A Case For Life and Moral Equality

Since Roe v Wade was overturned in the United States, the best and worst of both sides of the abortion argument have come out in full force, inevitably colliding on the treacherous battlefield of social media. What was manifest was something that I could only describe as a sh*t fight in a septic tank. Regretfully, I was a willing participant in this proverbial fight and must confess, have emerged from the unsanitary receptacle of human waste that we call social media covered from head to toe in insults, abuse, hate and, foulest of all in stench and character, shallow emotional arguments.

To be fair, there are others no doubt saying the same about me right now, and fair enough. I argued for more careful consideration of the implications when discussing human genetic material, while my interlocutors were arguing for the bodily autonomy of women. Both are matters of great importance, although not all opinions are equal.

What I learned overall in the past few months is that, apparently, society has in the course of its fanatical secularisation completed a full 180-degree turn in its collective moral standards. Yes, I view humanity through a religious lens and no matter how much bigotry that invites, from my convictions I will not turn.

“Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13.

There is a precept in Christianity that holds self-sacrifice on a high pedestal. That is why martyrs are remembered as Saints. That’s why Christ is the ideal. It’s why military comradery is predicated upon fraternity, Philia, brotherly love. The greatest heroes of our stories, our myths, and our history are the ones who either risked life and limb in the service of others or ultimately died in the service of others. Our heroes went into the fray to slay proverbial dragons at great hazard to their lives, and we used to idealise those stories.

The golden rule of the Christian faith remains, love thy neighbour as thyself, for, “love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Ultimately, the Christian ethic says, “I’ll die for you.” Greater love hath no man than this. That was the example of Christ. But what does the new secular ethic say? At least in the context of abortion, the secular ‘ethic’ says, “you’ll die for me.”

For any argument to stand in social and cultural debate, however, it cannot be made on religious terms. A secular adversary will simply not accept religious first principles, despite, ironically, being a beneficiary of such first principles ingrained in their laws, institutions and unspoken social and cultural customs.

Sadly, I have learned that to show any care beyond the self and to, as I say, take questions concerning human genetic material into more careful consideration from a broader perspective of disciplines, is apparently archaic because it is religious. In the new secular ethic, the individual has primacy, and no expense in life nor treasure should be spared in achieving individual happiness. How dare anyone say that there is any transcendental meaning to one’s life other than the fulfilment of one’s desires, and, if anything should hinder the fulfilment of one’s desires, it is the right of the individual to destroy that hindrance.

This is the ethic that would label thinkers of my type as archaic. The ethic which has no conundrum with buying its electric car batteries at the expense of the Chinese peasantry because it’s for the climate. Who takes their quinoa salad at the expense of the African tribesman who can’t afford to feed themselves their own produce because the western appetite is worth too much to even spare a morsel of their own crop because it’s for their health. The very same ethic indulges in name-brand chocolate at the expense of Congolese slave children because it’s for their pleasure. The ethic which at the same time condemns its own history of slave-owning, despite its own history containing the end of slavery at the cost of white, straight, Christian lives, ignores the slavery that still exists to an even greater extent than when it was banned by white, straight, Christian males because it’s their claim to redemptive virtue. The ethic which says, “I’m not ready for children” yet engages with the reproductive organs for its own pleasure and when, to great surprise, reproduction occurs, rather than the old, “I’ll sacrifice for you”, says, “I’ll sacrifice you.”

And yet, the adherents of this ethic are emboldened enough by the enjoyment of popular opinion to claim that the ethic which states no greater attributes than love and self-sacrifice, is outdated and archaic. We surely live in flippant times. I was told that the “Christian and Catholic Churches” (most people outside the church don’t understand that Catholics are Christians, so excuse the incomprehensive nature of that statement) are the adversaries of medicine and science, and furthermore, “are literally harming people.” This, mind you, came from a lad advocating eugenics!

I’m sure there are examples in which that has undoubtedly been the case, but it is ignorant in the extreme to the reality of the matter. Though, we can’t blame a generation that spends more time on Reddit than in bookstores for being ignorant.

Many in the pro-life circles are pessimistic about the chances of abortion laws in Australia and the United States being overturned. Let them not forget that we succeeded in convincing secular society that the freedom and dignity of the slave were not trumped by the rights of the slave owner. Likewise, it is not impossible to convince the secular society of today that the rights of women do not supersede the rights of the unborn. However, make no mistake, secular society hasn’t been this hostile toward evangelical Christianity since we convinced it that their slaves were their moral equals.

