Book Review: Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice by Rebecca Todd Peters [Clinton Wilcox]

Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice by Rebecca Todd Peters is, unfortunately, another one of those dime-a-dozen pro-choice books that adds nothing of value to the conversation. Peters is a self-proclaimed feminist social ethicist, but her understanding of the abortion issue is shallow, at best, and she doesn't understand the arguments that pro-life people actually make. On top of that, she outright lies about the agenda of pro-life people. She talks a lot about the role of women in the abortion issue and doesn't give any good reasons to believe the unborn should not be considered in the abortion issue. She uses the word "moral" a lot, but every time she does, the immortal words of Inigo Montoya just echo through my head: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I also doubt she's ever actually read any books written by pro-life people. I have at least two points of evidence for this claim: 1) She actually claims that "[t]here is an unexamined pronatalist bias in this country." She can only make this statement if she's never read any books or articles by pro-life thinkers. She may disagree, but to claim that our bias is unexamined, or that it really even is a bias, is ignorance of the highest degree. 2) Not only does she consistently misrepresent pro-life arguments and lie about pro-life activists, whenever she quotes a pro-life activist it's either from a news source, such as New York Times, or a staunchly pro-abortion website like Mother Jones. She also consistently shows a lack of knowledge of the abortion debate, in general. This is not acceptable behavior for someone who wants to be known as an ethicist.

I hate having to be so harsh. I was pretty blunt when I reviewed Willie Parker's book because it was so awful (and dishonest), and unfortunately Peters' book is just more of the same feminist complaints about misogyny and how pro-life people just want to control the bodies of women. It really does just get old because so many pro-choice advocates are willing to fight dirty in their advocacy for abortion. I am willing to recommend pro-choice books that make meaningful contributions to the abortion debate, as I did with Kate Greasley's recent book. This is a book that will go unrecommended from me as a good contribution to the abortion debate.

Unfortunately, the book reads as if it was written by someone who is uneducated in logic, has never read Scripture, and has not read many books by people who aren't feminists. I'll just give three examples from chapter eight of the book, then I'll stop harping on her lack of qualifications as an ethicist and just respond to a couple of her arguments which are germane to her overall thesis.

1. On page 170 of her book, she claims that in today's society, sex is not just for procreative purposes. People just tend to want to have sex for pleasure rather than to create a child. This doesn't mean that many people aren't willing to accept pregnancy resulting from sex, but "it challenges the long-held Christian narrative that the purpose of sex is procreation."

But this is completely false. She acts as if no one in Christian history has ever had sex simply because they enjoy it. But one read through Song of Solomon will show that to those who take Scripture seriously, sex is also something that is immensely enjoyable. In fact, the Apostle Paul told fellow believers it is better to marry than to burn with lust and have sex in a sinful way (1 Corinthians 7:9). Christians have long held that sex is enjoyable and there is nothing wrong with having sex because you enjoy it. But none of this lends any sort of evidence for Peters' claim that sex is not for reproduction. The final end of the sexual organs is reproduction -- that's why we call them reproductive organs and not recreational organs. Sex is enjoyable, but it is not the purpose of sex. Just as eating is enjoyable but the purpose of eating is to nourish the body, not simply for enjoyment. A couple can have sex because they enjoy it, but all sex they have must be open to creation of new life to be ethical.

2. On pages 170-171, she talks about cryogenically frozen embryos. Considering how many pro-life people in minority groups believe in adopting these embryos, she makes the following argument:
"[C]oncern over the fate of these embryos pales in comparison to the outsized public interest in preventing pregnant woman from securing safe, legal abortions. This is further evidence that abortion politics are not about abortion, the status of prenatal life, or women's health, as much as they are about the social control of women."

Her argument here doesn't even make any sense. Pro-life people, by definition, do not believe in "safe, legal abortions" because they kill innocent human beings. It's not very clear what she's arguing. Is she arguing that pro-life people care more about saving frozen embryos than in helping the women that can't abort because of pro-life laws? That, of course, would take some defense (which is not forthcoming), especially since there are numerous pro-life pregnancy care centers and churches who are able and willing to help. This is just a nonsensical argument.

3. Finally, on pages 174ff., she quotes a theologian named Kendra Hotz who describes parenthood as "a calling that not everyone is called to fulfill." She continues, "the choice for parenthood is bigger than what pleases me; it is also about God's reconciliation of all things." She argues that parenthood is a sacred trust, a covenant relationship entered into in which parents care for and nurture their children.

Of course, this is a mistaken view about parenthood; or at least, very simplistic. No one can be forced into a covenant -- covenants are agreements made between two or more parties. While parents could certainly enter into a covenant (and they do when they get married), having children cannot be considered a covenant because no one has a choice to be conceived. No child has a choice to be part of this covenant relationship. In fact, it's this natural neediness and the fact that they didn't choose to be conceived which is part of what grounds the parents' obligation to care for their children.

The idea that not everyone is called to be a parent is simply absurd. If God didn't call all people, in general, to be parents, he wouldn't have made sex the way to conceive children and then give all people a sex drive. We have a sex drive, and reproduction happens through sex, because God wants us to populate the world and wants us to have families. Families are good things. People are made for community, which is why Paul exhorts us not to forsake assembling together with other believers. Friends come and go, but families give us a community of people who will always be there for each other when we need it most. In fact, I don't find anywhere in Scripture that only certain people are called to be parents. What I do find in Scripture is that certain people are called to be single. In fact, because our sex drive is so strong, it takes a special gift and a special calling to remain single and celibate. It is not for everyone. Again, this idea that one must be specially called into parenthood is absurd.

