Watersheds

Preventing Great Evil

We published a piece by a non-Christian arguing the case against abortion.  One reader, Dominic took the time to make a few critical points on the piece. 

Is it lack of logic, or lack of ability to count?

there were 506,790 recorded deaths in England and Wales in 2013 ...

There is no need to go any further. Abortions are not recorded as deaths because they are not deaths.

You may as well add in the approximately 250,000 miscarriages as add in the number of abortions, but that still doesn't change the total recorded deaths.

What diseases could have been cured by a doctor who will now never live to see the light of Harvard Med? can easily be rebutted with What lives have been saved, what destruction avoided, because another psychopathic dictator will not be born?

Neither claim is provable.

 We append some thoughts on Dominic's response.

Abortions are not recorded as deaths because they are not deaths.
Dominic's definition of the nature of the unborn child excludes abortions as deaths.  That definition in turn relies on suppressed premises--all to the effect that an unborn child is not a human being, and therefore cannot be said to die.  A rock does not die.  It can be smashed and thereby cease to exist as a rock, but dying it cannot, for it is not alive.  If aborted children are not, by definition, deaths the suppressed premise is that they are not living creatures of any sort, let alone human beings.

That position reflects a religious commitment, whether Dominic is aware of it or not.


 You may as well add in the approximately 250,000 miscarriages as add in the number of abortions, but that still doesn't change the total recorded deaths.
Recording miscarriages as deaths would be a very helpful thing to do.  That is a nettle the Christian would willingly grasp.

What diseases could have been cured by a doctor who will now never live to see the light of Harvard Med? can easily be rebutted with What lives have been saved, what destruction avoided, because another psychopathic dictator will not be born?
This riposte implies that evil could be eradicated from the world were human beings  to cease to exist in total.  Clearly psychopathic dictators have been born and done great evil.  As have medical professionals--some of whom turn out to do great evil on their own account.  But at the same time, despite the presence of evil in every human heart, mankind in aggregate has also done many great and wonderful things.  Christians call this an evidence of common grace.  No-one has lawful authority to predetermine which person will do great evil and which will bring great benefit to the human race.   That implies that abortion is really an act of eugenics--which is probably close to the bone.

In reality, however, we are pretty confident that those who abort their unborn babies rarely, if ever consider such things.  They are far more focused upon Me, Myself, and I.  Whilst there are some who tell themselves that they are really doing their yet-to-be-born child a favour, since existence is so hard and difficult, it always appears to be an utterly self-serving justification.  The child does not get to vote on the proposition.