The contemporary discourse surrounding the pro-life position is frequently obscured by confusing and problematic statements issued by influential leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, who seek to shift the focus of the debate away from its fundamental ethical core. While many well-regarded Catholic writers—such as Robert George, Patrick Lee, and Francis J. Beckwith—have provided persuasive arguments in defense of the pro-life view, not all high-profile religious commentary maintains this clarity. The goal of the pro-life argument is straightforward: to protect children in the womb from intentional killing. However, powerful voices are attempting to redefine the term “pro-life” to encompass a wider array of issues, often influenced by the political left, thereby injecting false moral equivalencies that confuse proponents and critics alike.
The integrity of the pro-life stance hinges upon a clear, formal argument, encapsulated by the repetition of three key words: syllogism, syllogism, syllogism. This core argument states: Premise one, it is wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings; Premise two, abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings; Conclusion, therefore, abortion is wrong. When this formal argument is abandoned or diluted, critics and even allies often “cloud the waters” or “muddy up the discussion” with external ideas.
The Catholic Challenge: Equating Intentional Killing with Refusing to Help
A prime example of this intellectual drift is found in recent commentary from a prominent Catholic representative, Pope Leo, who is identified as the first American pope. Weighing in on U.S. politics, Pope Leo made rare comments engaging in a “thinly veiled battle” with the White House over the true meaning of “pro-life”.
In a recent statement, Pope Leo argued that being truly pro-life necessitates opposing the death penalty and criticizing U.S. immigration policy. Following a decision by a Chicago Cardinal to award Illinois Senator Dick Durban a lifetime achievement award—despite Durban’s defense of abortion rights—the Pope urged Catholics to avoid judging political figures on a single issue. He then took aim, stating that someone who opposes abortion but favors the death penalty “is not really pro-life”. Furthermore, he questioned the pro-life credentials of anyone who is “against abortion, but [is] in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants or in the United States,” specifically referencing opposition to deporting those in the nation illegally. According to the Pope’s argument, supporting the deportation of illegal immigrants is “inhumane” and disqualifies one from being truly pro-life.
If Pope Leo wished to argue that the death penalty or deporting illegal immigrants were immoral on their own merits, there would be no particular issue, though one might disagree with his conclusions. However, the problem arises when he makes the “broad swipe” that opposition to these policies is a prerequisite for holding pro-life convictions, thereby “clouding the definition” of the term. Historically, the pro-life position has opposed the intentional killing of innocent human beings in the womb.
Dismantling the False Moral Parallelism
The attempt to establish moral equivalence between abortion, the death penalty, and immigration policy fundamentally fails when judged against the core syllogism.
The Death Penalty vs. Abortion: The death penalty, by definition, involves the intentional killing of individuals who are not innocent of committing capital crimes; they have been justly sentenced for those offenses. Abortion, conversely, involves intentionally killing someone who has done nothing to be charged or sentenced for a capital wrong. Therefore, the two acts are not morally parallel.
Even if a pro-life advocate were deemed inconsistent for supporting the death penalty while opposing abortion, this inconsistency would not invalidate the pro-life argument itself. The syllogism remains true regardless of how one applies their principles in other areas. Arguing otherwise constitutes a subtle ad hominem attack often employed by critics.
Immigration/Aid vs. Abortion: The moral gap between abortion and policies concerning immigration or aid is “immeasurably worse”. The debate over who to allow into the country is asking the question, “who ought we help?”. Abortion, however, answers the question, “who do we get to intentionally kill?”. These two questions are not morally parallel.
There is a world of difference between refusing to help someone and intentionally killing them. For example, a person who passes a homeless man without giving him money has not wronged or harmed him; they have left him in the exact condition they found him. If, however, one takes all his money and slits his throat, the victim is made “immeasurably worse off”. Similarly, abortion does not merely leave the unborn in the condition they were found; it intentionally kills them, worsening their position and their actual life. To link a position on abortion to supporting an “open border” or opposing deportation—even when migrants are “breaking the law by doing so”—is described as “intellectually dishonest” and based on “crummy moral reasoning”. The suggestion that opposing these “liberal leftist causes” invalidates one’s pro-life credentials is a moral equivalency that should be rejected.