“ yet another ‘solution’ from a male who has no right to offer one.”

These were the words that were supposed to disqualify me from the debate. Because I don’t have a uterus, I can’t decide what women can and can’t do with theirs. This is true. But to assert the reductionist, low-resolution assumption that the issue of abortion simply concerns the woman and her uterus and nothing beyond that is fallacious.

Firstly, it is a perilous thing to discount the value and importance of fatherhood. As a father myself, one is keenly aware of his child developing day by day in the mother’s womb.

It may be a subjective thing, the love that even a father feels for his unborn children. But it’s not nothing. Does it give him control over the mother’s body? No. But it gives him a say in the matter of a child which bears his genetic likeness and for which he is responsible.

Secondly, to assert that only the mother’s body is on the line either during pregnancy or in raising children ignores a blatant yet little-known matter of gender inequality. In the United States and Australia, the most dangerous, that is, life-threatening, professions are dominated by men. This is important to this discussion because the occupational risk that men are willing to take increases in exact proportion to their level of education and the number of children they have.

Put simply, the less education a man has, combined with the more children he has, the more he is willing to hazard life and limb, by necessity, in order to provide for them. If you don’t believe me, look it up.

In Australia, the three most dangerous industries, dubbed ‘the three fatal F’s’ are farming, forestry and fisheries, all with a male-dominated workforce. I work in the former and have myself narrowly escaped fatal injury, and have the scars to prove it. Such is the risk a man is willing to accept for his children. That too is not nothing.

Finally, one may argue, and we will get to this in more detail later, that the embryo/foetus is not yet a human life and is therefore not yet conferred the moral value of human life. If this is the case, then abortion really is a case of female bodily autonomy. However, at the most basic level, what is being aborted has a unique heartbeat, unique blood, unique skin, and a unique nervous system, it is so distinct from the mother’s body, in fact, that the mother’s immune system identifies it as a foreign object and attacks it.

It is well summarised by this statement, “There is no credible scientific doubt that a unique human life begins at conception and, therefore, ends with an abortion.”

If indeed the developing foetus is to be considered human life, in fact, if not in law, then it is not an alienable field of advocacy from which men are, nor reasonably can be forbidden from participating.

During the debates that took place, male opposition to abortion was imputed as a masculine desire for power over women’s bodies. This is a lazy presupposition. Most, if not all, opposition to abortion is predicated entirely upon the life of the child, not upon the rights, or taking thereof, of the woman. Again, to assume that the motivation for anti-abortion sentiment pertains to the taking of women’s rights, and only that, is lazy.

Now, with the validity of the male voice established, we can move on to the big questions. Namely, is the woman’s ‘choice’ to abort a child valid? This may sound like a cruel question to even ask. Of course, it is valid, who would question it, I hear some readers say. But, we’re talking about human genetic material here, this is not a question that can be answered hastily and without due consideration.

Many may argue nonetheless that the life of the foetus, in conceptual terms at least, has less moral value than the mother. This could allegedly be proved by applying an ethical scenario in which the decision had to be made, say in the instance of a medical emergency, whether to save the mother or the unborn child.

This is a narrow test of moral value that skips over or is otherwise just ignorant of the important realities of medical practice, bioethics, and law.

Firstly, in ordinary circumstances (under which the majority of abortions take place), the foetus is treated with the same moral value as the mother as far as medical care goes, and in fact, most mothers willingly take on some risk for the benefit of medical care for the foetus.

Secondly, the moral value distributed by degree between mother and foetus is predicated in theory upon sentience. The mother, so says the theory, is sentient and the foetus is not, at least prior to 18–25 weeks, therefore more moral value is conferred to the mother than the foetus. In the Western world where human rights and equality before the law reign supreme, when tested by logical consistency, the sentience theory does not stand.

Let me illustrate: When dealing with patients who suffer from Disabilities of Consciousness (DoC), which often render the person ‘insentient’, that person is considered to be no less human than the aggrieved loved ones sitting at his or her bedside or the doctors and nurses rendering medical care. They are not ‘sentient’, yet they are considered human, retain their moral value, and are therefore afforded necessary care accordingly. Only in cases of DoC considered ‘futile’, where further medical treatment would have no measurable benefit, the family may decide to ‘pull the plug.’ It must be remembered though, that one in every five medical diagnoses is false or misdiagnosed.

