Hello friends, and welcome. It’s a question that arises with alarming frequency in discussions surrounding abortion: “What about rape?” It’s a visceral, heart-wrenching scenario, and one that demands a thoughtful and compassionate response, grounded in a consistent understanding of the value of human life. Today, we’re going to delve into this difficult issue, drawing upon our shared understanding of the pro-life position and equipping you to respond with both empathy and unwavering conviction.
When the topic of rape surfaces in a conversation about abortion, it’s crucial to remember the very first principle: show empathy. When someone recounts the horrific ordeal of a woman being sexually assaulted, launching immediately into statistics about the low percentage of pregnancies resulting from such crimes is not only insensitive but also counterproductive. Instead, acknowledge the terrible injustice that has occurred. Agree that the woman has suffered profoundly and express your hope that her assailant is brought to justice to the fullest extent of the law. Furthermore, emphasize the role of pro-life Christians in coming alongside such women to offer support and assistance. This initial step of empathy establishes common ground and demonstrates your shared humanity before addressing the complexities of the abortion issue.
Following this initial display of empathy, it’s vital to discern the intent behind the question. Are you speaking with an inquirer or a crusader?. An inquirer, like Ellie in the correspondence I shared, is someone who genuinely grapples with the moral implications of abortion in these tragic circumstances. They often understand the foundational principles of the pro-life view but struggle with the emotional weight of such hard cases. They are not trying to trick or derail the conversation; they seek clarity and a biblically sound approach.
On the other hand, a crusader often brings up rape not out of genuine concern but as a red herring, aiming to portray pro-lifers as uncaring extremists who would force a woman to carry a pregnancy resulting from a brutal assault. Their goal is to create a wedge issue and undermine the pro-life stance.
The approach to these two types of individuals should differ significantly. When engaging with an inquirer, continue to express empathy and acknowledge the psychological complexity of the situation. Agree that the child might serve as a painful reminder of the assault for the mother. Then, gently pivot to the fundamental question: How should a civil society treat innocent human beings who remind us of a painful event?. This question helps to distinguish between the understandable psychological distress and the objective moral status of the unborn child.
It’s crucial to emphasize that psychological complexity does not equate to objective moral complexity. Feeling sympathy for a young woman facing the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy, even one resulting from rape, does not negate the question of the moral permissibility of intentionally ending the life of the unborn child. Many people conflate these two issues, believing that their emotional response dictates the moral correctness of abortion in such cases.
To further illustrate this point, consider this: If a mother has a two-year-old child who reminds her of a past sexual assault, would anyone argue that she has the right to intentionally kill that child to alleviate her pain?. The resounding answer, from anyone with a functioning moral compass, would be no. The reason for this clear moral boundary is that we recognize the inherent value and right to life of that two-year-old human being.
This brings us to the crux of the matter: What is the unborn? Are the unborn human beings?. If the unborn are not considered human, then the reasons for seeking an abortion, whether due to rape or simply personal preference, become irrelevant from a moral standpoint. However, if the unborn are indeed human beings, then the same moral considerations that protect the life of a toddler or any other human being must apply. We must then ask: Is it ever morally justifiable to intentionally kill an innocent human being simply because they remind us of something painful?. The consistent pro-life answer, grounded in the inherent value of every human life, is no. Therefore, the central issue is not the horrific circumstances of the child’s conception but the fundamental status of the conceived child as a human being deserving of life.
When dealing with a crusader who brings up rape as a means to attack the pro-life position, a different tactic is necessary. Recognize that their argument often functions as a red herring, diverting attention from their underlying belief that abortion should be legal for any reason. In such instances, call their bluff. State that, for the sake of argument, you will grant their premise that abortion is justifiable in cases of rape. Then, ask them directly: “Will you now join me in opposing all other abortions that have nothing to do with rape?”. In my experience, and I say this with certainty, 100% of the time, the answer will be no. They will invariably revert to the argument that women have a fundamental right to abortion for any reason. This exposes their true position and reveals that their concern about rape is often a disingenuous tactic to undermine the pro-life argument. By calling their bluff, you force them to be honest about their actual beliefs rather than hiding behind the emotional weight of the rape scenario.