The Protestant Challenge: Smearing Motives
The confusion is not limited to Catholic leadership; Protestant figures are also advancing “problematic” arguments. George Yansy, a Protestant professor at Baylor University, targeted Republican Christians who voted for Donald Trump, claiming they “turn[ed] their back on their principles to justify their support of an immoral, egotistical man”. Yansy asserted that these voters were motivated by “fear and hatred of their political opponents”.
This claim—that Republican voters supported Trump solely out of hatred for Democrats or fear of their opponents—is seen as unjustified. While acknowledging Trump is a flawed candidate, many voters chose him to “limit some of the evil” promoted by the opposing party, which they believe would “promote evil wholesale” with its policies. The motivation for opposing the Democrat party stems from a fundamental hatred of their “intrinsically evil policies that deal a severe threat to human flourishing,” covering issues like abortion, the definition of marriage, transgender ideology, and economic policies.
This opposition to policy is distinct from hatred of individuals. For instance, one can greet a neighbor who is a Democrat “charitably every day” while still vigorously desiring that their party’s policies “lose in the public square”.
For Yansy, or others like Russell Moore, David French, and Curtis Chang, to suggest that the sole driving factor for supporting Trump is political fear or hatred is an “ad hominemum attack” that is “beneath him”. The implication that supporting Trump is a “betrayal of their Christian witness” ignores the fact that evangelical support for Trump actually increased in recent elections, suggesting rank-and-file evangelicals are often “smarter than their so-called betters” who lecture them on morality.
The Democrat party is described as purging its ranks of dissenting voices, unlike the party of the 1980s that allowed figures like Governor Robert Casey to argue against abortion on the grounds that it was inconsistent with protecting the weak and vulnerable. Today, the party is characterized as affirming and pushing evil policies wholesale, from supporting abortion to insisting on policies that allow grown men in girls’ locker rooms or surgeries that “dehumanize human bodies”. Therefore, opposition to the party’s policies is a moral obligation for a pro-life Christian, not an act motivated solely by spite. To “smear the motives wholesale” of those who disagree is where the fundamental problem lies.
The Ultimate Distraction: The Burning Research Lab
Another recurring objection used to muddy the waters is the infamous “Burning Research Lab” thought experiment. The scenario posits a dilemma: You are in an inferno and can only save either a six-year-old girl or a thousand frozen embryos. Critics argue that because most people would instinctively save the six-year-old, it proves pro-life advocates do not truly believe the embryos are human or that their killing is morally wrong.
This scenario, however, makes the same crucial mistake of assuming a false moral equivalence. The question posed by the Burning Research Lab is: “Who ought we save first?”. The question posed by abortion is: “Who do I get to intentionally kill?”. It is acceptable to prioritize whom one chooses to rescue—for instance, choosing to save one’s own child over a stranger, which is “morally permissible” because, while everyone has an equal right to life, no one has an equal right to be rescued.
To suggest that choosing to save the girl over the embryos somehow makes killing the embryos “morally permissible” is ridiculous. The key distinction is that making a triage decision (who to save) does not grant the right to inflict lethal harm upon those left behind (who to intentionally kill). If one saves their child first, they do not then shoot those left behind.
Conclusion: Avoiding Mission Drift
The ongoing efforts by influential figures—whether Pope Leo or George Yansy—to redefine or complicate the pro-life position risk leading to “mission drift”. If pro-life organizations allow their mission statements to be redefined, they risk becoming unfocused and potentially bankrupting themselves. As noted by Frederick the Great, “he who fights everywhere fights nowhere”.
