I just wanted to note that I have spoken on the phone several times and corresponded with Dr. Paul D. Simmons who is very much pro-choice. (He is quoted in the article below.) He actually helped me write an article to submit to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State back in the 1996 when Rob Boston had stepped over the line with his “poetic license.” Boston later admitted to me on the phone he did not think that David Barton had fabricated quotes and then attributed them to the founders although his article “Consumer Alert”  did imply that Barton did. In “Consumer Alert,” these words appeared in bold print: “Mything in action: David Barton’s ‘Questionable Quotes.'” Professor Fritz Detweiler of Adrian College’s religion and philosophy department responded to this controversy in his weekly column stating that Barton “made up quotes and attributed them to James Madison, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and other leading Americans…. Barton’s fabricating quotes to serve his purpose is particularly disturbing on two fronts. First, Barton was not content to let the record speak for itself because it didn’t say quite what he wanted it to say. Second, the fraudulent construction of quotes poses a particular problem for [historians] seeking to verify their accuracy.” I greatly appreciated the help that Dr. Paul D. Simmons gave me in trying to set the record straight even though he does not agree with me on various other subjects such as abortion. 

Anti Abortion Pro-Life Training Video by Scott Klusendorf Part 4 of 4

Dr Francis Schaeffer – Whatever Happened to the Human Race – Episode 1

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I have gone back and forth with Ark Times liberal bloggers on the issue of abortion, but I am going to try something new. I am going to respond with logical and rational reasons the pro-life view is true. All of this material is from a paper by Scott Klusendorf called FIVE BAD WAYS TO ARGUE ABOUT ABORTION .

On 2-8-13 on the Ark Times Blog the person using the username “Venessa,” wrote, ” Well, Saline, I am NOT A CHRISTIAN and you don’t get to force your beliefs on me.”

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Here is my response:
 

Scott Klusendorf responded to this kind of thinking by stating:

A student at a Southern California college said this to me after I made a case for the pro-life position in her sociology class.  She was in effect saying, “Morality is relative; it’s up to me to decide what is right and wrong.”  We call this moral relativism, the belief that there are no objective standards of right and wrong, only personal preferences.  Therefore, we should tolerate other views as being equal to our own.

But as Greg Koukl and Francis Beckwith point out, relativism is seriously flawed for at least three reasons.⁸ First, it is self-refuting.  That is to say, it cannot live by its own rules.  Second, relativists cannot reasonably say that anything is wrong, including intolerance.  Third, it is impossible to live as a relativist.

1) Relativism is self-refuting—it commits intellectual suicide.  The student said it was wrong for me to force my views on others, but she could not live with her own rule.  Although our dialogue was pleasant, she clearly tried to force her views on me.⁹

Student: You made some good points in your talk, but you shouldn’t force your morality on me or anyone else who wants an abortion.  It’s our choice, isn’t it?

Me: Are you saying I’m wrong?

Student: I’m not sure.  What do you mean?

Me: Well, you think I’m wrong, don’t you?  If not, why are you correcting me?  And if so, then you’re forcing your morality on me, aren’t you?

Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling people what they can and cannot do with their lives.

Me: Are you saying I shouldn’t do that?  That it’s wrong?  If so, then why are you telling me what I can and cannot do?  Why are you forcing your morality on me?

Student (regrouping): I’m confused.  Look, the simple fact is that pro-choicers are not forcing women to have abortions, but you want to force women to be mothers.  If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.  But you shouldn’t force your beliefs on others.  All I am saying is that pro-life people should be tolerant of other views.

Me: Is that your view?

Student: Yes.

Me: Why are you forcing it on me?  That’s not very tolerant, is it?

Student: What do you mean?  I think women should have a choice and you don’t.  It’s your view that’s intolerant, wouldn’t you say?

Me: Okay, so you think I’m wrong.  What is it you want pro-lifers like me to do?

Student: You should let women decide for themselves and tolerate other views.

Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?

Student: We believe everyone should decide for themselves and tolerate other views.

Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become pro-choicers?

Student: What? No way.