You can use a similar approach when confronted with the accusation that pro-lifers only care about the unborn and not about other forms of human suffering. Respond by saying, “Okay, if I and other pro-lifers dedicate ourselves to addressing poverty, assisting refugees, ensuring equal pay, and all the other issues you’ve raised, will you then become pro-life and agree to protect the unborn?”. Again, the answer will almost certainly be no, revealing that these objections are often used to avoid the central question of when it is morally permissible to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
Another effective way to address the rape objection is to ask a simple but profound question: “In the case of a pregnancy that results from rape, how many humans are involved? Two or three?”. Surprisingly, many people will answer “three”. Once they acknowledge the three individuals – the rapist, the mother, and the child – you can then ask how each should be treated. Should we execute the rapist? Most people say no, often due to a general opposition to the death penalty or the belief that rape is not a capital offense. Should we execute the mother? This idea is rightly met with horror, as it would be punishing the innocent victim. Then, ask: “What about the third person involved here, the child? Should we kill the child for the sin of his father?”. This line of questioning often leads individuals to confront the uncomfortable truth that intentionally killing an innocent human being is never justifiable, regardless of the circumstances of their conception. It brings the conversation back to the fundamental status of the unborn child.
Now, let’s turn our attention to another frequently raised “hard case”: the life of the mother. Pro-lifers must acknowledge that there are indeed situations where a pregnancy directly threatens the mother’s life. It’s crucial to emphasize the word “life,” not “health”. The definition of “health” has become so broad as to potentially encompass psychological, emotional, economic, and social well-being, which could be used to justify virtually any abortion. We are specifically addressing those rare instances where the mother’s physical life is genuinely at risk.
Consider the example of an ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo implants outside the uterus, often in the fallopian tube. As the embryo grows, it poses a direct and potentially fatal threat to the mother due to the risk of the tube rupturing and causing severe hemorrhage. In such tragic cases, a pro-life physician’s primary ethical obligation is to save the life he can. If no action is taken, both the mother and the child will likely die. The medical intervention in such cases, such as removing the ectopic pregnancy, is not an intentional killing of the unborn child. Rather, it is a necessary medical procedure to save the mother’s life, and while the death of the embryo is a foreseen but unintended consequence of this life-saving action, it is morally distinct from intentionally inducing an abortion.
Let’s return to our pro-life syllogism: It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Abortion does that. Therefore, abortion is wrong. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, the physician’s intent is not to kill the unborn child but to save the mother’s life. The morally sufficient reason for the intervention is to prevent the death of both individuals. Furthermore, in removing the embryo from a non-viable environment like the fallopian tube, where it would inevitably die, one could argue that the act does not worsen the embryo’s situation. The lack of a current ability to transplant the embryo to a viable environment does not negate the moral permissibility of saving the mother’s life. Therefore, medical procedures to treat ectopic pregnancies are not abortions in the traditional sense.
It is also important to address the false and harmful claims that pro-life laws in various states prevent women from receiving life-saving care for conditions like ectopic pregnancies. This is simply untrue. There is no state law that mandates allowing a woman to die rather than providing necessary medical treatment for ectopic pregnancies. Such misinformation is often propagated to create fear and misrepresent the pro-life position.
In conclusion, while the scenarios of rape and life of the mother present immense human tragedy and complex emotions, they do not negate the fundamental principle that it is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Our response to these hard cases must begin with empathy and a genuine acknowledgment of the suffering involved. However, we must then guide the conversation to the core issue: the moral status of the unborn child. By understanding the distinction between inquirers and crusaders, calling the bluffs of those who seek to derail the conversation, and patiently explaining the ethical considerations in cases of medical necessity, we can effectively communicate the consistent pro-life ethic that values every human life, without exception. Remember, friends, we are here to defend the pro-life view persuasively and with compassion
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.