While a Christian should care about issues like the death penalty, immigration, refugees, and poverty, these issues should not be unfairly linked to the morality of abortion. It is vital to return to moral clarity: the issue of abortion boils down entirely to one question: Are we intentionally killing an innocent human being?. By adhering strictly to the syllogism, pro-life advocates can maintain their focus and ensure they are not “bamboozle[d]” into thinking their credibility is lost merely because they disagree with a specific policy on immigration or welfare. The difference between refusing to help and intentional killing remains the moral barrier that separates the debate over life in the womb from all other political and social concerns.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated from the episode’s YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability: filler words and the mid-show announcements have been removed. It may still contain transcription errors.
Protestant and Catholic leaders are saying some very confusing things on abortion. We’re going to talk about that on this episode of the case for life. Welcome everybody. Great to have you with us. Let me remind you of something very important. Summit Ministries, which is a fantastic supporter of this show, has just opened registration for their summer conferences for students. As I’ve told you before, there is no better place to send your team to learn how to defend a biblical view of reality.
It is topshelf stuff. So, I would like to encourage you to visit Summit’s website, which we’ll put on the screen there for you, and you can investigate sending your child there to equip them to defend the lies they’re going to be told when they leave the safety of your home. And the goal here is not only to teach them to defend truth, but to thrive as a Christian, to make a difference where God plants them. And Summit will help your student do just that.
So, I hope you’ll check out their site and see what they’re offering this summer. You get a special discount if you mention my name. So, that’s something I hope you’ll take advantage of. Okay. There’s a lot in the news right now and we’re going to talk about a couple of things that have been said first by a Catholic representative and then by a Protestant one. I don’t want anybody accusing me of being partisan here, but sadly there are a lot of people out there that want to shift the pro-life argument from who should we protect to who should we help thrive outside the womb.
And they want to change pro-life from meaning protection for children in the womb to helping children live outside the womb. Now, I’m fine with having a discussion about how best to help born kids, that’s a worthy topic, but to link it to the ethics of abortion is seriously wrong. And a lot of people are doing that. And I wish they didn’t, but they are. There’s a reason why we tell you the three most important words in defending the pro-life view are syllogism.
Once you keep the argument focused on does abortion intentionally kill an innocent human being, you are in the driver’s seat. Then when people come along and want to cloud the waters, they want to muddy up the discussion with all these other external ideas, you can bring them back to the very formal argument that we’re making. Okay. So, what am I referencing here? Well, the first one I want to talk about is Pope Leo. Now, again, I want to make this very clear.
My purpose here is not to launch a broadside against Catholics. I’ve been very open with all of you to make it very clear that I have been influenced by some very good Catholic writers on abortion. People like Robert George, Patrick Lee, Francis J. Beckwith and others that have written very persuasive arguments in defense of the pro-life view and they don’t make the mistake that Pope Leo is about to make here as I’ll show you. They make a very clear defense of the pro-life view.
But that’s not always what happens. Sadly, there are people who make very clouded statements that confuse pro-lifers rather than help them. And I’m going to give you an example here of Pope Leo. Pope Leo basically had this to say in a recent statement.
Pope Leo, the first American pope, is making some rare comments about US politics. The pontiff weighing in on several hot button issues facing the White House. Here’s ABC’s Victor Okendo with the details.
This morning, Pope Leo and the White House engaging in a thinly veiled battle over what it means to be pro-life. Leo in rare political comments bringing up the issues of abortion and the death penalty. Someone who says I’m against abortion, but says I’m in favor of the death penalty, is not really pro-life.
The Pope made the comments after he was asked about a Chicago Cardinal awarding Illinois Senator Dick Durban a lifetime achievement award. Even though Durban is a defender of abortion rights, something the church opposes. In defending the award, Pope Leo urged Catholics not to judge political figures on a single issue. In making his point, he then took aim at US immigration policy. Someone who says that I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States.
I don’t know if that’s pro-life.
The Pope not mentioning President Trump or the administration by name.
