Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. Today, we are going to continue our discussion on abortion. In the last episode we looked at what a fetus is and discussed degreed properties and the problem with disqualifying humans based on extrinsic characteristics. And I argued humans have intrinsic value. Wherever a human is, their value is.

We don't have to look at outside factors to figure out if a human is valuable. They are valuable because they're human. However, just because someone is human doesn't mean that their killing isn't justified, at least in the minds of most people. While I'm a Christian pacifist and I don't think that killing is justified, For the sake of the majority, I'm going to run with the position that killing can sometimes be justified. So I'll look at it from the majority opinion.

And when is killing justified in the minds of most Christians and in the minds of our society? Well, killing can be justified if it's in defense of the innocent and this could be defense of self or defense of others. Generally though, this this defense is only legitimate if it is proportionally appropriate. So if, you know, if I'm at my house and I see somebody breaking into my shed in the backyard and walking away with a lawn mower, if I shoot him in the back while he's walking away with a lawn mower, that is inappropriate. Sure, he's stealing my stuff, but to shoot him in the back when he poses no threat to me, especially when he's he's just stealing something, my property is not worth as much as his life.

Even if I think that that he's a valueless piece of scum who's who's just a thief. He's a human who has value and it's more valuable than than my lawn mower. So I would be unjustified to shoot somebody. We see the same thing with police. Police are under a lot of scrutiny today, and I think that there are good reasons for that because we see plenty of misuses of power, and I think in our society they're held up on a pedestal and do put their lives on the line and I would not want their job and I can't even imagine having to make the split second decisions that they do.

But when they go into that field, they also recognize that there is a lot of responsibility there and we do have this balance we have to keep where we do hold them responsible. So today, we understand this more than ever, if there's a police officer who uses excessive force, that's a problem. A police officer, if you see plenty of videos where there are like these riots and things and people are breaking shop windows and stuff, and you just have this line of police who just kind of stands there, they're not shooting the looters, the people who are who are throwing things at at glass or hitting cars and stuff, they don't shoot the looters because so long as nobody's life is directly in danger, we're not going to shoot people. Even as a police officer who has the authority to shoot if needed, that's very important. It has to be if needed, if a life is in danger.

Now, women in The United States have a very, very miniscule chance of dying in childbirth. I believe the last I looked at it was something like a one in five thousand chance. Even the worst country for maternal mortality, which I believe was Sierra Leone, last time I looked, has a one point four percent maternal mortality rate from what I gathered. So let's just even say that's two out of every one hundred people, which is way worse than one in five thousand. But considering that Sierra Leone is a country ravaged by civil war, it's had Ebola epidemics and other hazards which make the environment extremely dangerous for mothers.

If you have a ninety eight or ninety nine percent chance of survival as a mother, even in Sierra Leone, on what grounds can most mothers say that their abortions are for their self defense? I mean, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of abortions in the world do not occur out of a fear for one's life. And so they are unjustified killing of another human being because we know the results of pregnancy. We even with statistics can can figure out what somebody's chances are and what somebody's chances are in a country as well as what somebody's personal chances are in any given situation. You know, try to imagine what would if a police officer's defense was, you know, for for shooting an unarmed black man was, you know, there is a one in 5,000 chance that he was gonna kill me.

Would that be appropriate in our culture? Would we say, well, that justifies it. I mean, there is it reminds me of Dumb and Dumber. So you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah.

And there there's always a chance. But is it, does that slim margin, does that slim chance justify taking another human's life? And I'm pretty sure the one in five thousand chance would not justify it. Maybe for you, one in a hundred or two in a hundred chance, one in fifty would, maybe that would do it for you. Maybe that's enough for you to justify the police shooting.

