Arguments for Pro-Life

1) Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

2) The consequence should not fall on the shoulders of an unborn child,
no matter how easy it is to believe they dont know any better.
3) It is not the childs choice to be born, but it should be their choice on
whether they get to live a life or not.
4) Fear shouldnt be a reason to back down from having a child. Though
hospital visits cost a lot of money, giving it up for adoption does save
more money than keeping it.

10 Arguments Against Abortion

1.

Since life begins at conception, abortion is akin to

murder as it is the act of taking human life. Abortion is in
direct defiance of the commonly accepted idea of the
sanctity of human life

2.

No civilized society permits one human to intentionally

harm or take the life of another human without
punishment, and abortion is no different.

3.

Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and

accomplishes the same result. And with 1.5 million
American families wanting to adopt a child, there is no
such thing as an unwanted child

4.

An abortion can result in medical complications later in

life; the risk of ectopic pregnancies doubles, and the

chance of a miscarriage and pelvic inflammatory disease
also increases.
5.

In the instance of rape and incest, proper medical care

can ensure that a woman will not get pregnant. Abortion
punishes the unborn child who committed no crime;
instead, it is the perpetrator who should be punished.

6.

Abortion should not be used as another form of

contraception.

7.

For women who demand complete control of their body,

control should include preventing the risk of unwanted
pregnancy through the responsible use of contraception
or, if that is not possible, through abstinence.

8.

Many Americans who pay taxes are opposed to abortion,

therefore it's morally wrong to use tax dollars to fund
abortion.

9.

Those who choose abortions are often minors or young

women with insufficient life experience to understand
fully what they are doing. Many have lifelong regrets
afterwards.

10. Abortion frequently causes intense psychological pain

and stress.

ProChoice10ArgumentsForAbortion
1.

Nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester,

when a fetus cannot exist independent of the mother. As
it is attached by the placenta and umbilical cord, its
health is dependent on her health, and cannot be
regarded as a separate entity as it cannot exist outside
her womb.

2.

The concept of personhood is different from the concept

of human life. Human life occurs at conception, but
fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also
human lives and those not implanted are routinely
thrown away. Is this murder, and if not, then how is
abortion murder?

3.

Adoption is not an alternative to abortion, because it

remains the woman's choice whether or not to give her
child up for adoption. Statistics show that very few
women who give birth choose to give up their babies less than 3% of white unmarried women and less than 2%
of black unmarried women.

4.

Abortion is a safe medical procedure. The vast majority

of women - 88% - who have an abortion do so in their
first trimester. Medical abortions have less than 0.5%

risk of serious complications and do not affect a woman's

health or future ability to become pregnant or give birth.
5.

In the case of rape or incest, forcing a woman made

pregnant by this violent act would cause further
psychological harm to the victim. Often a woman is too
afraid to speak up or is unaware she is pregnant, thus the
morning after pill is ineffective in these situations.

6.

Abortion is not used as a form of contraception.

Pregnancy can occur even with responsible contraceptive
use. Only 8% of women who have abortions do not use
any form of birth control, and that is due more to
individual carelessness than to the availability of
abortion.

7.

The ability of a woman to have control of her body is

critical to civil rights. Take away her reproductive choice
and you step onto a slippery slope. If the government can
force a woman to continue a pregnancy, what about
forcing a woman to use contraception or undergo
sterilization?

8.

Taxpayer dollars are used to enable poor women to

access the same medical services as rich women, and
abortion is one of these services. Funding abortion is no

different from funding a war in the Mideast. For those

who are opposed, the place to express outrage is in the
voting booth.
9.

Teenagers who become mothers have grim prospects for

the future. They are much more likely to leave of school;
receive inadequate prenatal care; rely on public
assistance to raise a child; develop health problems; or
end up divorced.

10. Like any other difficult situation, abortion creates stress.

Yet the American Psychological Association found that
stress was greatest prior to an abortion, and that there
was no evidence of post-abortion syndrome.

Common Argument #1: A fetus is a human being, human beings have the right
to life, so abortion is murder.
Your Response: Im probably not going to convince you that a fetus isnt a life,
as thats basically the most intractable part of this whole debate, so Ill be
brief:
11.

A fetus cant survive on its own. It is fully dependent on its mothers body,
unlike born human beings.

12.

Even if a fetus was alive, the right to life doesnt imply a right to use
somebody elses body. People have the right to refuse to donate their organs,

for example, even if doing so would save somebody elses life.

13.

The right to life also doesnt imply a right to live by threatening somebody
elses life. Bearing children is always a threat the life of the mother (see
below).

