Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - Why Pro-Choicers Insist Pro-Life Arguments Are Religious

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Alan explains two reasons why abortion-choice advocates insist that pro-life arguments are religious.

The pro-life case against abortion involves legal, moral, scientific, and philosophical reasoning. So why do abortion choice advocates then keep insisting that pro-life arguments are religious? Well, I'm going to answer that question in this episode of my podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Alan Schliemann. U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently posted a video arguing against Christians who oppose abortion. And here's what she said, quote, there are so many faiths that do not have the same definition of life as fundamentalist Christians. So what about their right to exercise their faith? It's ridiculous and it's theocratic. It's authoritarian.

It is wrong, end quote. Now, she's not the first abortion choice advocate to bring up religion when arguing against abortion. In fact, several years ago when I was debating a feminist, she was a women's studies professor over at California State University in San Marcos. When I was debating here, she brought up my religious beliefs in her arguments, even though I never made a single faith-based argument in my particular position. Now, it's common for abortion choice advocates to address religious arguments when they're arguing against the pro-life view, even though many pro-lifers don't use their faith to justify their position. And so pro-lifers often, when they do argue for their view, what they do is they argue from science and from reason. So for example, in my debate, I began by claiming that abortion should be illegal for the same reason that it's illegal to kill a 14 year old, a four year old or a four month old.

And the reasoning is this. It's wrong to kill innocent human beings. And so if the unborn is a human being, just like born children, then I argued it's equally wrong to kill the unborn. Then I argued it's equally wrong to kill the unborn. And so then all I simply did was demonstrate that the unborn is a human being, just like you and me, from the scientific evidence. Now, notice that when I make my case, I don't cite the Bible. I didn't invoke God and I don't make an attempt to make any kind of a religious argument. Rather, my case against abortion brings in legal, moral, scientific, and philosophical reasoning. Now, abortion choice advocates, however, they bring up religion for a very particular reason. And that is, it's an effective tactic. Because whether they realize

it or not, it's a clever way to gain the upper hand. And here's two reasons why. Here's how it kind of that works. So first reason is by making the pro-life position merely a religious matter, what they ended up doing is committing a straw man fallacy. Now, let me first unpack what a straw man fallacy. Now, let me first unpack what a straw man fallacy is. This is a mistake in logic when you misrepresent, either intentionally or unintentionally, when you misrepresent a person's view in a way that makes their view look more foolish and or easier to

refute. And then instead of responding to the person's actual view, what you do is you respond to a view that they don't actually hold, one that is oftentimes simpler to knock down. And so abortion choice advocates bring up religion when talking about the pro-life view, thereby misrepresenting the view and committing a straw man fallacy. Now, that's, of course, assuming that the pro-lifer did not substantiate the position with some sort of faith-based argument. But remember, the pro-life view or the pro-life position doesn't need God or the Bible to be valid. In fact, listen to the moral logic of the pro-life view.

It consists of two premises, okay? So premise one is this. Well, let me back up here. It consists of two premises and a conclusion, okay? So premise one is this. It's wrong to kill innocent human beings. Premise two, abortion kills an innocent human being. Conclusion, therefore abortion is wrong.

Okay, so that's the entire argument. That's the entire syllogism. Okay, now I want you to notice that nowhere in that syllogism is there any mention of God or the Bible or any kind of religious argument. Okay, further, you can defend each of the premises without any reference to religion. Now, notice the average person that you talk to kind of on the street will readily accept premise one,

which is it's wrong to kill innocent human beings, okay? After all, by the way, even non-Christians think it's wrong to kill innocent human beings. Thank God for that, right? Now, premise two, which says abortion kills an innocent human being, that premise two can be defended using the science of embryology. So notice, therefore, that if premise one and premise two are true, then the conclusion that abortion is wrong logically follows by necessity.

All right. So the syllogism that the pro-life view entails is a, what we call a valid deductive argument. If you can show that premise one and premise two are true, then the conclusion that abortion is wrong logically follows by necessity. Okay. Now, since the moral logic of the pro-life view is not necessarily religious, abortion choice advocates attack a straw man when they quote-unquote refute a religious-based position. Now, if they want to address our actual view, well, they need to then engage the science of embryology. address our actual view, well, they need to then engage the science of embryology. My suspicion, however, is that they prefer to engage the view of quote-unquote fundamentalist Christians for another reason. And here's my second reason why they do this, okay? By making the pro-life position a religious matter, it's easier to relativize and therefore dismiss our view.

Now, the reason I say this is because abortion choice advocates are oftentimes relativists. And what that means is that when it comes to morality or when it comes to religious belief, they take a sort of each person decides for themselves kind of approach. All right. In other words, your moral rules and your religious beliefs are for you alone. Okay. No one religion or its ethical views supersedes the others. Consequently, you can't, I'm sorry, you can't then impose your religion's moral rules on people outside of your faith. Therefore, this is key,

listen, if you can hitch a person's pro-life views to their religion, well, then it makes it easier to dismiss that view as simply a theological idiosyncrasy. After all, if you can't impose your religious belief on others, well, then you definitely can't impose your religion's moral rules on others either. And that's why abortion choice advocates love to bring up religious belief when talking about the pro-life view. It simply makes it a lot easier to dismiss pro-lifers as simply trying to impose private religious convictions on society at large. But if your pro-life position is grounded in science and reason, which, of course, I argue that it is,

but your dialogue partner insists on responding to a religious justification, then you need to simply kindly remind them of your view and what it actually entails and ask that they actually engage your view and what it actually entails and ask that they actually engage your view rather than a view that you don't hold. Okay. And I think by encouraging them to do that, and if they do that, that will help you both have then a more productive conversation. So that's all I have for you today. If you enjoy these short podcast topics that I discuss on this podcast channel, be sure to rate or review my podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts on. And thank you for listening.

I look forward to thinking out loud with you next time. Bye.