Me: With all due respect, here’s what I hear you saying.  Unless I agree with you, you will not tolerate my view.  Privately, you’ll let me think whatever I want, but you don’t want me to act as if my view is true.  It seems you think tolerance is a virtue if and only if people agree with you.

Put succinctly, her argument for tolerance was in fact a patronizing form of intolerance.  She spoke of moral neutrality, but tried to force her own views on me.

I once read an editorial in the Toronto Star that was similarly intolerant of pro-life advocates.  While decrying the “single-minded moral supremacism” of those who call abortion killing, journalist Michele Landsberg writes:

Will no priest or minister publicly resolve to stop the indoctrination of youth to view abortion as murder?  Is none ashamed of the blood-drenched holocaust vocabulary used so cynically (and anti-semitically) to whip up fervor for the crusade?  Where are the outspoken cries of conscience by bishops and cardinals who should be appalled by the evidence of links between anti-abortion fanatics and far-right militias, neo Nazis, and white supremacists?  Is there no religious leader who regrets his church’s role in feeding this blind frenzy?  Will none of them repent of their excesses, will none call a halt to their sickeningly manipulative campaigns of “precious little feet,” their fake “documentaries” about screaming fetuses?  You’d think that the world had enough lessons in the dangers of hate speech.

Like hers?  It doesn’t seem to trouble Ms. Landsberg that her own vitriolic rhetoric could incite abortion advocates to commit acts of violence against pro-lifers.  She continues:

It was the unbridled hate speech of fundamentalist fanatics in Israel who spurred on the “devout” murder of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin….We’ve seen how homophobic rantings from right-wing American leaders, notably the Senate republican leader, led to escalating gay bashings, culminating in the heart- wrenching death of Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming….Denominational schools [should] begin to teach respect for the laws of our pluralistic society, rather than preaching single-minded moral supremacism.¹⁰

Again, like her own?

Notice what is going on here.  She decries “moral supremacism,” but says that anyone who disagrees with her view on abortion is an indoctrinator of youth, a fanatic, an anti-Semite, a neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, a manipulator of facts, a purveyor of hate speech, homophobic, a gay-basher, a religious bully, responsible for the death of Matthew Shepherd, and finally, a fundamentalist fanatic like those who murdered Yitzhak Rabin.

One can hardly imagine a finer piece of self-refuting rhetoric—all, of course, in the name of tolerance.

Sometimes the demand for tolerance is laughable.  While driving my sons to a baseball game at Dodger Stadium, a young woman in a white pickup truck began tailgating me.  Visibly angered by a pro-life sticker on my rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so.  Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of her anatomy skyward as she passed.  She then cut in front of me.  At that moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck.  It said, “Celebrate Diversity.”  The message was clear: In a pluralistic society, we should tolerate other views.  Ironically, the driver saw no contradiction between her unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my point of view and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all points of view.  That is what I mean when I say that relativism is self-refuting.

Are pro-choice claims for moral neutrality self-refuting?

On a more sophisticated level, we often hear that society should confer a large degree of liberty by not legislating on controversial moral issues for which there is no consensus, especially if those issues incite deep division.  Abortion, the argument goes, is a divisive and controversial issue.  Therefore, it should be left to personal choice.  But this view is itself controversial.  Do we have a consensus that we should not legislate on controversial matters?  Moreover, slavery and racism were controversial and divisive issues.  Are we to conclude that it was wrong to legislate against them?  The fact that people disagree is no reason to suppose that nobody is correct.

Paul D. Simmons, meanwhile, writes that pro-lifers are guilty of “speculative metaphysics” whenever they claim that the unborn are persons from conception.  (Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate grounding or reality of things such as, What makes humans valuable in the first place? And where do rights come from?)  For Simmons, metaphysical claims for the pro-life view are ultimately “religious” in nature and for that reason, they have no place in public policy. If you think the early fetus is a subject of rights, you are entitled to your own religious view, but you can’t force that speculative opinion on others who disagree.  When it comes to religion and metaphysics, the state should remain neutral and allow abortion until the fetus acquires viability (i.e., the ability to live independent of the mother).

