Why Rachel Held Evans is Wrong to Tell Christians to Vote For Hillary Clinton, Part II [Seth Gruber]

(This is the second in a three-part series responding to an article by Rachel Held Evans, which you can read here. This series is a joint effort between Seth Gruber and Clinton Wilcox. For part one in this series, go here.)

In our previous article, we responded to various points Evans raised in her introduction. In this article, we'll respond to her first two points, leaving the last two for the final article in this series. The two points we'll be responding to are as follows:

1. Voting pro-choice is not the same as voting for abortion.
2. Criminalizing abortion won't necessarily reduce abortions.

1. Voting pro-choice is not the same as voting for abortion

This is tantamount to saying:

Voting for a candidate who is pro-choice on wife beating is not the same as voting for wife beating.

Regardless of your pro- or anti-position on wife beating, a vote for a political candidate who believes that men should have the freedom to choose whether they want to beat their wives or not and has promised to do everything in his power to protect that right by law, would be a vote FOR wife beating. And we would discourage people from voting for such a candidate and would be appalled if our fellow believing brothers and sisters chose to vote for that candidate anyways.

In her first point, Evans mentions that the abortion issue doesn’t fall neatly into black and white categories but is much more complex. She seeks to illustrate the “supposed” complexities of the abortion issue by pointing to the frequency of early miscarriages, the historical disagreement among evangelicals regarding when personhood begins, and the potential consequences of criminalizing abortion.

Regarding early miscarriages, Evans says:

The fact that a woman’s body naturally rejects hundreds of fertilized eggs in her lifetime raises questions about where we draw the line regarding the personhood of a zygote. Do we count all those “natural abortions” as deaths?

To be clear, Rachel Evans is talking about miscarriages, the spontaneous yet unfortunate death of the early embryo, who has already come into existence, and is itself a distinct, living, and whole human being with a “dynamic orientation towards self-expressive activity” (Kaczor, 93).

Christopher Kaczor makes the simple observation that “death rates have no relationship to personhood” (Kaczor 131). High early embryo mortality rate does not raise any such question regarding when personhood arises in the early embryo. “For centuries throughout the world, indeed until the twentieth century, the rate of infant mortality was more than 50%” (Kaczor 131), but no one would question whether such infants were persons or point to the complexity of determining the line for personhood.

So why does Rachel Evans do this with the unborn? Does she not believe the unborn is entitled to rights of personhood from the moment of conception? She hasn’t said so. What she has said is that for her, pro-life means to “believe the sacred personhood of an individual begins before birth”, but not necessarily at conception. The belief that life begins at conception and that the embryo we once were began at that moment is the most fundamental pro-life belief, so it is deeply troubling to us that Rachel Evans has not claimed to believe that.  And the failure to confess this foundational, pro-life belief is perhaps what enables her to assume that a high early embryo mortality rate translates to confusion over when personhood arises, even though she wouldn’t dare pose such a question in regards to high infant mortality rate.

So yes Rachel, we do count all those “early abortions” (or miscarriages) as real deaths.

Regarding the historical disagreement among evangelicals on when personhood arises, Evans says,

When does personhood begin—at fertilization? implantation? the presence of brainwaves? the second trimester?  There is disagreement among Christians about this, (and historically, even among evangelicals), so is it really my place, or the government's job, to impose my beliefs on people of all faiths and convictions?

Pointing to historical disagreement among evangelicals regarding when personhood arises does absolutely nothing to prove that we don’t know when human personhood begins. We used to disagree regarding whether African Americans were full persons and whether women were entitled to the full rights of a man. Yet, we look back at those events and wish that the correct view had been “imposed” on the rest of society, because we were imposing our incorrect view of human personhood on blacks and women by depriving them of rights they deserved intrinsically.

Rachel Evans, we appeal to you as brothers in Christ and gently remind you that it is your place as a follower of Jesus to love your neighbor and speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves. So are the unborn our neighbors from the earliest stages of development (i.e. conception)? The science of embryology is clear that human life and development begins at the moment of fertilization (even abortion-choice advocates know this) . We then look to philosophy to answer the question of value and personhood. (See the 5-minute pro-lifer) If you don’t ground the genesis of human personhood at conception, then you are espousing a performance view of personhood that says we are only valuable because of arbitrarily-determined capacities or characteristics. Why? Because if human personhood is not grounded in the human being’s nature, which comes to be at conception, then what explains value? What determines personhood? If it’s not intrinsic (the unborn being valuable by virtue of the kind of thing that it is), then it has to be something the unborn can do, perform, or realize at a later stage in its development (quickening, ability to feel pain, detection of brain waves, memory, etc..). And if the latter is true, then we must be prepared to accept that there are many born people who don’t have such capacities and abilities, and therefore, we must also call into question whether they are full persons yet.

