This is intended to be a guide for your argument rather than be sent directly to someone (because they won’t read it). Use the talking points, and click the green links for fact-checked, high-quality sources! Put these points into your own words and back it up with good data.
The Argument for Planned Parenthood
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Core Argument
Planned Parenthood offers a spectrum of vitally important women’s health services, many of which prevent the need for abortion on a large scale, while abortion services make up only a tiny portion of their work.
On the subject of abortion itself, science shows that fetuses lack the organ components that are necessary to count as conscious, thinking, feeling beings until the third trimester of pregnancy, and thus abortion cannot constitute “murder”. At a policy level, the separation of Church and State ensures that religious dogma cannot weigh in on reproductive rights.
Common Responses and Refutations
Abortion is cruelly killing babies!
When it comes to the pro-life/pro-choice debate, a huge canyon in understanding to bridge is the fact that pro-life people often view fetuses as tiny, fully formed human beings in the womb that just keep getting bigger and bigger until they come out. They assume that, like an apple or carrot, all the components are there from the beginning and size is the only thing that develops. This the main point that your argument must challenge.
The truth is that for most of pregnancy (up until the third trimester at least), the fetal nervous and organ systems do not resemble a fully-formed human’s at all, but is rather an unconnected, and undifferentiated bundle of nerve cells by which consciousness cannot arise. Just as any body part may have the components for life (cells, blood, nerves), it lacks the central components to be considered a living thing.
In order to help make a huge leap in understanding how life and consciousness works, you must start with smaller ones. Try logical steps like this:
We understand from fMRI research and coma-patient studies, that certain brain structures like the Cerebral Cortex (the maze-like outer layer of the brain) must be developed and connected to the brain stem in order to create consciousness and feel pain. People without these mandatory connections always result in a “brain-dead”, vegetative state (Sources: Harvard, American Academy of Neurology)
We know that brain neuron networks work in an “all-or-nothing” fashion – like electrical circuitry – when a circuit is disconnected, the entire circuit will not work.
We can see that those components are not developed and those circuits required for feeling are not connected until well into the third trimester, and so a fetus feels nothing at all, and cannot really be considered a conscious, feeling human until at least that time.
Sometimes, if they do not believe in the science, you can try appealing to their innate morality. This often shared thought experiment by Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) is helpful:
You’re in a fertility clinic. Why isn’t important. The fire alarm goes off. You run for the exit. As you run down this hallway, you hear a child screaming from behind a door. You throw open the door and find a five-year-old child crying for help. They’re in one corner of the room. In the other corner, you spot a frozen container labeled “1,000 Viable Human Embryos.” The smoke is rising. You start to choke. You know you can grab one or the other, but not both before you succumb to smoke inhalation and die, saving no one. Do you A) save the child, or B) save the thousand embryos? There is no “C.” “C” means you all die.
The answer, ostensibly, is that you would always save the conscious child first. That is not to say that the embryos have no value, but we understand that they are not equal, and fetuses don’t exactly equate to 1,000 living conscious beings like a child out of the womb.
The Bible doesn’t allow abortion!
The way to tackle this response has 3 layers to it:
Separation of Church and State does not allow religious beliefs to interfere with others’ liberties. Just as people are allowed to practice Hinduism, they are allowed to ignore religious tenants of one religion such as Christianity.
This does mean that no one can force you to have an abortion if it contradicts with your belief.
The Bible itself doesn’t actually have much to say about abortion since the procedure hadn’t been invented yet, so the ruling is interprative at best. Depending on which version of the Old Testament you’re talking about, certain passages such as Exodus 21:22–24, actually seem to lean towards the view that life begins at birth. All but the most recent American interpretations of this line, dating all the way back to the 405 AD Latin translations, seem to indicate that miscarried fetuses are not to be held to the same standard as a living thing.
Planned Parenthood is an abortion clinic!
