car and rolling it into a lake.  Imagine that that was not an isolated incident.  Imagine that more women do what Smith did.  Whether they are stressed out with their children, or are dating men who do not want children, or have some other reason, they, in mass numbers, drown their offspring.  But unlike Smith, imagine that woman after woman drives her car into the lake with the plan of escaping out an open window.  If many women fail in their efforts to get out of the cars before they sink, thereby dying when killing their children, should society make drowning one’s children legal?  In fact, should society even facilitate the process by helping women kill their children in a manner that doesn’t threaten their own lives?

Such a situation may seem absurd but it illustrates the point: you don’t change a law simply because someone is going to break it and get harmed in the process.  Assault, bank robbery, and home invasions, for example, all involve risks to the perpetrators.  Should we legalize these acts and attempt to make them “safe” for those who wish to engage in them without harming themselves?  Doing so would completely disregard the victims of these acts who would be harmed regardless of the legality of the act and regardless of how safe we make it for the perpetrators.

Rather than making these acts easier to commit, we should be making them more difficult, and you don’t make them more difficult by facilitating the process.

Q. Shouldn’t we keep abortion legal to keep it safe?

A. Safe for whom?  Abortion is never safe for an unborn child, nor is it safe for women.  Women who abort increase their risk of breast cancer,[xxi] uterine perforation, cervical damage, and ectopic pregnancy,[xxii] to name a few.  Some women have even died from so-called safe and legal abortions.[xxiii]

Q. Do you believe all abortions should be illegal?

A. Since abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being; shouldn’t anyone with a functioning conscience want that illegal?  Killing a baby after birth is called “infanticide”; killing a baby before birth is called “abortion.”  The former is illegal; the latter should be as well.

From a strategic perspective, however, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform does not work politically.  CCBR focuses on changing public opinion through education in order to effect a long-term change in public policy.

Acknowledgement:

This document was revised for CCBR based on the original Frequently Asked Questions provided by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (www.abortionno.org).  Special thanks to Gregg Cunningham.