So yes Rachel, it is your place and our place to “impose” the belief that human life and personhood begins at conception and it is wrong to take the life of a defenseless, innocent, unborn human person through legalized abortion on the rest of society.

Regarding the potential consequences of criminalizing abortion, Evans says,

If abortion is criminalized, should every miscarriage be investigated by police? Should in vitro fertilization be outlawed?

If abortion is made illegal (“criminalized”), a miscarriage will still be a spontaneous and unfortunate loss of life with no one to blame. In a post-Roe world, miscarriages will still occur, and as long as such miscarriages are a spontaneous and uncaused event, then women won’t be charged or blamed, any more than we would charge a woman for murder whose son slipped and fell to his death while rock-climbing. Miscarriages are more often than not extremely traumatic and sad events in the life a mother, father, or couple and such an event should be acknowledged as a real loss for which grief is appropriate.

However, in a post-Roe world, if there were questionable circumstances surrounding a miscarriage that caused people to question whether such an event was spontaneous, than the police would be required to look into it, just as they are required to do so when there may be reason to believe that the death of a born child may be linked to a family member. In such a world, abortifacient “contraceptives” would also be outlawed, so inducing an “early-abortion” would require more old-fashioned techniques that would likely leave behind evidence of such an act. If such an investigation was warranted and led to the discovery that the “miscarriage” in question was caused and self-induced by the mother or someone else, then we would be required to charge said person with first-degree murder. If the early abortion was induced by someone other than the mother, a secondary charge for crimes against the mother would also be required.

So no, Rachel, if abortion were made illegal, not every miscarriage would be investigated by police, but only those for which there were good reasons to assume, or evidence to warrant an investigation, that the “miscarriage” in question was actually an induced abortion.

Regarding in vitro fertilization, it’s beyond the scope of this article to give a full treatment of the morality or immorality of the procedure. However, excess embryos are always created through IVF. This is because the process is very expensive and carries extreme risks to the mother in extracting her ova, so excess embryos are created to give the process the greatest chance of forming an embryo that will successfully implant into the mother. These excess embryos that are not ultimately implanted into the woman are either used for experimentation, or sometimes stored away. Since excess human embryos are created and ultimately destroyed, experimented on, etc., IVF, as it is currently practiced, is highly immoral and should be outlawed, even now.

2. Criminalizing abortion won’t necessarily reduce abortions

Evans’ argument here seems wrong, on the face of it. If people are generally law-abiding citizens, then most of them will follow the law. Of course a lot of women will still abort, but even those who do still abort should be punished when they do so. This is true whether or not the number of abortions have been reduced. The unborn are still full human beings, and taking their lives should bring with it legal penalties. Additionally, as was the case before Roe was decided on in 1973, women were often granted immunity if they released the name of the abortionist who did the procedure. There are bigger fish to fry, and going after the abortionist will save more lives in the long run.

The assumption in Evans’ argument here is that we shouldn’t make abortion illegal, because that won’t necessarily even reduce the number of abortions anyway, but instead should be “working to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies using the tools we already have”.

In the introduction, Evans wrote the following:

So even though I think abortion is morally wrong in most cases, and support more legal restrictions around it, I often vote for pro-choice candidates when I think their policies will do the most to address the health and economic concerns that drive women to get abortions in the first place. For me, it’s not just about being pro-birth; it’s about being pro-life.

But let’s think about that for a moment. Suppose we weren’t talking about abortion, but spousal abuse. We’re going to change a few words around. Let’s see if Rachel’s argument still holds up:

So even though I think wife-beating is morally wrong in most cases, and support more legal restrictions around it, I often vote for candidates who promise to fight to keep wife-beating legal, when I think their policies will do the most to address the health and economic concerns that drive men to beat their wives in the first place. For me, it’s not just about being pro-wife; it’s about being pro-life.

If this argument doesn’t sit well with you, but you agree with the former argument as Evans presents it, then what is the fundamental difference between the two scenarios that makes the argument reasonable in the former, but not in the latter, case?