Hello friends, welcome to The Case for Life show. We’re delighted to have you with us. What should you say if you’re talking about abortion and somebody brings up rape or life of the mother or other hardc case scenarios? How should you respond? We’re going to tackle that on today’s show. Delighted to have you with us. If you haven’t already visited our websites, please do so. Well, what should you do if you’re conversing with a friend or maybe a classmate, or maybe you’re having a discussion with a teacher, or maybe even a fellow Sunday school class member, and the person you’re talking to brings up rape?
And I got a little correspondence here that illustrates what I’m talking about. Here’s an email I got not long ago. Dear Scott, I appreciate your pro-life work, I appreciate your heart for the Lord and I appreciate the fact that you are biblically grounded in your Christianity. Thank you for all of that. Well, so far, so good. Right. And then she says this. She says I just have one concern. What about a young girl who’s raped? If I thought about my niece, for example, being sexually assaulted and being forced to carry a pregnancy to term, I don’t know that I could tell her that she’s got to do that.
It doesn’t seem right. And I’m struggling with this because, as a Christian, I know that all human beings are made in the image of God and I don’t want to defy my Christian convictions by saying abortion for rape is okay. But I still feel like it would be very difficult for anyone to tell my niece you’ve got to have this baby, when it can remind you of what you went through and cause you Untold psychological pain for the rest of your life.
Help me out here. What do I say as a Christian? Okay, that is a great email from Ellie. Thank you, Ellie. Listen, here’s the deal. When you have the issue of rape brought into a discussion on abortion, the very first thing for you to remember is actually quite easy, and that is: do what any normal human being should do when they’re confronted with a situation where an innocent woman has been assaulted sexually: show empathy. Too often what happens is pro-lifer. Go immediately to statistics.
Hey, well, you know, 98% of all sexual assaults do not result in pregnancy, only a very small percentage. Do that’s kind of a bad answer when someone just told you of a woman that’s been sexually assaulted instead? Here’s what I would do: I would show empathy. Then the next step you want to do is simply say something like this: you know you’re right. That woman that’s been sexually assaulted has suffered a terrible injustice. We agree on that, and I hope that her, as salent, is punished to the full, fullest extent of the law, and I hope that pro-life Christians come alongside that woman and assist her, show empathy.
Then the next thing you want to do is decide: am I talking to an inquirer or am I talking to a crusader? And it’s vitally important you make that distinction and get it right. Here’s the difference. The email I just read is very much a case of there being a inquirer like her, who understands the moral logic of the peif view. Remember what she said. She says here that she appreciates the fact that I’m a biblically grounded Christian and she wants to be as well.
So she’s not coming to this issue with an attitude. She’s not bringing up rape to try to trick me. She’s not bringing up rape to try to change the subject on the abortion debate. She is a genuinely concerned Christian woman I’m assuming young who wants to understand this issue and be biblical in her approach. That is what we call an inquirer, not somebody who, is just bringing up the issue to distract. Now, the other person that brings up rape is not so intellectually honest.
This person is what we call a crusader. They don’t bring up rape because they’re struggling with the issue psychologically. They bring up rape because they want to try to make you look like an extremist. How dare you? You wouldn’t even force a woman who’s been raped. You would force her to carry this baby to term and you don’t care about her well-being at all. You just want to force your view on her and make her suffer for being assaulted. How dare you call yourself a pro-life, compassionate Christian?
Okay, that person is bringing up rape to create a wedge issue that they can use to try to derail your pro-life case, and that person you’re going to treat very differently than you do The Inquirer. So how should we treat The Inquirer? Here’s what you do. Like I said a moment ago, when the issue of rape is brought up by an inquirer, you’re going to be very careful to show empathy first, and I would say something like this. I would say something like: Ellie, look, I agree with you completely.
