I just read an article that claims it can undermine the entire pro-life movement with a single hypothetical situation. I happen to disagree.
To start, here's the apparently fatal question posted by someone on Twitter. It starts with you in a fertility clinic that's on fire. You hear a child crying behind a door. You open the door. There's a three year old boy standing in front of 1,000 viable embryos. You have to chose one. Not both. Choose one or you all die. The individual claims that you have to choose the three year old, and since the right answer is the three year old that proves that an embryo is not alive and it's not human.
Aside from the fact that this hypothetical situation is so unlikely it's absurd, there's a very simple way to understand this situation and "save" the pro-life movement. This situation is just like saying that you can either save the person you love most in the world or 1,000 people you don't know. Instinctively, it would be infinitely easier to save the person you know, but just because you choose to save your loved one does not mean the 1,000 strangers are not people or that they are not alive or not as valuable to the world as a whole. In the hypothetical situation proposed by Twitter, the one you know, the one you can see, the one you can recognize as human, is the three year old. Just because you recognize him as human first and would save him first does not negate the life of the 1,000 embryos. It's just an easier choice.
That embryo when inside its mother functions as life. Sure, it depends on its mother to live, but so do the bacteria in our stomachs that help us to digest food, yet those single cells that always remain single cells are scientifically classified as life. Embryos create new cells to develop tissues, they take in nutrients, after four weeks they have a heart beat. They. Are. Alive. The debate is not really if they're alive, that just makes it easier to devalue those people. In California, rivers are prevented from being diverted to bring water to farmers who need it in a drought because microscopic fish live in the water and they would die. People choose not to eat eggs because they could have been baby chickens (not really the eggs we eat because they are unfertilized, so only half the DNA needed to become a chicken, but I've heard this reasoning before). We recognize single cells as life. We shouldn't be debating whether or not a fetus is alive, the real debate lies in how we value those lives.
At the moment of conception, a baby has a complete set of DNA. We've learned that DNA is unique to a person, it's unrepeatable. That unborn child has a complete set of unique DNA that will not be repeated any more times than yours or mine. How is that not special?
The unique set of DNA is not only special, but it's intentional. We read in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart." I know not everyone is a theist, but I am, and this is the reason I value those embryos. God knew each and every one of us from the beginning of creation. And that's the Truth.
Every single one of us started our lives as that helpless embryo, and we wouldn't be able to debate about how far our autonomy over our bodies goes unless our mothers valued our bodies first. Now, I'm not going to sit here and preach that women need to self-sacrifice and carry their babies with no solution to them. Women need help, their lives are just as valuable as their babies. I think our society fails women who face crisis pregnancies by limiting the options they think they have. Our culture says that the woman either needs to raise the child on her own or abort the baby. I rarely hear people tell women about the joys of adoption. I think this is the place where the pro-life movement has potential for the most growth. If women can give nine months of themselves, then they will give a lifetime of joy to their child and parents who would give anything to have a baby of their own. There are so many private adoption agencies that are willing to assist women with their medical costs and comfort in order to give their babies a chance to live with people who are dying to take care of them. Adoption has personally touched my family twice, and I can tell you it's one of the most beautiful things to grace us in our fallen world. There are parents who can't have children of their own and who would give anything to be able to, and when faced with that, it's even more difficult to swallow the fact that some people throw their babies' lives away.
I'll take on one more opposition to the pro-life movement, that unfortunately, is not such a hypothetical situation. People always talk about the case of rape. What do we tell mothers who are pregnant by this vile, violent act? First, fortunately, pregnancies of this type are less than 1% of reported reasons for abortion, so a good debater would tell you that the case of rape is an exception to the norm, and an argument cannot be debunked on such a small occurrence; however, I recognize that this is a reality for a good amount of women, so I want to address their situation with due compassion. The Catholic Church asks mothers to be courageous and to carry out the pregnancy. This is an incredible sacrifice, but that baby is still a baby, and just because it was conceived in an act of violence does not mean it does not deserve a chance to grow up. Think of it this way: if we believe in a God who brings good out of every bad situation (or even water it down to everything happens for a reason) then what could be a greater good than a human life? I understand if a mother is not able to handle raising that child on her own emotionally, and the Catholic Church does not ask her to do that (again, adoption is a wonderful, beautiful option); the Church only asks that she allow God to make something wonderful out of her situation.
Hypothetically or not, a human is a human. We have the same basic DNA construction that makes us human whether we are 95 years old or a brand new zygote. God loves each of us the same, and He planned us all from the moment of creation. We are precious to Him, and He most especially values the littlest ones. Maybe it's time that we stop stripping them of their humanity, and start valuing them like God does too.