Subsequently, when followed to its conclusion with logical consistency, two points must be made. Firstly, standard medical practice does not deny human dignity to people with Disabilities of Consciousness, therefore, where logical consistency is applied, insentience does not disqualify one from personhood status. Secondly, foetal futility, such as instances where it is deemed unlikely that the foetus will survive or suffer some abnormality, does not set the benchmark for what is morally allowable in ordinary circumstances. I work closely with one such misdiagnosed ‘futile’ person whose mother was implored to terminate on the grounds that if he survived, he would suffer severe disability or death. She refused, emphatically. Today, he is as fine a specimen of human physiology and cognition as you’ll find anywhere.

In an article on maternal/foetal conflict, the University of Washington Department of Bioethics and humanities states, “ In caring for pregnant women, the physician must consider the health of two patients who are biologically linked, yet individually viable.”

As science and medicine have advanced and medical technology has allowed physicians to direct medical intervention specifically toward the foetus, rather than simply toward the mother under the outdated conceptualisation of mother and child as one biological whole, the mother/foetus relationship has evolved from one of unity to one of duality.

How, dear reader, please tell, do we as a society allow the moral value of a child to be greater or lesser between cases where the child is kept and care is rendered to it as a human patient, and where the child is terminated and left to expire as a mere ‘clump of cells’ on a surgical table? But I digress.

All this is to say that an abnormal medical circumstance is not the standard by which moral value is assigned in normal circumstances, as the argument that the mother would be saved over the foetus would suggest.

But, the question still remains, when does human life actually begin?

There are many arguable answers to this question, none of which have been universally agreed upon. Being a career man with a wife and two little ‘burdens to society’ and ‘contributors to overpopulation’, I lack the time to detail all of them. I will, however, briefly explain why I believe human life begins at fertilisation.

Fertilisation is not best described as an ‘event’ that occurs instantaneously but is a complex biological process requiring a minimum of 24 hours to complete. During this process, there is no comingling of the parental chromosomes within a singular nuclear membrane. After this process is complete, however, the parental chromosomal material is commingled in a new singular cell called a zygote (tell me again the father has no voice).

The most important consideration regarding this zygote is that it is the principal genetic information centre for the development of the human being from this point on, meaning that all of the genetic information required to grow an adult human being is contained within this cell.

Accordingly, two further important considerations need to be made regarding the very nature of the zygote. The first is that the zygote, from the completion of syngamy, is a genetically unique, singular ontological being, albeit subject to multiple cellular divisions thereafter. The second is that it is intrinsically determined and oriented toward a definite development to the embryonic stage, to the foetal stage, to birth, to childhood, and onward.

The continuation of this genetically determined and oriented development cannot be argued as distinguishable between the zygote stage at the completion of syngamy, and the maturation or development after birth. The same process that begins at the completion of syngamy which produces the zygote continues up to and after the birth of the child and throughout the rest of the life.

In order to view this as the beginning of human life and to confer to it equal moral value and rights, one must employ more than simple references to women’s rights or biology. I have said before and will continue to say, that human genetic material must be given all due consideration in questions of moral value.

At fertilisation, given that the resultant cell is intrinsically determined and oriented toward a definite development, if unhindered, then there is little moral difference between a foetus bound for childhood and a young man bound for old age.

Some may say that life begins at the heartbeat and so, abortion may be permitted until there is a discernible heartbeat. Those people don’t realise that the heartbeat is discernible around the five-week gestation mark. The heartbeat, therefore, is already developed before many women even know they’re pregnant.

Others may say that human life begins when the child can feel pain, though, I’m not sure what we’re left with to characterise the 1 in 25,000 children born with congenital insensitivity to pain if not as human beings.

Some will then say that human life begins at birth. Those people may just have the kind of cognitive conditions that they say might as well be euthanised, but I will defend their right to life nonetheless and get no thanks for it, I’m sure.

This then brings us to the oft-used yet ill-thought-out ‘quality of life’ argument.

Two commonly cited reasons for women to seek abortions are economic insecurity and medical abnormalities in either the mother or the baby. These I will take in turn and attempt to outlay as many of the falsehoods and, frankly, hastily and consequently ill-thought-out conclusions of both.

First, let us deal with the former; economic insecurity. This is an issue that plays a primary role in many of the decisions we make in life. For many people today, it is tough to scrape together enough to cover a basic living, but most do. As the late Malcolm Fraser would say, “It ain’t meant to be easy.” If you take a wide-angled view, the majority of the poorest people in the west, though they are truly poor by western standards, still have a roof over their head, own or have access to transportation, and generally eat or have access to three meals a day.

