The third Sunday in January is considered ‘Pro Life’ Sunday in remembrance of the Supreme Court ruling that made abortions legal in the United States (1973). Since then over 56 million abortions have been performed legally in the U.S.
We all know people who say that they would never have an abortion themselves but who feel that abortion should be legal. After all, abortion is a matter between a woman and her doctor. But they are forgetting someone – the baby. The womb was once the safest place in the world for a baby. It has now become one of the most deadly.
Why does a person believe that abortion is morally wrong? Because of the basic beliefs that (1) an unborn child is a human being, and (2) it is wrong for one human being to kill another.
For a person to believe that abortion is wrong but should be legal, he must believe that abortion is an exemption to the criminal laws against killing another person.
Some say abortion should be legal because of the burden of pregnancy or child care on the mother, or because the child may be unwanted or handicapped. But these reasons would not allow us to kill people already born.
Some say we should not impose our morality on others. This sounds great in a day of tolerance. But every law imposes some morality or ethics on others. To make abortion legal imposes a morality against the unborn baby and the society which must tolerate the intentional killing of innocent babies.
Some concede that it is impossible to enforce anti-abortion laws. People would get them anyway. So at least abortions can be performed by a doctor to prevent further damage to the mother. But the laws against abortion were effectively enforced prior to 1973. It is never right to allow wrong (legal abortions) to do right (safety of mothers in illegal abortions).
There is no logical way in which a person can believe both that abortion is wrong and that it should be legal. To do so would be like saying, “I think it is civilized and appropriate for a society to permit the killing of innocent and defenseless human beings, so long as killing is done by a doctor with the consent of the victim’s mother.”
No reasonable person of good can honestly make that statement.