Michael Brown Was Once a Fetus [James Jenkins]

Unless you have been hiding under a rock or in a coma for the last 9 months, you are aware of the Ferguson Missouri incident which involved the shooting of an unarmed teen, Michael Brown, by police officer Daren Wilson. It became a national story in which the president and the department of justice investigated and it lead to riots in the city of Ferguson. Michael Brown happened to be black and Officer Wilson was white which didn’t help matters much. The incident also touched of a “hands up, don’t shoot” movement which spread from professional athletes to congress raising their hands in the universal symbol of surrender as a symbol of solidarity. The incident and others have culminated in racial polarization and it has re-ignited racial flames in America. Michael Brown and Ferguson Missouri became a rallying point and there were also peaceful marches across the country as well.

What does Ferguson have to do with the abortion issue? It is surely a tragedy when an 18 year old loses his life under any circumstance. But why is it so less tragic for an unborn child to lose his life in our society? There are around 1 million abortions each year in the United States. Despite comprising just 13% of the population, blacks account for 35% of all the abortions in the U.S. Well if my calculations are correct then there are almost 1,000 abortions performed on black women each day. Does that matter to anyone? Should it? If the unborn are not human then the answer is NO: abortion is a private issue and no one outside of the woman’s support network, her doctor and whoever else she decides to share in this decision should be involved in it. If the unborn are not human, then we pro-lifers are sticking our noses into a private matter and we have no business protesting, marching, or trying to change laws or convince others. But are we?

Not according to science. The science of embryology tells us that from the moment of conception, each one of us were complete, living, and whole human beings.  The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, a widely used embryology text, states: “Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte(ovum) to form a single cell – a zygote. This highly specialized, omnipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”

T.W. Sadler’s Langman’s Embryology states, “The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” Dr. Watson A. Bowes of the University of Colorado Medical School stated, “The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter – the beginning is conception.”

Of course, science alone won’t satisfy critics of the pro-life view who tell us that being human isn’t enough. What matters is personhood, meaning there are some humans you can’t kill because they are “persons” and others you can kill because they aren’t. “Persons,” so the argument goes, live independent lives and are sufficiently developed to think and feel like we do. But where does personhood thinking leave us? Sure, Michael Brown the fetus was dependent on his mother, but as a matter of principle, how does dependency justify intentional killing? For that matter, Michael Brown the newborn was dependent, but no one suggested killing him because he depended on his mother for nourishment. Does personhood based on location fare any better? When I leave my house, I don’t stop being me. If that’s true, why do I stop being me when I leave my mother’s womb? Or, suppose we make size and development decisive. Michael Brown the fetus was smaller than his adult frame, but as a matter of principle, large humans aren’t more human and valuable than small ones. And while it’s true Brown was less developed in the womb than he was at 19, why is that a good reason for saying he could be killed then but not now? In short, personhood reasoning doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and dehumanizes all of us—born or unborn.

The science of embryology tells us that Michael Brown was once a fetus, meaning that Michael Brown the fetus is identical to Michael Brown the young adult. If as an adult he is identical to his former fetal self, he had the same right to life then as he did on the day he died. After all, he’s the same Michael Brown. How can we be nonchalant about killing the unborn Michael Brown but ready to riot at the perceived injustice of the killing of the 18 year old Michael Brown? Again, he was still Michael Brown. We cannot take the life of the unborn and not expect there to be any repercussions on the value we have on life in general.

We know this. In 1977, a prominent civil rights activist compared abortion to slavery and pointedly asked, “What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the abortion of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?” Those words belong to Jessie Jackson, who, before running for President as a Democrat, once valued intellectual consistency over political expediency.

Suppose we grant that Michael Brown’s killing was racially motivated and therefore unjust. The question for Jessie Jackson is this: If it was wrong to kill Michael Brown because of skin color and social status, why is it okay to kill him because of size and dependency? Either way, he’s the same Michael Brown.

The Importance of Distinctions [Clinton Wilcox]

Yesterday I was having a discussion with a rather vocal pro-life advocate. He was arguing with a vegetarian, and finally he told this vegetarian that she is confused and should keep her mouth shut. Now, I am not a vegetarian and I agree with the pro-life person's point of view. However, I also believe in civil discourse and this pro-life person was not being civil. It turns out this pro-life person believes that the right to freedom of speech does not entail that people who are wrong have the right to express their views. He argued for this by saying that no one has a right to have their views respected. I agreed with him on this last point and tried to show him that a right to have your views respected and a right to express your views, even if I disagree with them, are two different things. I tried several times to explain this distinction, but he seemed incapable of grasping it.

