Pro-Choice Supporters Must Make Decisive Choice

A recent news story reported that Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden was addressing a Catholic group where he quoted Thomas Aquinas in defending his stand for abortion. His assertion being that there is no clear definition of when life truly begins.

When we engage in the debate over abortion, this is the only logical place we can possibly start. Assuming that both sides can agree that the concept of murder is morally and lawfully wrong, they both must make the determination of where life begins to support their position. If the proponents and opponents of abortion do not make the distinction of what is life and what is not, then they are on shaky ground. They must then face the fact that if they are even slightly wrong in their timeline, then they might in effect, be supporting murder. If one randomly selected the third trimester as the “life-point” then an abortion after this point would be murder.

The point must also be made that whatever “life-point” is selected, it must be clearly supported and consistent and contain no loopholes. If it is defined by a trimester stage, then how can a mother be absolutely sure of what day the sperm entered the nucleus of the egg or if it is at birth, what is birth? Proponents of partial birth abortion must believe it is when the body has completely exited the birth canal yet others might believe that the umbilical cord must be cut. Life at conception is certainly the safest position to take since it starts at the origination of pregnancy and therefore has no prior point to contend for life.

It is asinine to claim the mantra of the issue only being about a “woman’s right to choose what she does with her own body”. A woman clearly does not have the right to end the life of a child after one week, one month, or one year simply because she concludes that a child would be an inconvenience. The determination that this child was a life was already made at some point.

Abortion is not a simple issue but everyone in the debate must first have some kind of foundation. Once some basics are established, only then can the various scientific, moral and Scriptural arguments be applied.