Simmons’s view, however, is self-refuting.  As Beckwith points out, the nature of the abortion debate is such that all positions on abortion presuppose a metaphysical view of human value, and for this reason, the pro-choice position Simmons defends is not entitled to a privileged philosophical standing in our legal framework.¹¹ At issue is not which view of abortion has metaphysical underpinnings and which does not, but which metaphysical view of human value is correct, pro-life or abortion-choice?

The pro-life view is that humans are intrinsically valuable in virtue of the kind of thing they are.  True, they differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, but they are nonetheless equal because they all have the same human nature.  Their right to life comes to be when they come to be (conception).  Simmons’s own abortion-choice view is that humans have value (and hence, rights) not in virtue of the kind of thing they are, but only because of an acquired property such as self-awareness or viability.¹²  Because the early fetus lacks the immediate capacity for these things, it is not a person with rights.  Notice that Simmons is doing the abstract work of metaphysics.  That is, he is using philosophical reflection to defend a disputed view of human persons.¹³  Hence, Simmons’s attempt to disqualify the pro-life view from public policy based on its alleged metaphysical underpinnings works equally well to disqualify his own view.

2) It is impossible for a moral relativist to say that anything is wrong, including intolerance.  If morals are relative, then who are you to say that I should be tolerant?  Perhaps my individual morality says intolerance is just fine.  Why, then, should I allow anyone to force tolerance on me as a virtue if my preference is intolerance?

The truth is, a moral relativist cannot legitimately say that anything is wrong or truly evil.  My colleague Greg Koukl once challenged a relativist with this question.  “Do you think it is wrong to torture babies for fun?”  She paused, then replied, “Well, I wouldn’t want to do that to my baby.”  Greg responded, “That’s not what I asked you.  I didn’t ask if you liked torturing babies for fun, I asked if it was wrong to torture babies for fun.”  The relativist was caught and she knew it.  She chuckled and went on to another subject.

If it is up to us to decide right and wrong, then there is no difference between Mother Theresa and Adolph Hitler.  They just had different preferences.  Mother Theresa liked to help people and Hitler liked to kill them.  Who are we to judge?

3) It is impossible to live as a moral relativist.  As C.S. Lewis points out, a person who claims there is no objective morality will complain if you break a promise or cut in line.¹⁴  And if you steal his stereo, he will protest loudly.  If I were a crook, I would reply to the relativist, “Do you think stealing stereos is wrong?  Well, that’s just your view.  My morality says it’s perfectly acceptable.  Who are you to force your views on me?”  Simply put, moral relativists inevitably make moral judgements.  They espouse a view they cannot live with.

I think you are starting to get the picture.  Relativism is not tolerant of other views.  In fact, it tries to suppress them.  To cite one more example, during the 2001 winter semester, pro-life students at the University of North Carolina displayed 20 large panels (each 6 feet by 13 feet) depicting the grisly reality of abortion. Known as the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP—see http://www.abortionno.org), these pictures have been displayed at over 100 universities nationwide. Though invited to do so, pro-abortion students at UNC refused to participate in a structured public debate, but demanded instead that campus police forcibly remove the display.  One pro-abortion student, Marcus Harvey, insisted the display was intolerant, ignorant, and must be removed.

I wrote a reply to Mr. Harvey that was posted (in part) on The Daily Tar Heel website:¹⁵

Marcus Harvey’s comments about the Genocide Awareness Project are typical of today’s so-called pro-choicers.  Instead of refuting the pro-life argument that it’s wrong to kill members of the human family simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves, he chastises the campus police for not suppressing ideas that he personally disagrees with.  This is very intolerant of him.  His message couldn’t be clearer: Agree with me or else.  Unfortunately, Mr. Harvey has no clue about the true meaning of tolerance.  Classical tolerance means that I defend your right to speak even if I disagree with your argument. In fact, the very concept of tolerance presupposes that I think you are wrong.  Otherwise, I am not tolerating you; I am agreeing with you!  For Mr. Harvey, tolerance means something very different.  It means this: Agree with me or I will call upon the police power of the state to suppress your ideas.  There is a name this and it’s not tolerance: It’s called fascism.  Thankfully, the university knew better and the pro-life display went forward despite attempts to censor it. Hey, Mr. Harvey: Please don’t force your morality on the rest of us.

