Woman Defending Her Abortion: My Unborn Baby’s Soul Agreed to be Killed

National   |   Sarah Terzo   |   Feb 18, 2014   |   10:44AM   |   Washington, DC

There are many good reasons for pro-lifers of faith to familiarize themselves with secular reasoning against abortion. Christian pro-lifers often cite religious texts and doctrines to oppose abortion.
And while “God hates abortion” may be a compelling argument for fellow Christians, we need to recognize that pro-choicers can use religion too. People’s interpretations of scripture differ, of course. And apart from scripture, “my personal religious beliefs” can be manipulated by a creative person to justify practically anything.

I stumbled across an example of this in the book Our Choices, Our Lives: Unapologetic Writings on Abortion [1]. I was reading the story of a woman who had three abortions. The woman, who gave her name as Chandra Silva, was a rape survivor who had her first abortion as a teenager when she was well into her second trimester.

proabort39Her baby, at this point, was highly developed. Chandra describes the injection of prostaglandin, and the pain she experienced as her body tried to expel her child:

I felt the need to use the bathroom when something started descending and my mother, who was trying to help me to the corner store style bathroom, kept forcing an orange bedpan underneath me. At one point, in desperation, I glanced between my legs and I saw a head. It was dark and bluish, and seemed to have little dark hairs. In that split-second instant there was a nurse on the floor searching between my legs. She was in a bit of panic herself, fumbling with gloves and clamps, then whisking away the bedpan contents.

When reflecting on this abortion, as well as her other two abortions, Chandra wrote:

What I experienced was unique to me and my evolving self. To me, it was not an act of murder, as the religious zealots and right-wing oppressors would condemn, because I believe the soul and personality (which includes the body) are separate energies. I believe that we can check in and out of our physical vehicles when the situation requires it – or desires it. And I think that in cases where a woman chooses to terminate her pregnancy, there is an agreement between her soul self and that of her child. There is always agreement.

Chandra’s talk of the “soul self” and “separate energies” and unborn babies agreeing to be killed are obviously religious ideas, in the sense that they rely upon supernatural assumptions. Her claim that the soul of the baby makes an agreement with the soul of the mother, and that the baby somehow agrees to be aborted, can never be proved – but is a justification of abortion that makes sense to her, in the same way that “If you have an abortion, you’ll go to hell” makes sense to Christians. I doubt that Chandra could be argued out of her religious beliefs, any more than most fundamentalist Christians or devout Catholics could be argued out of theirs. If a Christian were to come up to her and tell her that God had intended her to have her baby instead of aborting, I doubt that Chandra would listen.

Perhaps it is too late to reach Chandra, but the point I’m trying to make is that religious arguments can be used by either side. It is just as easy to support abortion with religious arguments as it is to oppose it. Pro-lifers are not the only ones who use religious beliefs to support their position. From a secular standpoint, religious arguments often seem nonsensical. No doubt, most Christians would find Chandra’s beliefs absurd. Yet people who are not a part of the Christian faith may find the concept of an unborn John the Baptist leaping in his mother’s womb after encountering the unborn Jesus just as absurd.

Christian pro-lifers should take note that as nonsensical and unconvincing as Chandra’s rationalizations are, when they put forth their Christian religious arguments against abortion, they sound just as unconvincing to those who do not share their religious beliefs. The result is that pro-lifers and pro-choicers who do not share the same religious background end up talking right past one another. By focusing on areas of consensus, like human rights and the science of prenatal development, pro-lifers are far more likely to reach someone like Chandra.

[1] Krista Jacob, editor Our Choices, Our Lives: Unapologetic Writings on Abortion (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2002, 2004) 32 – 34

LifeNews.com Note: Sarah Terzo is a pro-life liberal who runs ClinicQuotes.com, a web site devoted to exposing the abortion industry. She is a member of the pro-life groups PLAGAL and Secular Pro-Life. This originally appeared at Secular Pro-Life.