In these days of social media frenzy, when arguments break out on Facebook faster than you can press the “angry” icon, it’s important to keep in mind that rational discussions on the right to life are indeed possible.
In fact, we can learn a lot by considering the points made by Bishop Robert Barron in his recent book, which is a summary of talks he gave at the offices of Facebook and Google. While the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles’ book is entitled, Arguing Religion, the ideas he offers for argumentation can be applied to a non-religious context.
One example he uses is of a video that went viral. It is of a six-foot tall male, interviewing college students by posing a series of provocative questions: “What if I told you I was a woman? What if I told you that I felt I was a Chinese woman? What if I told you that I claim the identity of a six-foot-five-inch Chinese woman?”
As Barron writes, the students “all agreed that they would be fine with that description if that’s what he truly felt he was.”
He points out that the interviewees “are in the grips of a deeply distorting ideology” that distances them “from reality.”
A similar argument could be used to characterize those who support legal abortion. They deny the reality that a living being with separate DNA from the mother lives in the mother’s womb. They deny the fact that the words “right to an abortion” appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. And they routinely ignore the cries of women who say they have been deeply harmed by their abortions.
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A case in point which Barron specifically references is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which failed to overturn Roe. The decision curiously stated, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
This passage, aptly dubbed the “mystery of life” passage, is clearly wrong.
My freedom does not determine whether you exist. You exist independently of, separate from, and distinct from me. You were a separate being from your mother from the time of your conception.
On facts alone, the pro-life side wins!
LifeNews.com Note: Maria Gallagher is the Legislative Director and Political Action Committee Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and she has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.