You’re right. That woman who has been sexually assaulted has suffered a terrible injustice. And you know what else I agree with you on. It’s quite possible, perhaps even probable, that that child will remind her of what she went through for the rest of her life. You could be right about that in terms of the child being a painful reminder to the mother. You and I agree on that. So then the question becomes this: how should a civil society treat innocent human beings who remind us of a painful event?
And let the question just be there a little bit now. What this question helps do is help to distinguish psychological complexity from objective moral complexity. Here’s psychological complexity pro-lifer here of a 13-year-old girl that’s pregnant and, you know, she and her boyfriend messed up and they’re pregnant. And, we feel sympathy for her and we think, boy, I sure wouldn’t want to be 13 and pregnant and face the terror of telling my parents, my youth group kicking me out, my Christian School kicking me out and the fact that I may not have, a very good young adult season of life because I’ll be busy raising a kid.
We understandably feel sympathy for this girl, but it doesn’t follow that, because we feel sympathy for her, meaning psychological connection with her on this, it doesn’t follow that there’s no objectively right decision to make about her child. And what a lot of people do is they confuse psychologic, iCal complexity, meaning they feel conflicted in their emotions about this girl. On one hand, they understand what she’s going through. On the other hand, they think, well, we shouldn’t, you know, end a pregnancy for frivolous reasons.
But this doesn’t seem frivolous. This girl is indeed going to face incredible challenges, and so people think that, because they feel a sympathy for the girl, that there’s no right answers on what to do about her child. And that’s simply not true. Psychological complexity does not equal objective moral complexity. So let’s unpack this a little further, in this case by asking the question: how should a civil society treat innocent human beings who remind us of a painful event? We’re getting to the core issue that is really the one that matters most, and that is: what is The Unborn?
If The Unborn are not human, it doesn’t matter how. Why you want to abort the pregnancy, who cares? Right? I mean, maybe the woman just wants an abortion? I would say that’s reason enough. If her child is not human, no additional explanation for justifying the abortion is needed. All we need to do is say: have the abortion, you want it, choose it like your favorite flavor of ice cream, you like vanilla, I like chocolate. I don’t judge you because it’s morally neutral, it does not matter.
But if a human being is involved, if her child is human. Now we got to ask the question that follows: is it okay to intentionally kill innocent human beings who remind us of something painful? Suppose the mother has a 2-year-old that reminds her of a past painful event, let’s say an additional, sadly sexual assault. Would we think it would be okay for her to kill the 2-year-old for what was done to her? And of course, the answer everybody’s going to say is no.
And then, of course, the critics who are just trying to grandstand on the issue will come back and say: see, they’re not the same. The child that is already born is alive. The one in the womb isn’t okay. That’s the issue. Then we need to start with: what is The Unborn? Are The Unborn human? If they are, then the same reasons would be needed to justify killing The Unborn as would be needed to justify killing a 2-year-old, a 13-year-old or a 40-year-old.
In other words, we’re going to have to come up with a morally sufficient reason for intentionally killing an innocent human being. And so the question becomes: is it okay to intentionally kill innocent human beings who remind us of something painful or difficult, and I think anybody with a functioning moral compass would say, no, of course not. So the real issue here is not really rape. The real issue here is: what is The Unborn? Are The Unborn human beings? Now, another thing to point out here, before we go any further into this: a lot of times, when we deal with now the crusader, let’s switch from The Inquirer, who’s intellectually honest and just trying to make sense of her Newfound pro-life convictions, and deal with a crusader, a guy who’s just trying to make you look bad.
He wants to make it look like you hate women, want them to suffer, and that’s really what pro-lifer are all about anyway. So let’s make you look bad by bringing up rape. The truth is, his position that he’s putting forward is a red herring, meaning he disguising what he really believes by hiding behind rape victims. So here’s what his real position is. His real position is that a woman can have an abortion for any reason she wants. It’s a fundamental right that she has.
