Opponents of abortion need to show people that you don't need God to see why it is wrong

The US state of Alabama has become the latest to pass a bill banning abortions in all cases except where the mother’s life is at serious risk. This is, of course, to be welcomed. Abortion is one of the most grave evils of our day, but it is hard to be an opponent of abortion. I think that is because the topic is so bound up with religion, and opposition to abortion is always assumed to be motivated by religious beliefs, and grounded in religious arguments. To convince anyone in an age where religious belief is on the retreat, we have to demonstrate that you don’t need God to oppose abortion. This is my blueprint for how we opponents can do it better.

First, we must challenge the claim that this is only an issue in America because of religion. People often assume that abortion is a much more toxic issue in American politics than British, because America is a country where religious belief is stronger, and the kinds of groups that have a strong voice and financial influence are often the evangelical groups and the Catholic church, both of which contrast markedly to our saintly and oh-so-charitable Church of England.

This is not the case. In fact, it is because abortion in America was legalised not by the settled will of its legislature, but by the courts in 1973; the Supreme Court is the ultimate umpire in disputes over whether something is constitutional or not. Thus, whilst Britain’s pro-life movement has to work to persuade MPs and, realistically, can at best hope for reductions to the upper abortion limit from its current 24 weeks, the fate of abortion in America rests with a handful of judges.

Attempts to restrict it like the Alabama bill, serve to keep the fight going and find fresh reasons to get the issue escalated through the courts again. This is about the nature of the political system, not the fervour of religious sentiment.

American pro-lifers don’t have to settle for a pragmatic compromise, and so they won’t. It remains the case that, if the opposing argument is chiefly advanced by the religious institutions, we’ve failed to create a broader coalition of opposition and show that you don’t need God to explain why abortion is so wrong.

Second, we must reclaim the concept of compassion. Arguments in favour of abortion are not logical. Instead, they are emotional.

Let me say now that there is only one thing that makes me uncomfortable about writing and sharing this piece. That is the fear that someone who has had an abortion; someone who encouraged someone else to or someone whose partner aborted their pregnancy, will read it and be distressed. I don’t want people to feel bad, but find healing and acceptance of what cannot now be changed, yet these arguments may do the opposite. And so, if this is a matter of deep personal trauma, and the suffering it will cause might be too much, please don’t read on.

But for those who can continue, do ask abortion supporters, for example, when a life truly begins. Have they ever known anyone who didn’t begin life as an embryo? If a baby’s heart has begun to beat by the time a woman even realises she is pregnant, is that really only a potential life or somehow not fully alive?

Is it not ironic that a doctor might legally perform an abortion at 23 weeks in the morning, and spend her afternoon fighting with all her strength and sparing no resource whatsoever to save the life of a premature baby born at 23 weeks?

Could they explain why, if what is inside a woman is not yet a life, a charge of child destruction can apply to harm done to a woman’s unborn baby at 24 weeks, but materially the same outcome can be achieved at 23 weeks but in a medical setting and this is apparently all fine?

What do they think of the fact that the 24-week limit doesn’t apply where there is a disability or abnormality? Is termination up to the point of birth justified in these cases? Are we informed enough to judge whether any life will be perceived as worth living by the as yet unborn child?

Yet rather than enter this logical exploration, you can be sure that either the right for a woman to make choices over her body will be offered, or the question of what happens in cases of rape or abuse.

The rape/abuse question is particularly interesting. It is fascinating how rapidly critics of a pro-life position rush to churn it out, adopting a tone of absolute ‘gotcha’ finality as they do.

No doubt they consider this a serious argument, but if they are then pressed to support a ban on abortions except in the case of rape and abuse, they often won’t. it isn’t really a genuine moral parameter for them, but a killer punch of an argument that is admittedly hard to deflect.

Indeed, the discussion ends if they are not at all open to challenge of the idea that up to a certain point, the foetus isn’t a life. In that case, it shouldn’t matter whether the woman was raped, or the pregnancy was simply unwanted as is the case in virtually every abortion carried out. They aren’t exploring the different sides of the abortion debate, but chipping away for inconsistencies in your argument as a rather meaningless end in itself.

Of course, if they do ascribe the value of life to that foetus, they then have to deal with the need to balance consideration for the woman and the child.

And here’s where we get to the heart of the compassion problem. It is, they will object, rather heartless to force a woman who has suffered something horrific and unimaginable to most of us, to go ahead with a pregnancy.

