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The key message of this article is that you don't have to be an atheist to be pro-choice. The author counters the belief underlying the fetal heartbeat bill by presenting a number of religious and ethical views on the beginning of personhood. Even within Christianity, there is no consensus on when exactly ensoulment occurs (the Bible provides contradicting references to that). Many religious traditions support the belief that "there is no defined moment of ensoulment;" instead, we enter life gradually, in stages.

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In March of 2011, Ohio Republicans invited an ultrasound technician and two pregnant women to a House committee meeting and watched, on a large screen, as the women underwent ultrasounds. They were trying to garner support for legislation that would ban abortions after the embryo's heartbeat can be detected, which happens at around 6 weeks' gestational age or 4 weeks following conception. "I think it kind of hits you in the forehead about what is going on in the woman's womb," Rep. Lynn R. Wachtmann, a sponsor of the bill, told reporters after the demonstration. "It's an eye-opener."

The belief underlying the Ohio measure, which never made it to the Senate floor, is that the heartbeat serves as final and irrefutable proof of the arrival of a unique human being, one who should be treated with the same respect and care as a person outside the womb. Since 2011, similar heartbeat ban bills have been proposed in 14 states, and one was proposed in the House of Representatives this past January. The laws passed in Arkansas and North Dakota, but both were ultimately blocked by federal courts.

Supporters of these bills have embraced the ultrasound as offering scientific proof of their religious belief that life begins as early as conception. And with President Trump seeking to add justices to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade -which protects abortion rights up to the point of viability-these activists have new reason to be hopeful. Should a radically shifted court ever embrace the cause that's become known as fetal personhood, abortion would be considered murder and outlawed nationwide.

But despite the insistence of anti-abortion activists, the notion that life begins at the bright line of conception is at odds with many ethical traditions. In a number of religions, when an embryo or fetus becomes a person remains a mystery, something that occurs not in a single moment but in a series of moments, none necessarily more important than the next. And, for all the anti-abortion side's embrace of ultrasounds, the medical community tends to agree.

"Many scientists would say they don't know when life begins. There are a series of landmark moments," said Arthur Caplan, professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center. "The first is conception, the second is the development of the spine, the third the development of the brain, consciousness, and so on." That perspective, it turns out, has deep roots. It's also one that resonates for many pregnant women who experience the embryo's gradual passage to personhood on a visceral level.

* * *

Many religious traditions, including a number of denominations of Christianity, are ambivalent about the beginnings of life. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and many American Baptists don't believe abortion is akin to murder. Presbyterians concede that they "may not know exactly when human life begins" and encourage their followers to make their own careful decisions on abortion. Unitarians are more overtly pro-choice and "believe not only in the value of life itself but also in the quality of life."

Among Muslims, there is no universally agreed-upon moment when a fetus becomes a person. "Some say it takes 40 days, others say it takes 120 days, for a human soul to be breathed into a fetus," Sherine Hamdy, an associate professor of anthropology at Brown who researches cross-cultural bioethics, told Slate. She said many Muslim religious leaders allow for abortion in case of rape before 4 months, and some also allow for it in the case of a prenatal diagnosis of disability if it is seen as "an arduous burden on the family's well-being."

The majority of Jews do not believe that life begins at conception but instead see the creation of life as something that happens over time. During this process, the fetus is seen as part of the mother, whose well-being, both immediate and future, takes precedence. As with other religious traditions, Jewish ethicists have increasingly become willing to consider psychological threats to the mother in addition to physical ones, when considering whether an abortion is the right decision.

"The tradition holds that we enter life in stages and leave in stages," Rabbi Elliot Dorff, bioethicist and professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University in California, told . He pointed to Exodus 21, in which the Bible explains that if a pregnant woman is physically harmed and miscarries as a result, the punishment for her assailant should not be the same as if he killed another person. "It's clear here that there is real distinction between the status of fetus and status of a woman who is a full-fledged human being."

