Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward.”

Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) and the author of more than 60 books, including Heaven and If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil. More than 12 million copies of his books have been sold and have been translated into 70 languages.

In his 2010 article “39 Major Pro-choice Arguments and Their Refutations”, Randy puts forth 4 categories of Pro-Abortion arguments, which contain 39 total arguments. In this first of 4 articles, we look at refutations of the 8 arguments in Part 1, which he titles “Arguments concerning life, humanity and personhood.”

Pro-Abortion Argument #1 = “It is uncertain when human life begins; that’s a religious question that cannot be answered by science.”

Refutation #1: If there is uncertainty about when human life begins, the benefit of the doubt should go to preserving life.

Refutation #2: Medical textbooks and scientific reference works consistently agree that human life begins at conception.

Refutation #3: Some of the world’s most prominent scientists and physicians testified to a U.S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception.

Refutation #4: Many other prominent scientists and physicians have likewise affirmed with certainty that human life begins at conception.

Refutation #5: The possibility of human cloning does nothing to discredit the fact that all humans conceived in the conventional manner began their lives at conception.

Pro-Abortion Argument #2 = “No one can really know that human life begins before birth.”

Refutation #1: Children know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #2: Pregnant women know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #3: Doctors know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #4: Abortionists know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #5: Feminists know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #6: Society knows that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #7: The media know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #8: Prochoice advocates know that human life begins before birth.

Refutation #9: If we cannot know that human life begins before birth, how can we know whether it begins at birth or later?

Pro-Abortion Argument #3 = “The fetus is just a part of the pregnant woman’s body, like her tonsils or appendix. You cannot seriously believe a frozen embryo is an actual person.”

Refutation #1: A body part is defined by the common genetic code it shares with the rest of its body; the unborn’s genetic code differs from his mother’s.

Refutation #2: The child may die and the mother live, or the mother may die and the child live, proving they are two separate individuals.

Refutation #3: The unborn child takes an active role in his own development, controlling the course of the pregnancy and the time of birth.

Refutation #4: Being inside something is not the same as being part of something.

Refutation #5: Human beings should not be discriminated against because of their place of residence.

Refutation #6: There is substantial scientific reason to believe frozen embryos are persons, and should be granted the same rights as older, larger and less vulnerable persons.

Pro-Abortion Argument #4 = “The unborn is an embryo or a fetus – just a simple blob of tissue, a product of conception – not a baby. Abortion is terminating a pregnancy, not killing a child.”

Refutation #1: Like toddler and adolescent, the terms embryo and fetus do not refer to nonhumans, but to humans at particular stages of development.

Refutation #2: Semantics affect perceptions, but they do not change realities; a baby is a baby no matter what we call her.

Refutation #3: From the moment of conception, the unborn is not simple but very complex.

Refutation #4: Prior to the first trimester, the unborn already has every body part she will ever have.

Refutation #5: Every abortion stops a beating heart and terminates measurable brain waves.

Refutation #6: Even in the earliest surgical abortions, the unborn child is clearly human in appearance.

Refutation #7: Even before the unborn is human in appearance, she is what she is – a human being.

Refutation #8: No matter how much better it sounds, “terminating a pregnancy” is still terminating a life.

Pro-Abortion Argument #5 = “The fetus may be alive, but so are eggs and sperm. The fetus is a potential human being, not an actual one; it is like a blueprint not a house, an acorn not an oak tree.”

Refutation #1: The ovum and sperm are each a product of another’s body; unlike the fertilized egg, neither is an independent entity.

Refutation #2: The physical remains after an abortion show the end not of a potential life but an actual life.

Refutation #3: Something nonhuman does not become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human must be human from the beginning.

Refutation #4: Comparing preborns and adults to acorns and oaks is dehumanizing and misleading.

Refutation #5: Even if the analogy were valid, scientifically speaking an acorn is simply a little oak tree, just as an embryo is a little person.

Pro-Abortion Argument #6 = “The unborn is not a person, with meaningful life. It is only inches in size, and can’t even think; it is less advanced than an animal, and anyway, who says people have a greater right to live than animals?”

Refutation #1: Personhood is properly defined by membership in the human species, not by stage of development within that species.

Refutation #2: Personhood is not a matter of size, skill, level of development, location, degree of dependency or degree of intelligence.

Refutation #3: The unborn’s status should be determined on an objective basis, not on subjective or self-serving definitions of personhood.

Refutation #4: It is a scientific fact that there are thought processes at work in unborn babies.

Refutation #5: If the unborn’s value can be compared to that of an animal, there is no reason not to also compare the value of born people to animals.

Refutation #5: Even if someone believes people are no better than animals, why would they abhor the killing of young animals, while advocating the killing of young children?

Refutation #6: It is dangerous when people in power are free to determine whether other, less powerful lives are meaningful.

Refutation #7: Arguments against the personhood of the unborn are shrouded in rationalization and denial.

Pro-Abortion Argument #7 = “A fetus isn’t a person until implantation or until quickening or viability or when it first breathes.”

Refutation #1: Implantation is a gauge of personhood only if location, nutrition, and interfacing with others makes us human.

Refutation #2: Quickening is a gauge of personhood only if someone’s reality or value is dependent upon being noticed by another.

Refutation #3: Viability is an arbitrary concept. Why not associate personhood with heartbeat, brain waves, or something else?

Refutation #4: The point of viability changes because it depends on technology, not the unborn herself. Eventually babies may be viable from the point of conception.

Refutation #5: In a broad sense, many born people are not viable because they are incapable of surviving without depending on others.

Refutation #6: A child’s “breathing,” her intake of oxygen, begins long before birth.

Refutation #7: Someone’s helplessness or dependency should motivate us to protect her, not destroy her.

Pro-Abortion Argument #8 = “Obviously life begins at birth. That is why we celebrate birthdays, not conception days, and why we do not have funerals following miscarriages.”

Refutation #1: Our recognition of birthdays is cultural, not scientific.

Refutation #2: Some people do have funerals after a miscarriage.

Refutation #3: Funerals are an expression of our subjective attachment to those who have died, not a measurement of their true worth.

Refutation #4: There is nothing about birth that makes a baby essentially different than he was before birth.

As this week’s verse and these 8 refutations against the Pro-Abortion arguments against the personhood of the baby in the womb at conception, the Bible, science and philosophy all agree that the fetus in the womb – that unborn baby – is a human child.

“The Evidence of Faith’s Substance” _ Article #626