Why would you want to be pro-abortion? What is it exactly about this procedure, often referred to as “healthcare”, that causes people to work themselves up into a frenzy in defence of it? The anger at the thought of losing it is readily apparent in those who view it as a necessary good and a valid option should they or their partners fall pregnant. The reasons for abortion advocacy are many and varied, thus, this blog post is the second in a series devoted to making our way through them all.
Right to healthcare
What is a right exactly?
It is a privilege owed to us as human persons. If you are not a living human being, then you cannot enjoy the other rights owed to you (eg, the right to freedom of speech, the right to own property, the right to education etc,).
The right to life is inalienable (ie, cannot be taken away). And this makes sense; everyone is allowed to live. That’s pretty reasonable, right? If you kill someone unjustly, you’ll be put in prison because you violated that person’s rights.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Constitution states that another important right is “the highest attainable standard of health”. We all have a right to healthcare. Absolutely. But do you know what you have to have first before you can cash in any healthcare rights?
Life.
Healthcare isn’t particularly helpful for dead people. Thus, life is the foundation of all rights.
Based on this, it's reasonable to determine that the right to life trumps all other rights.
So yes, women who fall pregnant are entitled to healthcare. But once a foetus is created, it is alive and thus also entitled to healthcare. It has the same right to life as any other person. It is:
of the human species; and
alive.
The woman may not want the child that she and her partner have created, but the fact is that the child is there. It is alive and its humanity cannot be disregarded for convenience's sake. It simply does not make sense to do so. To abort a foetus is to demonstrate a complete disregard of the rights of another person in the most extreme way possible.
If we strip everything else away so that only the words “convenience” and “life” remain, its obvious which of the two is more important. No matter how many different scenarios you place both concepts into, you cannot logically argue that convenience could ever trump life.
Freedom
Women are told that an abortion will liberate them. They are told that this right to healthcare will empower them and allow them to have whatever life they choose. And this is true, they can do whatever they want if they have an abortion.
But guess what else is true?
They can also do whatever they want if they don’t have an abortion. The biggest lie that society spins to women is that motherhood is an entrapment - a right wing, patriarchal dungeon from which abortion is the only escape. The truth is, if you have your baby, you can live your life doing whatever you like, but you’ll just have another human being doing life with you.
One thing that isn’t discussed enough is the effect that abortion has on the mental health of the parents - particularly the mother. It is devastating.
All women who have abortions are broken women. Don’t believe this? Speak to any of the volunteers at ARCH (the Abortion Recovery Care Helpline). They are a fantastic organisation that women who are post-abortive can call anonymously for counselling (if you know anyone who is suffering post an abortion, consider sending them this link to the ARCH website).
Abortion breaks both men and women. And it is no great surprise when you think about it. The desire to care for offspring is one of the most primal urges that humans experience. We see even in the animal kingdom. Animals are willing to give their lives for the protection of their young. Thus, abortion is a rejection of the most natural instincts regarding offspring.
More broadly, abortion is the most brutal rejection of humanity to ever be allowed by law in the name of false freedom. We cannot trust law makers to establish laws based on fundamental, scientific truths. The fact is, the the logic behind the anti-abortion position is very simple and can broken down into a simple syllogism:
without life, rights are redundant;
if rights are redundant, humanity has no value standard;
if humanity has no value standard, society will crumble.
Thus, without life, society will crumble.
It's that simple. A society that does away with its most vulnerable members cannot last. And that is why we resist.
For this first article in this series, see “Reasons why people are pro-abortion: lies and naivety”.