Woman Writes Open Letter to the Baby She's Planning to Abort

Take a look at this letter, presumably written by a pregnant woman who is planning an abortion to her unborn child. It's entitled "I am getting an abortion next Friday. An open letter to the little life I won't get to meet."

 

 

I'm not sure if the story is true. I don't know the circumstances. I don't know if this is somehow an attempt to justify her actions and absolve herself of guilt. What I do know is that it is deeply disturbing.

 

 

In this letter, we have a woman who apparently realizes that the child she is carrying is, in fact, a baby. She also realizes that this baby is going to die. She says:

I am sorry that this is goodbye. I'm sad that I'll never get to meet you. You could have your father's eyes and my nose and we could make our own traditions, be a family. But, Little Thing, we will meet again.

She knows this is a baby. Yet she is going to kill him anyway. She says she is "both sorry and not sorry." She wishes the circumstances were different and she's sorry that they aren't in the same reality (whatever that means), but she can't be a mother right now. She realizes the wrong in killing her child, but has determined to do it anyway.

She also makes some strange comments about wanting her baby to be happy, and that it "wouldn't be fair to bring a new life into [the] world..." Perhaps someone should tell her that her baby is ALREADY in the world. She isn't preventing someone from entering the world by having an abortion. She's taking them out of it. And maybe someone should explain to her that killing someone isn't a way to make them happy.

Perhaps most confusing about this letter are a couple comments she makes about seeing her baby again later. She seems to have some very mixed up ideas about how this whole pregnancy and birth thing works.

She says "[W]e will meet again. I promise that the next time I see that little blue plus, the next time you are in the same reality as me, I will be ready for you." And again, "I promise I will see you again, and next time, you can call me Mom."

The problem is, there won't be a next time. She seems to think that this baby will come back to her womb someday, when everything is all better for her and she's ready to have a child. But it doesn't work that way. This is that child's only chance at life. Once he's dead, he'll stay dead. Once the mother aborts, that child will never have another chance to live. Sure, this mother may get pregnant at some point in the future and give birth, but it won't be the same baby. It will be a different child. The baby now in her womb is a unique, irreplaceable human being. This is that child's only time on earth. That baby won't ever get to meet her mother or see the blue sky or laugh or sing or dance if she kills her now. This is it. This is only time that child will ever be on this earth.

That's the tragedy of abortion. The murdered children don't come back. They don't get another life on earth at some point in the future. Just like all the rest of us humans, one life is all we get.

So whether this mother is deluded or ignorant or simply trying desperately to justify her actions, we all need to realize the gravity of the situation. Abortion kills a human being and ends the one life they have to live. Children in the womb are irreplaceable, one-time miracles, just like all humans are. Ending an unborn life is every bit as serious as ending any other human life and every bit as tragic.

Logical Arguments Against Abortion: Part 1

Valid logical arguments show that one does not have the right to commit abortion

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Earlier, I presented a logical argument showing that consent to sex does constitute consent to any naturally resulting pregnancy. That article was written specifically in response to the common refrain from the pro-abort crowd that “Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.” Here, I would like to simplify that argument by breaking it up into smaller, more manageable arguments. The end result is the same, however, as one would expect since these are well-supported logical arguments, and any set of well-supported, valid logical arguments are not contradictory.

Let me begin by discussing what it takes to make a valid logical argument, and what it takes to make a valid argument which has a conclusion that must logically be true. You see, not all valid arguments yield conclusions which are true (as I will show below). OK, here is an example of a valid argument:

P1: All humans are mammals.

P2: George Washington was a human.

C: Therefore, George Washington was a mammal.

Clearly, this argument is not only a valid argument, but it has a conclusion that is true. How do we know that the conclusion is true? We have confidence that the conclusion is true, because BOTH of the following conditions are met:

1. The argument is a valid argument. In other words, the conclusion follows logically from the stated premises – that is precisely what we mean when we say that it is a valid argument.
2. The two premises are true.