The main argument of Peters' book is to shift the discussion away from what she calls "the justification framework" (i.e. the idea that women have to give reasons to justify their abortions) toward a framework of reproductive justice. She writes, "[Reproductive Justice] has three primary principles: the right not to have a child, the right to have a child, and the right to parent in safe and healthy environments" (p. 7, emphases hers). Trying to shift the conversation away from the nature of the unborn isn't exactly a new tactic -- many pro-choice people do that in their conversations, and occasionally a pro-choice author will try to do that in one of her books (e.g. Eileen McDonagh trying to shift the conversation from one of choice to one of consent). In fact, Judith Thomson's famous essay with the violinist tried to shift the conversation away from the nature of the unborn. Peters' new tactic is to frame the conversation away from what the unborn are and more toward the lives of women. She believes that the complex lives of women is the foundation that we must start from in the conversation on abortion.

Peters is very much pro-abortion, believing that any restrictions on abortion are immoral and oppressive. How does she justify her pro-choice stance? She believes that the "prenate" (her term for the human embryo/fetus) only crosses the threshold of life by the physical experience of birth, becoming part of the human community (p. 5). She then claims that beginning with the premise that women should continue their pregnancies misidentifies the act of "terminating a pregnancy" as the starting point for our ethical conversation. She writes, "It reduces the conversation to an abstract question of whether abortion is right or wrong, creating a binary framework woefully inadequate for the complexity of the moral questions surrounding abortion. Abortion, however, is never an abstract ethical question. It is, rather, a particular answer to a prior ethical question: 'What should I do when faced with an unplanned, unwanted, or medically compromised pregnancy?' This question can only be addressed within the life of a particular woman at a given moment in time" (p. 6). Thus, by attempting to reframe the discussion of abortion, she can completely dismiss the question of whether or not the unborn are human beings with a wave of the hand and resort to telling stories about the difficult situations women find themselves in and justifying their decision to abort based on their considerations regarding that difficult decision (of course, she ignores the fact that abortion is only a difficult decision because there is a human child at stake in the decision). Plus, she doesn't really give us any reason for believing that we should reframe the discussion in such a way. One could just as easily support infanticide or toddlercide by arguing that we should reframe the discussion away from one of are infants and toddlers human persons and toward one of the complex lives of parents. However, if the unborn are persons, as pro-life advocates argue, then we can't just take them out of the equation. No matter how complex a woman's life is, it doesn't justify murder of an innocent human being. So unless she can make a compelling case that the unborn are not persons, then we are free to reject her suggestion that we move the conversation in a different direction.

What are her arguments that the unborn aren't persons? She has a small section in chapter five dedicated to that question. Needless to say, she does not engage with the argument of pro-life thinkers but primarily repeats talking points you hear from lay level pro-choice advocates:

1. Several times she declares that the belief that personhood is established at fertilization is a "theological belief". Of course this is plainly false (again lending credibility to my claim that she likely has never read any books or articles from pro-life thinkers).

2. While "prenates" are human, they are not fully developed. They don't have a heart in the same sense that we do, even though it beats, because the prenate body is still in development. This argument always strikes me as bizarre. Do pro-choice people not understand how development works? Do they not realize that even infants and toddlers are not fully developed? She claims that birth is when we become persons, but if she is going to deny personhood rights to the unborn on the grounds that they are not fully developed, she is being inconsistent by not denying infants or toddlers personhood rights.

3. Prenates cannot survive outside the womb before viability and are dependent on the woman's body. But of course, these things do not justify denying personhood rights to the unborn. After all, people in reversible comas cannot survive outside the hospital environment without their respirator. Diabetics cannot survive without insulin. Being dependent on someone or something else for your survival does not mean you have less rights. In fact, we often tend to think it grounds more of an obligation to help someone, if we can. Not less of an obligation.

Those are the main arguments she gives, and needless to say they are not persuasive in the least. There are many problems with Peters' book, and I'd have to write a book myself to address all of them.

One major issue is that she cites studies in support of many of her statements. The problem, though, is that almost always she quotes just one study that supports her position. However, one study is not evidence of your claim. The thing about studies is that they are easy to fudge the results of (and, in fact, it has been shown that many studies are unreliable because the sociologists were more interested in appeasing their donors than in getting to the truth -- and she even talks about one such study on p. 88, in which the sociologist was unaware of biases that tainted his studies). Results must be replicatable to be reliable, so pointing to one study does not support her position. And despite the fact she dismisses pro-life organizations as unreliable, she constantly relies on pro-abortion organizations, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who are also unreliable as organizations for the same reason (just reversed). In fact, I've written an article taking ACOG to task for being dishonest when asked a question about when human life begins.

She also makes several dishonest claims about pro-life people. One of the most egregious is on p. 42, in which she references the Center for Medical Progress' videos showing Planned Parenthood selling fetal body parts for profit. She repeats the common claim that these videos were "heavily edited". Of course they were heavily edited. That's what you do when you want to shorten them for public consumption. What she probably means is that they were "deceptively edited", despite the fact that the full videos are available on-line for viewing

It would take a book or several lengthy articles to pick out every error in reasoning or false claim made by Peters. But this should suffice to show that Peters' book, unfortunately, is not one that adds meaningfully to the discussion on abortion. Your time will be better spent reading something else.

Book Review: Arguments About Abortion by Kate Greasley [Clinton Wilcox]

Arguments About Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law is a book published in 2017 by Kate Greasley, a British lawyer. This book took me by surprise as I didn't hear about it until earlier this year. It also seems to have slipped under the radar, having only one review at the time of this review's writing on Amazon and none on Goodreads. However, I would say, without exaggeration, that Greasley's book is an important contribution to the discussion on abortion and for anyone who wants to understand this issue, this book is required reading. I read a lot of books by pro-life and pro-choice advocates. It's not often that a good pro-choice book comes along, one that not only makes a compelling intellectual and articulate case for the pro-choice position, but also interacts with the best of the pro-life academic literature on the topic. The best book defending abortion before this one was David Boonin's 2002 book A Defense of Abortion. Now I can place this book alongside Boonin's as one that anyone who wants to educate themselves on the issue must read.