But if that which is inside her does have the value of life, should its life be extinguished? Is that going to make the trauma for the mother any easier? Will she not have to live with it, whatever the result? And how, if it has the value of life, would ending its life before or after birth to spare trauma to the mother, be any different? We would never harm the child once born so why before?

The truth about compassion is that those who use it to win arguments wrongly assume that compassion and easy answers go hand in hand. They do not. The medical profession has long opposed assisted dying, itself often justified with appeals to compassion. But is the medical profession not compassionate?

An abused woman or child that has become pregnant has entered a situation where their life is already changed unalterably. The impact and trauma of that abuse and that pregnancy is something they will be forced to live with, whether the result is abortion or not.

It’s too late to make it better. Only surrounding that person with love and support, enveloping them in the kindness of humanity, can provide even a scrap of comfort. In all this, either you accept that there is someone else, as yet unborn, to consider, or you don’t. If you don’t, you then need to justify to yourself why that thing is not a life – and a life at the extremes of human innocence and vulnerability.

As a final word on compassion, I encourage fellow anti-abortion advocates not to use words such as killing and murder. I shall elaborate in my third argument below.

This is not compassionate. If you are the sort of person who stands outside abortion clinics protesting, don’t! Even if you maintain a silent prayer vigil, go home and pray there. These actions are aggressive/passive aggressive, judgemental and unhelpful for people already in distressing circumstances. Focus on the bigger picture. Society needs to change for abortion to change.

Finally, we must discuss the very language and terminology of abortion itself, to reverse the cognitive disconnect that careful manipulation of language has created.

The vegan activist movement has used this trick rather well. When they try to win converts, particularly when exploring the details of a person’s moral stance on meat, they will avoid words like meat, beef or pork. Instead, they will talk about eating dead animals, cow’s flesh, pig guts etc. Yuck! Those simple language changes connect us much more closely to the reality of what we are eating. It’s not the kindest approach, but it is powerful.

I believe that when we talk about abortion as killing or murder, it is too harsh and cruel. That’s because language has been used so effectively to cognitively disconnect us from the reality of what’s happening.

Consider this: have you ever heard a newly pregnant mother or proud father to be, declare how excited they are about the culmination of the pregnancy, or the delivery of the foetus? Don’t they instead talk of how excited they are for the baby to come? Don’t they speak about it in the present in a way that attests to the fullness of its humanity? They speculate about its gender, they think of names, debate which parent it will most look like, they comment on its kicks and already feel those first emotions of absolute bliss at the tiny little thing that amazing technology can now show them on scans.

Yet read any supposedly objective communication about abortion and none of this is discussed. Read any health advice. The unborn baby remains a ‘it’ with no character. The baby is now described as ‘the pregnancy’ or ‘the foetus’, a thing void of any of the humanity its anticipating parents might longingly rejoice over had the circumstances of its conception only been different.

But people are not stupid. Only in distress and vulnerability would anyone genuinely fall for this manipulative reframing of the language of pregnancy, to make termination sound as trivial as an ingrown toenail or tooth extraction. What is described in clinical, routine terms, is anything but. IT is brutal and deeply traumatising.

The destruction of life is not a compassionate endeavour. Yet the very euphemistic language surrounding the whole tawdry business, creates an emotional wall that allows so many people to support it, and feel a vast chasm of understanding and mentality between themselves and those who oppose it. And that’s why we need to use logical questioning, a more honest vocabulary and a deep and sincere acknowledgement that compassion exists independent of whether there is any complete or partial remedy for the cruellest injustices in life. That wall will never get smaller otherwise.

Don’t be afraid if you are a man to voice your views if told that your masculinity makes you less qualified to comment. Instead, unpick the logic of the so-called right to choose. Ask questions about whose life counts. At least get your critic to be clear where they define the beginning of life and the value of human life, so they see clearly the assumptions on which their own view is based.

But please, don’t bring God in to it. You may be motivated by faith. Like me, you may have only heard the pro-life arguments expressed by faith communities. But the lies of abortion do not rest on truths that are imparted either completely or partially by divine revelation. If people wish to debate in religious terms, fine. But if not, don’t shift the ground to a theological context they may not believe in or care about.

Meet reason with reason. It’s our failing if only the godly make this case. Opponents of abortion need to show people that you don’t need God to see why it is wrong.