Evans points out that in areas where abortion is illegal and heavily restricted, their abortion rates were no lower than the rest of the world. She goes on to say, “In fact in Latin America, a region with highly restrictive abortion laws, one in three pregnancies (32%) ended in abortion in 2010--2014, higher than any other region”. Such thinking is dangerous as it often leads to asking this question:

If women are going to get abortions anyway, shouldn’t we just keep it legal so that it’s at least safe?

Frank Beckwith deals with this question by asking another question: “Should we then legalize child pornography and the hitman profession because we can’t stop all people from obtaining such ‘goods’ and services?” (Beckwith, 122). Clearly not. Some choices are wrong and require us to forbid them from being made for the very reason that those choices hurt or end the life of innocent human persons with intrinsic value.

Aside from that, Evans has not really proven anything. In fact, she’s guilty of cherry picking evidence in order to prove her claim.

First, you can’t just look at Latin America, with highly restrictive abortion laws, and argue, ipso facto, that abortion laws don’t reduce abortion rates. You have to look at a country in a state in which abortion is illegal, and that same country in a state in which abortion is legal, and compare the two. Only then can you know whether or not restrictive abortion laws have actually worked in reducing abortions. Even then, it’s difficult to get accurate figures because abortions are not always accurately reported, especially if they are illegal.

Second, Evans looks at Latin America, but ignores a country like Ireland, in which only 1 in 9 pregnancies end in abortion. This suggests that there are other factors at work which affect the abortion rates, such as the fact that there are many developing countries in Latin America, which means more poverty and other situations in which women might feel they need abortions. If abortion laws were less restrictive, the number of abortions in Latin America might be much higher.

This leads us to finally address Evans’ claim. Will making abortion illegal significantly reduce the abortion rate in America?

Evans’ arguments assume a view of the law that we take issue with, namely that the law cannot and will not change people’s behavior. Thus, Evans’ statement: “women will continue to seek out abortions even if they are illegal”. Obviously, people break the law all the time. So to an extent, laws won’t change people’s behavior, but that doesn’t mean they can’t change some people’s, or even a majority of people’s, behavior. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his address to Western Michigan University in 1963, “It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important, also.” It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if stealing and murder were legal, we would see a huge rise in theft and homicide cases. But thanks to the law, people are less likely to commit the act to which they are tempted.

Beckwith adds: “[T]he function of law is not always to reflect the attitudes and behavior of society but to serve as ‘a mechanism by which people are encouraged to do what they know is right, even when it is difficult to do so’” (David Reardon, Aborted Women: Silent No More, Acorn Books, Springfield, Il, 2002, p. 319, as quoted in Beckwith, 122). Reardon goes on to point out that while law reflects morality (the laws we make are based on moral standards of living), morality can also reflect law: “Studies in the psychology of morality reveal that the law is truly the teacher. One of the most significant conclusions of these studies shows that existing laws and customs are the most important criteria for deciding what is right or wrong for most adults in a given culture” (Reardon, 319-320, as quoted in Beckwith, ibid.). In other words, most adults don’t make choices based on their moral intuitions, but based on what the law has said is right or wrong. So if and when abortion is made illegal, it is safe to say that we will see a significant decrease in the abortion rate in America.

Now that we've responded to Evans' first two points, we'll respond to her last two points in our next article.

Works cited:

Beckwith, Francis J., Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2007.
Kaczor, Christopher, The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice, First Edition, Routledge, New York, NY, 2010.

Why Rachel Held Evans is Wrong to Tell Christians to Vote for Hillary Clinton, Part I [Seth Gruber]

(This is the first in a three-part series responding to an article by Rachel Held Evans. This series is a joint effort between Seth Gruber and Clinton Wilcox.)

Rachel Held Evans, a Christian blogger and author, recently published a post on her blog entitled “So you’re thinking of voting for a pro-choice candidate” (we encourage you to read her blog post in its entirety before reading our response) in which she encourages Christians to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. Her main argument is that:

Since abortion rates have dropped to their lowest numbers during the last eight years under a democratic president, and because democratic social policies do more to create a culture with less unwanted pregnancies, Christians should vote for Hillary, whose policy proposals will help address the underlying causes of unwanted pregnancies and continue to decrease the abortion rate in America.