Greasley's book is in three parts. In the first part, she examines arguments that try to show that the question of personhood is irrelevant to the abortion debate, including 1) Thomson's bodily autonomy argument justifies abortion whether or not the unborn are persons, 2) that abortion can be justified as an act of self-defense, and 3) Dworkin's "red herring" argument, that at the heart of the issue is not really personhood but that pro-life people believe that life is sacred and inviolable. Greasley interacts with these, and others, dispatching them, showing that these arguments do not justify abortion if the unborn are persons. So the personhood of the unborn is the central issue regarding whether or not abortion is moral. The second part of her book is where she makes her case that the unborn are not persons. The third part of her book talks about issues regarding abortion law and regulation.

I will not look at her arguments in part one since I agree with her position. I also won't look at her arguments in part three because they really depend upon her arguments in part two succeeding. So I will leave that up to the reader to follow up there. I do want to look at her arguments regarding personhood. I don't believe her arguments succeed in justifying abortion for the reasons that I give below.

While Greasley's case is intelligent and articulate, I believe that her case fails for one important reason: She interacts with some of the best pro-life thinkers, but she only interacts with two main views of personhood among pro-life advocates: substance dualism and animalism. She doesn't interact with hylemorphism, such as that held by Edward Feser. The reason that this is important is not just because she neglects to interact with a feasible account of personhood, so considering that she hasn't refuted it, her own argument that the unborn are not persons fails. But it's also important because the criticisms she raises against substance dualism and animalism are easily answered by hylemorphism. So it can give the impression that there are no good responses from pro-life advocates when in fact there are responses to these concerns already in the literature.

That being said, I'll address two of her main contentions in the book: that the unborn do not count as persons, and that pro-life personhood accounts also suffer from various amounts of arbitrariness.

Personhood

Greasley takes the position that personhood is a gradual property, not an all-or-nothing one. Similar to Mary Anne Warren, she takes personhood attributes to be the fully realized, presently exercisable capacities that typical human adults exhibit. Human adults are our paradigm case for persons, and when you ask what capacities they possess that other creatures, which we don't consider persons, lack, these are things like rational thought, the ability to communicate, etc. These, of course, are gradually developing properties. But since early embryos lack these capacities, just like creatures who are non-persons lack them, they are not persons, either.

However, while personhood develops gradually, there is a definite point at which we should establish legal personhood, even if the unborn are not yet persons in the moral sense. She thinks that the unborn don't become persons in the moral sense until sometime after birth, but that we should establish birth as the point at which we establish personhood legally. So she would take personhood not to arrive at a certain threshold, which someone like David Boonin would take to be a set point, Greasley takes personhood to be a ranged property. A ranged property, she explains, is some arbitrarily determined point at which we will establish that all who meet these qualifications will be considered persons (paraphrased, p. 183). Regarding the fact that not all human beings who are born lack these personal properties that adults exhibit, she further explains, "[a]lthough human beings in general meet the condition, there are of course some individuals who fail entirely to realize that capacity or who realize it only to a minimal degree, perhaps as a consequence of some unfortunate defect or deprivation" (p. 183). In other words, some human beings may fail to exhibit the properties that adult humans exhibit which make them persons. But as long as they fall under the legally recognized range of personhood, they are persons, no matter how closely they resemble adults, the paradigm case. To even further explain the concept of a range, you might think of the state of California. Fresno and Blythe are both cities in California. Fresno is further into California than Blythe is, Fresno being in the center and Blythe being near the border to Arizona. But even though one city is clearly further inside California than the other, both are considered California cities because they are inside the state boundary.

Of course, Greasley recognizes that a possible retort is that this argument attempts to have it both ways, that personhood is binary (i.e. you're either a person or you're not) and that it supervenes upon properties which come in degrees. So the question is, why draw this line at birth instead of some other place? She offers the following as reasons that birth, rather than some other range, should be considered as the range property that establishes legal personhood. She considers an argument for legal or pragmatic interests, but considering that it has some unpalatable consequences (such as mentally handicapped people being legal persons only by "polite extension"), she presents arguments that this range is acceptable as morally necessary, as well.

1) Opacity respect -- Greasley considers that her argument might appear circular because it claims that there is a moral interest driving the specification of "person" as a ranged property, yet this moral interest exists only if all individuals within the range actually are persons. But this is what personhood accounts grounded in gradual properties seem to deny. So she introduces the concept of "opacity respect" as a way to try and ground an independent moral reason for focusing on the ranged property, one that is independent from a prior commitment to equality. Opacity respect, borrowing from Ian Carter, is simply that a respect for human equality requires maintaining a sort of blindness toward their individual capacities. We treat them as equals regardless of how developed their capacities are.

However, rather than avoiding the charge of circularity, this only pushes the problem back an extra step. As Calum Miller responds, either humans are morally equal or not. If they are not, then it is implausible that we are in any way required to treat them with respect. The only way we would need opacity respect is if they are already equal. (Calum Miller, "Arguments About Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law Book Review", The New Bioethics, Vol. 24 No. 2, 2018, 190-195). So the charge of circularity stands.

2) Some arbitrariness in the law is unavoidable. Consider the seven month cut-off for prosecution of a serious criminal offense. This is an arbitrary limit set which permits some prosecutions which shouldn't be permitted and precludes some which ought to be permitted. Stipulating personhood at conception is unsatisfactory due to how far away those organisms are from the sorts of creature which exemplify personal properties, and putting the threshold at birth is not unacceptably arbitrary, as shown by the case of criminal prosecution. But the event of birth is favorable for several reasons: It is a highly visible event, it is not speculative, and it is an easy guideline with which to comply. By contrast, other milestones (those before and after birth) are less visible and easier to mistake or conflate with other events.

Now while it's true that birth is a highly visible event, this is hardly grounds for favoring birth over conception. After all, even though it's not visible like birth is, every embryo that implants itself in her mother's womb was conceived. The fact that we couldn't see it doesn't mean the event isn't significant.

Also, while birth is not speculative, it is not always safe for the unborn child. Unborn children should gestate for 40 weeks. A child born too prematurely faces developmental problems, if he even survives at all. Yet this argument seems to suggest that we can intentionally induce birth at any stage of development, and you haven't actually harmed the entity in question, despite now being born with developmental issues that you purposely caused. Additionally, while the date of conception may be speculative, the fact of conception is not. The fact that we can't accurately pinpoint the exact date of conception is not an argument against conception being the event that establishes personhood in an individual.