The reality is that the First Amendment gives us the freedom not just to hold unpopular views but the freedom to express them, as well, even if I disagree with them. And the way that rights work is if I want my rights to be respected, I have an obligation to respect the rights of others, as well. There's an idea that's going around Facebook that a right to free speech doesn't entail freedom from the consequences of your views. But this is only partially right. A right to free speech does entail a freedom from being jailed for my views, or from being shouted down, or otherwise disrespected for trying to express my views. If I don't have the right to talk about my views, then speech really isn't free. However, there may be natural consequences to holding an unpopular view, such as no one listening to me.

There are many important distinctions that need to be made in the abortion issue that are often overlooked. I don't know how our culture got to a point in which people are generally incapable of making basic distinctions, but it seems we've gotten to this point. Making distinctions is absolutely critical to clear thinking. Aside from the distinction I mentioned earlier, here are two more that need to be kept in mind in our discussions about abortion:

The distinction between types of potentiality. One popular pro-choice mantra is that the unborn are not humans, they are "potential humans." The problem is this confuses active potentiality with passive potentiality. A sapling is a potential mature tree. It is also a potential desk. But these are two different kinds of potential. A sapling has the active potential to develop into a fully mature tree because it is on a self-directed path of development. It develops itself from within because its essence is treeness. However, its potential to become a desk is a passive potential. It will not become a desk on its own. It must be cut down, undergoing a substantial change, and made into a desk by an outside builder. This is a critical distinction because active potentiality is identity-preserving, and passive potentiality is not. The unborn are not "potential humans", they are actual humans with potential.

The distinction between different senses of "human". Like most words, the term "human" can have multiple definitions. The two that are usually seen as important for the abortion debate is human in a genetic sense, that the unborn are biological members of species Homo sapiens, and human in a moral sense, that the unborn are persons (i.e. members of the moral community so that it is wrong to mistreat them or take their life). I still do encounter people who don't believe that the unborn are biological members of our species, but usually when someone denies that the unborn are human, what they really mean is they are not persons. It's up to the individual to clearly present their own arguments, but if we hope to change people's minds, it helps for us to be aware of the way in which people conflate two different ideas, usually without even realizing it. If someone denies the unborn are human, usually a clarifying question is in order: "Do you mean they are not biologically human, or do you mean they are not human beings with a right to life?" This helps to avoid attacking strawmen unwittingly.

There are many more distinctions that need to be made for clarity of thought in the abortion issue. But this should help as a basic primer in how to think more clearly in the abortion issue. If we don't keep these distinctions in mind, the argument starts to get muddled and we won't be able to reliably come to the truth of the matter.

Edited the fourth paragraph for clarity.

"Going Ape" [Megan]

The struggle over what, exactly, gives human beings value was given a nod — a dismissive one  — when an April 21st decision by a New York judge granted a right to chimpanzees that had hitherto only been granted to legally recognized "persons."

A judge granted Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees that currently reside in a research facility at Stony Brook University, New York, the right to challenge their "unlawful" imprisonment (respective writs of habeas corpus). The decision is preceded by numerous attempts to have the chimps' case heard over the last year and a half.

According to the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), Hercules and Leo, in addition to two other chimpanzees being held privately elsewhere, are "too cognitively and emotionally complex to be held in captivity." The group claims the apes should be moved to a chimpanzee sanctuary.

According to Science magazine, the decision is the first that effectively grants personhood status to animals in the U.S.

To be very clear, I do not oppose the promotion of respectful treatment — humane treatment — to animals like Hercules and Leo. Indeed, I expect the pursuit of such from human beings.

I do, however, oppose legal rights that recognize chimpanzees as persons when those rights are not observed for many human beings — especially, in this case, unborn ones.

The inconsistency is ghastly but not surprising in a culture that grants "personhood" — or value — according to function over nature.

According to the article, the chimpanzees were deemed valuable persons because of an unspecified level of cognitive and emotional complexity.

Who decides what level of complexity is sufficient?

How does that practically effect human beings, whose cognitive and emotional abilities/expression vary from person to person? Must those whose cognitive function is higher be granted a superior "person" status over others? The same applies to emotional complexity. Is the stoic personality a lesser degree of person? What of children, who are cognitively and emotionally immature in comparison to their parents? It could be argued that, in some scenarios, those attributes vary for a single person. Would that individual's status then fluctuate, his/her rights wax and wane?

Beneath that jumble is the grounding question — the kicker, as it were. Why should cognitive and emotional complexity ground valuable personhood and not some other function/trait/ability? And who gets to decide? Discomfort is the tip of the iceberg if that decision rests in the hands of one New York judge.

There is no morally relevant difference between unborn human beings and born ones that justifies the killing of the former. Certainly not a difference that gives two apes a voice in the court of law while unborn human beings continue being silently slaughtered by the thousands each day.