But I bet for a lot of people, even a 1% or 2% chance still isn't enough to justify it. There has to be this 51% chance, like I'm pretty sure this is what's going to happen for me to justify shooting. And that just made me think, would really like to do, if somebody hears this and does a poll, you should do this, go out into the community and ask how certain a police officer has to be in order to justify shooting. And then, later you can go around and do it with abortions like, but anyway, it would be interesting to know what how we justify the police officer. Point is though, that this defense of the innocent, one of the ways that we justify the killing of others, right, to defend the innocent, myself or others, just doesn't hold up for for abortion.

We don't see abortion as a defense of the innocent. It just doesn't doesn't work that way. That's not how it's used or or even argued for. Alright? That argument just doesn't hold up.

So, not only does abortion seek to take life, but it usually seeks to take this life with no intent of saving anyone else's life. Abortion not only seeks another's death, but it does so for something which is not a greater good. It doesn't do it to save somebody's life. So that's generally how we justify the killing of human beings. It has to be for the defense of the innocent.

Let's take a look because I think it's also helpful to look at some reasons that aren't good for killing people. And I think it's important to look at the opposites because sometimes people use the opposites as arguments for why it's okay, but we recognize that that just doesn't work when we evaluate them. So let's look at bad reasons to kill somebody else. We can kill somebody else because it's legal. That's a problem.

We would judge the slaveholders back in the day for killing slaves or lynching mobs for lynching people even though that was legal in the South. We're not okay with that, and rightfully so. It's not good even though it was legal. And even today we see something somewhat similar, maybe not as harsh, but we see especially the pro abortion camp, the left, the democrats. And I agree with him on this that the child separation policy and the way that we're treating immigrants was terrible.

And we had a few die but it was more the mental torment and just the injustice that came from that. Well, was legal. Know, if the president does it and if they have laws that allow for that kind of thing, it can be legal. We had Japanese internment camps, we did things to Native Americans. I mean, something being legal is not a good reason to allow to go ahead and do something.

We also see kind of the opposite. Homosexuality used to be illegal, but today it is legal. And most pro abortion advocates would say that homosexuals weren't wrong to do it before. It was the state who was wrong for making it illegal. So the legality of something does not mean that something is right or moral.

A lot of times people will argue that abortion is legal so it's okay. And no, that's just not true. We can see that in a lot of historical issues, historical cases. Whether it's what happened to the indigenous peoples in The United States, things like the Dred Scott case and slavery, etc. We just recognize that legality and morality are not the same thing.

Another argument that sometimes people use to justify killing is that they say, well, you know, we don't know that the unborn is a person yet. We don't think they are a person or a human or whatever it is that you don't think they are that that gives them the value of life. We just don't know. That's a problem because when do you ever give somebody permission to kill somebody or something if you're uncertain? You know, it's like a construction demolition crew going to demolish a building and somebody says, hey, you know what?

We didn't clear out that building, but I'm pretty sure nobody's in there. You would never destroy that building until you're sure there's nobody in there because you recognize that the value of life is is worth erring on the side of caution, and that you're culpable for taking life if if you do so negligently or without without knowing when you could have taken the precaution. So not knowing actually should make us prevent abortion, not go through with it. It's not a good reason to kill somebody. Sometimes people argue that parents can't support their kids.

If they have a kid they can't support their kid. Now first of all in The United States that in general is just not true. You don't have usually kids actually starving to death. You might have kids who are malnourished, you might have kids who have really difficult lives, and that is terrible. And again, think that there should be things that are done as far as social justice goes.

I'm part of the government, not a part of the people. But as far as a justification for killing somebody, it doesn't justify killing somebody. Can the mother who aborts her child, if she has a five year old and they come into hard times and and it's really hard to support their family, can she kill her five year old? No. We would say that's terrible.

But what's the difference with the fetus? Well, it's smaller, it's less developed, it's connected to the mom. Right? We we we just take away human value based on these extrinsic things when we recognize the atrocity of it if we do it to older kids. What about the orphans?

Right? I mean, their life their life sucks. Right? They don't have parents and what hope do they have? And we know that the percentages of of them who might go on to commit crime and whatever, I I don't know.