Okay, that’s enough for now. You heard the Pope’s argument to be pro-life, you have to oppose the death penalty and you have to be supporting of illegal aliens being in our nation and not being deported. That if you support deporting them, that’s inhumane and you’re not really pro-life. Let’s take a look at this. Now, let me be clear about something. If the Pope wants to make an argument, a standalone argument that the death penalty is immoral and that deporting people who are here illegally is immoral, I don’t really have a problem with that.
I’m probably not going to agree with his argument, but I don’t think there’s anything particularly egregious about making that argument. But when you make a broad swipe that you’re not pro-life, unless you disagree with the death penalty and disagree with deporting people who are here illegally, you’re clouding the definition of what it means to be pro-life. Now, again, historically, pro-life has meant you oppose the intentional killing of innocent human beings in the womb. That has now shifted in many circles, especially those influenced by the political left.
To mean that pro-life means care for people outside the womb as much as it does not having them unjustly killed in the womb. And that is a facious and problem problematic way to view the definition of what it means to be pro-life. So let’s start here. If the pope had simply argued deporting people is morally wrong and here are my reasons. Again, there’d be no argument for me. I would disagree with him, but I probably wouldn’t even bring it up. Fair-minded people can disagree on immigration policy.
They can disagree on the death penalty. But let’s go back to our syllogism. And I think right away you will spot the flaw. Premise one, it’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Premise two, abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings. Conclusion, therefore, abortion’s wrong. Now, ask yourself this. When we’re talking about the death penalty, are we talking about intentionally killing innocent human beings? Of course not. By definition, the death penalty involves people who are not innocent of committing capital crimes. They have committed capital crimes and crimes and they’re being justly sentenced for those.
That’s not what’s happening in abortion. In abortion, we are intentionally killing someone who has done nothing to be charged or sentenced for committing a capital wrong. In this case, the capital murder or killing. So, this is not parallel at all. And by the way, let’s say pro-lifers were inconsistent for supporting the death penalty but opposing abortion. How would that refute the syllogism we just gave you? Could abortion still be wrong even if we’re inconsistent on the death penalty? And the answer is of course.
How you apply your argument does not invalidate the argument itself. At best, you could say, “Hey, that particular proifer is not being consistent with his or her own principles.” But that would not refute the argument the proifer is making. This is just a subtle ad hominemum attack that critics of the pro-life view love to toss out there. But let’s jump back to the Pope on the issue of immigration for a moment. With the question of who we allow into our country and who we do not, we are not asking the question, who do we get to intentionally kill?
We’re asking the question, who ought we help? There’s no moral parallel between those two questions. It is immeasurably worse to intentionally kill someone who’s innocent than it is to say, you know, I’m going to refrain from helping them at this time. For example, if I pass a homeless man on the street and I don’t give him five bucks, I’ve not wronged him. I’ve not harmed him because I haven’t made him worse off. I’ve left him in exactly the condition he was in when I found him.
But if I take all his money and slit his throat in the process, I’ve made him immeasurably worse off. I haven’t just left him in the condition he was in. I’ve worsened his position or in this case his actual life. And with abortion, here’s what we need to understand. With abortion, we are not merely leaving the unborn in the condition that we find them nestled in their mother’s wombs. Rather, we are intentionally killing them which makes them immeasurably worse off. There is no moral equivalency between leaving somebody in a position we find them and making them worse off.
The two are not morally equivalent. Now again, if the pope wants to argue it’s morally wrong for us not to accept everyone who comes to our country legal or not and if he wants to argue it’s morally wrong to deport people who are here illegally that all migrants should be allowed to stay fine he can make that case but when he links it to the morality of abortion he’s being intellectually dishonest again there is a world of difference between refusing to help someone and intentionally killing them. Abortion answers the question, who do we get to intentionally kill?