There are also a number of biblical passages in which the breath, and not the heartbeat, serves as the central symbol for life, including, most famously, Genesis 2:7: "Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Anti-abortion activists often counter these examples with two other biblical passages, both which suggest that some kind of ensoulment happens at conception. "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee," reads Jeremiah 1:5. Together, these passages suggest that the author or authors of the Bible were as uncertain as we are about when life begins.

For many Christian ethicists, this ambivalence is reason to err on the side of caution and to assume we are ensouled from the very beginning.

"You might be surprised to know that the Catholic Church has never dogmatically defined when life begins," said Daniel Sulmasy, a Catholic bioethicist and director of the Program on Medicine and Religion at the University of Chicago. "Instead, there is a recognition that there is unfolding developmental potential in embryo, from unification between the sperm and egg to birth. There is no defined moment of ensoulment. But we know the potential of human life is there from conception so believe we ought to be cautious and not interfere." To him, this teaching holds true even if the fetus has no chance of survival. "Our advice would be to let a natural miscarriage happen or carry the fetus to term. And if the fetus is too sick to live on its own, it can be allowed to die."

Sulmasy added that there is no real historical theological precedent for the recent focus on the heartbeat, which couldn't have been heard until the stethoscope was invented in the 19 th century. For much of its history, the church considered life to begin at the quickening, or the first time a woman feels the baby move, which usually happens sometime around 18 weeks. "[The focus on the heartbeat] is just a contemporary attempt to create some dividing line based on what we now know about biology," he said.

In light of this uncertainty, even among Christian factions, it's striking that anti-choice activists have spent decades fighting to codify a fixed definition of when life begins into state and federal law. These efforts were given a boost by the passing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, which made it easier for opponents of abortion to argue that compromising those beliefs would be a violation of their freedom of religion. With Roe v. Wade already the law of the land, meanwhile, the voices of the religious pro-choice have largely been missing from the debate.

"There has been a failure of religious groups of more moderate perspective to really fight back on the expansion of laws [that restrict abortion rights]," Jodi Jacobson, president and editor-in-chief of the pro-reproductive rights online publication Rewire, told . She believes leaders in some faith traditions are reluctant to appear to disrespect the beliefs of their peers-a position she sees as less and less reasonable as reproductive rights diminish. "This has become an ethical dilemma."

Janet Crepps, senior counsel in the U.S. legal program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, sees legal potential in the argument that one group's religiously informed belief that life begins at conception violates the freedom of religion of other groups whose traditions tell them otherwise. "There is absolutely room for people of different religious faiths to come in and challenge the thinking behind these laws," Crepps told Slate-emphasizing that the time to push back is before the laws pass, not afterward. "We need to make other views heard in all their diversity."

As for the scientific community, Caplan believes that the relative silence from his peers on these issues is a product of professional fear. Many scientists rely on the government for funding and want to avoid alienating anyone with the power to shut down their research. "If scientists weren't such cowards about getting into the abortion issue, they would be speaking up more about this," Caplan said.

* * *

In the debate over life's beginnings, the heartbeat is a metaphor, a visceral and potent symbol of life that some can't help but interpret as proof of life itself. It's hard to be unmoved by the coursing of blood through an embryo or fetus' heart, something many women and men now bear witness to in the exam room, with our eyes, ears, and, yes, hearts.

Still, the heartbeat deceives. It renders the grayscale beginnings of life in black and white, in refutation of the fact that this is a mysterious process with many possible ends. Denying this doesn't just threaten women's reproductive rights, but also limits the way we think and talk about pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and childbirth. This mystery is what makes it possible for the same woman to choose an abortion and then grieve a miscarriage, or to pray for the survival of the 5-day-old embryo implanted in her womb by a fertility doctor while being at peace with the fact that, if that one makes it, the other half-dozen in the freezer will be destroyed. When we view life as evolving in stages, it frees us to experience all these moments in all their fullness and complexity.