A robust understanding of the intrinsic value of human life is inclusive. It affords animals like Hercules and Leo a sanctuary. And it affords unborn humans the simplest and most profound right — to live.

An Abortion Book for the Kiddos [Clinton Wilcox]

You may have heard by now that there's a children's book written by Mary Walling Blackburn called Sister Apple, Sister Pig. It's a children's book about abortion. A book about a very adult topic written to children that you wouldn't yet talk about the event that preceded the abortion (the birds and the bees, and all that). You can find the book for free at the link provided, though at free the book is still highly overpriced.

Mary Walling Blackburn is apparently an assistant professor of art at United Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts. Right off the bat, this woman has no business teaching at a Christian university or any school affiliated with it. Our Lord has some very harsh things to say about those who engage in or support the sacrifice of children. And according to The Blaze, Blackburn wrote this book to "[play] chicken with the anti-choice people."

The book follows Lee, a three year old child who has been told that his mother had an abortion. But it's okay, because if she had kept his sister, she wouldn't be able to spend all that time with Lee, and might not have enough money to feed them.

One of the major problems with this book is that it seems to ascribe full personhood to his sister, talking about how his mom had his sister killed because of these reasons. His parents even convinced him that it's okay because now they can spend all that time with him, and anyway his sister has stuck around now as a ghost (which is certainly against Christian theology). So Blackburn essentially is using a three-year-old child to illustrate why abortion is okay.

The problem with these reasons (which any adult should realize) is that they work equally well to justify killing infants. These r
easons would have worked equally well if they had waited until Lee's sister was one year old before killing her. In fact, these reasons work equally well to justify killing Lee if another child that is more appealing to his parents comes around.

Even worse, Lee's father affirms his reasons for his mother's abortion. Here's what Lee says to his father: "I'm not sad that my sister is a ghost! If you kept my sister, you would be tired, and sad, and mad!...Because we would be wild and loud and sometimes we would fight. Mama might be scared that she could not buy enough food for us. Mama might not have enough time to read to me, to paint me with me, to play with me, to talk with me..."

So Lee is scared, most of all, that his mom won't have time for him. He spends the least amount of time on the only reason that might at least make an abortion understandable (which is not the same thing as justifiable), that she worried about having enough money to feed them. And what does Papa say in return? "Lee, you have some good reasons to not have a sister right here, right now."

His dad actually affirms his reasons for his mother's abortion. Of course Lee is okay with it. His parents told him a flat-out lie, that his sister is still hanging around as a ghost (so she's not really gone), and he affirms that his own selfish desires for his mother's time are good reasons for the abortion. Parents are supposed to teach their children how to be moral people. Children need to learn that selfishness isn't right, and that the world doesn't always (or usually) go the way we want it to. That's life. Instead, the father is (perhaps unknowingly) instilling a sense into his son that he can take advantage of people to get what he wants. That's what his mom did with his sister, anyway. And again, these reasons work equally well to kill his sister as an infant.

And of course, there's the fact that while these reasons may work not to have any children, as was mentioned so often in this book, they already had a child. These reasons might be good reasons not to conceive another child, but once a child is already here, you can't just kill the child because he/she is inconvenient.

I tried to Google search for pro-choice blogs that might have gotten wind of this book and given their thoughts on it. I couldn't find any that even mentioned it (perhaps they don't think it important enough to talk about). But if I were pro-choice, I would seriously take issue with the point of view expressed in this book, and the very fact that Blackburn is attempting to talk about this subject with young children.

A Pro-Choice Activist Spent Two Days as a Pro-Life Activist, Part II [Clinton Wilcox]

I recently wrote an article about Robin Marty, a pro-choice journalist who attended the East Coast Walk for Life and then wrote about her experience. You can read part one here.

My reason for writing these articles is not just to give my thoughts on her experience, but also to emphasize the fact that I think it takes a lot of courage to attend an organization with people who disagree with you on a controversial topic in an attempt to get to know the people on the other side better. If more of us took the time to do that, we'd probably be able to have better conversations more often.

Day 2

She began by attending a conference of speakers. I'm not really familiar with the Duggars, myself, not being a fan of reality television. I have heard about Shane's Bucket List from the couple with a child with anencephaly, and I'm very glad they had Rick Santorum speak. Santorum is one of the best politicians knowledgeable on the abortion issue. You can see a YouTube video of Santorum debating Barbara Boxer on partial-birth abortion that is very much worth watching.

Next Marty attended a conference of "non-traditional" pro-lifers, a conference where speakers talked about having a place in the pro-life movement for people who don't fit the "white, male, Catholic" stereotype (as for me, a Protestant, I guess two out of three isn't bad). I'm all for this idea. I believe that a house divided amongst itself will not stand. While there are pro-life people I disagree with on other issues, if we want to really see abortion come to an end we need to be united in our cause to end abortion.