The border policy is asking the question, who ought we help? Those two are not morally parallel. And for the Pope to suggest you can’t be pro-life if you don’t support an open border and allow illegal migrants to be here, even if they are breaking the law by doing so. That is just not that’s not a moral equivalency I’m going to accept. It’s false. It’s wrong and I wish he had done better. Now, this is something that I think is not just related to Catholics.
There are Protestants making arguments that I think are very problematic today. And I want to I want to read what one said. Here’s something that a Protestant professor at Baylor University, a guy by the name of George Yansy, said about Republican Christians who voted for Trump. I want to read this to you. He said, “I watched Republicans turn their back on their principles to justify their support of an immoral, egotistical man. They voted they did this,” he goes on to say, out of fear and hatred of their political opponents.
Okay, don’t miss what he’s saying here. Those of us who supported Donald Trump in the last general election, 2024, we did so out of hatred for Democrats and out of our fear of our fellow man or fellow opponents as he put it. Now again, if he wants to make an argument that it’s immoral to vote for Donald Trump, fine, make that argument. It’s possible to have a good faith discussion on that, I suppose. But when you say that people only did it because they were motivated by fear, motivated by hate, this isn’t going to fly.
I’ve said this before and it’s worth repeating. I voted for Donald Trump in two general elections, actually three general elections, 2016, 2020, and more recently in 2024. He was not my pick in the primaries of those years. But when it came down to choosing for a flawed political candidate that would limit some of the evil and one who was also flawed on the other side, who would promote evil wholesale, I opted to vote for the candidate that would limit some of the evil and promote a lot of good over a flawed candidate who will promote evil wholesale with his or her policies.
Now, what motivated me there was not hatred for individual Democrats. I don’t hate Democrats. I’ll tell you what I do hate. They’re intrinsically evil policies that deal a severe threat to human flourishing. I hate what their policies do. Democrat policies are hellish. Whether we’re talking about abortion, the definition of marriage, pushing a transgender ideology on culture, economic policies that harm people profiting and harm people flourishing. I think their general policies across the board are hellish. That’s why I oppose them and that’s why I work hard to campaign for candidates that will stand against those policies.
It’s not that I hate my neighbor down the street, my neighbor Floyd, for example, who is a Democrat, and I still greet him charitably every day that I see him. I greet him, ask how his day is going. We have pleasant conversations. Look, he had a Harris Walt sign in his yard a year ago. At this time, I did not go over there and treat him cruy because of it. I didn’t hate him. I wish him the best. But do I want his party’s policies to lose in the public square?
You better believe it. Now, for Yansy to suggest that the only reason someone could vote for a flawed candidate like Donald Trump, and let’s be clear, Trump is flawed. He is a flawed candidate. I don’t applaud everything he has said or done in his life. But when it comes to what we look at nationally, I am making a decision based on who will advance policies that I agree with, not out of hatred for someone on the other party. Okay? I don’t hate people on the other side of the aisle.
I hate the policies they’re promoting. And for Yansy to suggest that the only thing that would drive someone like me to vote for Trump is political fear of my opponents and hatred of my opponents. That’s just beneath him. A professor at a Christian university like Baylor ought to know better. This is exactly the same kind of rot we’ve been hearing from Russell Moore, David French, Curtis Chang, and others who have been chiding evangelicals for five years now or longer, really a decade now, that voting for a guy like Trump is a betrayal of their Christian witness and that they just fear politics and they hate their fellow man on the other side of the aisle.
This is nonsense. And by the way, I’m glad to report that despite non-stop barrage from people like Moore and French and others, evangelical support for Donald Trump actually went up in the last election, not down. And here’s why. Rank and file evangelicals are a lot smarter than their so-called betters that are always lecturing them about the morality of voting for a flawed candidate. Your average evangelical voter looks at this and goes, “Wait a minute. The choice in front of me in the last few elections has been between a flawed candidate that will promote evil wholesale.