Okay, if it is a fundamental right, then he should argue for that rather than arguing by hiding behind rape victims and just trying to make you look bad, so with a crusader. What I’ll do is I will look at him and say, okay, I’m going to grant your premise. I’m going to grant that abortion in cases of rape is totally justifiable. It’s not my position, but let’s grant it for the sake of discussion. Will you join me now in opposing all other abortions that have nothing to do with rape?
Listen up, men and women. 100% of the time and I do mean 100% of the time he will say no, I won’t join you. Women have a fundamental right to an abortion and I’m going to fight for that. Okay, then why don’t you fight for that by being honest about what you truly believe. You believe abortion should be legal for any reason or no reason, and that there should be no restrictions on it at any point in the pregnancy. All right, be honest.
If that’s your position, argue for it, but don’t hide behind rape victims like make by trying to make yourself look like you’re only arguing for abortion in one case, when you think it should be legal in every case. So call is bluff and simply ask: okay, I’ll grant for the sake of argument. We allow abortion in cases of rape. Will you join me in opposing all other abortions. Trust me, 100% of the time the answer will be no. By the way, this is exactly what happens when people bring up accusations about pro-lifers not caring about other forms of human life.
Oh, you’re pro-life. What are you doing about refugees? What are you doing about the poor? What are you doing about, immigrants? What are you doing about equal pay and fairness in the workplace for women? You don’t care about life. You’re not pro-life, you’re just Pro birth. Okay, set aside for the moment how ridicul, ridiculous it is to say to a pro-lifer: hey, because you oppose the intentional killing of an innocent human being in the womb, you got to fix everything wrong with society.
Let’s set that aside for a moment and just call the bluff. So I would look at the guy who says that to me and say, okay, if I do everything you demand, peifers, do I take care of the poor? I take care of immigrants, I devote resources to helping refugees, I make sure that women get equal pay in the workforce. I do everything you demand of me. Will you now become pro-life and agree to help protect The Unborn? Once again, 100% of the time, the answer will be no.
It will never be anything, but no, because people are using these objections to avoid talking about the real question. And the real question is this: under what conditions is it ever okay to intentionally kill an innocent human being? That’s what they need to argue. Remember our pro-life syllogism. Premise one: it’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Premise two: abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. Therefore, conclusion: abortion is wrong. It’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Abortion does that.
Therefore, it’s wrong. Now, that’s our formal argument. But instead of engaging that argument, people try to change the subject by attacking you for being allegedly uncaring, or attack you for not being pro-life in the way you need to be, according to their definition of what pro-life should be. In either case, just call their bluff, look at them and say: if I do everything you demand, will you then join me in being pro-life? And 100% of the time they will say no.
Well then, why did you bring up these objections? If they’re not your true position, why are you bringing them up? It’s a gigantic exercise of trying to hide what they truly believe and change the subject on you. You don’t want to let them get away with it. Now. Another thing about this rape objection: it assumes The Unborn are not human. When somebody says, hey, we should allow abortion in cases of rape, they are assuming The Unborn aren’t human. Well, how do we know that?
Well, let me ask you this again. Let’s go back to what I mentioned a moment ago. We got a 2-year-old in front of us. His parents, view him as a hardship. That 2-year-old reminds the mother, in particular, of a previous boyfriend that sexually assaulted her and she got pregnant. And every time she looks at her 2-year-old she remembers what happened to her on that dark night and she wants the right to kill her child, to kill the memory she’s having, would anybody say she can do that.
Everyone with a functioning moral compass, of course, will say no, you can’t do that that well. Why not? Well, because he’s a human being. If The Unborn are human, should they be killed, in the name of relieving us of painful memories, any more than we’d kill a toddler? For that reason, we’ve got to start with the question: what is The Unborn? And then go from there to ask: is this a good justification for intentionally killing an innocent human being? Because, if The Unborn are human, they should not be intentionally killed as innocent human beings, and more than you’d kill a toddler, teenager or 70-year-old for that reason.
