Abortion is essential health care service—and other falsehoods

 

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden

(Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

APOLOGIA

By Hendrik van der Breggen

October 26, 2020

Abortion is essential health care service—and other falsehoods

Critical thinking about abortion

 

Abortion is essential health care service?

According to 2020 presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, “abortion is an essential health care service.”

No, it's not. No abortions are medically necessary. But don’t take my word on this.

Dr. Kendra Kolb, a neonatologist, stated this in 2019: “there is no medical reason why the life of the child must be directly and intentionally ended with an abortion procedure.”

Also in 2019, Omar L. Hamada, MD, Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, stated this: “there is absolutely no medically justifiable reason for abortion ('the intentional and elective targeted killing of an infant at any stage of pregnancy for matters of maternal choice or convenience') to save the life of the mother. Period. End of story.”

Also, Dr. C. Everett Koop in 1980 (when he was Surgeon General of the United States) stated the following: “In my thirty-six years in pediatric surgery I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life.” (C. Everett Koop, “Deception-on-demand,” Moody Monthly, May 1980, p. 27.)

Also, consider that Dr. R. J. Hefferman of Tufts University stated this in 1951: “Anyone who performs a therapeutic abortion (for physical disease) is either ignorant of modern methods of treating the complications of pregnancy, or is unwilling to take time to use them.” (Congress of American College of Surgeons, 1951; cited by Dr. and Mrs. Willke in Abortion: Questions and Answers [Cincinnati, Ohio: Hays Publishing Company, Inc., 1985], 120.)

Abortion is not health care.

[For additional thought, see Nathan Apodaca, “Abortion: Essential Health Care for Whom?”]

 

Abortion care prevents the heartbreak of infant mortality?

According to Terry O'Neill, former president of the pro-choice group NOW (National Organization for Women), “abortion care, no less than contraception, is an essential measure to prevent the heartbreak of infant mortality.” In other words, O’Neill favours abortion so we can avoid feeling sad in the tragic situations in which infants die natural deaths shortly after they’re born.

My response: Huh? Really? Notice the underlying principle implied by O'Neill's view: If someone is going to die of natural causes early in their life, I should be free to kill him/her sooner to prevent my heartbreak.

Surely this is self-centeredness taken to the extreme—and is a moral wrong.

Also, if we accept O’Neill’s view, why stop with the heartbreak of infant mortality? Perhaps we could also prevent our heartbreak over the natural deaths of old people or the terminally ill by killing them earlier. And perhaps we could prevent our heartbreak over the natural deaths of the starving and homeless by killing them, too. O’Neill’s view turns “care” into killing—and is morally atrocious. An atrocious moral falsehood.

 

Women have the right to control their own bodies, so abortion is a woman's right. Really?

This is a popular argument—even Canada's Prime Minister makes it (implicitly) when he justifies abortion by saying women have “the right to control their own bodies.”

Popular or not, it’s a fallacious argument.

This justification of abortion works only if the following argument works:

• Premise 1: The fetus is a part of the pregnant woman’s body.
• Premise 2: Every woman has the right to control her own body.
• Conclusion: Women have the right to abortion.

The argument sounds good, but is it sound? No, it is NOT sound. The first premise is the culprit—it’s false. Consider the following reasoning.

First, assume (for the sake of argument) that the first premise is true. That is, assume that the fetus is a part of the pregnant woman’s body.

Second, consider the logical relation of transitivity. If A is a part of B, and B is a part of C, then A is a part of C. If a brick is part of a wall, and the wall is part of a house, then the brick is part of that house.

Third, keep in mind two facts: (1) a woman has two feet; and (2) a fetus has two feet.

Now, consider the following: if a fetus’s two feet are a part of the fetus, and if the fetus is a part of a pregnant woman, then the fetus’s two feet are a part of that woman. Hence, the woman has four feet.

Now, also consider the fact that the male fetus has a penis. If the penis is a part of the fetus, and if the fetus is a part of the pregnant woman, then the woman has a penis. (Note: We’re not talking intersex here, we’re talking about a woman.)

Think, too, about the possibility of male triplets.

Since absurdities follow logically from the assumed truth of the first premise, we can conclude that the first premise is false. (This is a reductio ad absurdum argument.)