To start, here's the apparently fatal question posted by someone on Twitter. It starts with you in a fertility clinic that's on fire. You hear a child crying behind a door. You open the door. There's a three year old boy standing in front of 1,000 viable embryos. You have to chose one. Not both. Choose one or you all die. The individual claims that you have to choose the three year old, and since the right answer is the three year old that proves that an embryo is not alive and it's not human.
Aside from the fact that this hypothetical situation is so unlikely it's absurd, there's a very simple way to understand this situation and "save" the pro-life movement. This situation is just like saying that you can either save the person you love most in the world or 1,000 people you don't know. Instinctively, it would be infinitely easier to save the person you know, but just because you choose to save your loved one does not mean the 1,000 strangers are not people or that they are not alive or not as valuable to the world as a whole. In the hypothetical situation proposed by Twitter, the one you know, the one you can see, the one you can recognize as human, is the three year old. Just because you recognize him as human first and would save him first does not negate the life of the 1,000 embryos. It's just an easier choice.
That embryo when inside its mother functions as life. Sure, it depends on its mother to live, but so do the bacteria in our stomachs that help us to digest food, yet those single cells that always remain single cells are scientifically classified as life. Embryos create new cells to develop tissues, they take in nutrients, after four weeks they have a heart beat. They. Are. Alive. The debate is not really if they're alive, that just makes it easier to devalue those people. In California, rivers are prevented from being diverted to bring water to farmers who need it in a drought because microscopic fish live in the water and they would die. People choose not to eat eggs because they could have been baby chickens (not really the eggs we eat because they are unfertilized, so only half the DNA needed to become a chicken, but I've heard this reasoning before). We recognize single cells as life. We shouldn't be debating whether or not a fetus is alive, the real debate lies in how we value those lives.
At the moment of conception, a baby has a complete set of DNA. We've learned that DNA is unique to a person, it's unrepeatable. That unborn child has a complete set of unique DNA that will not be repeated any more times than yours or mine. How is that not special?
The unique set of DNA is not only special, but it's intentional. We read in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart." I know not everyone is a theist, but I am, and this is the reason I value those embryos. God knew each and every one of us from the beginning of creation. And that's the Truth.
Every single one of us started our lives as that helpless embryo, and we wouldn't be able to debate about how far our autonomy over our bodies goes unless our mothers valued our bodies first. Now, I'm not going to sit here and preach that women need to self-sacrifice and carry their babies with no solution to them. Women need help, their lives are just as valuable as their babies. I think our society fails women who face crisis pregnancies by limiting the options they think they have. Our culture says that the woman either needs to raise the child on her own or abort the baby. I rarely hear people tell women about the joys of adoption. I think this is the place where the pro-life movement has potential for the most growth. If women can give nine months of themselves, then they will give a lifetime of joy to their child and parents who would give anything to have a baby of their own. There are so many private adoption agencies that are willing to assist women with their medical costs and comfort in order to give their babies a chance to live with people who are dying to take care of them. Adoption has personally touched my family twice, and I can tell you it's one of the most beautiful things to grace us in our fallen world. There are parents who can't have children of their own and who would give anything to be able to, and when faced with that, it's even more difficult to swallow the fact that some people throw their babies' lives away.
I'll take on one more opposition to the pro-life movement, that unfortunately, is not such a hypothetical situation. People always talk about the case of rape. What do we tell mothers who are pregnant by this vile, violent act? First, fortunately, pregnancies of this type are less than 1% of reported reasons for abortion, so a good debater would tell you that the case of rape is an exception to the norm, and an argument cannot be debunked on such a small occurrence; however, I recognize that this is a reality for a good amount of women, so I want to address their situation with due compassion. The Catholic Church asks mothers to be courageous and to carry out the pregnancy. This is an incredible sacrifice, but that baby is still a baby, and just because it was conceived in an act of violence does not mean it does not deserve a chance to grow up. Think of it this way: if we believe in a God who brings good out of every bad situation (or even water it down to everything happens for a reason) then what could be a greater good than a human life? I understand if a mother is not able to handle raising that child on her own emotionally, and the Catholic Church does not ask her to do that (again, adoption is a wonderful, beautiful option); the Church only asks that she allow God to make something wonderful out of her situation.
Hypothetically or not, a human is a human. We have the same basic DNA construction that makes us human whether we are 95 years old or a brand new zygote. God loves each of us the same, and He planned us all from the moment of creation. We are precious to Him, and He most especially values the littlest ones. Maybe it's time that we stop stripping them of their humanity, and start valuing them like God does too.
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