Let’s be clear: This response article is not pro-Trump. By critiquing Rachel’s article and arguments in support of voting for Hillary, we are not tacitly supporting Trump. We are setting out to do what our title suggests: giving reasons for why Rachel Held Evans is wrong to tell Christians to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Evans offers four main points to back up her argument that Christians should vote for Hillary (who will do a better job at keeping the abortion rate lower by addressing the underlying causes of unwanted pregnancies):

1. Voting pro-choice is not the same as voting for abortion

2. Criminalizing (making abortion illegal) abortion won’t necessarily reduce abortions

3. Pro-life advocates should support, rather than oppose, efforts to help low-income families care for
their children

4. We must support efforts to make contraception more accessible and affordable if we want to
dramatically reduce the abortion rate in this country.

Before we address each of Evans’ main points, we must take issue with her main argument. Evans says that, “In the eight years since we’ve had a pro-choice president, the abortion rate in the U.S. has dropped to its lowest since 1973”.  There are three things we must examine here.

First, is this claim true? Is the abortion rate at a record low in the United States? Evans provides no evidence or proof to back up such a claim. The Guttmacher Institute reports that this is indeed the case, so perhaps this should have been Evans’ source. Yet, in this same article we read:

While the overall abortion rate continued to decline, the proportion of abortions that were early medication procedures continued to increase. An estimated 239,400 early medication abortions were performed in 2011, representing 23% of all nonhospital abortions, an increase from 17% in 2008. The study estimated that 59% of all known abortion providers offer this service.

An “early medication abortion” refers to an abortifacient pill that is taken orally which induces an abortion. So according to the Guttmacher Institute, there has been a huge rise in abortions due to abortifacients and those numbers don’t seem to be included in the overall abortion rate. Furthermore, Guttmacher Institute admits that, “early medication abortion has become an integral part of abortion care” (Abortion Incidence and Access to Services In the United States, 2008), so to suggest that the abortion rate is at record lows in the United States is to only acknowledge and account for the number of surgical abortions performed. But given that the CDC reports that 16.5 percent of the estimated 1.2 million abortions that take place annually in the United States involve the mifepristone drug or RU-486, it is safe to say that the annual abortion rate is much higher than Guttmacher would lead us to believe.

Second, Evans is guilty of the post hoc ergo propter hoc [1] fallacy (correlation doesn’t prove causation). Even if it’s true that the annual abortion rate in America has hit record lows under the Obama administration, this in no way proves that it was BECAUSE of the Obama presidency over the last eight years that abortion rates are at record lows. We have good reason to believe that the drop in abortion rates is actually due to the pro-life laws that have been enacted over the last decade.

Michael New, PH.d. (assistant professor at the University of Alabama) published a study on the impact of U.S. antiabortion legislation and found that informed consent, parental involvement, and public funding restriction laws all helped decrease abortion rates. Informed consent laws may include a counseling visit prior to obtaining an abortion, specific information about development in the womb, or even viewing photos of an unborn baby’s development. Such laws may result in a 3-7 percent decrease in the abortion rate. Parental involvement laws decrease abortion rates from anywhere between 13 to 42 percent. And according to the study, 37% of women who were abortion-minded ended up carrying to term when public funding was not available.

If Rachel Evans is going to draw a correlation between states of affairs, such as the Obama administration and the significant drop in the abortion rate, she needs to prove causation between the two.

Third, Evans wrongly portrays the pro-life movement’s goal. While we certainly celebrate declines in the abortion rate (if this is indeed the case), that is not our ultimate goal. Pro-life people are working to make abortion unthinkable with the ultimate goal of making the killing of innocent unborn humans illegal. Even if pro-choice presidents and legislators were responsible for a short-term decline in abortion rates, our ultimate goals are different. So if we were to stick with pro-choice presidents, assuming Evans is right, we might have short-term success but our ultimate goal will never be met, which means that looking at the big picture, we’ll actually be losing more lives than saving.

Now that's we've examined Evans' basic presuppositions in writing her article, our next response will engage with her first two arguments.

[1] “Post hoc ergo propter hoc” is Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.” The fallacy is made when you argue a cause and effect relationship between two events without drawing a link between them.

Tales from Q&A: How can you trust me with a child if you can’t trust me with a choice? [Jay Watts]

“How can you trust me with a child if you can’t trust me with a choice?”