Significantly, premise 1 fails to recognize the distinction between the concepts of part and connection. An object A can be connected to object B, yet object A need not be a part of B. The piano in a mover’s truck is connected (via straps, etc.) to the truck, yet the piano is not a part of that truck. Similarly, the fetus is connected to a woman’s body, yet the fetus is not a part of the woman’s body.

Sure, every woman has the right to control her own body. But there two bodies involved in an abortion.

It’s one thing to control one’s own body—it’s quite another to kill the body of another!

 

We should think critically about abortion, for goodness’ sake.

 

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Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. The above article (except for the reference to Nathan Apodaca’s fine article) consists of excerpts from Hendrik’s recently published book Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments: Critical Thinking about Abortion (now available at Amazon).

 

Abortion

APOLOGIA

By Hendrik van der Breggen

The Carillon, February 2, 2017

Abortion

The recent Women's March on Washington (often crude and vulgar) is probably more aptly described as a March for Abortion Choice. As such, it should encourage us to think carefully about the so-called “pro-choice” view on abortion.

Here is some food for thought.

● From Kelsey Kurtinitis, board member of Personhood Iowa and pro-life activist:

I am a woman, and yet the Women’s March on Washington does not represent me.

This is not because of any prejudice I hold—I do not hate women, nor do I suffer from any “internalized misogyny.” No, the Women’s March does not represent me because they have chosen not to.

You see, the Women’s March only believes in the pro-choice buzzword when you choose to agree with them.

● From Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director (and Planned Parenthood 2008 “Employee of the Year”), now pro-life activist:

I hear people chant, “my body, my choice” or “mind your own uterus.”

You would think that after all of the medical technology and scientific breakthroughs that people would understand that we aren't talking about your body. And we certainly aren't talking about your uterus. We are talking about the scientifically proven individual human being that is inside your body.

These chants would only make sense if a woman aborted herself. But she doesn't. She aborts another individual. And that's who we are talking about in the prolife movement.

● From Terry O'Neill, president of the “pro-choice” group NOW (National Organization for Women): “abortion care, no less than contraception, is an essential measure to prevent the heartbreak of infant mortality.”

(What follows are my words.) Huh? Really? Notice the underlying principle of O'Neill's view: I can kill a human being to prevent my heartbreak if this human being will die a natural death.

Notice, too, the logical implications: This opens whole new avenues of “care” to prevent our heartbreak over the elderly, the ill, the homeless, the starving, etc. How? By killing them!

● Objection: But difficulty in policing and enforcing abortion law would render it useless.

Reply: We should note that it is difficult to police and enforce laws against, say, texting and driving, but the law works to discourage texting and driving. The point: if an action kills or threatens to injure innocent others, a law against the action is not unreasonable, even if not 100% effective.

We have room to be creative here. Perhaps a law against abortion should (a) criminalize late-term/ gendercide/ disability abortionists only, not women pressured into abortion, plus (b) help women so pressured (just as our anti-prostitution law criminalizes pimps and johns, not the women pressured into prostitution, plus helps the women get out of prostitution).

Most abortions are due to social problems, whereas abortions for the horrific circumstances of rape, incest, or when a mother's life is threatened account for a small percentage only.

Social problems require social solutions, not the killing of children.

● From Frederica Mathewes-Green, pro-life activist and past vice-president of Feminists for Life America:

In time, it’s going to be impossible to deny that abortion is violence against children. Future generations, as they look back, are not necessarily going to go easy on ours. Our bland acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. In fact, the kind of hatred that people now level at Nazis and slave-owners may well fall upon our era.

Future generations can accurately say, “It’s not like they didn’t know.” They can say, “After all, they had sonograms.” They may consider this bloodshed to be a form of genocide. They might judge our generation to be monsters.

One day, the tide is going to turn. ... The time is coming when a younger generation will sit in judgment of ours. And they are not obligated to be kind.

● Note to responsible adults/ parents: Logical dullness and moral callousness seem to be kindred spirits—don’t be duped by them. For our children's sake.

(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views expressed in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence or Hendrik's colleagues.)


Note to critics: Please read my other articles on abortion before offering your criticism. Thanks.