Last year I went through infertility treatment. This included one egg retrieval, during which doctors took 21 eggs out of my ovaries, 19 of which fertilized, 12 of which made it to the fifth day, and four of which were determined to be chromosomally viable through preimplantation genetic screening. The first egg doctors implanted in me made it to 6 weeks gestational age, and then I started bleeding. When I went into the doctor to figure out what was going on, I saw the heartbeat. Two days later, the heartbeat was gone. A few months later I was implanted with another egg, and I'm now nearing the end of my third trimester. Throughout all this, my husband and I struggled to boil down the mix of emotions and science to something our toddler son could digest, a formulation that wouldn't hide our desire for another child while still acknowledging the precariousness and liminality of the whole undertaking.

What worked for him is this: Mommy is trying to grow a baby. And when I got pregnant: Mommy is growing a baby. Describing it this way allowed him to understand two things: The creation of babies, of life, is a long, complicated, and often messy experience. Also, babies don't magically appear but can only come into being with the assistance of the women who play host to them. It's a simple formulation, one that ultimately helped us make sense of what was happening as well.

And when, if, this baby I am growing takes his first breath, it will be a moment of awe for all parties involved. Finally, we will take comfort in what we see as the undeniable, palpable arrival of life: a new person, in the world.

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When Does Life Begin? Outside the Christian Right, the Answer Is "Over Time."

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In March of 2011, Ohio Republicans invited an ultrasound technician and two pregnant women to a House committee meeting and watched, on a large screen, as the women underwent ultrasounds. They were trying to garner support for legislation that would ban abortions after the embryo's heartbeat can be detected, which happens at around 6 weeks' gestational age or 4 weeks following conception.

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Inconsistency in the Moderate Pro-Life Position

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Inconsistency in the Moderate Pro-Life Position

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In this article, the author analyzes the moral justification of moderate pro-lifers and argues that there is a logical flaw in their belief. Opposite to the position of pro-choicers, both moderate and radical pro-lifers believe that the fetus's right to life overweighs the woman's right to bodily autonomy. One of the key differences in the standpoints of moderate and radical pro-lifers is that the moderate pro-lifers believe that abortion is permissible if the pregnancy was caused by rape. What is rape? It's a violation of bodily autonomy (in its extreme form). Therefore, the author claims, the moderate pro-life position says that a "right to life outweighs a right to bodily autonomy, except when the fetus that has the right to life is created by a violation of … bodily autonomy."

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Many people are worried that the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts protections of reproductive rights at increased risk in the United States. With a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court likely to be filled by a president and Senate favouring increased restrictions on these rights, the survival of - which ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's liberty to have an abortion - is gravely threatened.

Public debate about abortion rights is likely to get heated. So it seems appropriate to revisit the moral arguments used to defend both the pro-choice and pro-life positions.

As an ethicist who researches moral beliefs, I examine the moral justifications people give for the things they believe. You likely already know where you stand when it comes to the morality of abortion. But I think going over the arguments supporting long-held views can show an overlooked inconsistency in the pro-life view. It's an inconsistency that I am hopeful can lead people who are pro-life to support a woman's right to choose.

(Shutterstock)

Rights and claims

Let's remind ourselves of the basics. Pro-choice arguments usually appeal to the mother's right to bodily autonomy, and it is because of the mother's right to bodily autonomy that abortion is generally morally permissible. Pro-life arguments usually appeal to the fetus's right to life, and it is because of the fetus's right to life that abortion is generally morally forbidden.

More sophisticated versions of these arguments appeal to different weighing claims. Someone who is pro-choice can accept that a fetus does indeed have a right to life but insist this right is outweighed by the mother's right to bodily autonomy. Likewise, someone who is pro-life can accept that a mother does indeed have a right to bodily autonomy but insist that this right is outweighed by the fetus's right to life.

