Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely that good consists in maintaining, asserting, and enhancing life, and that to destroy, to harm, or to hinder life is evil. Albert Schweitzer
Joe Biden, a baptized Catholic, has put a lot of distance between himself and the Catholic teaching that abortion is “gravely contrary to the moral law” and that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.”
Last September, he told reporters that he did not agree that life begins at the moment of conception. This was a reversal from comments he made just six years earlier, when he told America magazine that “on faith” he was “prepared to accept that at the moment of conception there’s human life and being,” but that he was “not prepared to say that to other God-fearing, non-God-fearing people that have a different view.”
Joe also expanded abortion access over the past year by altering FDA rules on dispensing abortion pills, by backing the Women’s Protection Act (WHPA) that basically forbids most any state limitations on abortion, including “a prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability … a prohibition or restriction on a particular abortion procedure” and even “a prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
No one should be surprised. Pro-choice advocates consider their view morally superior. They believe they are defending a woman’s right to control her body. What they don’t realize, though, is that their position leads to an act of unjust discrimination. Abortion is the worst kind of discrimination as it disqualifies an unborn child from being human being.
Just to be clear, women should be able to control her own body free from the shackles of government regulation. Men (or women) in public office should not write laws that interfere with a woman’s personal decisions. She should be free to make her own choices about her healthcare, her career, whether she marries (and whom she marries), whether to have children, etc. We can all agree with that.
Our laws stipulate, however, that personal decisions are restricted when they hurt or unjustly discriminate against other people. The question is whether or not a woman’s decision to procure an abortion is an example of unjust discrimination.
During pregnancy, another whole human being starts his or her life inside a woman. This new person literally lives inside a woman’s body for nine months. That creates a tension that doesn’t exist in any other circumstance: a woman is a sovereign person in control of her body, but inside her body exists another person, a separate human being.
Anyone who knows the biology can’t deny the unborn is a human being. This is because the science of embryology is decisive about the status of the unborn. From the moment of conception, the unborn is a living, distinct, human being. We know the unborn is living because it meets the biological criteria for life (it grows, responds to stimulation, and converts nutrition into energy).
We know the unborn is distinct from the mother because it has its own brain, heart, sex organs, fingerprints, and DNA. We know the unborn is human because it has a human genetic signature. Furthermore, living things reproduce their own kind. That means the product of human sexual union will always produce another human being—100% of the time.
Roe v. Wade created a group of living human beings who are disqualified from being valuable based on a characteristic—their location inside their mother—that’s not relevant to the type of discrimination they face. As a result, they are murdered with impunity. To be sure, the unborn is inside the mother, and that grants her certain prerogatives over her child, but not the right to murder it.
We live in an upside-down world. While pro-choice advocates claim to champion inclusion, they exclude a certain class of human beings. They claim to champion the oppressed, but they oppress the weak. They claim to eschew discrimination, but they unjustly discriminate.
By contrast, pro-life advocates are inclusive, champion the weak, and don’t discriminate against those who are small, vulnerable, and defenseless.
“Our nation must be mindful of God’s ultimate justice as He beholds the faces of the millions of aborted children – the greatest among us – killed according to our laws. We should all tremble with fear knowing “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Richard Thompson,
Source: Abortion Is Unjust Discrimination by Alan Shlemon, Stand to Reason; Catholic President Biden Holds His Most Pro-Abortion Stance Ever, as 2022 March for Life Gets Underway, National Catholic Register