That being said, we do need to make sure it goes both ways. I've clashed with pro-life anti-theists on Facebook who were offended by some of my opinions. I wholeheartedly agree with being inclusive, but all of us need to be inclusive. Religious pro-life people shouldn't have to act like atheists to be included by the non-religious.

After that, the march itself began. It's refreshing to see a pro-choice person talk about the actual numbers who participated, instead of the low estimates usually espoused by pro-choice media outlets (there's an inside joke about hundreds of thousands of pro-life ninjas who appear and disappear without being noticed). Marty was able to see first-hand that there really are a huge number of pro-life people who attend these marches, and most of them young people.

Marty did mention passing huge posters of graphic images of abortion, so I'll take a moment to talk about them. I'm not opposed to using graphic images of abortion. I think they can be very helpful to turn an abortion conversation about an esoteric opinion into cold hard reality. It's much more difficult to justify abortion when you have to look at it. I've personally witnessed pro-choice people become pro-life when I showed them the images. But I think abortion images should be used respectfully. I'm not convinced a pro-life march is the best place for it, especially since there are young children who usually attend. I think college campuses are a better place for them, where a free exchange of ideas is reasonably expected.

After passing the abortion photos, the crowd were stopped by a radical, fringe left-wing group called Stop Patriarchy (who are apparently seriously Communistic). The crowd was halted for a while as the police led them away. I guess they succeeded in throwing a small monkey wrench into the march, but I can't see that they really accomplished anything besides being a small nuisance for a little while.

Marty's final event was to attend a sit-in by several pro-life advocates at Representative Renee Ellmers' office over pulling the 20-week abortion ban. However, Ellmers had skipped town, having gotten wind of this protest.

Well, Marty didn't convert at the end, and she doesn't appear open-minded enough to consider that the pro-life position may, in fact, be true. However, it was beneficial to her because it at least showed that behind all the caricatures of pro-life people, there are real people there with real stories. At the very least, the experience may make one pro-choice person more sympathetic to those she opposes.

Q & A: What Bad Arguments Do You Hear the Most? [Jay Watts]

*The following is a duplication of a discussion I had after receiving a question through personal email/message. I thought it might be worth sharing and mildly edited it for posting. The dialogues are reflective of actual conversations that I have had and relate my personal experience talking to people about this issue over the years.*

Question: In terms of arguments appealing to pity, ad hominem and so forth. Which would you say is the most popular you have heard, and how do you normally respond?

Answer: Hey _______, I would say that you hear them all about as often as you talk to someone about important moral issues. What I mean by that is that most people don't have a clearly thought out position on moral issues, especially abortion. Every once in a while I talk to someone with a sophisticated defense of the pro-choice position, but that isn't the norm. Most people that I talk to generally have a point of view on which they haven't reflected too deeply. When that point of view is challenged, they can be initially more interested in beating back the challenge than examining the basis of their beliefs. When it comes to beating back a challenge, it seems that any stick will do.

They may start with presupposing the truth of their position:

Objector: Abortion must remain legal to protect privacy rights.

Me: But would you think that your neighbor must be free to abuse his 2 year old daughter in the privacy of his home? If not, then why not?

Obj: Of course not! My neighbor's child is a living human being that should be protected from abuse.

Me: So if the unborn are human in the same way, then privacy is not a justification for their abuse either. You assumed that they were not in your appeal to privacy, but that is exactly what you have the burden to demonstrate through argument.

Then they may move to ad hominem:

Obj: Well you shouldn't be allowed to talk about this anyway. You are a man and can't ever get pregnant. (or as I heard at one university, my arguments are white and Western.)

Me: I would like to respectfully point out that I argued through the science of embryology that the unborn are an independent human organism from fertilization and argued from philosophy that all humans share a common substantial nature that carries with it intrinsic value. Neither of those points is impacted by my gender, race, or geographical location. Arguments are right or wrong, valid or invalid, supported by evidence or refutable, but they are not male or female, caucasian or other, or subject to defeat by the compass rose. They have no gender or race. When you appeal to those things you are attacking me, not the arguments I offered in support of my beliefs and that is universally understood to be a fallacy, a mistake in reasoning. We have enjoyed a respectful conversation to this point, so please let's continue to try and focus on the issues and not me.

Then often I get the appeal to misery/begging the question combo:

Obj: Well if we make abortion illegal then women will die in dangerous back alley abortions again. It must remain safe and legal.