Read more: A concise history of the US abortion debate

But these two positions are not monoliths. Some people who are pro-life believe there are important exceptions regarding abortion. A moderate pro-life position says that abortion is generally morally forbidden, except in cases where the mother's life is at risk, or when the pregnancy is caused by incest or rape. I'll focus on the last of these exceptions here. Other pro-life defenders, who are more extreme, reject such qualifiers.

This difference is evident among U.S. Republicans. In May 2019, a coalition of pro-life activists urged the Republican National Committee (RNC) to oppose any exceptions for rape within newly passed abortion laws, because "the value of human life is not determined by the circumstances of one's conception or birth."

But in the same month, Donald Trump tweeted: "... I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions - Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother ...," echoing a belief held by Ronald Reagan.

Justifiable exceptions

The moderate pro-life position is also widely shared among the general public. Nearly 75 per cent of Americans think that abortion should be permissible in cases of rape. Since Americans are nearly equally split between pro-choice and pro-life positions, we can assume that many people who are pro-life are among those who think that rape exceptions are justified.

While the moderate pro-life position has broad support among the general public, it receives very little attention from moral philosophers. In a recent paper, I have suggested that one reason for this surprising oversight is because the popular view is actually incoherent. But it is not for the reason stated in the letter to the RNC. Rather, bringing out the incoherency requires us to unpack the underlying moral justification for the view.

There seem to be three underlying claims for the moderate pro-life position. The first claim is: a fetus is a human being from the moment of conception, or else at some point during gestation.

The moral point here is that human beings have a right to life, and because a fetus is a human being it too has a right to life. Many people who are pro-choice might deny this claim, but let's accept it for the sake of argument.

The second underlying claim is: a right to life is stronger than, or outweighs, a right to bodily autonomy.

As we saw above, this is the weighing claim familiar to pro-life positions. It says that a right to life is morally weighty enough to tilt away from a right to bodily autonomy.

And the third underlying claim is: abortion is permissible for a pregnancy caused by rape.

With the three claims on the table, what we can notice is that the third claim is an excusing condition on the second claim. The idea here is that while a fetus's right to life normally outweighs a mother's right to bodily autonomy, when the fetus is conceived as result of rape abortion becomes permissible. And that means that the moral justification for the moderate pro-life positions stems from the type of act that rape is. Rape is of course an extreme violation of someone's autonomy.

Read more: Will the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade? And if it does, what happens to abortion rights?

Moral significance

But now the incoherency reveals itself. Consider the following gloss: the moderate pro-life position says that a right to life is stronger than, or outweighs, a right to bodily autonomy, except when the fetus that has the right to life is created by a violation of ... bodily autonomy.

Once we put in the work to unpack the moderate pro-life position, we see that it makes an appeal to the moral significance of bodily autonomy. Crucially, it does this while attempting to explain why the act of rape excuses the ordinary weighting of life over autonomy. But this is incoherent. It says that life is more important than autonomy, except when autonomy is more important than life.

When someone allows for an exception to abortion in cases of rape, they are acknowledging that there are violations of autonomy that can justify abortion. And if some violations of autonomy are appropriate grounds, then it cannot be true that a right to life is morally weightier than a right to bodily autonomy.

Some might think that realizing this inconsistency should push moderate pro-lifers to a more extreme position. But I think that the hard part is convincing someone that autonomy considerations have any relevance regarding reproductive ethics. People who accept the moderate pro-life position are already sympathetic to this point. I believe they can come around to thinking that the law should respect the importance of autonomy more broadly.

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If you're pro-life, you might already be pro-choice

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Many people are worried that the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts protections of reproductive rights at increased risk in the United States. With a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court likely to be filled by a president and Senate favouring increased restrictions on these rights, the survival of - which ruled that the U.S.

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The History of the Campaign to Overturn Roe vs Wade

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The History of the Campaign to Overturn Roe vs Wade

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This documentary provides an overview of 50 years of the issue of abortion in the U.S. The film creators interviewed activists, lawyers, politicians, physicians, ministers, and other key figures involved in the debate. Although the film presents the perspective of the opposite side, it clearly aims at promoting the pro-choice position. It does not try to find a moral justification for abortion, but rather contends that this issue should not be politicized.