Planned Parenthood is a sexual health clinic that serves both men and women of all ages. Most would be surprised to know that abortion only comprises of 3% of their total services! A vast majority of their work goes towards STD treatment and Prevention, Cancer Screening and Prevention, and Contraception, which is crucial in preventing the need for abortion. Their services breakdown is as follows:
If you don’t agree with abortion, then Planned Parenthood is one of the only organizations who’s making a meaningful reduction in unwanted pregnancies across the country.
I don’t want my tax dollars being spent on abortions!
Due to a law from 1976 called the Hyde Amendment, no federal tax dollars can actually be used to fund abortions.
Regardless of how you feel about abortion, by making people pay out-of-pocket, disproportionate pressure is put on the poor, who are more vulnerable and not prepared for the cost/responsibility of childcare, and cannot give the child as many opportunities in life. When families are already struggling to pay bills, adding a child to the mix can often be catastrophic and create cycles of further poverty and unwanted pregnancies.
People should just abstain from sex!
This argument has one singular point you need to drive home: people, especially young people, like having sex, and will always have sex.
It may require repeating, but this is what you need to get them to concede. Get them to say it with you…People, especially young people, like having sex, and will always have sex.
Research has shown time and time again that abstinence-only sex education is a failure, and just leads to teenagers and young adults being completely uneducated about the nature of pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. A massive study published in the American Journal of Public Health showed that conservative states that don’t mandate sex education and STD education also have the highest teen pregnancy rates. The data clearly indicates that across the board, religion-based, abstinence education is a failure. Real sex education and contraception are the only proven methods to reduce unwanted pregnancy, and thus reduce the need for abortion.
Logical point: By not educating young people (which Planned Parenthood does), and not supporting cheap/free contraception, you are increasing the need for abortion.
Logical point: Before 22 weeks of gestation, there is close to a 0% chance of survival for a premature baby, even with heavy machine support. How can something be considered a living thing at this point if it has not yet developed the necessary tools to live? This is why scientists generally consider 24 weeks the minimum “viable” age. In fact, over 98% of all abortions in the US occur before the 21st week.
Logical point: When a fetus is just an undifferentiated clump of cells that requires the mother’s placenta to survive, it must be considered a part of the mother’s body and not yet its own organism.
Logical point: This hasn’t been a crusade for Christians for very long. It hadn’t even been a crusade until several years after the Roe v. Wade decision, when it was politically advantageous to do so. (See History)
Concession: In the third trimester, the argument becomes debatable; most scientists would agree that while brain development is still happening, the requisite organ and nervous systems are there to create thinking, and function as an autonomous being outside of the womb.
History
The strange and rather recent focus on abortion by American Christians
Consider these statements both before and after Roe v. Wade was passed:
In 1968, a Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today symposium did not decide abortion was sinful, instead citing “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as justifications for ending a pregnancy.
In 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention decided to “work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”
They reaffirmed this position in 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade, and yet again in 1976!
On the Roe decision, W. Barry Garrett in Baptist Press wrote: “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,”
As Randall Balmer, Dartmouth religion historian explains, the roots of American Christianity taking up the abortion cause interestingly started with just a few key players; namely Heritage Foundation co-founder, Paul Weyrich, and Jerry Falwell, famed fundamentalist preacher and Liberty University founder. The religious right-wing didn’t fully take up the abortion helm until 1979, a full 6 years after the Roe Decision!
Their initial reason to rile up a voting bloc out of Evangelicals had to do with a court case Green v. Connelly in 1970, which had nothing to do with abortion. Instead, it was a case that ruled that Christian schools and academies could lose their IRS tax-exempt status if they failed to desegregate, following the major reforms from the Civil Rights Act. Prior to this case, many Christian schools were able to reject entry based on race as long as they took no Federal money, and creating a loophole around desegregation by admitting all of the white students of a given county and leaving all black students in the public schools.
