Assumptions That Kill

Article adapted from episode content.

Friends, it’s good to be with you. In the ever-evolving, often contentious landscape of the abortion debate, we are continually confronted with arguments designed to sway public opinion and policy. Recent events, such as the Wisconsin Supreme Court striking down a near 150-year-old prohibition on abortion, serve as stark reminders of the intensely partisan and deeply rooted convictions at play. This decision, frankly, was no surprise, given the prevailing political winds. If a Democrat is elected to office, abortion is going to be promoted wholesale. Period. That is the party’s commitment. When Democrats control the courts or legislative chambers, pro-life bills, with no pun intended, are dead on arrival.

But beyond the political maneuvers, there lies a more insidious, yet often unacknowledged, aspect of this debate: the foundational assumptions that underpin arguments for unrestricted abortion. Today, I want to expose these assumptions, which, if left unchallenged, become the very intellectual and moral blinders that obscure truth and, ultimately, contribute to the intentional taking of innocent human lives. These are, quite literally, assumptions that kill.

The Abortion Debate: Political Realities and Core Logic

At the core of the pro-life view is a simple, inescapable logical framework. It’s what we teach as our pro-life syllogism:

  • Premise one: It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings.
  • Premise two: Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being.
  • Conclusion: Therefore, abortion is wrong.

This syllogism is the bedrock. It’s fundamentally a philosophical and moral argument. What you’ll find, time and again, is that arguments for abortion’s legality rarely, if ever, directly engage with or refute this core logic. Instead, they pivot, employing what I call “change the subject” tactics. These tactics, whether they speak of societal benefits or dire consequences, invariably rest on one colossal, unstated assumption: the unborn are not human.

Debunking “Dire Consequences” Claims: Spousal Abuse and Beyond

Consider a recent example that just broke on the wire, an article published in a female medical journal, stemming from City University of New York researchers. This piece argues that restricting abortion, making it harder to get, will lead to adverse effects on maternal morbidity (harm) and mortality (death), and crucially, will cause instances of spousal and partner abuse to skyrocket. This is presented as a forecast, a projection of what will happen based on states restricting abortion. They argue it will especially hurt poor and minority women.

Now, if you’ve put your thinking cap on, you’ll realize this is nothing new. For decades, we’ve heard similar forecasts: if we restrict abortion, women will die in “back alleys” from rusty coat hanger abortions. We’ve been told crime levels will go up because more “unwanted kids” will be born. We’ve heard that protecting the unborn will lead to skyrocketing cases of child abuse. This latest study, in that sense, is simply a new iteration of an old refrain.

But here’s the crucial point, and it’s vital you understand this: none of these alleged “dire consequences”—even if they were true—do anything to refute the pro-life syllogism. Suppose for a moment that it were true that restricting abortion led to an increase in domestic violence. Would that prove the unborn are not human? Or, would it justify intentionally killing them? Of course not.

This leads us to the fundamental flaw in such arguments: they assume the unborn are not human. They take it for granted. Notice what this line of reasoning implies: because some humans (mothers) might face difficulties or increased risk if they cannot intentionally kill other innocent human beings (the unborn), then the law ought to make it safe and legal for them to do the killing. This is ridiculous on its face.

To illustrate the absurdity, consider an analogy. Suppose someone could concoct a study indicating that the presence of toddlers in the home proved to be very distracting for mothers, causing them to neglect other children because they were so focused on the toddler. Or that 2-year-olds present a substantial risk to safety in the home due to their demands. Now, suppose the argument were made that it ought to be okay to eliminate this “distraction problem” or “safety risk” by eliminating the toddlers in question. What would we say? Everybody would say, “What a bogus argument!”. Nobody would go there. Why? Because we recognize that even if a toddler is challenging, he or she should not be killed to make life easier for somebody else or to spare someone a problem.

Yet, they argue that way with the unborn. They’ll claim “we need abortion to protect the health of other human beings”. But wait a minute—that only works if you assume the innocent unborn in question are not human. Nobody would argue we should kill five-year-olds to make it safer domestically for parents, but they will argue that way with the unborn. It is an argument that only works if you assume the unborn are not human.

