Matt Walsh wrote a thread on Twitter responding to what he called "the seven most common (and dumbest) pro-abortion arguments." You can read it here. I've added to those seven with some additional responses to claims that are just as common (and dumb).
You might be wondering, "Why do you care about this so much, Seth?" I guess my reply to anyone who'd wonder such a thing would be this: "Why don't you care about this?" The lives of countless innocent children are at stake in this debate. What could be more pressing or deserving of our attention than that?
Now, on to the dumb arguments and assertions:
1.) Women have a right to bodily autonomy. There have always been limits to personal or bodily autonomy, but this is especially true for parents. Parents are morally and legally obligated to care for and protect their children. Consider the case of an infant. Newborn babies are exceptionally demanding on a woman's body and psyche—much more so than preborn babies—requiring round-the-clock care and attention. A mother is obligated to use her body and her resources to care for her newborn child and keep it healthy and alive. If she neglects the child—or worse, intentionally kills it—she'll be criminally charged. Her obligation to her child supersedes her personal autonomy, and that's the way it should be. Why should it be any different with preborn children? To say that a woman has inviolable personal autonomy prior to birth, but not after, is to assume what needs to be proved—namely, that the preborn child is somehow less human, and thus less deserving of care and protection, than the already-born child.
2.) Abortion is healthcare. Nonsense. Abortion is healthcare the way rape is lovemaking. Words have meaning. You can't magically transform evil into good by attaching nice words to it that have no application whatsoever.
3.) No uterus? No opinion. Which premise in this argument is falsified by the fact that I don't have a uterus?
1: It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human.
2: Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human.
3: Therefore, abortion is wrong.
The "no uterus, no opinion" thing is fallacious and stupid. And even more so now that leftists have decided that trans women are women. They're the ones who've rejected the idea that biology determines womanhood, so by their own standards they can no longer appeal to biology to try and discount men's opinions.
4.) You don't know when life begins. We actually do, but for the sake of argument, let's say that we don't. In that case, we should exercise extreme caution and err on the side of life to avoid any chance of killing an innocent, living human. An analogy might help. Imagine you're driving home at night and see something that might be a body lying in the road. You're not sure if it's a person, and if it is, you have no idea if they're alive. It could just be a garbage bag. But you know instinctively that the right thing to do is to swerve and avoid hitting it, just to be safe. You certainly don't want to take the chance of killing someone. Apply this reasoning to the unborn fetus. If you aren't sure when life begins, the right thing to do is err on the side of caution.
5.) Stop forcing your religion on others. Is it forcing religion on others to say it's wrong to murder toddlers? If not, then why's it forcing religion on others to say it's wrong to kill children who are even younger and smaller? The above argument in (3) doesn't cite the Bible to make its case.
6.) Don't like abortion? Then don't have one. It's a category mistake to treat a morally significant action as if it were merely a matter of personal preference. It's neither right nor wrong to prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla. But the choice to kill another human is quite different. Imagine saying, "Don't like child molestation? Then don't molest a child." This attitude—which treats molestation as permissible for others even if one does not personally approve of it—is relativistic moral madness.
7.) Abortion is legal. So was slavery. Did that make slavery a moral good worth defending?
8.) A fetus is not a human person until it reaches viability. What does the ability to survive outside the womb have to do with one's humanity or intrinsic worth? It's an entirely arbitrary assertion. You might as well say human life or dignity begins when a child learns to walk or talk. From the moment of conception, a distinct human entity is formed that undergoes a years-long process of development until adulthood is reached. There's nothing more arbitrary than trying to single out a particular stage in that development that marks the point when human life becomes valuable. We do not gain or lose value based on our developmental progress. In fact, if anything, we could argue that the less developed a person is, the more dependent they are on others, and thus the more deserving of protection and care. We certainly think that way about toddlers and infants; we think it especially tragic when something bad happens to them because they're so utterly helpless and innocent. "She was just a child!" we cry. Why shouldn't we think that way about preborn?
9.) Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. A safe abortion is as oxymoronic as a round square, a married bachelor, or a peaceful riot. You cannot "safely" kill another human. And if you want it to be legal because you don't think it's wrong, then why say it should be rare?
10.) Restricting abortion access will mean more kids living in poverty. Last I checked, it's better to be poor than dead. And if you don't think so, then why aren't you advocating for infants and toddlers in families experiencing hardship to be rounded up and slaughtered by the millions? You could save them from their poverty and suffering right now by killing them all. The reason you'd never do or support such a thing is because it's morally reprehensible. And that's the same reason you should object to abortion as a means of preventing the experience of poverty or hardship. Also, there's this beautiful thing called adoption that allows anyone to place their child with a loving, financially stable family instead of killing him or her.
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(This is from my Substack.)
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