14.

A right to life is, at the end of the day, a right to not have somebody elses
will imposed upon your body. Do women not have this right as well?
Common Argument #2: If a woman is willing to have sex, shes knowingly
taking the risk of getting pregnant, and should be responsible for her actions.
Your Response: Youre asserting that giving birth is the responsible choice
during pregnancy, but thats just your opinion. Id argue that if a mother knows
she wont be able to provide for her child, its actually more responsible to
have an abortion and, in doing so, prevent a whole lot of undue suffering and
misery.
But lets look at this argument a bit further. If you think getting an abortion is
avoiding responsibility, that implies that its a womans responsibility to bear
a child if she chooses to have sex. That sounds suspiciously like youre dictating
what a womans role and purpose is, and a lot less like youre making an
argument about the life of a child.
Common Reply: No, because women can practice safe sex and avoid getting
pregnant. If she refuses to use contraception and gets pregnant as a result,
thats her fault, and her responsibility.
Your Rebuttal:Not everyone has easy access to contraception, nor does
everyone have a good enough sex education class to know how to use it or
where to obtain it. But lets just suppose, for the sake of argument, that
everyone had access to free contraception and knew how to use it correctly.
Even then, no contraception is 100-percent effective. Presumably, you oppose
abortions even in cases where contraception fails (and it does sometimes fail,
even when used perfectly). If thats true, youre saying that, by merely

choosing to have sex with or without a condom a woman becomes

responsible for having a child. And thats a belief that has everything to do with
judging a womans behavior, and nothing to do with the value of life.
Common Argument #3: But Im okay with abortions in cases of rape.
Your Response: Why only in those cases? Are the lives of children who were
conceived by rape worth less than the lives of children who were willfully
conceived? If preserving the life of the child takes primacy over the desires of
the mother which is what youre saying if you if you oppose any legal
abortions then it shouldnt matter how that life was conceived.

Common Argument #4: Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion.

Your Response: This implies that the only reason a woman would want to get
an abortion is to avoid raising a child, and that isnt the case. Depending on the
circumstances, the mere act of having a child in a hospital can cost between
$3,000 and $37,000 in the United States. Giving birth is dangerous, too: In the
United States, pregnancy complications are the sixth most common cause of
death for women between the ages of 20 and 34.
Even before birth, there are costs to pregnancy. In addition to the whole
carrying another human being around in your stomach for nine months thing,
many women, particularly teens, are shunned and shamed for their pregnancies
not only by friends, families, employers, and classmates, but also by
advertisements in the subway. Theres also the risk of violent retribution from
abusive partners and parents.
In short, there are a lot of reasons a woman might seek an abortion. Adoption
doesnt address all of them.
Common Argument #5: When abortion is legal, women just use it as a form of

birth control.
Your Response: Do you have evidence of this? Considering that contraceptives
are cheaper, easier, less painful, less time-consuming, less emotionally taxing,
and more readily available than abortions, it seems odd to suggest that women
whove already decided to use birth control would select abortion as their
preferred method. Its more likely the opposite: Historical and contemporary
data suggests that women will seek abortions regardless of whether or not
theyre legal, but that when birth control and contraceptives are more widely
accessible, abortion rates go down.
Common Argument #6: Abortions are dangerous.
Your Response: When performed by trained professionals, abortions are one of
the safest procedures in medicine, with a death rate of less than .01 percent.
The risk of dying by giving birth is roughly 13 times higher. Abortions performed
by people without the requisite skills and training, however, are extremely
unsafe. An estimated 68,000 women die every year from back alley abortions,
which are generally most common when abortion is illegal and/or inaccessible.
If youd like to examine the health impact of banning abortion, consider
Romania, which banned abortions in 1966. That policy remained in place for
just under fifteen years, during which time over 9,000 women died from unsafe
abortions and countless others were permanently injured. Thats around two
women dying every day. When the policy was reversed, maternal mortality rate
plummeted to one-eighth of what it was at its peak under the no-abortion
policy.
The negative health effects of prohibiting abortion dont end with the mothers.
Romanias abortion ban sparked a nationwide orphan crisis, as roughly 150,000
unwanted newborns were placed in nightmarish state-run orphanages. Many of
those orphans now suffer from sever mental and physical health problems,
including autism, reduced brain size, schizoaffective disorder, and sociopathy.