But can we just kill all the orphans? No, that that doesn't make any sense. That's terrible. Yet we we use this as an argument to justify the killing of of fetuses while they're inside the mother's womb. Sometimes people say society would be better off.

That there's an argument oh, who is it by? I forget, the guys who did Freakonomics. But they they argued that, hey, look, one of the reasons why crime might have went down significantly is because it coincides almost exactly with abortion's legality. Abortion may have had a huge contribution to reducing the crime rate. Now let's just say that's true.

Does that justify abortion? Or or is this still problematic? Like, it makes society better, is that good? Well, if we're gonna say that things that make society better justify killing other people, what about euthanasia of old or deformed people? Right?

Spain, Spain had a Down syndrome campaign where they were up for trying to get people to abort kids with Down syndrome, yet at the same time, they wouldn't euthanize kids who had Down syndrome who were outside of the womb. It's just hypocritical. I mean, I'm glad it's hypocritical because I think it would be terrible for them to go and kill kids with Down syndrome and other disabilities. But what's the why are they hypocritical? Why would you say you can do this in the mother's womb but not outside?

Most liberals are against the death penalty, even though they know that their recidivism rate is so high. Like, if if something makes society better, surely, killing, repeat offenders and and violent criminals and all that stuff, instead of spending all this time, all these resources to rehabilitate, certainly we'd be better off if we just got rid of them, not only from the deterrent aspect, but also from the now we don't have to deal with them and their anymore. Society would be better off. Yet, Liberals are very against the death penalty, and I am too. But I don't think it makes sense from their logical point of view.

And on another somewhat related note, it it strikes me as just crazy to say to, like, a minority mother from the ghetto, you know, it's okay to abort your kid because society would be better off if if your kid just didn't exist. But then at the same time, trying to tell kids in the ghetto that you mean something and you can become what you want and don't let your life define you. I just it doesn't make any sense that you would say they shouldn't exist and then tell them to that, oh, you're beautiful the way you are and I love that you exist and you can make something of your life. Well, what is it? It's not a good reason to kill somebody because it would make society better.

And it also uncovers just this double speak and hypocrisy in the view. And the final one I usually hear is that, well if we made abortion illegal, 50, I'm sorry, if we made abortion illegal, many more mothers would die. Okay. Let's just say that, well first of all, is a terrible argument because if mothers seek illegal abortions, it's illegal because it takes somebody's life. And so saying that more murderers will die if abortion is made illegal, That just that just seems kinda kinda crazy to me.

It's like saying, you can't put barbed wire up around your your junkyard because a thief might get cut climbing over it. It's like, well, yeah, they they might, but they shouldn't really be climbing over it. Like, it's it's supposed to that's not their business. It's not their property. And while I don't want anybody to get hurt, if somebody's going to do that and they do get hurt, that's on them for doing the wrong thing to a certain extent.

But let's even put that to the side. Because this argument assumes one really problematic thing. Let's I'm just going use the number one hundred to make it easy. Let's say one hundred women get abortions every year. And let's let's just say all of those abortions successfully kill a child.

You have one hundred dead children. We're going to ignore twins and and all that stuff. And let's just say out of out of a hundred mothers, one dies from from the abortion procedures because we do know that that some people die, it's not a perfect procedure. So you have a hundred babies that died and you have one mother, you got a hundred and one deaths right there. Now let's say abortion is made illegal, but you keep the same abortion rate.

The mothers are like, no, nobody's taking abortion away from me. We're not scared of the law. We're all going to continue getting abortions illegally, backstreet, back alley, coat hanger abortions. And which I guarantee it wouldn't be that bad today because of all the medical doctors who are for abortions and would secretly do them, we it wouldn't be back alley coat hanger like it used to. You'd have a lot more people who are just doing it under the radar professionally.

I'm sure it would still be worse than it is now, but let's just say it was terrible. So let's say that the deterrent of making this illegal, let's just say that that dropped the number of women who got abortions to fifty. So you have fifty children getting killed. And let's say out of those fifty women, rate of death for the women getting abortions goes to fifty percent. So instead of one percent of women dying from abortions in the great environment, now you've got fifty percent of women getting abortions who die.

