The Massacre of the Innocents

The most bullet-proof treatise you'll ever read on why Abortion is Murder

Discussions about abortion are largely unsatisfying because they are either stuck on the legality of the issue such as the “Roe v Wade” debate in the United States, or they make fundamental errors in ontology and quibble about the stage of gestation at which abortion is acceptable. Most frustrating of all are religious arguments that it’s wrong “because God said” and are, frankly, impotent and useless in the context of a largely secular society.

Nevertheless, abortion is a crucial debate to get right because a society’s position on abortion is a mirror to its moral health. In this article, I equip you with the proper arguments and reasoning from a sound scientific and philosophic basis, so that you may participate more usefully and powerfully in such discussions with friends, colleagues, family and twitter enemies. Cultural change is made with these discussions, no matter how impotent and useless you may think they are.

Peter Paul Rubens, The Massacre of the Innocents, 1610, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

The Smallest Human Being

Until very recently, it was impossible to tell what was going on in the mystical ouroboros of the fertile female body. It was a place of great miracles, it leaked blood, it ran by the cycles of the moon and when she had lain with a man, there was only the “quickening” to inform knowing midwives that there was a child growing inside of her. The quickening was the baby kicking inside of her womb, meaning that it was difficult to tell that a woman was pregnant until a much more advanced stage of development than what is possible today. 

Modern imaging techniques have de-mystefied this entire process. Today, we know almost every event that leads to conception: every receptor and voltage-gated channel that opens. We know the moment of syngamy, when the individual cell from the mother, combines its nucleus with the individual cell from the father, to create an entirely new being: a totipotent cell that can form every single aspect of a unique human being from start to finish. Fetal physiology documents this  entire process. 

This physiological reality forms the premise of this article: that at the moment of conception, the thing, the totipotent cell, the microscopic amoeba, is a unique being that is not its mother or its father. It is the earliest possible stage of human development. It is the smallest human being.

“Before x weeks, it’s not a human being, it is a Clump of Cells”

There is an argument made by pro-abortion advocates that, before a certain point in gestation, it is morally acceptable to “terminate a pregnancy” because the thing growing inside the woman is merely a “clump of cells”. As a result, it is argued that the termination of a pregnancy is indistinguishable from the removal of a benign tumour. 

Some anti-abortion advocates say that “all living things are a clump of cells” but I resist this easy retort for its inaccuracy. Let us distinguish a tumour from a baby. First, a tumour merely grows whereas a human being develops. This is because a tumour really is a clump of cells, where “clump” implies a lack of organization. A zygote, by definition, is a living organism and does not merely grow, it develops, indicating that it is inherently organized. Some believe that this organization of biological material is the sign of life itself, and that this organization is what the divine imbues on organic material to make it alive. Second, a tumour has the same genetic code as its host, whereas a developing zygote does not share genes with anyone on earth and is thus a unique human being.

“My Body My Choice”

Many “pro-choice” advocates believe that a woman is entitled to decide whether or not she wants to be pregnant and that abortion is simply a woman exerting agency over what happens with her body. This argument is compelling because of the immense toll that a pregnancy takes on a woman’s body. It has been shown that pregnant women are functioning at 2.2x basal metabolic rate for almost the entirety of their pregnancy. We may compare this to top level athletes completing the Tour de France who function at 2.5x basal metabolic rate, and can only sustain that for a matter of hours. This does not account for the pain and risks involved in the process of childbirth itself. It is logical that a woman should have the right to decide whether or not she wishes to take on this monumental physical task. 

It may be argued that a woman decides whether she wants to be pregnant the moment that she chooses to have unprotected sex; however, this argument, too, misses the crucial point. A pregnant woman, whether she consciously decided to become pregnant or not, is not entitled to make decisions about another individual human being’s body, just as a person is not permitted to murder another human being simply because they are inconveniencing them in any way. The pro-choice argument “My body my choice” misses the fact that the human being developing inside a pregnant woman, is not part of her body and as such, she has no moral justification to kill or harm it, just as she has no moral justification to kill or harm anyone else.

“Abortion should only be allowed up to two weeks!”

Many well-meaning conservative thinkers erroneously argue that abortion is morally acceptable at an earlier stage in development when things like the heart and brain have not yet developed. In light of this grave error in ontology, I must take a detour in our exploration of the political discussion to clarify a scientific process. We must be absolutely clear that the zygote, at conception, is a human being. The following paragraphs explain how a zygote, the first stage of development each of us has gone through, has a complete and unique DNA code that is neither identical to the father nor the mother, and is itself, therefore, a unique human being.