If an argument is valid, and the premises upon which the argument is based are true, then the conclusion must also be true.

Now let’s take a look at an argument that is not valid – one in which the conclusion does not follow from the premises:

P1: All humans are mammals.

P2: George Washington was a human.

C: Therefore, George Washington was the first President of the United States.

While both premises are true, and the conclusion happens to be true also, the argument is not valid. You cannot come to the conclusion that George Washington was the first President based on the premises. The premises do not lead to the conclusion, so the argument is invalid – even though all three elements are true statements.

Here’s another invalid argument that’s a little more subtle:

P1: Some mammals are humans.

P2: George Washington was a mammal.

C: Therefore, George Washington was a human.

While the premises and conclusions are all true, the argument is not valid. For an argument to be valid, the conclusion must follow inescapably from the premises. That is not the case for this argument. If we knew nothing about George Washington except what the premises tell us, we could not be sure that George Washington is a human because not all mammals are humans. Only some of them are. For all we know, “George Washington” might be a dog and be a mammal, but not a human. Thus, the argument is invalid because the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises.

Now, let’s show a valid argument that is false:

P1: All humans are amphibians.

P2: George Washington was a human.

C: Therefore, George Washington was an amphibian.

Clearly, this conclusion is false. However, you should note that the argument IS a valid argument. IF both premises were true, then the conclusion would also be true. Unfortunately, the first premise (P1) is not true, and so the conclusion is false.

In general, one can only say that since the premise is false, the argument does not show that the conclusion is true. It is possible that the conclusion may be true coincidentally. Here is a hypothetical example:

P1: All humans are male.

P2: George Washington was a human.

C: Therefore, George Washington was male.

Clearly, the conclusion IS true, but the first premise (P1) is obviously false. So the fact that the conclusion of this argument is true is merely coincidence.

Let’s review. If the conclusion of a logical argument follows directly from its premises, we consider the argument to be a valid logical argument, and in that case, the truth of its conclusion rests upon the truth of the stated premises. If the stated premises of a valid argument are objectively supported by observation (or science) or by the conclusions of other valid logical arguments which are objectively supported, then we consider the conclusion to be true.

The truth of these conclusions do not rest merely on opinion, doctrine, or religious texts. Instead, these conclusions rest directly upon logic and science.

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Now that we have reviewed logical arguments, let’s apply this knowledge to the abortion debate. Here is what I consider to be the most basic argument, and I will refer to it as Argument 1:

P1.1: One does not have the right to kill an innocent human being.

P1.2: A child not yet born is an innocent human being.

C1: Therefore, one does not have the right to kill a child who has not yet been born.

Stated this way, it is difficult to imagine how any sane person would object to the truth of this conclusion. Clearly, the conclusion (C1) follows directly from the two stated premises (P1.1 & P1.2), and so this IS a valid logical argument. In addition to this, the premises of this argument are true. This means that we can have confidence that the conclusion is in fact true.

Of course, P1.1 cannot be proven to be true using science because such things as human rights do not fall within the purview of science. However, this principle – that one does not have the right to kill an innocent human being – is widely accepted as true among civilized societies and was specifically addressed by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence when they pointed out that it is “self-evident” that all humans possess certain unalienable rights, including the right to live.

Of course, the second premise (P1.2) is objectively shown to be true. In defense of that statement, let me address three important elements of this premise. First, one cannot object to my use of the term “child” here because “child” universally means “son or daughter,” and a child who has not yet been born is a son or daughter. That fact is simply undeniable, and it is this meaning that is used here. Second, that this child is indeed innocent is evident because he or she has not had the opportunity to commit any crime worthy of death. And third, the fact that this child is a human being (defined as a member of the human species) is abundantly clear since there is no possible way that two human beings can produce an offspring that is not also a human being.

Now, let me turn to the second most fundamental argument, which I will call Argument 2:

P2.1: All innocent human beings possess the exact same right to live as any other human
         being.

P2.2: A child not yet born is an innocent human being.