Resp: First of all, for whom is the abortion safe? Every successful abortion necessarily destroys a nascent human life. When we ignore their lives in this discussion we make the same mistake you made with the privacy issue. If women were determined through desperation to take action that resulted in the deaths of two year-old children it would be considered terribly wrong to protect those women as they did so. Even if we recognized they were legitimately troubled and driven through understandable stress, we couldn't make it safer to kill two year-olds and call ourselves a moral society. The burden is still on you to demonstrate that the unborn are different from you, me, or two year-olds in some morally relevant way. If they are valuable human life, you are arguing that we ought to protect a few from the tragic consequences of their wrong actions at the expense of more than a million other human lives a year in the United States alone.

Now, let's look at the evidence of the numbers of women that died every year from unsafe abortion prior to 1973. Any single death is inarguably a tragedy, but you will find that the numbers were wildly exaggerated to create a powerful argument from misery and by-pass ever having to consider, as a culture, the truth of what was being asked for in a right to abort our unborn children. (See here and here and here)

The best defenses are a strong familiarity with the arguments and the ability to patiently narrate the conversation. Point out the mistakes our objectors are making in an effort to clear their thinking; not to merely prove that you are right. They will marshall their every resource to beat back a challenge, and the overwhelming majority of those resources may be nonsense. Help them to see that. Our goal is to unsettle them in their views, not necessarily to win the moment. My experience is that if you are willing to help clear out the weeds and weather the initial storm most people can be reasonable and respectful in this discussion.

Take a hostile person and move them to the modest position of seeing our arguments as more reasonable than they previously thought. Take a neutral person and move them toward a position that recognizes the equal value of all human life including the lives of the unborn. Take a person who shares your beliefs but lacks any accompanying action and inspire them to do something. Take the advocate beaten down by years of abuse and perceived lack of impact and reenergize them and equip them to carry on.

Regarding PZ Myers' Unsophisticated Diatribe on Kristan Hawkins [Clinton Wilcox]

PZ Myers is at it again, this time ranting about pro-life apologist Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America. I've taken Myers to task before for his dishonest argumentation when he railed against Scott Klusendorf when Scott appeared on the Issues, Etc. podcast. Kristan gave a pro-life presentation at UMM College called "The Ugly Truth About Abortion: How it Does More than Just Kill Babies." Myers apparently attended the presentation, then decided to dismiss Kristan's entire case and write about it on his blog. You can view the article here. Let's take a look at Myers' response.

Regarding one of Kristan's arguments, Myers responded, "Setting aside the loaded word 'preborn', of course a fetus is alive. And of course its cells are taxonomically human -- but that begs the question. Is it a person? I'd say no, not yet, and that personhood is defined by a very fuzzy boundary. Which makes talking about their rights moot."

First, it doesn't beg the question. Begging the question is a specific logical fallacy. What he means is it raises the question. He at least admits that the human fetus is alive and biologically human. That's half the battle. He then asserts that personhood is defined by a very fuzzy boundary, but this is false. The best arguments show that personhood is established at fertilization, when the human comes into existence. There is nothing fuzzy about it, just because personhood is a metaphysical concept (morality and the laws of logic are also metaphysical concepts that are uncontroversial). To claim you must be able to do something before you are a person (e.g. you must be conscious or self-aware) is to put the cart before the horse, since there must be something first in order to do something. Finally, it doesn't make talking about their rights moot. What if Myers is wrong about personhood? Then we are killing human persons, which is a tragedy. Conversely, if the question of personhood is fuzzy, we have a moral obligation not to be killing them, since the benefit of the doubt should always go to life. If a construction worker is about to blow up a building, but someone may be inside, if he blows the building up without making sure, he is guilty of criminal negligence. Or if you are not sure whether the jacket in the middle of the road has a person underneath, would you drive over the jacket or swerve around it?

Myers then says, "The weird thing about her whole argument is that it applies perfectly well to tumors, as well. Cancer is growing, and alive; it has human 'parents', and its cells are human; so if Kristan Hawkins has rights, why doesn't a melanoma? We clearly do not simply give rights and privileges to collections of cells because they have human ancestry -- we have other criteria, often assumed and unstated, that we use to assign rights."

Myers is a biologist. If doctors can tell the difference between a human being and cancer, why can't Myers? I did not attend Kristan's talk, so I don't know how in-depth she went in to the arguments. But arguing that the pro-life position entails that cancers have rights is just philosophically confused and biologically inept.

A cancer does not have human parents (here Myers is guilty of equivocation on the term "parent"). Human life is an unbroken chain, from one person to the next. The parents have sex, they release sperm and eggs, which fuse and create a new, genetically distinct human being. A cancer is not produced like Myers was by his parents. According to the American Cancer Society, "cancer cell growth is different from normal cell growth. Instead of dying, cancer cells continue to grow and form new, abnormal cells. Cancer cells can also invade (grown into) other tissues, something that normal cells can't do. Growing out of control and invading other tissues are what makes a cell a cancer cell." Cancer cells are different from developing human beings, even ones who are at the early stage of human development inside the mother's womb.

