Worldview in abortion

Whenever the Supreme Court of the United States passes down a ruling that upsets people’s moral intuitions, a question arises: will this verdict clearly establish a right and a wrong side of history and gradually be accepted by the American people? More than 40 years after Roe v. Wade, the American people are still roughly divided between the camps of pro-choice and pro-life. Abortion remains an incredibly polarizing subject which is fought over every year in our nation’s courts, the public square and in our political parties.

The question is largely not scientific. As Jan Langman writes in Medical Embryology, "The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote." The fact that a discrete and unique human life begins at conception is generally not disputed in the scientific community. Moore and Persaud accordingly state, “This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm…represents the beginning of a human being.” (emphasis theirs)

Why then is abortion at least as controversial today as it was 40 years ago? The debate is not fading away because what is at stake is far more than politics or policy; at stake is worldview. A worldview is the framework of fundamental assumptions about reality from which one understands the world. Each of us has our own; and because we each see the world and reality from our own set of lenses, we all are biased. But as G.K. Chesterton precisely distinguishes, “It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.” And so, for the sake of not being bigots, and out of a desire to understand the fundamental disagreement in this debate, we must examine both of these positions from the worldview level and the underlying assumptions from which each argument is built.

The pro-life argument relies on the premise that human life as a discrete entity has inherent sanctity. The Judeo-Christian worldview would justify this sanctity by affirming that each discrete human life is created in the image of God (imago dei). It therefore is inherently and objectively valuable and sacred, having the right to life as all other persons do. This worldview is arguably present in the Declaration of Independence, where it is written, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” For if all persons are created equal, then all persons are equal upon the moment of creation. If the moment of creation occurs upon the union of the spermatozoon and the oocyte, then the ensuing human life is equal in sanctity and worth to all other human beings and accordingly has inalienable rights. This status is not functionally defined, dependent on location or viability, or in any way subjectively conferred by society or another human individual.

On the other hand, the pro-choice arguments follow two main categories: arguments for why abortion is morally permissible, and, given this permissibility, arguments for why the option of abortion is practically appropriate. The argument for moral permissibility focuses on denying that the unborn human life has the rights of a human being, either by denying its status as a discrete and unique human entity or by denying that human beings have inherent sanctity; that is, sanctity is conferred at some point after having been created (e.g. functionally defined) and therefore not from merely existing. In both of these cases, those who wield power and have a voice determine the sanctity of those who do not. Given that abortion is morally permissible at the foundational level, there are many different cited incentives to abort—everything from the incredible investment of time and money that is required by the mother to the potential of birth defects to unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape.

While these arguments are logically parallel, there is a qualitative difference at the practical level. While the pro-life argument flows from Judeo-Christian principles of human life to the appropriate action given these principles, the pro-choice argument flows from autonomous choice (in every case, from undesired and tragic circumstances to convenience) to the moral permissibility of abortion. This is why, to a defender of abortion rights, the first concern is never the matter of life; it is always the right of personal choice. This ought to gravely concern us.

Historically, the greatest evils in the world have occurred when those in power have made their own interests supreme at the expense of other human lives, and then dehumanized said human beings to justify their actions. For example, in the early days of America, the right to own slaves was defended for the same reason and via a similar fashion. White American slave-owners gave priority to their own self-interests and dehumanized African-Americans to morally rationalize their actions.

The culture’s acceptance of slavery and racial discrimination found its end through the application of The Declaration of Independence to all people, recognizing that every human life has equal and inherent sanctity. What is concerning today in America is that while we have recognized that both black and white lives matter, our nation has not truly realized that all lives matter. Regarding the question of abortion, there is no bridge between the two worldviews outlined above. Either all human life is objectively equal and sacred, or equality and sacredness is a status that may be both conferred and denied. And unless America accepts the inherent sanctity of human beings, those who have power will continue to decide which lives matter and which lives do not.