Why Is Abortion Bad?

Someone recently took exception to my argument that "pro-life" Christians don't make sense when they proclaim that abortion is a terrible evil. But when you really think about it, why is abortion bad if the souls of aborted fetuses go to heaven?

Because these souls don't get the chance to live on Earth first? What's so terrible about that? Heaven is infinite and everlasting bliss. Life on Earth is hard. Even if you're rich, it's hard. For the poor, it can be hell. How many fetuses being carried by women planning to abort them are likely to end up anything but poor if they aren't aborted?

What's more, whether they end up being poor or rich or somewhere in between, what are their chances of going to heaven compared to their chances of going to hell? Doesn't the Bible in Matthew 7:13-14 quote Jesus as saying, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."? What does this mean if not that most people go to hell and only a few go to heaven?

"Pro-life" Christians say that women who abort their fetuses are horribly selfish, but I disagree. I say that if a woman aborts her fetus believing that she could go to hell for it but does it anyway because she wants to ensure that her fetus' soul goes to heaven instead of hell, she is committing the most heroically selfless act possible. She is willing to be tortured unspeakably forever so that her child is guaranteed eternity in paradise. Not even Jesus' "sacrifice" on the cross begins to compare with this.

But even if a woman aborts her fetus for such "selfish" reasons as wanting to avoid the inconvenience of raising a child, she's still doing her fetus a tremendous favor. She's sending it to heaven instead of allowing it to go to hell. And if Christianity is nonsense and there is no heaven and hell, she's not denying her fetus anything it will miss, since it won't be around to miss it, and, in all likelihood, she'll be sparing it more suffering than happiness on this earth.

I really don't see what's bad about abortion, especially so long as it's done early in pregnancy. I wish there were far more abortions than there are, since I believe that many women who give birth do so not because they want to or can provide well for their offspring, but because they feel obligated or coerced to by religion and the "pro-life" crowd.

Sarah's Choice

Sarah Palin, McCain's VP pick, is being lauded by many pro-birth conservatives for having decided not to have an abortion even though she knew early in her pregnancy that she was carrying a fetus with Down syndrome. And if she had her way, no woman would have the legal right to make the choice she had the right to make. All would be required to have the child.

I'm inclined to say that Palin shouldn't be admired and praised for her choice, but criticized if not condemned for it, and condemned all the more for wanting to take the choice away from everyone else. Life is difficult enough, especially in the social Darwinist world the Republicans glorify, for even those of average or superior intelligence. Why knowingly bring a mentally handicapped child into this, as conservative "stand-up comedian, political/sports commentator, and television/radio personality" Dennis Miller puts it, "Serengeti Plain" of a world if one can prevent it early on?

To "spare the life" of a precious child? "Spare" it from what? From a life of tremendous struggle against all-but-impossible odds in an ever-more complicated and rapidly changing world? From the "wide gate" to hell in which fundamentalist Christians like Palin and John McCain believe?

And you want to know something really ironic about all of this? Sarah Palin and her husband are not fabulously wealthy individuals. I suspect that they're a lot better off financially than most of us, but not rich enough to be able to pay out of their own pockets for all of the special services their Down syndrome child will require over the course of his life. So, who do you think will pick up the tab? The federal government, of course. That means all of us. The same federal government that politicians like McCain and Palin are so hellbent on shrinking, and the same American people that these politicians say they want to tax less.

Are the American people so stupid or blind that they can't understand or see this? Yes, I think they are. And so all-too-many of them will vote for John McCain partly because he chose Sarah Palin who made a legal choice to bring a mentally handicapped child into this cruel world to suffer the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and face the high probability of burning in screaming agony forever and ever in the world to come.

Addendum to Yesterday

Here is an addendum to yesterday's entry.

Nature aborts approximately 75% of all pregnancies. If the biblical God made nature, one could say that God aborts all of these pregnancies. In other words, God aborts vastly many more pregnancies than people do. Some would say that if God does it, it’s not an abortion. But this seems like a silly play on words. A miscarriage and a medical abortion have the same result—a “baby” dies in the womb. It’s an abortion.

Yet, do Christian opponents of abortion rail and protest against God for aborting these poor “babies”? No. Do they mourn these innocent victims of God’s abortions? No. It’s perfectly okay with them if God does it, but not if people do. They say that when God aborts a conceptus, it’s God’s plan for that child, but not when people do it.

Yet, what is the real difference for the conceptus? Do Christian opponents of abortion truly believe that the soul of a conceptus aborted by God meets a different fate than does the soul of a conceptus aborted by humans? What would that difference be? Does the soul of a conceptus aborted by God go to heaven and the soul of a conceptus aborted by humans go to hell? The soul of the conceptus aborted by people was no more responsible for what happened to it than was the soul of the conceptus aborted by God, so why would it not go to the same place that the souls of conceptuses aborted by God go?

Some Christian opponents of abortion say that we don’t know where any of these souls go, but that they have faith in God’s supreme justice and mercy. How could this faith lead them to any other conclusion than that God sends all aborted souls to heaven? For how could God be just and merciful if he penalized these innocent souls by sending them to anywhere but heaven?

Some Christians say that God can do anything he wants and that it’s good simply because he does it. So, if he wants to send the souls of conceptuses aborted by humans or all aborted souls to hell, it is good because he does it. Well then, one could use that same argument to say that if God ever tells us to rape our children, it’s good because God has told us to do it. If everything God does is good simply because he does it, we have no grounds for saying that anything he could conceivably do would be evil. If a Christian wouldn’t accept a tautological definition of God’s goodness, then he or she implicitly believes that God’s acts are not good simply because he does them, but because they meet standards of goodness that we use to judge all acts, including God’s or those attributed to God. Our standards of goodness tell us that innocent aborted souls must go to heaven and that a God who didn’t meet this standard would not be good. If God is good, he must meet this standard and send all aborted souls to heaven.

So, all aborted souls go to heaven. On the other hand, souls whose bodies aren’t aborted have a very good chance of going to hell, for the Bible says that the gate to heaven is narrow whereas the road to hell is wide. Christian opponents of abortion say that all souls should be able to choose for themselves where they will go. But if that’s true, why does God deny this choice to 75% or more of all souls? What’s more, what woman who truly loves the “pre-born child” in her womb would want it to end up suffering everlasting torture in the dungeon of hell?

Christian opponents of abortion say that a woman who aborts her child is selfish. But if she aborts her child because she wants to spare it suffering in this life and a strong possibility of going to hell in the next even though she knows that she could spend eternity in hell for doing it, she is committing the most selfless act imaginable—risking the damnation of her eternal soul to guarantee that her child’s soul enjoys everlasting bliss in heaven.

So, a Christian cannot credibly argue that abortion is wrong because it’s necessarily a selfish act of the mother that harms the “pre-born child.” I have shown that abortion is the ultimate gift that one could give to any child—a non-revocable ticket to everlasting bliss, and that it can be a supremely selfless act on the part of the mother. Abortion may violate God’s command not to abort, but what external standard of goodness dictates that God’s command is good? If our standard of goodness says that everyone should have the chance to choose for herself whether she goes to heaven or to hell, doesn’t God himself violate this standard for more than 75% of created souls? If God does only good, then abortion can't be wrong because it deprives souls of their choice. There must be some other reason. What is it? If there isn’t any and Christians continue to insist that God's innumerable spontaneous abortions are good, shouldn’t we humans do our best to follow his good example?