Myers goes on, "She announced that the biology argument was the easiest to rebut. This is only true because being ignorant of biology makes everything simpler. She made familiar arguments: at the moment of conception, a unique whole human being comes into existence, with a unique combination of DNA. To which I say, if uniqueness is the criterion for preserving an organism, shouldn’t she be as vociferous in defending the rights of cows to live? They’re all unique, too. Shouldn’t the anti-choice picketers be out working to preserve unique habitats and endangered species?"

Myers doesn't attempt to refute Kristan's position, he just tries to argue that she is inconsistent. Maybe she is, but if so, how does this refute her position? To say nothing of the fact that many pro-life advocates do, in fact, care about animal rights. Myers is just guilty of not properly understanding his interlocutor's argument. It's not uniqueness that makes the organism valuable, per se -- the uniqueness shows that the individual human organism is a different organism from the parents. Myers picks out one word in the argument and attempts to refute her entire argument by nitpicking a term. He certainly hasn't shown how she is ignorant of biology (in fact, he agreed with her biology earlier in the talk, by agreeing that the unborn organism is alive and biologically human). Myers is just ignorant of philosophy.

Myers' entire article can be dismissed as an argument from incredulity. He doesn't make any valid points, he just tries to dismiss them because he finds them ridiculous. He goes on to say that Kristan emphasized the claim that a whole human being is created at the "instant" of conception. One argument was that she showed pictures that indicated that once the egg is fertilized, it is no longer a human egg but a human zygote (which Myers unprofessionally dismissed with incredulous flair). But this is a true fact -- once the sperm and egg fuse, the sperm and egg lose their identity, they cease to exist, and a new, genetically distinct human organism comes into existence. It's not just pro-life apologists he's disagreeing with, it's just about every modern embryology textbook on the planet.

Kristan's other argument, which is also true, is that the zygote from the beginning is a whole, individual, separate organism from the mother, only needing proper nutrition and environment to survive and thrive.

What is Myers' response? As an iron ingot is not a car, so is a zygote not a whole organism. But this is a false analogy: it confuses passive potential with active potential. Cars are artifacts. An iron ingot is not a car in the same way that sugar and flour are not a cake. They require an outside baker/builder, and once baked/built, they will lose their identity and become part of the cake/car. The sperm and the eggs are analogous to the iron ingot, not the human zygote. Human development is not like construction of an artifact.

Conversely, human beings are substances, as are all living things. The human zygote is more analogous to a Polaroid picture (an analogy that Richard Stith formulated). The human zygote is already a human being. It's true that the human zygote doesn't look like me, and hasn't developed his/her human parts. But therein lies the difference between a substance and an artifact. Artifacts find their identity in their parts. Substances are ontologically prior to their parts, which is just a fancy way of saying that they exist before they develop their parts. But everything that human being is and will develop is already written in his/her genetic code. He/she just needs time to develop these things. The capacities to develop them are already present. She has the active potential to develop these things. Active potential is a potential that she has inside herself (instead of from outside, as in the case of artifacts with passive potential) to develop, and these potentials are identity-preserving changes (instead of identity-altering, such as the sugar and flour losing their identities in the cake they become part of).

Myers also made some quip about "artificial wombs," since all that is needed is proper nutrition and environment. Perhaps Kristan did not talk about the environment (I wasn't there, so I don't know if Myers is forgetting that part), but there is more to developing an artificial womb than nutrition, although that is a problem, too (you can't just feed it a steak, after all). The environment must also be replicated, and there is the problem of how to transfer it, since it needs to be able to implant into the artificial womb. But all of this misses the point, as once the embryo implants in the womb, all you need to do is give it proper nutrition in order for the embryo to continue to grow and develop normally.

Then he continues by dwelling on something he said he wasn't going to dwell on, such as Jerome Lejeune being the Father of Modern Genetics. It's pretty strange that Myers has never heard of him, despite the fact that Lejeune discovered the cause of Down syndrome. According to the linked Wikipedia article, "In 1969, Lejeune's work earned him the William Allan Award, granted by the American Society of Human Genetics, the world's highest honor in genetics. As of 2013, he was the only Frenchman to have won it." So it's irrelevant to the truth claim of Lejeune that Myers has never heard of him.

Myers tries to assert that the only reason pro-life advocates have accepted him is because he's a Catholic and had "bought into" our doctrine. But the pro-life movement has accepted atheists as our own, such as Bernard Nathanson (who become pro-life while still an atheist, though he converted to Catholicism later in life), and A.W. Liley, the Father of Modern Fetology, who, as an atheist, was also appointed to the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, despite his atheism. Not to mention the modern atheists in the pro-life movement, such as Secular Pro-Life's Kelsey Hazzard, Pro-Life Humanists' Kristine Kruszelnicki, and pro-life philosopher Don Marquis.