Human beings contain two types of cells: somatic cells and gametes. Somatic cells are the ordinary cells that make up things like your brain, your bones, your skin and your organs. They contain a complete set of 46 chromosomes, where each chromosomes is a string of genes. There are 23 types of chromosomes. Gametes only contain 23 chromosomes; only one per type of chromosome is present. Gametes are oocytes (eggs) and spermatozoa (sperm).

Gametes are made from somatic cells being split into four new cells in a process called meiosis. During this meiosis, a miracle of life occurs: homologous recombination. This is a random process by which some genes on one chromosome are swapped with those on another, whereas others remain in place. Through this process of remixing, each of the 46 chromosomes now contains an entirely unique set of genes. None of the chromosomes now match any chromosome found in any cell in the rest of the body. When the remixed chromosomes are distributed into four final gamete cells, each contains 23 chromosomes that are not only unique among all the gametes, but unique in the whole world. No two gametes can ever be the same!

A zygote forms when the 23 unique chromosomes in the gamete from the mother, the egg, combines with the 23 unique chromosomes in the gamete from the father, the sperm. As such, a zygote is a unique human being and distinguishable from such things as tumours, growths and things like sperm and eggs. Only the zygote, among these, is capable of forming a fully developed human being and has its own, unique, genetic identity.

The Sanctity of Life

The fact that each zygote is a unique human being does not explain that it deserves not to be killed. The sanctity of human life is an entirely religious concept. The idea that human life is inherently valuable, is the inconspicuous foundation of the law of society. The reason that we are not permitted to kill someone who annoys or inconveniences us, is because human life is valuable. Considering the zygote, scientifically speaking, counts among human life, it is not morally correct to kill it beginning at the very moment of conception. If one believes murder is wrong, one must believe that abortion is wrong as well.

Sentience

Many pro-choice advocates argue that the killing of a fetus is morally acceptable because it is not sentient. However, I argue that a human being is actually not sentient until at least a few months after it is born because it has no ability to think about anything other than eating and sleeping. Only after a few months does the baby begin to recognize his mother or smile. Elderly people who have Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias, are also not considered “sentient” and yet it is morally abhorrent to kill them because they are human beings. As a result, the argument that killing a fetus is acceptable because it is not sentient, is incoherent with the way that we treat all types of “unsentient” human beings.

Do the Poor deserve to live?

Not all women who get pregnant can afford to take care of a child. It is clear that the ideal environment for a child to develop is a two parent home where the parents love each other, and have financial stability. Human nature is such that pregnancies don’t look for such environments before they occur. Some people believe that poor are justified in killing an unborn child to save it from the trauma of a childhood in poverty. 

Let us take this argument to its logical end. If it is better to be dead than to be a child living in poverty, then it should be permissible to kill children who are three years old with poor parents, or children who are six years old and living in poverty. Surely, it should be better to kill these children than to make them suffer even longer. After all, they are not yet fully developed adults...If this sounds morally abhorrent to you, then it follows that it is equally abhorrent to end the life of a developing fetus based on the justification that its mother is poor.

A similar argument may be made for women who justify abortion by the fact that childcare responsibilities may prevent them from pursuing their careers. No inconvenience justifies us to kill a one year old baby, so, it follows, that no inconvenience justifies the killing of a developing fetus. The one-year old baby and the fetus are both human beings, just at different stages of development.

Eugenics

Thanks to the development of sophisticated pre-natal exams, parents often discover that their unborn child has some medical disorder that would make his or her life painful or inordinately challenging. These diseases can include autism, down’s syndrome, fragile X syndrome and many others that guarantee that not only will the child lead a painful life, but the parents will also suffer as they must watch their child’s pain helplessly. It is for these reasons that pro-choice advocates justify abortion for such malformed children.

However, there are many children who gain life-altering illnesses at young ages that will guarantee that the rest of their lives will be full of more suffering than the average person. Children who are diagnosed with cancer, or who become paralysed from accidents or diseases, are guaranteed to have a life filled with much greater suffering. Nevertheless, we do not offer such children death, we offer them treatment, care and compassion. We do not offer poison to a sick child, we offer them medicine. The life of a disabled child is just as valuable as the life of a healthy one. It is morally abhorrent to suggest that we may “spare” an unborn child the challenges of a diseased life when so many people have been born with such diseases and had beautiful, redeeming lives anyway.