C2: Therefore, a child who has not yet been born possesses the exact same right to live
       as any other human being.

As before, the first premise (P2.1) is not one that can be supported with science because (again) the subject of human rights does not fall within the purview of scientific investigation. However, in order to argue that this premise is false, the critic must take the bigoted position that some human beings (like themselves) possess human rights that other human beings (those they wish to be allowed to kill) do not have. Furthermore, one can see that the second premise (P2.2) is identical to P1.2, and so has the same justification.

Therefore, since the conclusion (C2) follows directly from the premises, Argument 2 IS a valid logical argument, and so, like Argument 1, we have confidence that the conclusion is in fact true. Thus far in this article, we have shown that the following two statements are true:

C1: One does not have the right to kill a child who has not yet been born.

C2: A child who has not yet been born possesses the exact same right to live as any other
       human being.

As you can see, these two well-proven truths alone are sufficient to show that abortion is a violation of the right to life of the child being aborted. Surely, any rational person will agree that if these two statements are true, then it should not be legal to commit abortion.

Notice that these two conclusions are not based in any way upon consent to sex. This means that they are true in general and are not subject to consensual sex. Whether or not the mother has consented to sex is not even addressed at all in these two arguments. These two arguments demonstrate logically that, regardless of the circumstances, children who have not yet been born have the same right to life as those of us who have been born. Thus, birth does not convey the right to live, and neither does any other event in an individual’s life. This right must come into existence when the human individual comes into existence, and that happens at fertilization (as we have shown earlier).

In Part 2, I will apply this logical method to the subject of consensual sex and show that consent to sex is indeed consent to pregnancy.

Is Pregnancy Like Forced Organ Donation?

The idea that forced organ donation and pregnancy are analogous has been around a long time. The pro-aborts even seem to think it's a "gotcha question." Their argument goes something like this:

Suppose you have a father who has a child who is dying and needs a kidney, and the father has a compatible kidney. Should the father be forced to give the child a kidney to save the child's life? Should the right to life of the child take precedence over the right to bodily autonomy of the father? If no father can be forced to give up an organ for his child, that means the right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life of the child. If that is true, then a mother's right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life of her unborn child and she has a right to abort.

 

At first glance, this is a powerful argument. Most of us instinctively recoil at the idea of being forced to donate an organ and don't think government should be forcing us to do so. We know that volunteering to donate an organ is a noble and praiseworthy act, but don't think anyone should be forced to give an organ against their will. The pro-aborts want us to see pregnancy in this way as well. They want us to see continuing a pregnancy as a noble and selfless act, but one that should not be forced on anyone.

Unfortunately for the pro-aborts, pregnancy and organ donation are dissimilar in several key ways, and thus their argument fails.
 

Most importantly, pregnancy is not like forced organ donation because consent to sex is consent to pregnancy. When a woman engages in sex, she consents to caring for any child that is created through her actions.  See this post for more on this argument. Because consent to sex is consent to pregnancy, pregnancy, in the vast majority of cases, would be akin to voluntary organ donation, not forced organ donation.

Of course, there are several other reasons that pregnancy is not like organ donation (even voluntary organ donation) which also negate the analogy.

In the case of organ donation, the donated organ is permanently removed from the donor's body so that the donor then lacks the function of that organ for the rest of his life. In pregnancy, this is not the case. The growing unborn child does not consume any organ of the mother or otherwise remove it from her body. In fact, rather than removing a body part and preventing its function, pregnancy involves using an organ (the womb) as it was designed to be used.

So on the one hand, we have permanently diminished body functioning and loss of an organ and on the other we have a temporary condition in which an organ is simply used as it is meant to be used. They are not the same thing at all.

In addition to that profound difference, organ donation always, and by design, puts the donor at risk for serious future health problems. Apart from the risks of the surgery itself, lacking a kidney means that the filtering of the blood will be less efficient and that any future kidney failure will leave the donor in a position where they have no working kidney remaining. Pregnancy, by contrast, in its normal case, does not leave the woman at risk for serious health problems. While it is certainly true that some women have increased health risks during or because of pregnancy, this is not the norm and these cases should be dealt with separately. It is not the case that pregnancy inherently and unavoidably produces a decline in body functioning as donating a kidney does.