So we want to start with the main thing: what is The Unborn? Now we’re going to take a break here in just a minute. When we come back, I’m going to do two things. I’m going to finish up talking about how you respond to this rape issue by giving you a question to ask people. That will really help you get a sense of where they’re coming from and set you up to give a really powerful answer on this, so you’re not on the defensive.
Then also, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the hard case of life of the mother, because some people will bring this up too in an attempt to derail your pro-life position. You don’t need to let them do that. There’s a way to discuss this that is both humane and logically sound. I look forward to seeing you when we come back from the break.
Welcome back everybody. We’ve been talking about the difficult question of rape and how it relates to abortion and, just to review, we’ve talked about the fact that psychological complexity meaning us feel feeling sympathy for someone does not entail there are no right answers as to what should be done with the child. We also talked about the fact that this rape issue is often brought up as a red herring by a crusader who really isn’t interested in what your argument is. He just wants to use the rape issue to make you look bad.
And we told you about how to call his bluff by simply saying: look, if I agree that abortion should be legal in cases of rape, will you join me in opposing all other abortions? And 100% of the time he’s going to say no. So don’t be afraid to call the bluff. We also talked about the fact that the argument assumes The Unborn are not human. Would we kill a 2-year-old whose father was a rapist? Obviously not. So the argument assumes The Unborn are not human.
Here’s a way you can ask a very simple question to get a clear sense of what the person you’re talking to believes when they bring up rape. Very nicely, don’t be a jerk about this, just be nice. Say to the person: in the case of pregnancy that results in, or the case of rape that results in pregnancy, how many humans are involved? Two or three, and often the person will look at someone and say two, three, two, three. Most often they say three, surprisingly.
And so then I will say to them: okay, let’s talk about how we ought to treat each of the three humans involved in this pregnancy that results from rape. What about the rapist, the guilty rapist? Should we execute him for the crime of rape? Almost everyone says no, they don’t want to execute the rapist. Sometimes that’s because the person you’re talking to May oppose the death penalty generally, so they don’t want it for murderers or rapist. Or you could be talking to some someone who thinks rape does not rise to the level of a capital offense.
Okay, it doesn’t matter at this point. Here’s the key thing: they admit that the guilty rapist, or they say to you he should not be killed. Okay, fair enough for now. Then asks this question: what about the mother? Should we execute her for the rape? And this is where people, rightly, will become very troubled and they’ll say things like: you got to be kidding me execute the innocent mother for what the rapist did for her? Why? That’s what those Islamic countries do.
They call them honor killings. They kill women who’ve been sexually assaulted rather than the rapist men who did it, and I agree that’s barbaric and you can say that. Then you ask this question. Here’s the third question: what about the third person involved here, the child? Should we kill the child? Should we execute the child for the sin of his father? And here’s where people will start to get a little bit unsure themselves. They might say: well, I feel like I’m being cornered.
Well, actually, you’re not cornering them. The argument is cornering them and you’ve now brought them to the point you want them to be at. And that’s this question: is it ever okay to intentionally kill an innocent human being so that we can feel better about a situation? Of course, the answer is always no. So by asking that question how many humans are involved, two or three you can help bring the person to the real issue, which is: what is The Unborn?
And once you’ve established the status of The Unborn meaning that they are distinct, living and whole human beings from the beginning you now have a platform from which to help them understand that intentionally killing an innocent human being is never okay, regardless of the psychological relief it might bring to us. Okay, so that’s how I would deal with rape. Remember the key distinction between the inquir who is just trying to make sense of her new pro-life beliefs and the crusader that just wants to make you look bad.