Moral relativism is expressed one other way: “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but I still think it should be legal.”  When people say this, I ask a simple question to clarify things.  I ask why they personally oppose abortion.¹⁶ Invariably they reply: “We oppose it because it kills a human baby.”  At that point, I merely repeat back their words. “Let me see if I got this straight.  You oppose abortion because it kills babies, but you think it should be legal to kill babies?”  Would these same people argue that while they personally opposed slavery, they would not protest if a neighbor wanted to own one?  This was precisely what Stephen Douglas did during his debates with Abraham Lincoln.¹⁷  That argument did not work with slavery and it will not work with abortion.

Greg Koukl suggests this tactic: The next time somebody says that “you shouldn’t force your morality on me,” respond with only two words: “Why not?”  Any answer given will be an example of that person forcing his morality on you!¹⁸

¹  See T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Embryology, 5th ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1993) p. 3; Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (Toronto: B.C. Decker, 1988) p. 2; O’Rahilly, Ronand and Muller, Pabiola, Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996) pp. 8, 29.  See also Maureen L. Condic, “Life: Defining the Beginning by the End,” First Things, May 2003.

²  A. Guttmacher, Life in the Making: the Story of Human Procreation (New York: Viking Press, 1933) p. 3

³  SLED test initially developed by Stephen Schwarz but modified significantly and explained here by Scott Klusendorf.  Stephen Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990) pp. 17-18.

⁴  Conor Liston & Jerome Kagan, “Brain Development: Memory Enhancement in Early Childhood,” Nature 419, 896 (2002).  See also O’Rahilly, Ronand and Muller, Pabiola, Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996) p. 8.

⁵  Correspondence between Scott Klusendorf and Dean Stretton, October 2002.  While I do not share Stretton’s views, I admire his candor.  Stretton goes on to argue that the pro-life view that zygotes have a right to life is equally counterintuitive.  I disagree.  While it’s counterintuitive at first pass, it’s really a naive intuition that easily changes when informed with the facts (like the scientific and philosophic ones noted above).  This isn’t on par with the counterintuitiveness of killing a newborn.

⁶ Gregory Koukl, Ten Bad Arguments against Religion (audio cassette). Order at 1-800-2-REASON.

⁷  Illustration is taken from Koukl, “Bad Arguments Against Religion.”  www.str.org

⁸  For a full refutation of relativism, see Greg Koukl and Francis Beckwith, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998).  The authors discuss relativism’s seven fatal flaws.

⁹  In this dialogue, I used language and questioning techniques taught by Koukl and Beckwith in Relativism.  Note: The tone you set for these types of exchanges should be polite and calm, never combative.

¹⁰ Michele Landsberg, “Words, Actions Can Fight Anti-Choice Violence,” Toronto Star, October 31, 1998.

¹¹  Francis J. Beckwith, “Law, Reigion, and the Metaphysics of Abortion: A Reply to Simmons,” Journal of Church and State, Winter 2001.

¹² Simmons argues for one, the other, or both depending on the essay you read.

¹³ Beckwith, Ibid.

¹⁴ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1996) p.19.

¹⁵ Daily Tar Heel on-line, March 8, 2001, http://nc002.campusmotor.com/read_comments.html?ID=2548

¹⁶  Greg Koukl teaches this kind of questioning in Tactics in Defending the Faith (1-800-2-REASON)

¹⁷ The Lincoln Douglas Debates, ed. R.W. Johannsen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965) p. 27.  See also The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953), vol. III, pp. 256-7.  Cited in Hadley Arkes, First Things: An Inquiry into the First Principles of Morals and Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) p. 24.

¹⁸  Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl develop several tactics like this in, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998).  See also Koukl’s “Tactics in Defending the Faith” available from Stand to Reason.

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