For many people, adding a child to the equation is indeed difficult. The cost of raising children and all of the needs which must be met in terms of health care, education, transport etc. has increased significantly over the last two generations.

But this begs the question; is economic insecurity solid grounds for terminating a pregnancy?

During the debates I have engaged in on this issue, the most common line of questioning was this: what if the mother and/or father don’t have the means to raise a child? What kind of life would the child have? Do you want children to be born into poverty? To be perfectly honest, I may not be deemed qualified to speak to this because I have an apparently outdated belief that human dignity is predicated upon life itself, and not, as many of my interlocutors would have it, upon the quality of life.

For, if human dignity is indeed predicated upon the quality of life, then what becomes of the basic human rights of the poor and infirm? What is the limiting principle standing between care on the one hand, and mass euthanasia of those arbitrarily deemed as burdensome to society on the other? Where have we seen that lead in the past?

But they are developed and sentient human beings, you may say, it’s different. Think of it this way, a young poor man is developmentally determined and oriented toward becoming an old poor man, which in many cases is likely to impact the individual’s quality of life. Do we ‘terminate’ a poor young man because his future may lack the quality of life enjoyed by his peers who want for nothing? The answer found emphatically in any moral conscience and thankfully in law is NO. The poor young man has every opportunity to become an old man who wants for nothing, and in this case, most of society agrees that that very potentiality counts.

In fact, in his book Dr Warren Farrell cites that, “Children who were born poor and raised by both married parents had an 80 per cent chance of moving to the middle class or above.”

Why then, does the potentiality of the foetus, even if carried by a destitute mother, not count?

Besides this, in order to make an economic case for abortion, one must determine what the life of a human child is worth. That is, what financial criteria must be met before it is acceptable to bring a child into the world? (allow me to reiterate that financial considerations are of primary importance in making such decisions as bringing a child into the world, but, as we shall see, not in taking a child out of the world). This is an ethical dilemma for secular thinkers who belong to the collective post-slavery conscience in which it is generally unacceptable to place a monetary value on a human being, courtesy of evangelical Christianity.

The problem we then run into is this; in order to make an economic argument for abortion, you must necessarily place a monetary value on the life of the child, and if that value is not met, the argument goes, the child does not get to live.

To be truthful, I’m not sure how to argue further against this point because I can’t see a situation against which any conscience wouldn’t bear witness in which we can place material value on human life. I can only say that if the person does not understand the moral problem with placing a monetary value and subsequent financial criteria upon the right to life, God help us all.

Now to medical concerns. Medical emergencies in pregnant women are, to my knowledge, one of the greatest ethical dilemmas of modern medicine. It is broadly accepted in bioethics that the practitioner views mother/foetus care with two individual patients in mind, biologically linked, but individually viable. As I mentioned above, the conceptualisation of the mother and foetus as one biological whole has been outdated for some time. So this necessarily introduces the dilemma of who has moral precedent in those tragic cases where only one can be saved.

It is important to note that many options must be exhausted in the care of both patients before the decision could ethically be made to save just one patient. In that instance, it would be interesting to understand who then takes precedent, as two options seem plausible. Is it a) the most likely one to survive the ordeal, or, b) the mother by default?

Either way, we can be thankful that this is rare. That is not to say that it can be dismissed as a non-issue. In fact, it is a big issue when taken into context of the huge frequency of misdiagnosis, common in general medicine let alone maternal medicine. I briefly alluded to a close friend whose mother was encouraged to terminate him. Many, many, many stories such as his are out there. Many. Is this an excuse to put mothers in mortal danger just in case? Absolutely not, it is the reason above all reasons to spare no expense in the innovation and evolution of maternal care!

Now, if maternal medical emergencies resulting in advice to terminate are in fact rare, and within that rarity refusal to terminate leading to the birth of healthy individuals is common, they can here be dismissed, not as a serious concern, but as a poor and ill-thought excuse for the legal status of abortion, which in its totality contains but a tiny fragment of medical necessity.

Rape and incest, two circumstances that always seem to be dragged out onto the stage during abortion debates, are far more complicated issues. Let me deal here with rape only, as incest, I don’t understand and have no intention of thinking or reading enough about to write about it.

Rape accounts for roughly 1–2% of abortions carried out in the US each year. That is a small percentage indeed. However, a small percentage of a large number produces a still large number and so the matter cannot be easily or quickly dismissed.

