How NOT to Argue Pro-Choice
triablogue.blogspot.com
The following is an example of how you do not want to argue for abortion. This is excerpted from my interactions with an atheist named "Jim" on Facebook:
Jim's initial question:
FOR PROLIFE CHRISTIANS, ANTIABORTION BELIEVERS: I have a question for all the so called Pro-Life/Anti-Abortion folks out there: If abortion is murder of a human being then should the woman who have abortions be given the death penalty? If you think it's necessary to go to that extreme, then, what about life in prision . . .
My initial response:
According to Romans 13:1-5 and Genesis 9:6, *anyone* should face the death penalty if they have committed premeditated murder of human beings, whether abortive mothers or otherwise.
Jim:
The bible doesn't even say anything about abortion nor condemn it. Where in Romans does it say the unborn fetus is human? If abortion is a big concern, then why hasn't Moses, Jesus or Paul make any mention of it? So you think woman who have the the free choice to end their pregnancies should be given the death penalty?
Dusman:
The Bible also doesn't say anything about pedophilia nor condemn it. Where in Romans does it say the pedophilia is evil? If pedophilia is a big concern, then why hasn't Moses, Jesus, or Paul make any mention of if? So you think people who have the free choice to fondle toddlers for fun should be given the death penalty?
Dusman:
Now for the serious answer:
P-1. If the unborn is human then abortion is murder.
P-2. The unborn is human (Ex. 22:22-24; Ps. 51:5; 139:13ff).
C - Therefore, abortion is murder.
Jim:
Hey Dustin, If you want to use your bible to justify abortion is murder of a human being then you better go back and look at what it actually says regarding priorities and penalties etc.
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
"And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . ."—Ex. 21:22-25
If you look at these scriptures you will see for yourself that it orders the death penalty for a human being, not an unborn fetus .... If you want to use pedophilia as a comparison, then neither is there anything mentioned in the bible about smoking marijuana either. ....
Dusman:
1. The fetus is included in the "life for life" part of Exodus 21:22-25. You're begging the question by assuming that it's not. The text reads otherwise and the word used for "fruit" is the same word used for born children in the Hebrew text of the OT. On your standards, we could kill them too.
2. According to you, when does the unborn become a human being worthy of protection under the law?
Jim:
Dustin, If you look in those passages the death penalty is not required punishment for the fetus but it is for a human being outside the womb. According to your bible a human being is when they take their first breathe at birth. So to answer your # 2 question, no. A human being outside the womb is protected by the law. So if you kill a baby outside the womb you have committed murder.
Dusman:
1. Jim, I've not only looked at those passages but have preached and taught from them from the original language. You're wrong about Exodus 21:22-25, period. Please go, take up and read here for some good exegesis of this passage: str.org
Oh, and what happened to the personal pronouns used by David of himself when he was a preborn child? He didn't call himself an "it", he referred to himself with personal pronouns indicating that he was considered a human being:... See More
Psalm 139:13-16, "For You formed MY inward parts, you wove ME in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. MY frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen MY unformed . . ."
Thus, since David, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit referred to himself as a preborn person, it stands to reason that killing a preborn child is murder in God's sight. Again,
P1 - If the preborn is human, then abortion is murder.
P2 - God said the preborn is human.
C - Therefore, abortion is murder.
2. Jim, if a born baby is what constitutes protection under the law; what's the difference between a baby that is in the process of being born yet is *still* on the other side of the birth canal versus the baby that just exited the birth canal?
According to your standard (". . . if you kill a baby outside the womb you have committed murder.") the 2 sec. old newborn is worthy of protection but the 2 minute old preborn is game for killing.
So what's the real difference Jim?
Jim:
More of your desperate attempts at propping up the false notion that a fetus is on the same level as a human being outside the womb. An unborn fetus cannot speak as you seem to be asserting here. The bible is not prolife because God brutally destroys innocent children: "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."—Psalm 137:9
Hosea 13:16 ''their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.''
Your God is far from prolife. He seems to get his jollies off kiling innocent, helpless babies and children. He even used wild bears to kill 42 children: 2 Kings 2:23-24
Jim:
'' For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the womb that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. " –Luke 23:29
''The teachings and contradictions of the bible show that antiabortionists do not have a "scriptural base" for their claim that their deity is "pro-life." Spontaneous abortions occur more often than medical abortions. Gynecology textbooks conservatively cite a 15% miscarriage rate, with one medical study finding a spontaneous abortion rate of almost 90% in very early pregnancy. That would make a deity in charge of nature the greatest abortionist in history!'' Dan Barker
Dusman:
Jim,
You have only made mere assertions in response to the exegesis I linked and offered no arguments to refute the second premise of my initial argument offered for the humanity of the preborn. Mere assertions do not count for rational argumentation.