This question came from a young woman in Northern California during a Q&A session following my presentation on the Case for Life. The room of nearly 1,000 students stirred and a few oooh’s told me that the audience felt this was a good challenge.

It isn’t a real challenge at all, but a blank assertion lacking any substance offered in the guise of a question. It is no different than when other people have responded to my talks by saying things like, “Women have a right to choose!” As Greg Koukl points out, if anyone said something like “Women have a right to take!” the immediate response would be to ask, “Take what?” The same response is appropriate for those making these sweeping assertions. “Choose what?”

My job was to help the questioner see the mistake that she made without embarrassing her or bullying her from the stage. Here is how I answered:

“I respect your freedom to make all sorts of choices. Where you choose to live, what you choose to study in school, and what clothing you choose to wear. But let me ask you a question. Do you think that you ought to be allowed to walk across the room, seize any item from one of your fellow students in this section over here, and keep whatever you take as your own without permission or consent from the previous owner?”

She immediately objected, “That isn’t the same thing!”

“I didn’t say it was. I concede that it isn’t. The question still remains, should you be allowed to make that choice?”

Again, immediately she responded, “Of course not.”

I asked her another question. “Why?”

“Because that would be stealing.”

Here I asked for further clarification. “So. Why should that stop you? You may choose to steal. Why shouldn’t I trust you with that choice?”

She answered, “Because stealing is wrong.”

“I agree. Would it be safe to say that we both characterize stealing as immoral?”

She nodded, “Yes.”

“Okay. We have reached a good place of agreement here. We both agree that you ought to be free to make certain choices in your life. We both also agree that there are other choices that are immoral by their nature, like stealing, that you should not be free to choose.

You asked me a question, how can I trust you with a child if I can’t trust you with a choice? My response is that you never addressed the nature of my objection. I have no interest in limiting your morally legitimate choices. I just argued for an hour that that intentionally destroying the life of an innocent human being for elective reasons or reasons of convenience is immoral. I also argued using science and philosophy that the unborn belong in the family of intrinsically valuable human beings. (see Scott's Case for Life page here) If those arguments hold up to scrutiny then abortion would fall into the same category as stealing from your classmate. It would fall into the category of actions that we both agree ought to be restricted. My objections to abortion have nothing to do with any evaluation about whether you can be trusted. It has to do with an evaluation of the nature of the act of abortion.

You are now free to address my arguments about the nature of unborn human life and our moral duties and obligations to them. I would suggest that your best resource in this endeavor would be David Boonin’s book A Defense of Abortion. I think he makes as good a case as possible for people that wish to defend the right to an abortion, though I obviously feel his arguments are ultimately less than convincing. Francis Beckwith and Christopher Kaczor have provided strong rebuttals to Boonin that I find convincing (see here and here), but you should read them for yourself and make your own determination.

What you and I cannot do is offer assertions without content. We both have to resist the urge to shout slogans and respect each other enough to learn to engage against the best arguments available. This issue is too important to be so casually dismissed.”

Using a Tragedy for Your Agenda [Clinton Wilcox]

Early this morning, tragedy struck Orlando, Florida when a man, Omar Mateen, walked into a gay club in the city and opened fire. He killed 50 people and wounded at least 53, and after a three-hour standoff, police burst into the building and killed the gunman. Of course, there is much speculation about his motives. It's not my intention here to guess at what his motivations actually were. While many were quick to sympathize with those killed and urged us to mourn with them, many also took to social media to support their own pet agenda. One such tweet follows:

 

This gentleman took to twitter to compare the need for gun control to the need for abortion regulations. Of course the comparison doesn't make any sense, but it didn't stop him (and many others) from predictably arguing, following a shooting, that we need stricter gun control. Let's take a look at his claims.

"How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion..."

There's a very important difference between owning guns and abortion. The right to own and bear arms is a right that is specifically spelled out and guaranteed by our Constitution, ever since its inception. The text of the Second Amendment reads as follows: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." To infringe means to "Act so as to limit or undermine (something)". To institute these things (mandatory waiting period, doctor's note, etc.) would be clearly infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms. However, the "right" to an abortion is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. In fact, it was a "right" invented in 1973 by the Supreme Court. Killing an innocent human being is not a natural right, and our Founders knew that.

"It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns than with women and health care, right?"