Furthermore, many of these pre-natal tests have a heinously high false positive rate. As a result, there are many children who are killed, who might have been born perfectly healthy. We know this because of the many parents who believed their child would be ill due to these tests, and yet the child was born perfectly healthy.

The Crimes of the Father

There are some events in life, some reasons for abortion, that cannot realistically be considered merely “inconveniences”. It is argued that women who become pregnant through rape are morally justified in aborting the child of their assaulter, rather than be forced to take on the physical, financial and emotional responsibility of a child who will forever be a reminder of her trauma. However, there are many serious reasons why the abortion of children conceived in rape is still not morally acceptable.

First, the majority of rape victims, especially child victims, are repeated victims of the same offender over a long period of time. The rapist can continue to rape the victim repeatedly because whenever a pregnancy results, he can abort the child and erase evidence of his heinous act. As such, abortion actually protects the rapist. 

Second, the child that is conceived in rape, is still an innocent child and his life is not less valuable than that of a child conceived in a happy marriage. Despite the immense emotional and physical trauma that is unfairly forced upon a woman who has become pregnant through rape, it is the rapist, and not the child who is responsible. Killing the innocent child would be adding a murder on top of a rape. We do not punish children for the crimes of their fathers. This principle should not be ignored for children conceived in rape. Instead of fighting for the right to kill children conceived in rape, perhaps our society would be better off finding out how to reduce rapes in general, or supporting pregnant women who have been raped by offering them food, shelter, childcare, jobs and therapy. 

Finally, the trauma of abortion often compounds with the trauma of rape for women who aborted children they conceived in pregnancy and this is a consequence of these kinds of abortion that pro-choice advocates rarely speak about.

It is Not Considered Murder in Self-Defence 

There are many medical reasons why a pregnancy may endanger a woman’s life. Abortion in the case where the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life are morally acceptable in a similar way that killing another person is acceptable in self defence. For example, an ectopic pregnancy where the baby develops outside of the womb, will undoubtedly risk its own life and the mother’s. Usually, this pregnancy will terminate itself but waiting for this event can be dangerous. As such, abortion to kill a baby developing in an ectopic pregnancy is morally acceptable. In most medical situations where the developing baby threatens the woman’s life, the body terminates the pregnancy naturally in an unfortunate process called miscarriage. Medical treatments that help protect women during this process are not even called “abortions,” they are called miscarriage care. To use such circumstances to justify the average woman’s ability to legally kill her child due to its inconvenience, is itself a morally abhorrent rhetorical exercise.

If a pregnant woman is diagnosed with cancer and she must undergo chemotherapy, it is inevitable that the lifesaving treatment for the mother will also kill the developing child. Should the mother accept such a treatment in the effort to save her own life, she is not morally accused if her child dies in the process because it is a form of self-defence. However, you will find, that many women in such circumstances opt to protect their child, even at the cost of their own lives. Such is the unimaginable love of a virtuous woman when she is blessed with a child.

“Abortion laws don’t prevent abortions, they prevent safe abortions”

The idea that abortion must be legalized and easy for all women to access, is often backed by the argument that when legal abortions are not accessible, women will attempt them in unsafe ways illegally that may potentially kill the women involved. Many women have and still do die because they attempt abortions on their own through drugs or mechanical means where medical professionals do not oblige them. 

At this point, dear reader, consider that murders still occur despite the fact that they are illegal. Theft still occurs despite the fact that it is illegal. The legality of something does not prevent it from occurring. However, making something illegal does reduce the frequency of something. Far fewer women are likely to carry out an abortion on their own without medical assistance. If someone were to die in the process of a home invasion, it does not follow that we must all leave our doors open to make it easier for thieves to access our belongings. The deaths of criminals who die in the process of a crime, are not an argument for the morally justification the crime itself.

Conclusions

Just as the murderer does not have a “right” to murder innocent people, a woman does not have the “right” to kill a child. The argument against abortion are often based in religion and presented as such to non-religious people. The position of a culture on this debate is a good reflection of its moral health. I have expounded on this topic with great care and in great detail so that those who are listening with reasonable ears and minds, may reconcile with what is morally right once again, or be better equipped to speak to those who challenge the fundamental morality that forms the basis of all other morals: the sanctity of life.