I am not asserting that a preborn child can speak, only that the *adult* King David's used personal pronouns in Psalm 139 to refer to his preborn "unformed substance" thus demonstrating his essential humanity before birth. Thus premise two holds per the exegesis of not only Exodus 21 but also Psalm 139.
There is no contradiction in the Scripture on this issue (or any other), regardless of what Dan Barker says. The Bible is pro-life in the sense that God does not allow *people* to take life apart from His clear directive to do so under specific circumstances (cf. Gen. 9:6; Romans 13:1-5). However, God (not man) is pro-choice in the sense that He can give and take life when He wants, how He wants, and from whomever He wants for His own purposes. We do not have that authority, and to arrogate such to ourselves is to assume that which only belongs to God. Thus, abortion is murder. What is proper, right, and good for God to do may not necessarily be so for people because we are not God.
I find it interesting that you are pro-choice yet you don't want God to be. By arguing this way you expose your hypocrisy since you want the right to do the very thing that you don't want the Creator to have the right to do.
God is the Sovereign Creator, and by virtue of His ownership of the creation He gets to give life and take life when He wants to, how He wants, to and from whomever He wants to. This includes miscarriages, aborted children, and children dashed against the rocks as a form of divine judgment against the Babylonians or Canaanites. By virtue of our sinful nature and our voluntary sin, judgment is exactly what we deserve (according to God) and that's exactly what most people will receive and have received in Hell.
Given your atheism, you cannot and will not be able to provide any justification for morally objecting to the God of the Bible giving and taking life for His own purposes. You can only object because you don't like it, but your anger at God doesn't constitute a rational argument against Him.
God knows better than all of us, and if He wants to have Babylonian babies dashed against the rocks, then He has a perfectly good reason for doing so by virtue of the fact that He is God and you are not.
Jim:
Give me a break. I don't have to NOT want God to NOT be ProLife. He isn't. He's a mass murder and the bible is clear on that. The bible is not prolife. If anything it is blatantly pro death and soaked in the blood of innocent children. Your in denial and you know it. As an atheist I have enough intelligence to not only object to the God in the bible but to reject such a sorry excuse for a morally bankrupt being. A being that isn't even a real God in the first place. It's the reflection and the invention of the barbarians who created him in their own superstitious, ignorant and barbaric image. I bet you gloated when Dr Tiller was brutally murdered in his church last year by your fellow nutjob, heartless so called proDeath bro in Christ too eh?
Jim:
''The antiabortion position does not demonstrate love for humanity, or compassion for real human beings. Worldwatch Institute statistics show that 50% of abortions worldwide are illegal, and that at least 200,000 women die every year--and thousands more are hurt and maimed--from illegal or self-induced abortions. Unwanted pregnancies and complications from multiple pregnancies are a leading killer of women. Why do antiabortionists want North American women to join these ghastly mortality statistics? Every day around the world more than 40,000 people, mostly children, die from starvation or malnutrition. We must protect and cherish the right to life of the already-born.''
If there is anyone who is the hypocrite it is you Dustin. You are Anti-Woman. Your mentality goes back to the Dark Ages.
Dusman:
Jim,
You said,
"Your in denial and you know it."
Really? I *clearly* stated that God kills people for His own sovereign purposes, including preborn and born children. How does that constitute being "in denial"?
Your responses to my argumentation have been nothing more than ad hominem attacks against my character and straw man argumentation against God's character.
You may not like Christians or their God; but if you want thinking Christians to take you seriously, then you will have to stop engaging them with informal logical fallacies because they will recognize very early on that you are not a person that is interested in rational dialogue, but only in making bare-naked assertions, name calling and insult hurling.
As a result, my interaction with you in this thread will end here since you have proven that you are not an individual interested in engaging in rational discussion.
Proverbs 14:6, "A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none; but truth is easy to one who has understanding."
Conclusion:
Jim continued making irrelevant statements, hurled more ad hominems, and refused to interact in any meaningful way with my argument. He is typical of most Pro-Choicers I've interacted with. So, if you want to murder pre-born children, don't make your case like Jim. |