But that raises now another question: how do we respond to people who bring up medical Necessities? They’ll say things like: well, what about ending a pregnancy or having an abortion to save the life of the mother? And this is where pro-lifer. It’s important for us to acknowledge that there are cases where the pregnancy does directly threaten the mother’s life. Now notice my choice of words here: life, not Health. Why is that? Because the word Health has been defined so widely and so broadly and so liberally that you can drive a Mac Truck through that definition of Health.
By Health, what a lot of people mean today is psychological health, emotional health, economic health, family Health, social health. It’s not the physical well-being of the mother only, it’s all those other things, what the World Health organization defin as an overall sense of well-being. Well, by that definition any abortion could be justified. But what about cases that directly threaten not the health of the mother but the actual life of the mother. A case, for example, like ectopic pregnancy. This is where the embryo implants on the inner wall of the fallopian tube and in many cases the doctor will do all he can to treat both the mother and the child as a patient.
But many times you can’t do that. As the embryo grows in that narof fallopian tube where it is implanted itself, the wrist of the mother is evident. That tube could break and she hemorrhages to death as the child grows and causes the tube to burst. Now you’re a pro-life doctor. What do you do in a situation where you can either do nothing and lose two human beings, the mother and the child we can’t save either. If we do nothing, both will die.
Is that the thing to do? Or should we act in such a way that we save one life, even though the unintended but foreseen result of saving that one life is the death of the embryo? And I would argue we should act to save the one life we can, that being the mother. Now somebody says right away: well, that you just justified abortion. No, we didn’t. Let’s go back to our syllogism. It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
Abortion does that. Therefore it’s wrong. The physician in this case is not intentionally killing an innocent human being. He foresees the death of The Unborn, much the same way a general in a just War can foresee civilians dying, though he doesn’t intend their deaths, but he can foresee it in the act of Prosecuting a just war. In the same way, here we have a situation where a physician’s intent is to save the life of the mother and he has a morally sufficient reason to move forward and that is that if he doesn’t act to save the life of the mother, he will lose two human beings: the mother and the embryo.
Now, at this stage, we do not have the ability to transplant that embryo to a surrogate where it could be born, healthy or Alive. We don’t have that ability. We only have the option of saving the mother or ending the pregnancy. And in ending the pregnancy, yes, the embryo dies. But I could also argue that in removing the embryo from its pathological environment, meaning the fallopian tube rather than the womb, where it belongs, I have not made the embryo worse off.
He will die in the tube if we do nothing in the fallopian tube. He will die if I remove him. The fact I don’t have a rescue plan for him does not mean I acted wrongly in saving the one life I could, in this case the mother. So women who have had surgeries to remove ectopic pregnancies have not had abortions. And another point I want to make: there’s a lot of lies and misinformation going on out there saying that in red states that have banned abortion women can’t get life-saving care for ectopic pregnancies, that they’re going to be forced to die.
That is a bunch of bunk. There’s not one state that has it written in their state laws on abortion that women cannot get life-saving treatment in cases like ectopic pregnancy. It’s simply a lie that women will be left to die because we have pro-life laws. So don’t fall for any of that. And, in a future episode I’m actually going to play a clip from a congressional hearing where this issue came out, the witness was grilled on: tell me name for me one state that says women must Die rather than get life-saving ectopic pregnancy surgery, and of course, the witness had no answer for any, because there are no states that say a woman must Die rather than get life-saving treatment.
Again, if you really want to dig deeper on these types of issues and learn how to bring the issue down to the question: what is The Unborn? I invite you to take a look at our basic case for life course, which you can get on our website, and take a deeper dive into what it means to defend your pro-life use persuasively in the face of a culture that is often skeptical and not very, very friendly to what you believe. You can do that by taking the course, and I hope you will when we get together.
In the next episode, I want to talk about what these state laws look like and how we might approach them with a good dose of truth to confront the lies that are in the culture. Thank you for joining us today. We’re here to help you defend your PE lifee views persuasively, and I hope you found this show helpful in doing just that.