Finally, the fact that it is an easy guideline with which to comply is not grounds for establishing birth as the event which establishes personhood either. How is the threshold of birth easier to comply with than the threshold of conception? And what if the law is wrong? You might be killing entities which are actually persons for a weak justification, that birth is easier to comply with than conception. And while it may be easier to determine the date of birth than the date of conception, it is not out of the question to approximate the date of conception. Just because one is easier does not make the other illegitimate.

3) There are good reasons for favoring birth as the legal threshold for personhood over other thresholds. These reasons are: 1) Birth is a watershed event in the life of a human because "emergence into the world marks the beginning of a human's exposure to the objects of mental experience and enables the discriminations necessary for conscious self-awareness and the basic understanding of where we end and everything else begins" (Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, p. 194). 2) At the point of birth, the neonate attains separate embodiment in the world.

Regarding her first point, it's really meant more as a response to pro-choice philosophers who argue that there's no significant difference between a late-term fetus and a newborn. Greasley's point is that there are significant differences that aren't usually mentioned by these philosophers that show that we can support late-term abortion but oppose infanticide because of these changes. Now, Greasley's discussion here is interesting but ultimately I think she misses the point of the arguments by these philosophers (and gets some facts about the late-term fetus wrong). These philosophers don't necessarily claim that there are no differences at all, but in the way that is morally relevant (such as needing to be self-aware to have a right to life), there is no significant difference between the two. However, there is no real need to belabor the point or offer much of a response, since this is a point toward these other philosophers and not a general defense of her position. All I need to say is that even though her argument here makes sense in the context of arguing for abortion rights at birth rather than later, she is still placing one's personhood in a developmental milestone, so her argument is no more successful than Sumner's argument that sentience is what matters morally, or Tooley's argument that self-awareness is what matters morally.

Regarding Greasley's second point, it is still largely a response to the other pro-choice philosophers who might place personhood threshold in some other property (this is largely because she has dismissed the conception threshold out of hand with arguments that I will address below). In order to support her contention, she points to the existence of conjoined twins, using Abigail and Brittany Hensel, who are conjoined below the neck, as her example of such twins. She claims that despite there being two "separate and distinct little girls," each one having an independent mental life and personality, their connectedness diminishes their personhood because of things such as their inability to live the kind of life distinctive of persons.

She goes on to say that the fetus' attachment to the woman is more extreme than that of the Hensel girls, but she asks us to consider another pair of conjoined twins. This time one twin is completely enclosed within the other but still is bodily sustained and possesses a mental life. She claims that many of us would doubt that it is still correct to call this individual a person. She claims this shows that there is a level of enmeshment beyond which much of the meaning of personhood is lost.

The problem with Greasley's claim here is that she doesn't support it at all, merely pointing to what she thinks many of us would accept as a person. But why shouldn't we consider Greasley's second pair of twins both persons? I see no reason not to consider the enclosed twin a person, especially since my conception of person has to do with one's nature, not with the functions one can perform. Greasley offers no supporting arguments for her assertion besides the one I just addressed, so her argument is not a very strong one, especially considering how strong the arguments for personhood established at conception are.

"Punctualism"

Greasley refers to the idea that personhood comes into existence at one time "punctualism," as opposed to "gradualism," the idea that personhood is a property that comes on gradually through the development of some characteristic seen as morally relevant for personhood status. Greasley goes on later to critique arguments made by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen in their book Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. I hold to a different account of personhood than George and Tollefsen do, and they can respond to Greasley's charges, if they wish to. I hold to hylemorphism, similar to that held by Ed Feser and David Oderberg, an idea that Greasley doesn't critique in her book. So I will respond to the arguments in her book which could be directed toward hylemorphism.

She trots out a few reductios against the idea that personhood is established at conception. I'm not going to address them here because they are in the context of giving an overview of the discussion within the abortion topic. She also trots out some reductios against personhood being established at other points along human development. Additionally, I have responded to these reductios elsewhere, as have other pro-life writers.

She then goes on to argue that the conception thesis is just as arbitrary as the other personhood criteria that pro-life people allege are arbitrary. She alleges there are three ways in which those who are punctualists are arbitrary: 1) In assigning our value in our species; 2) They don't treat like cases alike; and 3) Sorites-susceptibility.

First, the charge is that by placing personhood in one's humanity, we are being arbitrary because species membership is irrelevant to one's moral status. One might consider it not seriously wrong to abort a cat fetus, but a human fetus is no more sentient or intelligent than the cat fetus. The only main difference is its species. This is to arbitrarily prefer one species over another without reference to morally differentiating characteristics.

Now, Greasley does anticipate a possible objection to the arbitrariness charge. Biological humans are special because they possess the unique capacity for rationality and higher thinking, complex desires, etc., that are typical of adult human beings. However, Greasley says that this essentially just pushes the problem back a step. For the advocate of abortion rights can simply ask "Why is it that merely belonging to a biological species the typical adult members of which are capable of higher forms of thinking itself suffices for personhood status?" (emphasis hers)

Greasley's pro-life formulation is true as far as it goes, but she doesn't give the full argument. It's not simply that human embryos and fetuses belong to a species the typical adult members of which are capable of higher forms of thinking. It's that human nature is a rational nature. The reason that human embryos will grow up to be self-aware, conscious, etc., is because they have a rational nature, which grounds all of their capacities. So it's not just simply that they possess these capacities that they will develop in time, it's that they have a rational nature which grounds these capacities. This rational nature is what grounds our personhood. Since all of the changes I eventually undergo are changes that are within my nature (or my internal programming) to undergo, I remain the same entity through all points in my life. There is no substantial change that happens, even though I get bigger, I develop a brain and get smarter, etc. None of these things changes me from one thing into a completely different thing. Since I am the same individual through all points in my life, if I have a right to life as an adult, I had one as an embryo because our rights are intrinsic to us; they are not established by anything outside us.