And make no mistake, the Democrat party promotes evil policies wholesale. In fact, they are purging their ranks of any dissenting voices. We are a long way from the Democrat party of the 1980s that at least had a Democrat governor like Robert Casey who said, “Hey, we need to rethink abortion here. Abortion is not consistent with our alleged principles of standing up for the weak and vulnerable.” And Bob Casey made a very good argument that when you support abortion, you are tread you are actually treading the rights of the unborn under the bus and you’re not sticking up for those that are vulnerable.
You’re actually trampling on their rights. And I agree with him. He made a very good case. Well, his party made a decision not to even let him speak in 1992 when Bill Clint when Bill Clinton was the candidate. So at their convention, Bob Casey was cancelled. All right. Since that time, the Democrat party has made it very clear, you are not welcome if you are pro-life. And by the way, that’s consistent with their policies. So I’m not being mean by saying they are the pro-abortion party that promotes evil wholesale.
Look at their policy on men participating in women’s sports and insisting that grown men can be in girls lockers rooms if they identify as female. Look at the way they are willing to allow surgeries that that absolutely mil absolutely dehumanize human bodies, cutting the breasts off girls, cutting the genitals off of boys and so on and so on. This is not a party that is merely tolerating evil anymore. This is a party rushing to affirm it and push it wholesale. So by opposing that party, it’s not that I hate the people, I hate the policies, and I’m going to stand against that policy.
I have to if I’m going to be a pro-life Christian. But for a guy like Yansy to come along and say the only motivation you would ever have is to advance your own political power to hate those that are Democrats and to be driven by fear is just an ad hominemum attack that quite frankly is immoral. I can’t believe someone would judge their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ with the worst possible motives when it’s clear that for the vast majority of us we were voting to limit the evil policies of the opposing party.
Now, if you want to make the case that credentially that hasn’t worked, that by voting to limit evil by voting for Republicans, it actually hasn’t brought about the result that you’d hope for. Okay, I’m open to that debate. That could be a good faith debate. But when you just smear the motives wholesale of those you disagree with, that’s where I have a problem. And really, we see it happening with the Pope when he says, “Hey, if you’re not supporting an open border and you’re not supporting opposition to the death penalty and if you don’t support these liberal leftist causes, you’re not pro-life.” And then you got George Yansy on the Protestant side saying, “Hey, the only reason you voted for Trump was out of spiteful motives like hatred for your opponents and fear.” I have a problem with you at that point.
Let’s have good faith arguments. If you think the death penalty is wrong, fair. Make your argument. Maybe you’ll persuade me, maybe you won’t. But when you call into question someone’s pro-life credentials because they don’t agree with you on an issue that is not morally equivalent to abortion. Remember abortion is asking the question who do we get to intentionally kill. The debate over the border and the debate over helping poor people, immigrants, whatever is about who ought we help. And the two questions are not morally equivalent.
Don’t let people bamboozle you into thinking you have no pro-life credibility because you oppose abortion, but you also want people to be in our country legally and you support people being removed who are not here legally. Again, if the Pope wants to make an argument that we ought to let everybody stay, go for it. Probably won’t persuade me, but at least it would be a good faith argument. But calling into question my pro-life credentials because I want our borders secured. No, I’m not buying that.
That is crummy moral reasoning and I really expect better from a pope who’s going to be the moral voice of a church. Okay, we’re going to take a break. When we come back, I’m going to talk about one more argument you will hear a lot where people are muddying the waters. We’re going to talk about the infamous burning research lab. I don’t know why this keeps coming up and I’ll show you how it’s very similar to what we’ve been talking about here with the Pope and with George Yansy.
Again, I hope you will visit the Summit Ministries website and take a look at their summer conferences. The dates have been announced. There will be conferences in Colorado and in South Carolina at Anderson University. So, I would encourage you to take a look at that and prepare to equip your team to not only defend the pro-life view, but a biblical worldview in general. I’ll see you on the other side of the break.
