The abortion spectrum

I’m staunchly pro-life, but can I tell you something? I can relate to the reticence of many to condemn abortion in the earliest stages of pregnancy. That tiny clump of cells looks so simple and worthless. Like a glob of mucus you might pick out of your eye (or somewhere else). Really? It would be murder to flick this little glob into a trash can? And what about frozen embryos? I still have not been able to quite reconcile their suspended state with my belief in their full humanity.

So although my position is protection from conception, that from fertilization abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human life and thereby murder, you can disagree with me regarding the first few weeks or so of gestation and we can have a very cordial tête-à-tête over a glass of wine or bottle of beer and I would genuinely consider your opinion. But I wouldn’t even want to discuss the issue with someone who is okay with abortion on demand. There’s no chance of me being persuaded to their viewpoint, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t even be able to trust myself to be cordial.

What is it in the development of an unborn child that delineates between abortion as an amoral act and abortion as murder? Some draw the line at a beating heart, others at viability outside the womb. Who’s right? For something as important as whether or not an innocent baby is being murdered, it’s a question we should be concerned with until it’s answered. But I don’t think we can answer it, and that’s one reason why I believe in full protection of the unborn from the moment of fertilization.

So I’m on one extreme of the protection spectrum and at the other are those for whom it’s all about location. In the womb is fair game; only when the child exits it does it have a right to life. But probably most are in-between…not comfortable with the idea of killing a tiny human that looks like a tiny human, but unwilling to protect a tiny clump of cells.

Here’s kind of what that looks like:

As with my flowchart last week, this is a bit simplistic but still, I believe, pretty well captures the somewhat simplistic reasoning of many when it comes to abortion. I know where I am on this chart. Do you see yourself?