The Pro-Life Case
Opponents of abortion can claim the same ultimacy for their position because of the same tripartite concept of an individual’s right to life, liberty and property. The right to life is fundamental to our society, and no one may unlawfully deprive another of life. There are degrees of homicide recognized, ranging from accidental to deliberate. Murder, or taking an innocent life, is the universally condemned and premeditated murder is worst of all. This has been recognized since the time of the Old Testament (“Thoui shalt not kill/commit murder”, and the Bible was the principal basis of English civil law which, in turn, became the basis of American civil law.
That principle was melded into the tripartite concept expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, that principle is the foundation on which Pro-life advocates base their position. For surely there is no more innocent a human being than an unborn child, and aborting a child can therefore be defined on Biblical and legal grounds as premeditated murder. (“Choose life—your mother did.”)
Sacred Rights in Opposition
Thus, Pro-choice and Pro-life advocates are at loggerheads, with each convinced of the moral soundness of their position. And each is right!
On one hand, it is a woman’s sacred right to own herself and, if she chooses, to remove from her body an unwanted fetus because that fetus is her own property, an extension of her body.
On the other hand, it is a woman’s “wrong” to remove a fetus from her body via a process intended to be fatal to that fetus because, regardless of its size, it is a human being endowed with personhood from the moment of conception and therefore also endowed with a sacred, inherent and inalienable right to life.
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? That is the situation in America today with regard to abortion.
(To be continued)