Next he brought up the problem of animal rights. There are pro-life advocates who also believe in animal rights, so the pro-life position does not necessitate that animals don't have rights. However, it is not inconsistent to be pro-life and oppose animal rights, since all human beings are persons but animals are not persons. Being human is what matters, but it's not just belonging to our biological species; it's what being human means. Humans are intrinsically valuable because they are made in the image of their Creator, but also because they have an inherently rational nature. I don't want to dwell too much on the differences between humans and animals now, but suffice it to say if there is something intrinsically different about humans by which they are intrinsically valuable, then one can consistently hold that it is wrong to kill human beings but not intrinsically wrong (though it may sometimes be) to kill animals.

Myers also claims Kristan "dismissed" the criterion of nervous system development, but Kristan presented a good reason for doing so: if all humans are equally valuable, then their value cannot be grounded in something that comes in degrees, such as their development or their intelligence. It must be grounded in something we all have equally, and the only thing that qualifies is our common human nature.

Myers isn't convinced by Trot Out the Toddler reasoning, but it seems more accurate to say he just doesn't understand the philosophical concept of the reductio ad absurdum (which is what Trot Out the Toddler is, at is deepest level). The reason that arguing from circumstances doesn't work is because it does commit the fallacy of begging the question -- you have to assume the unborn entity is not a valuable human being in order for the argument to succeed. Suppose we were considering allowing abortion in the case of poverty. Well, we wouldn't allow a woman to kill her two-year-old child because of poverty, so if the unborn entity is a valuable human being, then we can't allow abortions in the case of poverty, either. So poverty isn't the real issue. The real issue is what is the unborn? If the unborn is not a valuable human being, then a woman could have all the abortions she wants, without needing a good reason. But if the unborn is a valuable human being, then any reason that wouldn't justify killing a born child wouldn't justify killing an unborn one.

Myers asserts, "The problem here is that we’re able to recognize that a fetus and a toddler are not equivalent: one is aware and interacting with the world, the other is grossly incomplete and in a state of total, passive dependence."

It's true that the toddler is aware and interacting with the world. But is that a good reason for allowing abortion? I was not aware nor was I interacting the world last night while I was asleep. So was it justifiable to kill me then? Of course not. If that doesn't work to justify killing someone in their sleep, in a reversible coma, or under general anesthesia, why would it work to justify killing the unborn? Also, to say the unborn organism is "incomplete" is ambiguous. Toddlers are also incomplete. A toddler is different from me because she cannot form complete sentences, she can't read this article that I'm typing, nor can she even feed herself. Yet no one would say those are grounds for toddler-cide.

Myers, again: "That’s what generates her absolutist stance: there is no difference between me, a 57 year old man, and a freshly fertilized zygote. Well gosh, since fertilized zygotes are naturally slaughtered in vast numbers all the time, and reality doesn’t seem to have any special regard for embryos, then the flip side of her conclusion must be that it’s perfectly OK to murder people."

Myers is one of the New Atheists, and considering how poorly they argue against the Bible, pulling statements out of the Bible, out of context, and using them to argue against the Bible, this doesn't surprise me. Kristan's statements need to be considered in context. Now, "philosophically" is probably not the word I would have chosen to use. I prefer to use the term "fundamentally." There is no fundamental difference between the zygote I once was and the adult I am today. There are, of course, differences -- but none fundamental, because I was numerically the same entity then as I am now. All of the changes were identity-preserving, and if you had killed me then I would not be here right now to write this article. But Myers wants to assert Kristan believes there is absolutely no difference between an adult and a zygote. That's dishonest, and ungracious.

Myers continues by railing against more of Kristan's reductios, again missing the point that these arguments show the absurd conclusions that certain pro-choice arguments lead to. He also uses another New Atheist tactic, using the word "magical" to dismiss claims he doesn't agree with. In this case, "magical" really means "metaphysical," and I'm wondering if Myers would say that the laws of mathematics don't exist, since they are metaphysical. Maybe math is just magic and mathematicians its sorcerers. Myers asserts that responses to Kristan's arguments wouldn't rest on the personhood of the fetus, but on the damage done to the fetus. But this just presents a new problem -- if it is okay to kill a fetus, why is it wrong to use Thalidomide to ease morning sickness, allowing the fetus to be born with missing limbs? Or as my friend Josh Brahm once put it, why is it okay to remove all of the fetus' future experiences, but not only some of them, like the ability to walk?

So now we get to Kristan's Ugly Truths. The first one is regarding abortion safety. Myers accuses her of giving a half-truth, but in reality, what Myers quoted only supports Kristan's point. Legalizing abortion did not make it safer -- medical advancements, such as the development of antibiotics, has made abortion safer. There is no reason to believe abortion mortalities will increase significantly if it is made illegal again.