The burning question in this circumstance must be this; do these cases justify the rest? To answer questions like this, it’s helpful to follow each possible answer to its logical conclusion. If we follow the principle that the fringe justifies the whole, with logical consistency, what would it mean when applied to other issues? What would it mean if small data pools were extrapolated across entire populations in order for means to justify ends when dealing with the entirety of the data pool? Think that through, dear reader, and dare to tell me it doesn’t terrify you.

On the other hand, if we decide that the fringe data group does not justify the whole, but that fringe group only, then at least we can make a beginning at some solutions. At this point, we come to our most challenging ethical dilemma thus far. Does the trauma inflicted on the victim justify the termination of a resultant pregnancy? It would be easy for me to say that the child of rape is still worthy of life, which it is, but it’s not that simple and cannot be concluded with a simple statement.

While pregnancy under normal circumstances is a part of life, albeit a difficult one, that most take full adult responsibility for, there is nothing ordinary about a pregnancy that is a result of rape. Nothing about the life of the victim or the child, if carried to term, is going to be ordinary from that point on, at least for some time. We pro-life advocates don’t acknowledge this nearly enough, but the simple statement that the child of rape is worthy of life with no mention or concern for the outcome of the mother is insufficient.

There are stories of women who have carried to term, delivered, and raised babies conceived by rape. I could tell stories about happy families of this nature as an appeal to emotion to bolster my case. But I couldn’t do it with integrity. Exceptions do not predicate the rules.

If we truly believe that the child of rape is worthy of life, we must stop ending our sentence there. There must be solutions at the policy level to walk the walk on this belief. In the United States, there are such things as Pregnancy Crisis Centres. These exist to offer antenatal care and counselling to women in many circumstances and stages of pregnancy. As we heard Rep. Elizabeth Warren, our favourite native-American congresswoman, say, pregnancy crisis centres outnumber abortion clinics by 3–1 in the state of Massachusetts alone. Her proposal? Shut them down! How helpful.

Many may claim that these pregnancy crisis centres deceive women with religious spells into keeping unwanted babies, setting them up for a life of misery and pain. Because what a burden it is for an infant bearing your genetic likeness to look you in the eye and call you mummy or daddy! Not many of these same people are aware of fairly standard practices of deceit common to abortion clinics. For example, it is common practice to conduct ultrasounds in such a way that the patient cannot clearly see the foetus, or perhaps, only part of the placenta, so as to not clearly see the distinctly human form about to be rented from her uterus and left lifeless on a surgical table just out of view. That may have been an appeal to emotion, but it was no lie.

But, the question remains. Is rape grounds for the termination of a pregnancy? Having supported my wife through two pregnancies and deliveries, I was overwhelmingly impressed with the care offered throughout. Doctors and midwives were careful to examine our developing children throughout the entire gestation in order to determine whether a specialised care plan may be needed in the event of any anomalies. This extended to postnatal care as well, for mother and babies.

I would conclude, therefore, that while pregnancies that arise from rape produce double the victims, the penalty should apply to neither victim, but rather, twice the penalties should apply to the perpetrator. But that is not to say that the victim/s is/are just to be left to fend for themselves. It is not uncommon, nor is it unreasonable or impossible for care, lifelong care if need be, to be offered to these victims as they are, or should be, to any other victim of any other violent crime.

Now, it must be acknowledged that this is far easier said than done in the United States in comparison to Australia. Such care incurs enormous costs in the US healthcare system. Let me ask this, however; why is the government required, indeed demanded, to assume astronomical levels of debt to care for you via social spending, yet you expect to be relinquished of any financial sacrifice for those you are responsible for? Even if that question can be answered, any claim to moral high ground is forfeited by any excuse concocted to formulate the answer.

Aspirations and Dreams of Women

I recently read an article with the marathon title, Women Are Getting Pulled Over For Attempted Abortion, and It’s Just the Beginning. The title makes the subject of the article fairly self-explanatory, although I noted while reading it that the author doesn’t actually substantiate the claim that women are being pulled over by law enforcement for seeking abortions. She does cite a story about a mother taking her 15-year-old daughter across the country to a lacrosse game and being pulled over by a police officer whose line of questioning was fairly probing. Anyone who has been pulled over for speeding, as was the case in the story, especially out-of-state knows that it can often entail some probing questions.

Not once in the story, at least as told by the author of the article, does the police officer’s line of questioning give any indication that he was patrolling for women seeking abortions in other states. It’s not even mentioned, nor is it made obvious that a) abortion was illegal in their home state, b) that they were anywhere near a border with a state in which abortion is legal, or c) that they were in another state of which they were not residents, in which case it’s impossible to guess at why a police officer would care in the first place.