So of the fifty women who have successful abortions, twenty five of those women die. How many deaths do you have? You have fifty children and twenty five mothers. You have seventy five, seventy five deaths. And you can see that we can raise that number, you know, even if we have seventy five women who still have abortions, so three quarters of what used to get abortions, which is extremely high.

So the the new laws didn't really deter much at all. And three quarters of the women are still getting abortions. You're only having a little bit more die in that that scenario than you did in the regular scenario, in in the original. And So what's the difference here? Well the problem is that people are saying, hey look, let's say one woman dies from good abortions every year.

If we made abortions illegal, ten women would die a year, right? So we'd more deaths. But they make it sound so terrible because they're they never they're always failing to account for the deaths of the other humans that are being killed. If abortion laws deter many women from getting abortions, even if the death of mothers goes up a little bit, so long as the deterrent makes the amount of abortions go down. If the deaths of mothers go up, the net result of lives lost actually goes down.

I don't know how much of a deterrent abortion laws would be, and I don't know how many women would die and how good the practices would be, And I don't even really really care that much because I don't I'm not into legislating that anyway. I'm just saying that as as an excuse to be able to kill other people, to say that because women will die if we make it illegal just isn't a isn't a good reason. Not only because it fails to justify murder, but also because it fails to justify or I'm sorry, it fails to take into account that children are human beings that are being killed. So to to wrap things up, it strikes me that some of these arguments were used to justify the continuation of slavery. And we we can't treat slaves as people.

How could such a large number of freed slaves support themselves outside of the plantations? Well, the continuation of slavery was a mercy to the slaves. Society would be harmed by freed slaves through the vengeance that some would seek with violence towards their former masters or for their economic drain due to their poverty, for their taking of white jobs, whatever. Alright? We all recognize that these aren't justified reasons that you can give to treat another human being as property.

But, pro abortion advocates use these types of arguments to justify treating fetuses as nonhuman property. The fetus can't survive, quote, off the plantation, right, outside of the mother's womb. Therefore, it's not valuable life. A fetus with a disability or a fetus who has brought to term from a minority community will be an economic drain to us. Therefore, we should encourage the perpetuation of abortion.

That's just ludicrous. We don't allow these types of bad arguments to justify what our forebears did to indigenous groups or to to slaves. And we don't allow these arguments to legitimize genocide by dictators. We don't allow these arguments to work against those who are draining on our society now. So how can these arguments legitimize the killing of unborn humans unless we're proposing their lack of humanity, which very few people will do today because they're so obviously human.

You know, even worse than the bad argumentation, some pro choice advocates attempt to shut down the discussion by claiming that only women can speak to the issue. You know, the party who claims to have largest vested interest in maintaining abortions. That would be like saying only plantation owners or only those in slave states could speak to the issue of slavery because it affects them. When we defend the innocent, every voice is important, not just the people who have a vested interest. This is what helps balance out bias and it's why American citizens of all stripes can call out the government for the mishandling of immigrants and their children, putting them in cages.

It's not the immigrants who had the the powerful voice there. It's the the citizens who aren't immigrants because we recognize injustice. You don't have to be an immigrant or a politician to call out injustice against immigrants, and thank God for that. It's only because of the voice of non illegal immigrant people and non politicians that politicians change their minds. The oppressed and voiceless need someone beyond themselves and beyond their oppressor to fight for them.

And so I might not be a woman, in fact, I'm not a woman, but my voice is very important in discussing this issue because because I'm able to use logic and argumentation and other sorts of things to come at this. And you can try to sift through my bias and other sorts of things, but you have to deal with the argumentation. And actually, we are going to discuss this patriarchal bias in in a future episode and discuss, you know, how do I respond to this idea that men can't really speak to the issue of abortion because of our self interest. I look forward to doing that. But that's all for now, so peace because I'm a pacifist.

When I say it, I mean it.