Kristan's second Ugly Truth is that abortion harms women. Myers quoted some statistics he believes refutes Kristan's claims, but what Myers actually means is that statistics he found he agrees with "refutes" this claim. Consider the source. Myers posted an article from Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice institute in league with Planned Parenthood that has a vested interest in promoting abortion. I'm still dubious about whether or not there is such a thing as Post-Abortion Syndrome, but there is such a thing as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since a large number of women are coerced or otherwise forced into having an abortion (whether by a parent, boyfriend/husband, or life circumstances), if her abortion is traumatic then it's entirely likely she'll develop PTSD. Ignoring this only does a disservice to women, whom pro-choice people claim to want to help.

Now regarding the breast cancer link, I've seen studies that suggest there is such a link, but I don't have them handy. I don't know which sources Kristan was using, so I won't speak to this issue.

Kristan's third Ugly Truth is regarding the money-making potential of abortion. Myers repeats the untrue "only 3% of Planned Parenthood's services are abortions" claim. For why this claim is false, see this video. I don't know what the percentage of abortions done is, but considering that there are over a million abortions every year, it has to be pretty high (though of course, Planned Parenthood isn't the only abortion provider out there). Again, check Kristan's sources. Don't just take Myers' or my word for it.

Kristan's fourth Ugly Truth is that early feminists opposed abortion and thought women's reproductive ability was beautiful and wonderful. Myers concedes this point, so moving on.

Kristan's fifth and final Ugly Truth is that abortion exploits women and enables cover-up of abuse. Incidentally, Myers doesn't contest this point. He just says "pro-choice people think this is horrible, too." That's great, we have common ground there. But the argument is that legalized abortion allows this to happen, which not even Myers disagrees with. So Kristan's argument here succeeds.

Now, Myers does say this is a non-sequitur because even if this is true, that doesn't mean abortion is wrong. He's right. The problem is he's misunderstanding the argument. There's a difference between why abortion is wrong and what's wrong with abortion. He'd have a point if Kristan's argument was "abortion allows cover-up of abuse, therefore it is wrong." But what Kristan seems to be making (based on Myers' article, since I wasn't there) is that legalized abortion allows these things to happen, so it should not be legal. That's a different argument. Myers even admitted, at the beginning of his article, that Kristan's first argument is that abortion kills a living human being, and that is a sound argument for why abortion is wrong.

Myers then gives his thoughts on some questions. He agrees the first question was best avoided as off-topic. But for the second question, Myers doesn't seem surprised that she's religious. But as I mentioned earlier, there are plenty of pro-life atheists. In fact, the only people in the abortion issue for whom religion is consistently a problem are pro-choice people.

Regarding the third question, I generally agree with Kristan's answer here, but with some caveats. Abortions need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. As it was before abortion was made illegal in 1973, the woman should be granted full immunity with an eye to bringing down the abortionist and putting him/her in jail, since that will do the most good (it will save more lives to stop an abortionist than to simply put a post-abortive woman in jail). Second, women who abort (save women who self-abort) are not guilty of murder. At worst, they'd be guilty of accessory to murder, like the wife who hires a hitman to kill her husband. Third, many women are not morally culpable for the abortion. There are women who have been lied to by society and the abortion providers into believing she's just having a "clump of cells" or "mass of tissue" removed. Plus, many women are coerced into it. Every abortion is different, and as we have different degrees of murder of people outside the womb, each abortion needs to be considered on its own.

With question number four, I don't know the circumstances surrounding it, so I have nothing to say on the matter. Question number five, there's not much to say. I've heard that women do get some counseling, but it's biased counseling -- Planned Parenthood is there to sell abortions, so if a woman doesn't want to go through with an abortion, they don't help them. I've heard stories about women who wanted to keep the child turned away and actually referred to a Pregnancy Care Center because Planned Parenthood couldn't help them. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true of every Planned Parenthood. I can't speak to that.

Finally, number six was a statement, not a question. I'm not even sure what was meant by "Roe v. Wade" changed the conversation about abortion. I'm not sure if it did or not. Myers is somewhat correct in that a couple of states did lessen their restrictions on abortion before Roe v. Wade was decided. And there were always pro-life advocates who cared about the abortion issue (though it wasn't until the late 20th century that a movement started to emerge to liberalize the United States' abortion laws). But Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion across the board did cause pro-life advocates to organize.

This was just more of what I expected from Myers, more misunderstandings of pro-life arguments, bad biology, and a confusion of philosophical ideas. It's good that pro-choice people are trying to have a discussion about this, but if we could get less vitriol and more educated arguments from their more vocal proponents, that would go a long way toward advancing the conversation.