Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - Abortion Is Unjust Discrimination

Episode Date: November 7, 2021

Do abortion-choice advocates hold a morally superior view or is their position discriminatory? Alan unpacks this question in this month’s episode.

Do abortion choice advocates hold a morally superior view or is their position discriminatory? Well, that's what I want to talk to you about in this November 2021 episode of my podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shuliman. So abortion choice advocates consider their view as morally superior. And that's because they believe that they're defending a woman's right to control her own body. Now, what I want to argue is that they don't realize that their view, their position actually leads to an act of unjust discrimination. And so what I'm contending here is that abortion is a type of discrimination. In fact, it's the worst kind. And the reason is because it disqualifies a human being from being a valuable person.

Now, I want to be clear here, first of all, especially since we're talking about whether women should be able to control their own bodies. I want to make it clear that I do believe that a woman should be able to control her own body, right? In other words, she should be generally free from the shackles of government regulation, right? I don't think men or women, for that matter,

who are in public office should write laws that interfere with a woman's personal decisions, right? She should be free to make her own choices about her health care, her career, whether she marries and whom she marries, right? Whether to have children, all that stuff. So I think we can all agree on that. But our laws stipulate that personal decisions are restricted when they hurt or unjustly discriminate against another person. And so the question then is whether or not a woman's decision to procure an abortion is an example of unjust discrimination. Now, the challenge with this question, though, is that the circumstance of pregnancy is, I don't know how to put it, but it's incredibly unique.

Okay, there's nothing analogous to it. So during pregnancy, another whole human being starts his or her life inside a woman. And this new person literally lives inside a woman's body for nine months. Now, of course, this creates a tension that doesn't exist in any other circumstance. And that is, a woman is a sovereign person in control of her body, but inside her body exists another person. And so, of course, it's pretty easy to see the uniqueness of this situation. Now, though the average person who supports abortion might deny the unborn as a human being, most people, I would argue, who know the biological facts can't deny

that the unborn is a human being. And this is because I would say the science of embryology is decisive about the status of the unborn. And from the moment of conception, the unborn is a living, distinct, and human being. So three things there, living, distinct, and human, right? We know the unborn is living because it meets the biological criteria for life, which is that it grows, it responds to stimuli, and it converts nutrition into energy. So that's why we know it's living. Now, we know the unborn is also a distinct individual being separate from its mother because it has its own brain, its own heart, its mother because it has its own brain,

its own heart, its own sex organs, its own fingerprints, its own unique DNA that is completely different than the mother or the father. And third, we know that the unborn is a human type of being because it has a human genetic signature. And by the way, I'll also add that living things reproduce after their own kind. And so that means that the product of human sexual union will always produce another human being 100% of the time. And so if you want to know what kind of being is living inside a pregnant woman, all you have to do is ask, what is that being's parents? And if that being's parents are human, then that being is also going to be human as well. Now, given that two whole distinct persons exist when a woman is pregnant, that is the

mother and her unborn child, how is abortion unjust discrimination? First, it's important to recognize that not all discrimination is unjust. It's appropriate when the characteristic of the person is relevant to the type of discrimination. So for example, it's fair to discriminate, in some ways, against people with disabilities. So like we deny blind people a driver's license. Okay, being blind however does not warrant being denied the right to say vote since blindness isn't a relevant characteristic to voting. Just to give you another example here,

it's also fair to discriminate against people of a certain age, right? We don't allow children to serve in the military because age is relevant to a person's fighting capability. And these are just some of the many instances where discrimination is just, where it's legitimate, okay? But there are other kinds of discrimination, some of which are unjust. some of which are unjust. And in fact, history is crowded with examples where groups of human beings were disqualified from being valuable and were victims of unjust discrimination.

For example, the Third Reich. They discriminated against the Jews. Notice that the Jews were a group of human beings who were disqualified from being valuable based on a characteristic, their ethnicity, that wasn't relevant to the type of discrimination they faced. As a result, they were experimented on and exterminated. African Americans are another example of a people group who were discriminated against specifically or especially in the United States, right? They were also a group of human beings who were disqualified from being valuable based on a characteristic, their skin color, that wasn't relevant to the type of discrimination they faced.

And as a result, they were kidnapped and enslaved. And today, abortion choice advocates discriminate against the unborn. Notice again, the unborn are a group of human beings who are disqualified from being valuable based on a characteristic, their location inside their mother. And that characteristic is not relevant to the type of discrimination they face. And as a result, they are killed with impunity. To be sure, the unborn is inside the mother and that does grant her certain prerogatives over her child, but never the right to kill her own son or daughter. And so we live in an upside down world, right?

Abortion choice advocates claim to champion inclusion, right? But they're the ones who exclude a certain class of human beings. Abortion choice advocates claim to champion the oppressed, but they oppress the weak. They claim to eschew discrimination, but they unjustly discriminate. And by contrast, pro-life advocates are the inclusive ones. They're the ones who champion the weak. They're the ones who don't discriminate against those who are small, vulnerable, and defenseless.

Well, that's all the thoughts I have for you today about this. If you enjoy these short podcast topics that I cover, be sure to rate or review my podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts on. And thank you for listening. I will talk to you next time.