This same flawed logic underpins the long-standing claim that abortion must be kept “safe and legal”. When people say this, the first question I ask is: “Safe for whom?”. Is it safe for the child to be dismembered, poisoned, or burned in the womb? The answer is, of course, not. This argument only works if you assume that child in the womb is not actually a human being.

The “Thousands of Deaths” Myth: Statistical Discrepancies Exposed

For nearly 50 years, pro-lifers have been told that if we restrict abortion, women will die by the thousands each year from illegal abortions. This claim, that 5 to 10,000 deaths a year followed when abortion was restricted by law, is perhaps one of the most pervasive myths. But I am here to tell you, it is one big fat lie with no basis in fact whatsoever.

Let me give you the statistical evidence. This isn’t just my opinion; this is from credible sources, including abortion advocates themselves.

Expert Voices: Dismantling the Illegal Abortion Death Toll Claim

  • Dr. Malcolm Potts, former worldwide medical director for Planned Parenthood, in his own book, wrote that “those who want the law to be liberalized will stress the hazards of illegal abortion and claim that hundreds or thousands of women die unnecessarily each year when the actual number is far lower”. I quoted this directly to his own students in a debate, and he went ballistic. This wasn’t a pro-lifer making this claim; it was an abortion advocate admitting the numbers were much lower.

  • Daniel Callahan, author of Abortion Law, Choice, and Morality, who supports abortion, is nonetheless committed to being evenhanded with the evidence. He writes that while illegal abortions certainly happen and some women are harmed, it is “simply untenable to the max to say that 5 to 10,000 women a year died from illegal abortion”. He gives a compelling reason: up to 30,000 women a year of reproductive age die from all causes. To claim 5 to 10,000 a year come from only one cause—illegal abortion—is preposterous; it stretches credibility to the breaking point.

  • Dr. Mary Calderone, Planned Parenthood’s medical director in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when allegedly all these women were dying), told the American Journal of Public Health that the death rate from illegal abortion was so low, it really wasn’t even worth commenting on. She attributed this low rate primarily to the widespread introduction of penicillin, which dramatically reduced post-operative infections, whether from abortion or other surgeries like appendectomies or tonsillectomies.

  • Dr. Christopher Tietze, a statistician with Planned Parenthood at the time, called the claim of 5 to 10,000 deaths a year from illegal abortion “unmitigated nonsense” to The New York Times.

  • Finally, and perhaps most damningly, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who co-founded NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) and later became a pro-life advocate, wrote in his book Aborting America that not only had he presided over 60,000 abortions, but he “made up the figure of 5 to 10,000 deaths a year and sold it to the media”.

These are facts you need to know. The claim of thousands of deaths from illegal abortions is statistically bogus. But even beyond the statistics, the philosophical problem remains: it assumes the unborn are not human. If they are human, then arguing for making abortion “safe” is like arguing we should make bank robbery legal so it’s “safer for felons”. This is absurd.

Strategic Engagement: Exposing the “Assumptions That Kill”

It is vitally important for pro-lifers to recognize and expose this assumption right out of the gate. For too long, we have let that go. If you don’t expose this assumption, you’ll find yourself trapped in a “my study is better than your study” battle, where the news media will almost invariably be on the side of your critic. You will not have the benefit of the doubt in that case. Instead, you need an additional way to argue: point out the philosophical and logical flaw in the claim, namely, that it assumes the unborn are not human.

Nobody would argue we should make bank robbery legal so that it’s safer for felons. But yet, when people argue we should make abortion legal so that it’s safer for those who want to do the killing, they are making the assumption the unborn in question are not human. They need to argue for that, not merely assume it. And don’t count on them being able to argue for it, but they will get away with that assumption if you don’t challenge it.

Every time you read a headline suggesting that abortion is “saving lives” or making it “possible for women to enjoy a greater level of health,” understand this: every one of these arguments begins by assuming the unborn are not human. This is the core “assumption that kills” – the assumption that allows the intentional killing of an entire class of innocent human beings to be rationalized away under the guise of societal benefit or harm prevention. Our task is to consistently and effectively expose this foundational, deadly assumption. The truth, and the lives that depend on it, demand nothing less.