Response: “‘Where does life begin?’ is a spiritual question”
[This article is a transcript of “‘”Where does life begin?” is a spiritual question’” courtesy of volunteer Ben Tomlin. If you’re interested in volunteering to transcribe more of our content, please complete our volunteer survey.]
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I was a conservative Christian for a long time who could not understand how anyone could be a person of faith and pro-choice.
“If you’re a person of faith who doesn’t like Trump, but can’t vote pro-choice, this is for you,” @zachary_helton on TikTok
So, this is a spiritual advisor explaining to Christians why they should be pro-choice. As a pro-life atheist, I had a couple thoughts.
So I found a pro-choice person of faith, and I asked them, in fact I asked the former president of a local Planned Parenthood. She got involved because she wanted to love women by giving them the freedom to make their own choices, and when I asked why one of those choices should ever be ending a life, she said, ‘it shouldn’t ever.’
@zachary_helton
Okay, agree so far. Freedom to make choices is a good baseline and ending human lives isn’t.
But she pointed out at the heart of that question is another question, and that is ‘where does life begin?’ Like it or not, there is no clear medical answer because it’s a spiritual question.”
@zachary_helton
Hmm, what’s the limiting principle here? Historically some societies believed born infants weren’t children until you named or fed them. Would you defend their freedom to make their own choices if the choice was to kill a baby they haven’t named yet because “it’s a spiritual question”?
Does it begin at first breath like it says in Genesis?
@zachary_helton
Good example. Do you think elective abortion, and here I very specifically mean injecting poison into the fetal heart to cause death when there is no medical emergency, should that be legal in the 8th month? Baby hasn’t had their first breath yet.
She said, ‘now, once a baby’s life begins, of course you shouldn’t end it.’
@zachary_helton
Very strange thing to hear from a Planned Parenthood president. That’s the organization that is on record getting reimbursements for providing fetal organs to research facilities, right?
And then she said, ‘but here’s the deal if you really want abortion rates to plummet, then outlawing it is not the answer.’
@zachary_helton
Well, it’s not the whole answer.
That just forces mothers to seek out unsafe solutions.
@zachary_helton
Laws restricting abortion result in many children being born who would have otherwise been aborted.
The answer is sex education, it’s accessible birth control.
@zachary_helton
Did you know that women in pro-life states are more likely to use highly effective contraception than women in pro-choice states? Why do you think that is?
It’s addressing poverty and hunger and lack of health care and lack of child care, it’s addressing the things that drive women to consider abortion in the first place.
@zachary_helton
No argument here. Those are all worth focusing on, but none of that leads to saying, “therefore, we shouldn’t outlaw it.”
Look, the overwhelming majority of pro-choice people have good motivations. You want to defend freedom of conscience autonomy, bodily rights. I get that. If you’re going to do that though, do it with eyes wide open because the end result is that you’re defending, taking defenseless human lives on an astronomical scale, a million times a year in the United States. Saying, “well everyone has different spiritual beliefs, so this is probably fine,” that’s a cop out. Own what you’re defending.
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