In the highly polarized debate over abortion, advocates of the pro-life position consistently maintain that the morality of the act hinges on a single, scientific, and philosophical question: What is the unborn? The answer, according to embryology and biology, is that the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings, leading to the inescapable conclusion, framed by the pro-life syllogism, that intentionally killing them is wrong. However, when confronted with this formal argument, opponents often employ a ubiquitous tactic: they shift the question from the identity of the unborn to a broader discussion of social welfare and systemic issues, effectively excluding the unborn from the category of those worthy of care and protection. This argumentative shift exposes a fundamental flaw in the pro-abortion position, revealing its lack of true inclusivity and its reliance on arbitrary boundaries to justify intentional killing.
The young pro-life apologist Micah Kungl recently demonstrated mastery in exposing this flaw during a series of online debates with pro-abortion activists. When Kungl presented the scientific case for the humanity of the unborn, his opponent, named Tim, offered no counter-argument but immediately diverted the conversation. Tim shifted the focus to advocating for better care for “the people that are already here,” stressing the need to protect those seeking refuge across the border, address maternal mortality rates in red states, and combat infant mortality.
The Exclusionary Appeal to “Us”
While addressing societal injustices and public health crises are worthy moral concerns, introducing them into the abortion debate serves a distinct rhetorical purpose: to change the subject and assume the unborn are not human.
The central issue is not whether we should care for those who are already born, but who exactly is included in the categories of “us” and “people”. The opponent, Tim, wished to appeal to a concept of “us” to justify abortion, but the very question of whether “us” includes the unborn is the core dispute. By focusing on external issues, the advocate assumes the unborn are not human and hopes to receive a pass on challenging that assumption.
To expose this exclusionary logic, one need only apply the same standard to other groups. Would an advocate argue that we should trust women to make personal decisions about killing a five-year-old or a ten-year-old? No, because the assumption that toddlers are human beings with intrinsic value prevents such an argument. Similarly, the argument that we should prioritize caring for those already here instead of focusing on abortion only makes sense if one arbitrarily assumes the unborn are non-human. The attempt to appeal to a concept of inclusivity (caring for refugees, mothers, and infants) is fundamentally undermined by the exclusion of the developing human being in the womb.
The Arbitrary Boundary of Location
Another significant way opponents attempt to justify exclusion is by asserting that personhood only begins at birth. One commenter argued that until an entity is born, it is not a “person”. This assertion, however, presents no logical argument as to why a mere change of location—the journey from inside the womb to outside—suddenly becomes a value-giving event that transforms a legally killable, non-human entity into a legally protected human being.
This argument breaks down completely when confronted with modern medical realities. Today, physicians are capable of performing fetal surgery, removing a child from the womb (often between 22 and 26 weeks), repairing a condition like a herniated diaphragm, and then placing the child back into the womb to continue development. Even non-pro-life sources have referred to these children as “babies who are born twice”.
If birth bestows value, then we are left with the absurdity of “episodic personhood”. Does the child go from being a non-valuable, non-human entity prior to removal, briefly gain human rights and value while outside the womb during surgery, and then revert back to being an entity that can be intentionally killed once placed back inside?. Such thinking, which defines status based on location, is “crazy” and irrelevant to the actual status of the unborn.
Peter Singer, an infamous advocate of infanticide, at least recognizes the logical inconsistency of the birth boundary, admitting that there is “no essential difference” between a fetus and a recently born child, as neither is self-aware or desires to continue living. Singer consistently argues that since the fetus lacks the necessary characteristics for rights, so does the newborn. He “chides” pro-abortion activists for believing birth is “somehow magical,” asking how “a journey of 7 inches down the birth canal suddenly change the nature of the being in question?”. The fact that advocates cling to this arbitrary spatial threshold underscores their inability to offer a principled, inclusive definition of humanity.
The Arbitrary Boundary of Cognitive Capacity
A third exclusionary argument centers on cognitive development, championed by a commenter named Nick, who argued that self-awareness or consciousness is what bestows value and a right to life. Pro-life critiques demonstrate that basing value on an “immediately exercisable capacity” like self-awareness leads to profound moral and logical dilemmas.
First, defining value by actual self-awareness would mean individuals could be killed while sleeping or under anesthesia, as their immediate capacity is absent. If the advocate chooses the “natural capacity” for self-awareness as the basis for rights, then the embryo and fetus are instantly included, as they possess the inherent nature to become self-aware, even if they cannot exercise that trait at their current developmental stage. The amoeba will never be self-aware because it is not in its nature; the embryo is “simply not yet self-aware” because it has yet to mature.
Second, using cognitive capacity as the sole determinant of value proves “too much”. Current psychological research suggests that true self-awareness does not fully manifest until after age two. Therefore, basing rights on immediate self-awareness would logically disqualify newborns and toddlers, as they “don’t value their existence over time” or see themselves as separate from their parents. While many abortion advocates want to draw the line at birth, their own argument—that cognitive development is value-giving—forces them to exclude born children as well.
Most troublingly, basing value and rights on a trait like self-awareness that is not shared equally among all human beings destroys the concept of human equality. If value is grounded in a trait that comes and goes throughout a lifetime, those who possess “more” of that immediately exercisable trait (e.g., someone fully awake and functional versus someone who hasn’t had their morning coffee) would inherently have “more fundamental rights”. The pro-life view, conversely, offers a better foundation for human equality, grounding value not in arbitrary or accidental traits, but in the shared human nature (which, in the biblical worldview, is grounded in the image of God). By selecting specific, highly developed cognitive functions as the threshold for personhood, abortion advocates enforce an exclusionary standard that is self-defeating and anti-egalitarian.
False Equivalencies and the Refusal to Intend
Further complicating the question of inclusivity is the tactic of manufacturing false moral equivalencies. Critics frequently attempt to link the pro-life position to opposition to all forms of contraception or to a willingness to let women die from ectopic pregnancies. These attempts are designed to muddy the water and force pro-lifers into defending positions that are separate from the core syllogism.
The case of ectopic pregnancy, where a developing child presents a direct and unmanageable threat to the mother’s life, requires a physician to act to save the one life they can (the mother). In this situation, the death of the embryo is foreseen but not intended. If the physician had the technological ability to transport the ectopic pregnancy to a suitable environment, they would. Abortion, however, is defined by the intention: we not only foresee the child’s death, “we intend the death of the child,” as that is “the whole point of it”. Therefore, the two acts are “not parallel at all”.
Similarly, contraception prevents the coming into existence of a human being; it does not end a life once it has begun. The moral logic used to condemn contraception (such as the Catholic teaching on separating the unitive and procreative aspects of sex) is fundamentally “different or separate from the argument against abortion”. For critics to claim that opposing abortion necessitates opposing all contraception is “simply false” and an attempt to smear the pro-life position with irrelevant concerns.
Conclusion
The challenge, “Just how inclusive are you?”, reveals the weakness of the pro-abortion advocacy. When confronted with the necessity of defending the intentional killing of an innocent human being, opponents habitually retreat to arguments based on arbitrary exclusion—whether by shifting the focus to unrelated social welfare issues, relying on the magic of location (birth), or imposing unequal standards of cognitive performance. These tactics fail to refute the core ethical argument. The task for those defending the vulnerable in the womb, therefore, is to continually return to the moral clarity of the syllogism: It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. By demanding consistency and focus, proponents of life can expose the exclusionary nature of arguments that seek to define the human being out of existence.