Her second charge is that we are not treating like cases alike. If it is not seriously wrong to abort a cat fetus, then since human fetuses are like cat fetuses (in the sense given above), it is arbitrary, then, to claim that aborting human fetuses is seriously wrong. However, the response above will outline why this is not an adequate charge against punctualists. Cat fetuses and human fetuses are not alike. Cat fetuses lack a rational nature and human fetuses have a rational nature. It is the rational nature that makes it seriously wrong to kill you, not mere species membership. And as an aside, I don't think that necessarily justifies aborting cat fetuses, either, but that discussion is outside the scope of this review.

Her third charge of arbitrariness is that of sorites-susceptibility. The sorites paradox has been around for a few thousand years. It basically asks the following: If I add one grain of sand to another, I will not have a heap of sand. But add enough grains of sand and a heap will eventually materialize. At what point did the sand particles become a heap? Was it when you added the 400th sand particle? The 399th? What is the relevant difference in sand particles between a heap and a non-heap? There is no single grain in which it could be plausibly argued that that was the grain of sand that turned it into a heap. Yet we definitely do have a heap at some point. The implications this has for abortion is that pro-life advocates sometimes argue that there is no real difference between a human at one point (say, birth) and a human a few moments before birth. Even worse, there is no way to distinguish a late-term fetus a few minutes before birth and a few hours before birth, and so on.

Now, the problem with this kind of argument is that it does commit a logical fallacy -- the aptly named "fallacy of the heap". Just because we can't pinpoint when X occurs does not mean, necessarily, that X doesn't happen. This fallacy is also sometimes called the fallacy of the beard, because this example is used to illustrate it: We know what a clean-shaven face is and we know what a bearded face is. But just because we can't pinpoint how many hairs are necessary to be considered a beard (as opposed to merely stubble) does not mean we can't recognize a beard when we see it. So when we point to a personhood criterion, say sentience, just because we can't tell at exactly what point sentience arises, doesn't mean we can't know when something is sentient. So this is not an argument I would make, and I don't think any of the best Christian thinkers use that kind of argument, either (Greasley points to something Kaczor wrote in his book, but she's misunderstanding the point of Kaczor's argument).

However, Greasley forgoes the route of accusing pro-life people of arguing fallaciously and instead decides to argue that pro-life people can't escape the charge of arbitrariness here. She claims that describing conception as a "discrete, identifiable 'moment' is considerably misleading," and then she points to various stages and events that happen during fertilization in order for conception to occur. She asks questions such as, ""If penetration of the egg is the moment, how far must the sperm penetrate before a person exists, and why is any one of those microscopically distinct advances more significant than the adjacent ones?" and so on (Greasley, p. 115). However, her various questions don't show that conception is an event that is susceptible to the sorites problem. When a pro-life person makes this argument, he is speaking of a human being that is already in existence and trying to show that placing personhood at one exact moment is arbitrary (e.g. if you need brain activity, how much brain activity is needed to be considered a person?). But in the case of fertilization, you are going from non-human entities to a human entity. Fertilization is a process, yes, but it is not a process of sperm and egg becoming human and then the human continues from there. In the process of fertilization, the sperm and the egg literally cease to exist and give rise to a new human being, and that event definitely has a point of occurrence. When the woman's ovum ceases to exist and the new human zygote comes into existence, that is when conception finishes.

This review was rather long, but I felt it necessary to address several of the arguments Greasley made in her book. Again, Greasley's book is meticulously argued and is required reading for anyone who wants to keep up with the academic discussion on abortion. Her arguments don't succeed in justifying abortion, nor do her arguments show that a "punctualist" view of human personhood is mistaken.

Book Review: A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide

Just yesterday I was able to finish this short book by pro-life activist and apologists Jonathon Van Maren and Blaise Alleyne. For those who are not familiar with the two, they are directors at the well known Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, and Jonathon is the host of the radio-show/podcast The Bridgehead, which hosts activists, intellectuals, and authors on a variety of subjects in the ongoing "culture wars" in the modern day West. Subjects covered include sexual ethics, pornography, abortion, human trafficking, pro-life history, religious liberty, and other hot topics.

The book A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide is a great expansion of the role that The Bridgehead plays in training pro-life advocates to successfully and persuasively communicate their views in the public square. The book is short(about 90 pages) and can be read through in a single sitting. In the introduction, the authors point out that many people who hold pro-life views on the issue of assisted suicide have been left challenged and frustrated when it comes to communicating a pro-life ethic on the issue, which the books hopes to alleviate. Personally, I have found myself in this category, without much understanding of assisted suicide and what the underlying philosophies and arguments are. With the culture gradually becoming more accepting of the practice, Christians and pro-life advocates need to be able to graciously engage on the topic, while acknowledging common ground with those who disagree.

This short work accomplishes just that. Van Maren and Alleyne do a good job of framing the issue of assisted suicide, by pointing out early on that the key issues aren't choice, autonomy, or dignity, but is instead the issue of suicide itself. They break down the views on the issue into three areas: The Split Position, the Total Choice Position, and the Pro-life Position.

Starting with the Split Position, they point out that many of those who hold that assisted suicide is a morally acceptable and even preferable response to human suffering will in fact support limits on the ability to choose to commit suicide. They come up with a handy tactic to highlight this hesitation, called "Trotting out the teenager", an expansion of the trotting out the toddler tactic used in the abortion debate. By pointing out that many people would NOT encourage a teenager who was suffering depression to engage in suicide, the issue then isn't choice or autonomy, but instead whether or not there are people we should protect and offer help to, instead of letting them engage in self-harm.

This leads to a "reduction ad absurdum" by the authors, who point out that if we would stop one person(say, a teenager) from choosing suicide, but not someone else, then we are engaging in a form of arbitrary discrimination, by assuming that some lives have more value, and are therefore more worthy of our care and attention. When this is pointed out, many begin to see the radical implications of a "right to suicide" ethic. Personally, I had never considered this angle before, and it was a great way to get myself thinking on the issue.