When abortion is illegal, it becomes exponentially more unsafe for both women
and their children. You may not like the fact that women will seek abortions
even when theyre illegal, but it is undeniably a fact nonetheless.
Common Argument #7: What if Winston Churchill or Martin Luther King had
been aborted?
Your Response: Are you saying abortion policy should be influenced by how good
of a person a fetus ends up becoming? If thats the case, what if Joseph Stalin
or Pol Pot had been aborted?
Common Argument #8: Many women who get abortions regret their decision
later on.
Your Response: This is a pretty common argument. As with shaming of teen
moms, it pops up in subway ads and anti-abortion rallies.
This is a bad argument. Should the government ban people from doing things
they sometimes regret? Think of everything youve ever regretted not moving
after college, dating the wrong person and ask yourself if you wish there had
been a law to prevent you from doing that thing. You probably dont, because
you probably believe people should be able to choose their own paths in life
regardless of whether they regret those choices later on. I agree, which is part
of why Im pro-choice.
Common Argument #9: Taxpayers shouldnt be forced to pay for things they
find morally disagreeable.
Your Response: By that rationale, America also shouldnt have a military, since
thats funded by taxes, and some taxpayers find American foreign policy
morally disagreeable. Also, the Hyde Amendment prevents most public funds
from going toward abortions. But thats a moot point, because these are two
separate arguments. Believing that abortion should be legal doesnt require you
to also believe that taxpayer dollars should fund abortions.

Common Argument #10: What if your mother had aborted you?

Your Response: Well, if Id never come into existence in the first place, I
probably wouldnt have any strong feelings on the matter. Anyway, I love my
mother very much and respect her right to make whatever decisions are right
for her body and life
In summary:
11.

A right to life doesnt imply a right to use someone elses body to sustain a
life.

12.

Women do not have a responsibility to have children, and certainly dont

assume such a responsibility by virtue of deciding to have sex.

13.

Outlawing abortion is very dangerous, both for women and their children.

14.

Adoption still requires women to carry a baby to term and then give birth, both
of which are also inherently dangerous.

15.

Abortions, on the other hand, are quite safe.

16.

Banning abortion violates a womans right to control her own body.

One of the best parts of my job is the work I do partnering with

Justice For All. Right to Life of Central California has actually
replicated the JFA program, so Ive spent four years being trained by
Steve Wagner to do many of the things he does for JFA in Wichita,

from facilitating seminars and outreaches to coaching mentors.

Steve shared an argument with my brother Tim last year that he
heard from J.P. Moreland and is featured on page 67 of Scott
Klusendorfs book, The Case for Life that I havent seen very many
pro-life advocates utilize. So the three of us have been emphasizing it
in campus dialogue, and over the last year weve been discussing
how we might train our volunteers to use it
The results have been amazing. Right to Life of Central California
and Justice For All are now teaching this argument in all of our
Abortion: From Debate to Dialogue seminars.
Its called the Equal Rights Argument.
Were asking pro-choice people if they agree that all human adults
have an equal right to life.
When they say yes, we ask them, Doesnt that mean there must
be something the same about us?
In other words, if we all have an equal right to life, then we must all
have something in common that demands that we treat each other
equally, and we must have that property equally. It cant be something
(like size or intelligence) that comes in degrees, or it wouldnt explain
our equal right to life.
When the pro-choice person agrees with that conclusion, we simply

ask them what is the same about us.

I think the natural temptation for a pro-life advocate who is ready with
an answer to this question is to share that answer at this point. But
wed rather let the pro-choice person consider the question for
themselves, and only offer our answer when they ask for it.
In my experience people arent annoyed by the Equal Rights
Argument questions. They tend to see the value of the questions, but
need to take some time to think about it. We wait patiently, and if they
give an answer, we engage it. But if they have no idea, we then ask if
they would like to hear our answer. Nearly everybody says yes.
Our answer is that we all have humanness in common. Thats
something that doesnt come in degrees. Its an all-or-nothing kind of
thing.
And if being human is what gives us intrinsic value, then that explains
a lot of data. It explains why all the adult humans have an equal right
to life, even though we have so many differences. It also explains
why things like racism and sexism are wrong. Those things focus on
a surface difference that doesnt morally matter, and ignores the thing
we have in common, which IS what morally matters!
Some philosophers have alternative explanations for our equal right
to life. Its my view that all of these alternative explanations have
major consequences, in that they either entail an equal right to life for
a bunch of animals, or they deny a right to life to human infants. Ill

explain this more fully in a follow-up post.

Ive been using this argument on campuses this year and the results
have been incredible. Ive never seen an argument persuade so
many people that abortion is wrong.
Im going to start regularly posting stories of actual dialogues
where I used this argument, so you can see how this works in a
real-time conversation.