Welcome back everyone. Good to have you with us. Again, I want to remind you that in my book, The Case for Life, the second edition here, I have a whole chapter on what does it mean to be pro-life? And there were some people that wanted me to take that chapter out. They thought it was either unnecessary or maybe a bit too combative. But I left it in there because I think the pro-life movement right now is having a big fight over our over our identity.
And we need to be very clear about what we’re about. If we allow people to come in and redefine our mission statements, redefine our job descriptions, we’re going to bankrupt our pro-life organizations. We’re going to become unfocused. And like Frederick the Great once said, “He who fights everywhere fights nowhere.” We do not want to let mission drift take us over. And that’s exactly what a lot of people are doing when they say, “Hey, if you’re really pro-life, you need to put equal emphasis on things like the death penalty, border policy, how we treat immigrants, how we treat refugees, and our concern for the poor.” Look, as a Christian, I will care about all those issues and there should be a biblical response to them.
I’m not saying those issues don’t matter. I’m saying they should not be linked unfairly to the morality of abortion. So, that’s a different argument than saying we shouldn’t address those issues biblically. Yeah, we should, but let’s not let people suggest falsely a moral equivalence between all of them that isn’t there. All right, enough on that for now. I mentioned before the break that I would talk about another way that people get the question wrong. You’ve probably heard this objection to the pro-life view.
Oh, you think the unborn are human? You think abortion’s wrong? Well, consider this. You’re in a burning research lab, and in one corner over there are a thousand frozen embryos, and in this corner over here is a six-year-old girl. You only have time to save either the thousand frozen embryos or the six-year-old girl. Remember, the building’s an inferno. You can’t save both. Which one are you going to pick? Now, all of us are going for the six-year-old girl. And our critic comes critics come back and say, “See, even you don’t believe A the embryos are human.
And B, you don’t you don’t disagree with killing them through abortion because if you did, you would have saved the six-year-old or excuse me, you would have saved the embryos over the six-year-old or at a minimum, you would have thought about how could I save both, but instinctively, intuitively, the critic says you went for the six-year-old.” Okay, let’s see where this goes off the rails right away. First of all, what is the question of the Burning Research Lab really addressing? Is it addressing who we get to intentionally kill or is it addressing who we ought to save first?
And the answer is quite clear. It’s the second question. Who ought we save? What is abortion about? Abortion’s about the first question. Who do I get to intentionally kill? Right away, you can see there is no moral equivalency between those two issues. It is one thing to say, I’m going to choose who I save or who I choose to rescue, but it’s quite another to say who I’m going to intentionally kill. For example, if I’m in a building that’s on fire and I choose to save my own kid over yours, does that mean I think your kid is less human and less valuable?
The answer is no. We all have an equal right to life, but not everybody, in fact, none of us have an equal right to be rescued. Parents have special duties to their kids that they don’t have to strangers. So, saving my own kid first is perfectly understandable and morally permissible. Now, we can have a discussion about rank orderering those we save and how we ought to approach that. Typical triage questions. I get that. That’s fair. But to suggest that it’s morally parallel to abortion, saving the six-year-old versus saving embryos, that somehow that shows that killing the embryos is morally permissible.
That’s ridiculous. Now, by the way, let’s go back to the Burning Research Lab. Suppose I save you over someone else. Does it give me the right to slit the throat of others as I’m going out the door with you? Of course not. If I save my own kid first, I save my own kid first. But I don’t shoot those left behind because that then changes from who am I saving to who am I intentionally killing? And with abortion, the issue is about who do we get to intentionally kill.
Remember our syllogism. Premise one, it’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Premise two, abortion does that. Conclusion, therefore, it’s wrong. Okay, stick to that and you won’t be fooled by people like Pope Leo, George Yansancy or others who really want to change the subject. The issue of abortion comes down to one question. Are we intentionally killing an innocent human being? If the answer is yes, we have our moral clarity. If the answer is no, you better give me a good argument for why the unborn are not human.
Thanks for joining us today. I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.