The second view, "Total Choice", is a bit more radical, in that it assumes that any person, at any time, may choose suicide for any reason whatsoever. While relatively few hold this view, some do, and the authors give a way to respond to this. One way is to, again, take the view to it's logical conclusion, and show that many will try to prevent suicide in one group pf people(say, a broken-hearted teenager) but will allow or encourage suicide in another group(the terminally ill). They highlight that many, even Peter Singer, who has advocated for "involuntary suicide" will make sacrifices to aid an ailing family member or loved one.

Before presenting the pro-life ethic as the preferred ethic on the issue, the book gives a brief but shocking look at the incidents and escalation of the acceptance of suicide in countries that have endorsed the practice. From horrifying stories out of Europe, to the gradual acceptance by the elderly of thinking they have a "duty" to their children to kill themselves, so as to prevent future burdens, Jonathon and Blaise highlight the dangers of a cultural acceptance of assisted suicide, or suicide in general.

Lastly, the authors present the pro-life ethic on suicide, in that suicide should not be endorsed or presented as a valid option, but instead both compassion and loving care are the obligations we owe to the suffering. The authors highlight several medical institutions to aid those who are suffering, such as palliative care, dignity therapy, and other methods of healing from suffering.

Overall, the book is a handy resource for anyone who wants an introduction to the issue of suicide and assisted suicide, and in learning how to communicate their views on the issue. I'd say the book can easily be considered the "Case for Life" of the anti-suicide pro-life movement, and should be recommended reading for pro-life ethics courses. The emphasis on tactics and common ground is especially important; with methods, stories, and thought-provoking scenarios taught through the book.

Book Review: The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution by Jenna Ellis [Aaron Brake]

It has been over one year since the Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges, a decision which granted legal recognition and moral validation to same-sex “marriage” in the United States. While this decision was just one of many abuses fueled by the judicial activism of nine unelected judges, it was also a culmination of sorts in our culture’s ever-increasing slide into secular humanism over the last several decades. Many Christians marvel at how we have come to such a place in a nation originally founded on objective moral and biblical principles. More importantly, they wonder if there is still a way back. Enter Jenna Ellis and her book The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.

Ellis is an attorney, professor, and legal analyst who uses her expertise in these areas to make a persuasive historical and legal case that grounds the authority of our nation’s Founding Documents in Divine Law, i.e., the discoverable, objective, unchanging law of God that includes both science and morality. As she explains, proper constitutional interpretation will be based on reading the U.S. Constitution in context, interpreting and applying the text correctly, while taking into account the original intent of the Founding Fathers. This of course assumes an objective, fixed meaning to the text, a belief many secular humanists want to replace with the idea of a fluid, changing Constitutional document possessing no authority higher than man himself. In so doing, secular humanists undermine their own position by ridding themselves of any adequate grounding for objective meaning and value judgments, the very things they seemingly wish to celebrate after the Obergefell decision. With no universal authority from God, all that is left is man-made government, and what the government giveth the government can taketh away. Secular humanists cannot have their cake and eat it too. This is why our Founding Fathers appealed to Divine Law in securing our inalienable rights, not a social contract.

If that’s the case, does this mean Christians should argue for a moral constitution based solely on the “personal faith” of the Founders? As Ellis convincingly argues, that would be a mistake. What we need is an objective, legal basis and attempting to establish Constitutional intent on personal beliefs does not get to the most important interpretative question when determining meaning: What does the text say? Unfortunately, this question has taken a back seat in recent decades due to judicial activism and the misapplication of judicial review (Marbury v. Madison), whereby the Supreme Court has usurped power and effectively elevated itself beyond its originally intended authority and scope into the unchecked, final arbitrator regarding the interpretation, application, and constitutionality of laws. With doctrines like judicial review governing our country, appealing to the “personal faith” of the Founders simply will not win the debate. We need to get back to the authoritative basis and correct interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and this begins by recognizing “that nearly all of the most prominent and influential Founders were lawyers.”[1]

Book Review: Love Unleashes Life: Abortion and the Art of Communicating Truth by Stephanie Gray [Clinton Wilcox]

(Full disclosure: Stephanie is a friend and I have had the pleasure of engaging in pro-life activism with her. As such, I'll be referring to her by her first name because it feels weird to me to call her Gray. Additionally, even though she's a friend, these are still my honest thoughts on her book.)

Love Unleashes Life is the newest book from pro-life advocate Stephanie Gray. It's a book that covers some of the intellectual and emotional arguments for abortion and how to respond to them, but the main focus of the book is in teaching people not just how to respond to these arguments, but also in how to engage in a more human way, by recognizing when emotional hang-ups and past trauma are undergirding someone's arguments.

This book should be on every pro-life advocate's bookshelf. There are a lot of books you can pick up to help respond to pro-abortion-choice arguments, but precious few books that help engaging pro-abortion-choice people in a way that cuts to the heart and responds not just to concerns people have but in responding to the trauma they have experienced in the past. Few books, if any, do that as well as Steph's book here.

This book seems to be largely intended for Christian readers. It's neither a pro nor a con, but I think worth pointing out, since I have nonreligious readers, as well. I do think nonreligious people can find a lot of value in this book, if they can overlook the Scripture references. And of course, the arguments she gives against these pro-abortion-choice arguments are nonreligious so as to appeal to the largest number of people possible and change more hearts and minds on the issue.

Aside from the aforementioned, one of the things that stood out in particular is the fact that it's an excellent primer on communicating a controversial message. If you want to be a good communicator you will do well to pick up this book. On top of that, it has good focus on how to use language well (for a couple of examples, she talks about avoiding the word "but" because it can sound dismissive, and about using personal pronouns, such as "he" and "she" when referring to the unborn).

