In order to argue agains supporters of abortion, it is first necessary to understand what they believe and how their ideas influence their actions. There is no point in us pro-lifers constructing arguments to counter what we believe that pro-abortionists think or even what we believe that they should think. We have to meet pro-abortionists where they are, not where we think they should be.We know that arguments in favour of abortion - in other words, the arguments in favour of killing unborn, innocent, defenceless children - will clearly not stand up to the minutest examination. There is nothing that could possibly justify such an unjust, cruel and fruitless course of action. No-one could justify or excuse it on any logical grounds. Consequently abortionists make up reasons and fool themselves into believing that these arguments have some legitimacy. They try to convince others of these spurious arguments; they are successful in doing this, largely we suspect because this is generally a selfish age.
In 1983 the then ALDU Chairman and Secretary gave a talk to a group of law students, only to find that the students were not interested in the obvious logic of the pro-life case but were more concerned to preserve their own personal "rights". The students were concerned that the law should not interfere with their own pursuit of pleasure.
The ALDU officers wrote about the need for pro-lifers to consider carefully how they present the pro-life case when speaking to a hostile or uninformed audience. Over 30 years later little has changed and so, for example, we still hear unborn children being described as "potential life". No creature, let alone a human being, can be "potentially" alive; an animal is either alive or dead. One can understand the need for people engaged in killing unborn children to comfort themselves with such ideas. They have to be able to sleep somehow.
What is unbelievably cruel, however, is the way that these spurious, illogical arguments are pressed onto women who are contemplating abortion or who have had an abortion.
For the moment, we pro-lifers, must give careful thought to how we present our case. We do not shy from the truth, nor indulge in illogical fantasy nor expediency but we must try to understand what our opponents believe.
Summer 1983
Number 18
News and Comment
Arguing the Pro-Life Case
By our Chairman, Mr. Michael Bell
In November 1981 Mr. Tom Bowles, who was then our secretary, and myself were invited to speak to students at the College of Law, Guildford. We presented a reasoned approach to the question of abortion, i.e. reasoning from established facts as to the nature of the unborn child to a logical conclusion that justice demanded that the law's protection should be extended to that child. But from the questions asked by students afterwards it was evident that this line of argument had been less than successful in convincing them.
Arguing from two different points of view
If we are to reach those of our professional colleagues who have already come to a firm conclusion that abortion is acceptable, it may well be that a very different approach should be adopted from that used in talking to people who have an open mind on this issue. The attitude of people who are strongly in favour of abortion often arises from their attitude to life as a whole, and only if we understand this can we begin to dislodge the foundations of their beliefs. Only if we can create a reasonable doubt in their minds about the solidity of those foundations can we begin to help them to reconsider the question.
The traditional arguments
This means that we need not spend a lot of time demonstrating the humanity of the unborn child. A moment's thought shows that this fact weighs little with many people. All our evidence about the humanity of the unborn child is derived from the researches of doctors, and most doctors are well aware of the facts. But knowledge of the facts does not deter doctors from doing abortions, and indeed the vast majority of abortions are carried out by doctors — the very people who are more aware than anybody else that the unborn child is human.
Furthermore considerations of justice cut little ice with those who see a denial of their alleged right to have an abortion as a threat to their own most fundamental needs and rights. Looking at humanity in general we can see that self-interest and self-preservation usually motivate the ordinary person more powerfully than does the abstract principle of justice, or the duty to care for others. Because people are often reluctant to admit this openly, arguments based on justice and our duty to care for others may often be met by abuse, by lies or by irrelevancies. Our arguments are not seen, by the person we seek to convince, as a profitable line of thought to explore, but as a direct threat to their self-interest, and therefore to be countered by all available means.
A different approach
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| Different |
The basis of the pro-abortion attitude
The most important contributing factors towards peoples' happiness are such things as love, security, faith, hope, creativity, inspiration and so on. People who have these things are manifestly happy, even if they have very few things which might be called "pleasures". Rightly understood and used, sexuality has a positive contribution to make to all these sources of human happiness. Unfortunately, when used as nothing more than a means of getting pleasure, it does not make a positive contribution. On the contrary, it tends to destroy love, security, faith and so on.
A pro-abortion attitude, therefore, often arises from a fundamentally wrong attitude towards human sexuality, towards what makes human beings happy, and towards life generally. These wrong attitudes are now inculcated from such an early age that people are growing up wholly unaware that they are basing their lives on false assumptions. People seek proof about these assumptions no more than they seek proof that air is breathable, because they are taken for granted among their friends, among their teachers and in the media. Basically their attitude can be expressed as a belief that they have certain rights. Unfortunately not only can no logical case be made out for the existence of these rights, but the very belief in their existence is grossly harmful both to the believers' own future happiness and to the well-being of their society. These "rights" could be summarised as follows :—
1. The supposed right to enjoy the pleasure of sex whenever one can get it without physically harming others.
2. The supposed right at all times to decide freely whether or not one will take any responsibility for the life or well-being of another.
3. The supposed right to resist or reject anything which causes one pain or discomfort, or interferes with the way of life one has freely chosen.
4. The supposed right, in a situation where one's rights conflict with those of another, to protect oneself whatever the harm done to the rights of the other person.
Changing basic assumptions
It should be apparent that considerations about abortion being the taking of the life of a human being, or about abortion being unjust, are unlikely to weigh strongly with those who have been conditioned to think in this way. One problem is that such people have probably never rationally formulated their beliefs. They just take them for granted. So if we are to succeed in our aim of achieving justice for the unborn child we must be prepared to take the time and trouble to think seriously about these assumptions and to expose the flaws in them. We must then explain clearly these flaws to people who may not even be aware of the true nature of their beliefs. We must be able to present cogent arguments as to why self-interest is not a satisfactory basis for living when pursued without regard to its effect on others.
Our task is made more difficult by the fact that in general we cannot use arguments derived from religion. Religion teaches us to love our neighbour, or at least not to harm our neighbour, and it is not difficult to show that in societies where such beliefs are generally accepted, whether they be large societies or small, the result is generally beneficial to the members of these societies. Nevertheless we have to accept the fact that we live in a society where religious beliefs are suspect, and most people find it difficult to believe in any being superior to themselves, or to accept any belief on the basis that it has been handed down or revealed by such a being.
Arguing as lawyers
We in the legal profession have two distinct advantages in this situation. The first is that members of this Association are not in general directly involved in the problem of abortion as are, for example, the members of the medical profession. Doctors often find it difficult to speak out forthrightly against abortion, because it looks as if they are being disloyal to, and critical of, their professional colleagues. We members of the legal profession have no such difficulty. Secondly, we have the advantage that our profession has a strong tradition of upholding justice and equity, and this tradition gives to our members standards of right and wrong which, although they may once have derived from religion, are not seen today as being associated with it. A further advantage is that we have our own media, our own publications, in which we can make our views known, and this is an advantage which people who are not members of a learned profession will not normally have.
Taking into account the great influence of our profession in the affairs of our country, these considerations should lead us to use every effort to apply our minds to the problems which have been raised in the preceding paragraphs, and to take every opportunity to speak to our professional colleagues about them. If we begin realistically tackling the underlying false assumptions which exist in our society, we may hope to have very much more success in the future in convincing those who are pro-abortion that the taking of another human life can never be an acceptable or sensible way of behaving. If, in addition, we can show that we are actively promoting and providing alternative solutions to the problems which abortion purports to solve, then there is every reason to hope that abortion may come soon to be seen as the cruel, mindless, and unjust activity which it undoubtedly is.
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| However satisfying, this is not the right approach |