Here Nev begs the question by assuming that abortion is health care. But if pregnancy is not a disease, then abortion is not healthcare. It makes sense to do this with abortion because, the immorality of the act aside, many women and young girls who abort do so out of panic, fear, and frustration. These limitations are put in place to allow these girls/women to have adequate time to calm down and make sure they're in a more rational frame of mind to make a decision about what they think they want.

"...no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?"

Well, more than 50 million women have killed their children in a manner of minutes in these abortion clinics.

Comparing gun control to abortion is simply a false analogy. If you institute gun control, the only people who win are the criminals, who will still be able to acquire guns. They will have an easier time because law-abiding citizens will be unable to protect themselves. Comparing gun control with abortion regulations is nothing more than exploiting a tragedy for your own agenda.

Is God Pro-Abortion? A Response to Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks [Aaron Brake]

Receiving your news and information from late night television, comedy shows, or internet political commentary can often leave you misinformed, especially when hosts address topics in which they have no expertise. Such is the case in this video where Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks offers his thoughts on the Bible and abortion and attempts to make the case that God is pro-abortion:

How should Christian pro-life advocates respond? Cenk needs to be corrected on several points.

First, Cenk begins by writing off the scientific evidence that a genetically distinct, living, and whole human being comes into existence at conception. The question of “when life begins” has been settled for decades thanks to the science of embryology. To quote just a few experts in the field,

Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual. (and) A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”[1]

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization… is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”[2]

“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.”[3]

You can read 40 similar quotes from medical experts in this article who reach the same conclusion.

Despite the evidence, Cenk says the view that life begins at conception is based solely on religion. Why? Because this allows him to dismiss the view as “religious” which further justifies his refusal and inability to interact with the evidence. Not only is this wrong, but it is intellectually lazy. Secular pro-life advocates use the same evidence and argumentation in making a case for the pro-life view, and their analysis certainly cannot be labeled “religious.”

Sing It Together Now: "My Booooooody" [Aaron Brake]

Joy Behar of The View recently commented on the issue of abortion:

There are several versions of the “my body, my choice” argument. Behar’s version seems to be the unsophisticated sort so here are a few quick points to keep in mind when responding.

First, clarify the nature of abortion. Abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being. This definition should be uncontroversial.

Second, focus the debate on the one question that matters: “What is the unborn?” Notice the other host in this video raises the issue of whether or not the father has a say in the abortion. This doesn’t get to the heart of the matter which is, “What is the unborn?” If the unborn is not a human being, no justification for elective abortion is necessary. If the unborn is a human being, no justification is adequate.

Third, the “my body, my choice” slogan is prima facie false. A woman cannot do whatever she wants with her own body, and neither can a man. There are plenty of laws which restrict our freedom with what we can do with our own bodies (e.g., drug laws, prostitution, public urination, indecent exposure, etc.). More to the point, laws always restrict what we can do with our own bodies when what we are doing brings harm to another individual. This is exactly what is happening in the case of abortion, where the mother’s decision not only brings harm to her unborn but intentionally kills him or her.

Fourth, Behar seems to assume there is only one body involved. But it should be obvious there are two: the mother’s and the unborn. While the mother’s body is certainly involved, it is not the mother’s body that is being aborted. After all, the woman survives the abortion (in most cases) while the unborn doesn’t. This is also confirmed by science. The unborn from conception has a totally unique, individual, and separate genetic code. The unborn has a separate central nervous system, may have a different blood type and, in the case of a boy, a different gender. In other words, a pregnant woman does not have four arms, four legs, and two heads. A woman does not transform into a hermaphrodite when pregnant with a boy and then back to a female after birth. There are two bodies involved, not one. So this is not so much about what a woman can do with her own body as it is what she should be permitted to do with the body and life of her unborn.

Finally, present counterexamples where appropriate. Perhaps what Behar means to say is that a woman is sovereign over her own body and, even if the unborn is a human being, the mother still has the right to kill him or her. In this case it may be helpful to provide counterexamples which go against our moral intuitions. For example, if a woman can do whatever she wants with her own body, may she intentionally cause birth defects to her unborn child? May she take the drug thalidomide during pregnancy knowing this could cause her child to be born without arms or legs? Unless they are a moral monster, the answer should be, “No.” But if it is not morally permissible for a woman to intentionally cause birth defects to her unborn child based on the “my body, my choice” position, why is it permissible for the woman to kill her unborn child? 

First simplify the debate and then argue. This is the pro-life two-step.