I really enjoyed her discussion of double effect reasoning (pp. 64-65). Usually in discussions about abortions in the case of the woman's life being in jeopardy, the intentionality criterion is emphasized (e.g. that the unborn child's death is foreseen but unintended), but the other criteria for when double effect permits saving the woman's life in a life-threatening pregnancy aren't really discussed. Stephanie discusses all four criteria in some detail, to show what kinds of procedures double effect reasoning justifies. Her discussion even helped clarify my thinking a bit on this issue.

As great as this book is, there are still some areas I feel could use improvement (perhaps for consideration in a second edition sometime in the future), and they're mainly along the philosophical side of things.

Her book was mainly geared toward helping people like me talk more humanly about abortion, so it's not meant as a primer on the intellectual arguments for abortion choice. However, there were some arguments that were conspicuously missing.

In her discussion of rape, she trots out the toddler to show that since we would not kill a toddler who was conceived in rape, if the unborn are fully human we should not kill the unborn for this reason. That's true as far as it goes, but most pro-abortion-choice people argue the reason abortion is permissible in rape is because she has been made pregnant against her will, so we should not force her to use her body for this child because she did not consent to having sex. Steph did address bodily rights arguments, but didn't address them in the context of the rape discussion.

Another thing was her constant use of the term pre-born. I understand why she is using it, and I know many pro-life people who insist on using it (over the term "unborn"). The problem is that many pro-abortion-choice people consider the term "pre-born" to be a propagandistic term. It can lead to irrelevant debates over terminology if you use that term rather than unborn. It's possible that Steph's experience has shown her otherwise, but in my experience using "pre-born" instead of "unborn" can derail the conversation. At the very least, I thought the book could have used a brief section talking about why she opted to use "pre-born" instead of "unborn".

Her section about personhood is good, but I feel it didn't go far enough. Most of the way Steph responds to the question of personhood is by driving home the point that it's ageism -- the reason the unborn aren't conscious or self-aware is because they're too young to be conscious or self-aware, but will be in time. However, in our current age we are defending what has come to be considered a controversial proposition -- that there are such things as natures, and that numerical identity is retained even in the absence of psychological connectedness. Again, I realize the point of the book was not to go too deep into these arguments (and there are other books one can read to learn how to respond to these arguments), but I feel that we'd encounter a number of people who might actually answer "yes" to the question of whether or not age is a relevant factor in one's value, especially considering that euthanasia is becoming more accepted. So I would have liked to see addressed why consciousness or self-awareness are not relevant factors in determining one's value, since there are a number of people we'll have to respond to who hold to these types of arguments.

My final con was regarding her section of the teleological view of the uterus. This is a view I wholeheartedly endorse, and she's really the only person in the abortion literature I've seen defend this specific view (other thinkers defend teleological views, but it usually has to do with the personhood discussion and whether or not we're persons from fertilization). I like her argument, but there were a few counterarguments I came up with in my head that I wish she would have addressed. So basically this comes down to I really wish she would have responded to potential criticisms of her views because I'm very much interested in how she would respond to them.

The missing arguments aren't a huge deal, since it's not really the point of the book to give a full primer on these arguments. This book is an invaluable resource to a pro-life advocate's arsenal.

Book Review: Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade by Daniel K. Williams [Clinton Wilcox]

Special thanks to Oxford University Press for the free copy to review.

Daniel Williams has done a great service to the pro-life field by researching and compiling this volume regarding the history of the pro-life movement. There are now two books on abortion history that I would suggest grace every pro-life advocate's bookshelves: Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History by Joseph Dellapenna, and now Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams.

This book is meticulously researched and sourced. It tells the historical tale of how a movement of pro-life advocates, who were largely Catholic and Democrat, tried to work against the liberalization of abortion laws, which eventually culminated in Roe v. Wade, ending the ultimate safety of unborn children in the womb. It recounts not just how they fought against these bills, but also the progression of their arguments, from making Natural Law arguments, to Constitutional rights-based arguments, to showing abortion victim photography, to arguing that women are victims of the abortion culture. It shows how, even though the movement started as mainly Catholic Democrats, eventually it became a much more diverse movement.

I've been doing work in the abortion field for a long time now, and there's a lot of false information regarding abortion history and the history of the pro-life movement out there. I've heard much of it over and over again. One glaring historical error I hear is that there was no pro-life movement until after Roe v. Wade was passed. Williams shows that it simply isn't the case. There was much pro-life work being done before Roe v. Wade, in order to ensure that unborn human lives were protected.

It's also worth noting that Williams is very even-handed in his approach. He doesn't insult either side; in fact, he uses language that both sides use in the course of writing his book. So even though this book is written by a pro-life person, a pro-abortion-choice person can read this as a history book without getting offended by inflammatory language.

If there is one negative point to this book, it would just be that it's very matter-of-factly written, with a lot of information given to you, so it's pretty dry reading. It's not the kind of book you'd just sit down and finish in one or two sittings. But if you read it through, study it, and take notes, it will greatly benefit you, especially with all the false information regarding abortion history and the history of the pro-life movement is out there.

Book Review: We Choose Life: Authentic Stories (ed. Dave Sterrett) [Clinton Wilcox]

Special thanks to Dave Sterrett and Hendrickson Publishers for the free copy of the book to review.

In a person's lifetime, there are only so many books that he/she can read. That's why it's important to be as honest as possible in a book review, so someone can honestly gauge which book is a good use of their time. Unfortunately, while there were several really good essays in this compilation, I can't really give it my full endorsement, as there were too many bad essays to weigh against the good ones.

You would probably be better served by picking up David Reardon's book Aborted Women: Silent No More for compelling stories and Scott Klusendorf's book The Case for Life for the defense of the pro-life position.

I'll start with the pros of the collection before moving on to the cons.

Pros:

As I mentioned, there are several good essays in this collection. Scott Klusendorf's essay on making the pro-life case is excellent, of course. And I was surprised to see an essay written by Mike Adams in this collection. I am a regular reader of Mike's Townhall column, and it was great to read about how he became a pro-life Christian. I also thought Jewels Green's essay "How I Finally Chose Life" was one that stood out from the others. I enjoyed the philosophical reflections in Bernard and Amber Mauser's essay regarding usage of contraception and fertility treatments. It filled my little Thomist heart with joy. And the late Kortney Blythe Gordon's father, Larry Blythe, shared an essay chronicling the life and ministry of this young pro-life advocate who was taken from us too soon.