Later on in the article, the author claims that this alleged behaviour by law enforcement was never just about abortion, it was about, “advancing radical evangelical Christianity.” She goes on to say, “Women have a particular place in the evangelical world order. They exist to serve men and raise children.”

As a side note, I read that statement to my wife, an evangelical Christian, at which she laughed in disbelief before I sent her back to the kitchen, at which she also laughed before going about her business. Because the notion expressed by the author is a crude, and if I were a lesser man, offensive, mischaracterisation of a demographic that she clearly does not understand, evidenced in the first instance by the weird association she makes between law enforcement and evangelical Christian manhood.

She then goes on to say what I will here use to set up my next point:

“ I’ve watched some of my own college friends drop out of grad school to get married and start having babies for men. They gave up entire careers. Turns out, work and education were just something they were doing as a backup in case they couldn’t find a partner. It was disheartening to watch.”

Even if the former is true, and it was a simple case of the prerogatives of the women, absent of any form of religious conviction or dogma, then the author just seems to have a problem with the choices of women that she herself simply doesn’t agree with. I know that my evangelical Christian wife would take serious issue with that sentiment.

For the sake of this argument, let’s move religion to one side and assume that these women dropped out to marry and raise children as a simple matter of prerogative. Will they, or will they not, be as happy as the women who remain in college and pursue careers?

This is a common question in any abortion debate. Why would you expect aspirational women to throw away their education, their career, and consequently their happiness to raise children, whether planned for or not? This question is predicated upon the assumption that getting an education and pursuing a career leads universally to greater happiness than getting married and raising a family. This, being just what it is — an assumption — requires validation.

Validation is easy. Everyone knows that the 1950s and ’60s were the golden age of stay-at-home-motherhood. In 1966, only 25% of bachelor’s degrees went to women in Australian universities, women’s participation in the workforce was at around 30% and the birth rate was at around 20.5 per 1000 people. Then, with the advent of the birth control pill, came the sexual revolution. Women’s rights, affirmative action, and shifting cultural norms shot women into a level social and cultural plane resulting in a steep downward trend in marriage and birth rates across the west with sharp spikes in women’s education and participation in the workforce as a corollary.

Now, women account for about 68% of all university students and about 50% of the Australian workforce while birth rates have fallen to around 12.2 per 1000 people.

In summary, women are more educated, participate in the workforce more (and for longer), make more money, and have fewer children than ever before in history. Therefore, in order to validate our assumption we need only ask, are women happier now than they were in 1966? Unfortunately, there is little Australian data on this, but the resounding answer from the rest of the world, where data is clear and plentiful, is no.

There is even a general difference between contemporary women who have children and those who do not, although the difference is not in happiness. Women who have children, particularly those who leave lucrative employment to have children report greater fulfilment in life than those who do not have children and remain career-oriented.

Thus, the author cited above and the many who would argue a case for abortion relying upon the premise that women are happier when they do not have children can only speak subjectively given the objective nature of the matter is established to the contrary.

To conclude, therefore, let me make this exhortation: Forget not that the Christian conscience once bore witness to the humanity and inherent dignity of the enslaved resulting in the turning of the collective conscience of secular society and the reformation of morals as is now reflected in law. So now our conscience bears witness to the humanity and inherent dignity of the unborn, convicted by the dutiful knowledge of God’s word and God’s works to the end that a new reformation of morals will one day be reflected in law.

This is not a case for a theocracy, it is a case for a just society and the blatant fact that our notions of justice are predicated upon the Judeo-Christian ethic cannot be ignored. We must therefore extend that ethic to all areas of social life, in this instance abortion, to which it is applicable.

While we cannot argue on the basis of our faith against a secular interlocutor, we must nonetheless continue to be guided, informed and convicted by and act upon our faith. The same anger and hate that was levelled at the abolitionists will surely be levelled toward us, but we cannot and must not shirk our responsibility to the least of society.

It may be some time before a secular conscience is convinced of the worthiness of the life of the unborn child, but remember that the abolition of slavery was the result of decades of dedicated advocacy in public and private life.

Remember too, that just as it was important for the abolitionists to live above reproach so as to not invite accusations of hypocrisy or self-interest, it is particularly pertinent that we too endeavour to live above reproach in order to exemplify the morals we ourselves espouse. We cannot, after all, preach virtue while continuing in vice.

With that, good day and goodbye.

Originally published at https://samwillis.substack.com on September 10, 2022.