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Through interviews with abortion rights supporters and opponents, this film lifts the lid on a decades-long political campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade. Watch trailers & learn more.

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This tweet reflects one of the most well-known pro-choice grievances: the pro-life advocates should focus on promoting access to contraception, sex education, and child care assistance programs instead of banning abortion.

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A Logical Exercise to Prove that Abortion Is Either Homicide, Manslaughter, or Criminal Negligence

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A Logical Exercise to Prove that Abortion Is Either Homicide, Manslaughter, or Criminal Negligence

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The focus of this article is the uncertainty with regard to a fetus's personhood. Without this uncertainty, the abortion rights would not be debated. Although the authors of the article are certain that the fetus is a person, they "allow for the assertion that the beginning of human life is unknowable." This assertion is further challenged with a logical exercise whose aim is to prove that the only scenario that could justify abortion would be where we know for sure that the fetus is not a person. Since no one has an absolute certainty about that (and even if someone does, "they have no capacity to prove so"), abortion should not be permissible.

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Page Summary:

Uncertainty in regard to life's beginning has long been used as an argument in favor of legal abortion. In reality, if any uncertainty exists, abortion ceases to be a justifiable option.

Uncertainty is at the heart of legal abortion in the United States. It was on the assertion that life's beginning is unknowable that the Supreme Court struck down all state prohibitions against abortion. ¹ In the decades that have followed that 1973 verdict, countless abortion advocates have taken up this same refrain. It goes like this: since we don't know when human life begins, women must be free to make up their own minds about abortion.

There are two problems with the above conclusion. First, as we've already demonstrated, the biological beginning of human life is knowable and has been for a long time. It is only when life is defined according to subjective metaphysical benchmarks that its beginning becomes fuzzy. And here again, there are numerous problems with attaching the notion of personhood to traits like rationality or sentience.

The second problem with arguing for abortion on the basis of uncertainty is this. It's a logical absurdity. Even if we allow for the assertion that the beginning of human life is unknowable, that is not a point in favor of legal abortion. It is a point decidedly against it. In order for abortion to be justified, there must be absolute certainly that it does not kill a human person. Peter Kreeft, a professor of philosophy at Boston College, points out that there are only four possibilities with regard to abortion. ² They are:

1. The fetus is a person, and you know that.

2. The fetus is a person, but you don't know that.

3. The fetus is not a person, but you don't know that.

4. The fetus is not a person, and you know that.

Now consider each of these ramifications in actual practice:

1. If a fetus is a person and you know that, then abortion is an act of homicide. You intentionally killed an innocent human person.

2. If a fetus is a person but you don't know that, then abortion is an act of manslaughter. You unintentionally killed an innocent human person.

3. If the fetus is not a person but you don't know that, then abortion is an act of criminal negligence. You didn't kill an innocent human person, but you intentionally risked doing so.

4. If a fetus is not a person and you know that, then abortion is an act that needs no justification. You did nothing more significant than getting a haircut or removing your tonsils.

Notice that only one of the above scenarios justifies abortion, and notice that it is a scenario that does not exist in the real world. No one can say with absolute certainty that abortion does not kill a human person. At best, someone can be strongly convinced that it does not, but they have no capacity to prove so, since their metrics are indistinct and immeasurable.

By contrast, we can say with certainty that abortion kills a human being (i.e. a living, genetically-distinct member of the human species). It is only when you try to differentiate between human beings and human persons that objective classification goes out the window. Abortion advocates make this distinction for the express purpose of introducing uncertainty into the equation. Since the transition between developing human being and functional human person takes place at some unknown point between conception and birth, or after birth as some ethicists maintain, proponents of abortion think they have found a legal loophole. This is simply not so.

