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July 3, 2022
Readers have no doubt been subjected to a wide array of commentaries and internet memes following the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v Wade. Because the war of ideas in 2022 is often fought through internet memes, this essay hopes to offer ideas that can inform and strengthen the pro-life position based on an everyday, average person’s interpretation of legal, logical, rational, and reasoned arguments.
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There are few casual observers. Both sides of the argument evoke strong emotions. However, because the issue involves real and irrevocable impacts on the life of the mother and the infant, more than emotions must guide the individual conscience and our national discourse. For those who are able or willing, we should not shy away from this debate but we should make sure we have a firm foundation for our own opinions and arguments. The difficult task of changing hearts and minds must begin anew every day because this issue has been remanded to the states and it will soon be coming to a legislature near you.
The pro-abortion argument almost always leads off with the woman’s “right to choose,” a.k.a., “bodily autonomy.” An offshoot of the autonomy argument is, “Nobody has the right to use your body, against your will, even to save their life or the life of another person.”
This argument must be flipped on its head immediately and stridently. Nobody has the right to end another person’s life deliberately and against their will (the obvious exception to this would be the common practice of “do not resuscitate” orders or a living will which provides for the contingency of discontinuing prolonged medical care to artificially support life). The natural law against taking another person’s life is innate to humanity and has been fundamentally understood from the beginning of human civilization. Furthermore, an infant in the womb had no choice in being conceived in the first place and the infant, therefore, is not represented in the decision to end its life.
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It is an irrefutable scientific fact that human life begins at conception. It is also an irrefutable scientific fact that conception creates a unique human being, with individual DNA, chromosomes, genes, and all that consists of one becoming a uniquely gifted and talented person. Therefore, abortion kills a human life, someone whom society anticipates one day will have a unique identity, personhood, and name.
The most fundamental of human rights is the right to life. Abortion activists present an utterly contradictory argument. Those who scream the loudest for their individual rights and autonomy to choose, then decry a “patriarchy” or “system” that victimizes or subjugates them and denies their rights, are the same people who are denying the fundamental right to life to another person who has no voice and has no choice in the matter.
The one, undeniable truth that is most often omitted in the pro-abortion argument is an admission that abortion takes the life of the unborn. It is this truth that should be the pro-abortion argument’s undoing.
In Justice Alito’s majority opinion, it is clear that Roe v, Wade ignored natural law This natural law can never be set aside by any past, current, or future precedent. Therefore, when Roe conferred a constitutional right to an abortion that denied fundamental natural law, it was fatally flawed based on faulty reasoning and jurisprudence. Thus, Roe v. Wade conceived and then perpetrated a lie, contrary to the truth innately known by every human being.
Image: Batman and Robin meme, generated via imgflip.
More memes attempt to strike at the “morality” of the pro-life position: “Your morality is deeply lacking if all your want is a child born but not a child fed, educated, and housed.” Additional memes follow this premise with, “If it was about babies, we’d have free universal health care, free parental leave, free lactation consultants, free diapers, free formula, free childcare, universal pre-school.”
This is yet another faulty premise that a woman’s unwanted pregnancy is society’s responsibility simply because the correct interpretation of natural law prohibits abortion. Instead, it reveals a crass exploitation of the issue by socialist, leftist ideologues to cement the cradle-to-grave, state-provided care they desperately seek.
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What is true, however, is that there are alternatives to abortion (which the abortion industry continually attacks) that would be far better than the statist fantasy of more government services.
It is estimated there are between 1 million and 2 million couples in the United States who are waiting to adopt. When evaluated in light of the most recent data that over 629,000 abortions took place in 2019 and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute’s report that in 2020, there were 930,160 abortions in the United States, there are more than enough adoptive parents who have been vetted and deemed worthy who could provide what is foundational to a healthy society: a loving, two-parent home in which shelter, feeding, and care are provided.
Memes are stating, “Vasectomies will prevent abortions.” The meme is an attempt to make men understand the concept of “bodily autonomy.” Yet the more salient point is that men who are part of the “hook up” culture or those who fail to take responsibility for their actions in causing unwanted pregnancies are equally part of our society’s problem with abortions.
It appears as if both sexes must play their role in the aftermath of the Court’s Dobbs decision. Dennis Prager, in a recent commentary for American Greatness, said it this way:
The hook up culture only benefitted men (because) men have benefitted from abortion becoming a method of birth control. Abortion on demand meant that men impregnating women to whom they were not married came with no consequences. Abortion meant they didn’t have to marry the woman they impregnated. Abortion meant they didn’t have to raise the child they conceived. And abortion meant that men did not have to pay child support.
Further illustrating this exploitation of women, you’ll see this meme rapidly populating social media:
If every time men had sex, they risked death, physical disability, social shaming, a life-altering interruption of their education, career, and sudden life-long responsibility for another human being, I think they’d expect a choice in the matter.
The responses to this argument (in addition to Dennis Prager’s point, above), highlight abortion’s negative impact on our culture and on men’s and women’s individual and collective psyches and well-being:
- Pregnancy is, and always has been, a life-altering event in the lives of the mother and father.
- Given those potential consequences, if neither party wants a pregnancy, they must do what is necessary to prevent it.
- Both participants do have a choice. Either the woman or the man can avoid every negative consequence listed in the meme by saying “No.”
The lies embedded in Roe and their negative impact on our culture have been revealed. Both women and men benefit from the committed relationships that cause and provide for pregnancies. When society fosters and encourages committed, monogamous relationships, both women and men benefit. Women will not be exploited by a random “hook up,” and men will be encouraged to fulfill their roles in society and take equal responsibility.
The devastation Roe caused to over 60 million unborn infants and the well-being of both sexes should be readily evident.
Dustan Ashe is a pen-name, the author’s “nom de guerre” in the culture war.
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