Yet another dissimilarity is that a father with a sick child did not cause his child to be in need of a kidney. If the father had beaten his child until his kidney failed, making him the one responsible for the child's need for a kidney, then the father would have the responsibility to make amends by giving his kidney to the child. However, this is almost never the case. The kidney failure of the child is not the fault of the father.  In pregnancy, on the other hand, the mother's actions in choosing to engage in sex caused the child to be created in such a situation that he needs the care of her womb. She is the reason for his need and should be expected to fulfill her responsibility to meet that need.

Not only are pro-aborts incorrectly claiming that pregnancy and organ donation are similar, but they are also, by implication, claiming that abortion is like refusing to donate a kidney. Their claim is that just as a person has every right to refuse to donate an organ from their body, they also have a right to "terminate a pregnancy" by abortion. But abortion is not analogous to refusing to donate a kidney. Abortion is not simply refusing to continue a pregnancy. The intent of an abortion is to purposely kill a pre-born child. A parent who does not donate a kidney to their dying child is not doing so out of a motive to kill. An abortion, on the other hand, is not simply allowing an unborn child to die of natural causes, but is an active act of killing. The death of the child is not a by-product but the entire point of an abortion.

Because of these many fatal flaws, the analogy of forced organ donation and pregnancy fails. It is not the same thing to force a parent to give up a kidney for their dying child as to "force" a woman to continue a pregnancy rather than kill her child through abortion. Abortion is not like refusing to donate a kidney. There is no logical or ethical requirement that a parent go to the extraordinary lengths of giving up a piece of their body for a sick child. Parents have a responsibility to provide normal care for their children, but not to take extreme measures or place themselves in danger. There is, however, a logical and ethical requirement that a woman who chooses to engage in an act that creates a child should be expected to provide normal care for that child - which includes a normal, healthy pregnancy.

900 Medical Professionals Claim that Abortion is Never Necessary to Save a Woman's Life

According to this article, there have been nearly 900 doctors and other medical professionals, so far, who have signed the Dublin Declaration, which states that abortion is never medically necessary to save a woman's life.

The full text of the Dublin Declaration reads as follows:

“As experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion – the purposeful destruction of the unborn child – is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. 

We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child. 

We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women.”

The fact that almost 900 medical professionals have signed this document is strong testimony that abortion is not health care and that abortion does not need to be legal in order to protect women's lives.

We have written about abortion for the life of the mother before. If abortion ever was necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman, that is the ONLY case where it would ever be acceptable. However, abortion to save a woman's life does not in any way justify any other form of abortion. But the "life of the mother" argument assumes that abortion might sometimes be necessary to save a woman's life. There is increasing evidence that this is not the case and that it is never necessary to purposely end the life of an unborn child in order to save his mother's.

Richard Dawkins on the Morality of Abortion

Recently, prominent atheist Richard Dawkins offered his opinion on whether or not one should abort a baby with Down Syndrome:

@InYourFaceNYer Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014

There is no need to recount the entire thing since the story is widely available (here is one source). So I will only focus on the content of his tweet.

First of all, you cannot abort someone who has not already been brought into this world. Conception produces a new, genetically distinct human individual who has a body of his very own. When one commits abortion, it is this individual who is killed. This individual already exists. Birth is only one event in the life on an individual, and biologically speaking, that event is less significant to one's body than adolescence.

Second, as an atheist, Dawkins has no basis upon which to suggest that any action is "immoral." Sure, he can say that something is good or bad, but morality requires an objective moral law and a source for that moral law, and Dawkins believes that no such thing actually exists.

Dawkins has also stated long ago that killing babies after they are born is acceptable, too. At least that's consistent with his religious worldview. It's insane, but consistent. Here's a good response by scientist Jonathan Sarfati.