Suddenly, after Green v. Connelly, these segregation academies (Google it) were essentially outlawed, and Evangelical leaders decided they had enough government encroachment on their policies. Led by Weyrich and Falwell, the budding Evangelical movement honed in on the Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, blaming him for the rapid desegregation measures, and began searching for a cause that would rally Christians towards a Republican candidate, knowing that racial discrimination would not work as its central mission…
Weyrich and Falwell eventually met Francis A. Schaeffer, the intellectual Godfather of the religious right. Together they made a series of graphically gruesome anti-abortion films known as Whatever Happened to the Human Race? which had an effect of galvanizing watchers against the supposed horrors of abortion, not unlike the Reefer Madness effect in the 1930’s. The three now found an emotional topic that could unite the fringe Christian groups all over the country; and suddenly the Evangelical opinion rapidly shifted under immense political manipulation, and created “The Moral Majority” Evangelical voting bloc.
The level of manipulation around this topic cannot be understated. Consider that in 1978, while the “Moral Majority” was coalescing under Jerry Falwell and company, the evangelical publishing house Zondervan produced the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, which for the first time in human history, changed that crucial Exodus 21:22-23 line from saying:
“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life…”
…which is consistent with centuries of translations of the verse, and indicates that a scuffle that leads to a miscarriage only bears a fine (as opposed to a more serious punishment for taking a real life), to saying…
“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a premature birth, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life…”
…which suddenly changes the entire meaning away from how one should handle miscarried fetuses. Even upon the slightest mental assessment we have to wonder the legitimacy of this line change, and how frequently physical altercations could possibly lead to viable premature births back in Biblical times. With the scripture subtly but critically changed to back the dogma, the leaders all united behind this new enemy of morality, the activation of the American Evangelical right was complete. The turning of the Evangelicals played a role in Carter losing his second term; and the anti-abortion movement has had enormous political momentum ever since.
Goal: It is important to re-frame the abortion debate not as an unwaivable, age-old battle of cosmic right and wrong, but rather an uncontroversial, personal opinion-based social issue that got used as a political football by a few people for alterior political motives, and got far overblown.
Angles to Avoid
The “health issue, rape, or incest” compromise
I understand trying to find middle ground, but this argument indirectly says “all of your scientifically unfounded assumptions about abortion are right, but you should make exceptions for the most messed up cases”. It undermines any assertion you can make about undeveloped fetuses not being humans at all. If they’re just an amalgamation of stem cells, what difference does it make where they came from? This also draws an arbitrary boundary that makes it harder to”finish the policy race” further down the line – might as well push people towards a full understanding of the issue rather than appease an assumption that’s untrue in the first place.
Relying on the “my body, my choice” argument
Yes, this is what it really comes down to – the fact that abortion should solely be up to the mother as she has agency over her own body. However, it is important to understand that opponents of abortion don’t just see one body, they see another conscious individual within the woman’s body who is losing their agency. That’s why this conversation often seems like it’s two people talking past each other. Focus on refuting the idea that a fetus made of undifferentiated stem cells and nerve cells can constitute a functioning human being any more than an egg or sperm cell can constitute a human being – or that until it’s viable, the fetus is not it’s own separate thing but just clump of totally un-thinking cells on a woman’s uterine wall.
Awarding-winning director and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on the contentious issue with a focus not on the debate, but rather on the women themselves – those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue hoping to sway decisions and lives.
For too many women, pregnancy is a death sentence. One thousand women die each day from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. Shockingly, nearly all maternal deaths and disabilities can be prevented.
The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost–for the century between approximately 1870 and 1970–rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.
In Life’s Work, an outspoken, Christian reproductive justice advocate and abortion provider (one of the few doctors to provide such services to women in Mississippi and Alabama) pulls from his personal and professional journeys as well as the scientific training he received as a doctor to reveal how he came to believe, unequivocally, that helping women in need, without judgment, is precisely the Christian thing to do.
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