Another pro for the collection is that there is a wide range of perspectives from many different people in the movement, some well-known and some not so well-known. You'll get to learn what runs through the head of a staunch pro-choice advocate who eventually becomes pro-life, what it's like to have a child with spina bifida, etc.

Another pro is that the book is easy to read. You can probably finish it in just a couple of days, depending on how much time you have.

Now on to the cons:

I really felt that the editing could have been tightened up. There were spelling and grammatical errors, as well as sentence fragments. There were also too many instances of sentences going on and on, and several things being repeated over and over again unnecessarily. Several of the essays were just not well-written at all, and some only needed to be half as long as they were. Plus, many of the claims made in some of the essays were not sourced.

Additionally, the term "preborn" was overbearing throughout the collection, which seems more like a rhetorical move. It was even in Scott's essay on how to make the case for life, when Scott used the term "unborn" in the original (which you can find on the LTI website, www.prolifetraining.com) without indicating that the editor made those changes (usually indicated by brackets: [preborn]). I'm guessing what happened is that they used the "search and replace" feature to replace all instances of "unborn" with "preborn". What tipped me off to this is the fact that in endnote 2 on page 170, they changed the title of Greg Koukl's book, Precious Unborn Human Persons, to Precious Preborn Human Persons (emphasis mine).

Another minor complaint is that I had no idea who several of these people were. The collection would have been helped by including a short paragraph or two about who each of the contributors were.

One major issue with many of these essays is that they were less about abortion and more about trying to evangelize. Now, I'm a Christian. There's nothing wrong with evangelization, but in the proper contexts. For example, if I want to evangelize a friend, I'd give them a copy of Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, or The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. I wouldn't give them Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time by William Lane Craig or An Essay on Free Will by Peter van Inwagen. That's not the purpose of those books. The purpose of this book should focus on abortion, not on evangelization.

Now, some of the essays used Biblical quotations and ideas without it seeming out of place. That's fine, because in the life of Christians I should expect Biblical influence. But in several of the essays, it felt like they weren't trying to tell their story so much as trying to make converts out of whoever would read the book. There were many Biblical quotations out of place, and "Christianese" scattered throughout these essays. Frank Gray's essay is representative of the essays that I'm talking about. His essay is fully of Bible verses thrown in and Christianese used. I really didn't get the sense that he struggled because he didn't really expound on what he said he was going through in the essay because he felt evangelizing was more important in the moment. It really detracted from his story and didn't give me the sense he was really struggling or suffering during these times.

Again, I don't want to give off the wrong idea. I'm a Christian, and I believe evangelizing is the Church's mission. But there's a time and place for everything, and a book on abortion experiences isn't the place for writing a Gospel tract. As I said, there were several essays that used Scripture references to good effect. But there were several, like the aforementioned, that were overbearing with it and it detracted from their story.

Some of the essays in this compilation are definitely worth reading. Unfortunately, there were more that I felt were poorly written than good, so that unbalances this collection. So I can't wholeheartedly endorse this book, although it's only $7 on Amazon, so that might be a price you can justify for the number of good essays.

Book Review: Waiting for Eli by Chad Judice [Clinton Wilcox]

Full disclosure: Arcadian House Publishing has sent me a free copy of this book to review.

Waiting for Eli is the story of a father, Chad Judice, and his wife, Ashley, who is pregnant with their second son who has spina bifida, a debilitating disorder which often causes the person with it to be paralyzed, develop water on the brain, etc., and many are miscarried during pregnancy. More distressingly, more than 50% of children given this diagnosis are aborted. This is a story of the journey that Eli's parents took through the entire pregnancy, preparing for Eli's birth and for his life with spina bifida.

Throughout the book, Chad, his friends, and the faculty and students at the high school he teaches at, St. Thomas More in Lafayette, New Orleans, continually prayed to God for a miracle. Believing that all things happen for a reason, Chad realizes that one of the miracles that God worked during this entire ordeal through Eli, short for Elijah, was bringing his students back, or closer, to God, many of whom had either given up on their faith or weren't taking it very seriously, through their corporate prayers to God.

A couple of things need to be said. First, Chad is very much Catholic and takes his Catholicism seriously. This is a book that atheists and agnostics probably won't get much out of, though I think it would be beneficial for Protestants to read, if they can overlook all the Catholic events.

Additionally, I am very skeptical about claims that people can heal, even through the Holy Spirit. I believe that God works miracles, but I am very skeptical about whether humans, in the modern era, are meant to work miracles. Yet he constantly speaks of a "healing priest" (especially throughout chapter 5) whom he saw to "heal" his son. But it is not within the scope of this review to discuss this view, I wanted to point it out so that I wouldn't be seen as endorsing this view.

I greatly appreciated the honesty that I found in the book (in the opening chapter Chad talked about answering a student's question regarding his greatest fear, which was having a child that was disabled, and at one point his wife admitted to briefly entertaining the thought of having an abortion). Reading this book can help give someone an idea of what it's like to go through this, to struggle with questions and your faith as you are going through a very difficult time.

Chad spoke of a miracle regarding Eli. To be honest, aside from the miracle I mentioned earlier, I'm not really sure what the miracle was that Eli was talking about. His son wasn't miraculously healed of the spina bifida, but perhaps he meant that his son's disability wasn't worse than it was when he was born (the hole in his spinal column was quite small, which surprised the doctors and nurses present).

The book is well-written and easy to get through. It shouldn't take you very long to read, but the story is compelling enough that you want to know what happens to Eli and his family considering that this is an autobiography from real people.

So I believe that the book is definitely worth reading, for the fact that we can read a first-hand account of how God strengthens his children through adversity. There are some elements that gave me pause, but for more Charismatic or Catholic believers it won't be an issue.