Uncertainty as to whether a building is occupied does not give an exterminator the right to fumigate. Uncertainty as to whether an overturned bassinet is empty does not give a truck driver the right to plough through it. Uncertainty as to whether a walk-in freezer has been vacated does not give a night manager the right to lock and bolt it. Uncertainty as to whether a high climber has moved to another tree does not give a lumberjack the right to fell the timber. And uncertainty over whether a person is really dead does not give a mortician the right to light the furnace. Personal conviction makes no difference. The absence of human life must be completely verified before any of these actions can take place.

In the context of abortion, the burden of proof lies with those who want to justify the practice, not with those who oppose it. It lies with those who seek to exclude a specific subset of the human community from being protected under the law, not with those who believe all human beings should receive equal protection. As such, it is not the responsibility of abortion opponents to prove that abortion does kill a human person; it is the responsibility of abortion advocates to prove that it doesn't. If ANY uncertainty exists, then abortion cannot be justified.

Footnotes

1. The assertion that "[we cannot] resolve the difficult question of when life begins" was made by Justice Harry Blackmun in the majority opinion of Roe v. Wade. 410 U.S. 113. Supreme Court of the United States. 1973.

2. Peter Kreeft, "The Apple Argument Against Abortion," Crisis Magazine, December 2000, http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood_apple.htm

Continue to the next page: Abortion and Race

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Page Summary: Uncertainty in regard to life's beginning has long been used as an argument in favor of legal abortion. In reality, if any uncertainty exists, abortion ceases to be a justifiable option. Uncertainty is at the heart of legal abortion in the United States.

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Pro-Life Reasoning Explained to Atheists

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Pro-Life Reasoning Explained to Atheists

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This brochure published by the Family Research Council (FRC) is intended to equip Christian pro-life advocates with pro-life arguments for secular audiences. FRC uses scientific data, abortion-related legislation, and its interpretation of women's rights as justification of pro-life beliefs.

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The Logical Framework of a Radical Pro-Life Advocate

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The Logical Framework of a Radical Pro-Life Advocate

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The speaker in this video responds to pro-choice arguments. Her response to the pivotal pro-choice claim ("my body, my choice") is based on the assertion that abortion is not about the woman's body, but someone else's  body. The life inside of a pregnant woman's body, the speaker explains, is a separate human being with his/her own body, chromosomes, DNA, and therefore, should be considered a person whose right to life must be protected. This view supports the speaker's radical pro-life position. In her opinion, rape should not be a justifiable reason for abortion. While admitting that rape is a horrific act of violence, the speaker claims that abortion, which is another horrific act of violence (she equates it to murder), does not heal the trauma caused by rape, but "just makes it worse."

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The speaker in this video opposes the Reproductive Health Care Act being discussed in Rhode Island. He refers to abortion rights as voluntarily eugenics, where a child's right to life is determined by the presence or lack of desirable traits in that child. A significant portion of the speech portraits the pro-choice position as an attempt to decrease the number of children born into poor families.

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Young Man DESTROYS The Pro-Choice Argument in 5 MINUTES

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This article provides a comprehensive overview of the key arguments presented by proponents and opponents of Roe v. Wade ruling.

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The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.

The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

Pregnancy-related maternal deaths could increase 20% in US states with abortion bans. Amanda Stevenson, Sociology Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained, "People with resources are more likely to make it out of state or find out about medication abortions. People who can't are more likely to have health issues, to live in poverty and have less access to resources." People of color are especially likely to be in the latter category and, thus, negatively impacted by abortion bans.

The predicted 20% maternal death rate does not include those who will die from "back alley" or illegal abortions because legal options were not available.

Globally 45% of abortions are unsafe, 97% of which take place in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; however, it does affect whether the abortions that women and girls attain are safe and dignified. The proportion of unsafe abortions are significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in countries with less restrictive laws."
Read More

Pro 2

Abortion bans endanger healthcare for those not seeking abortions.

Medical treatment for nonviable pregnancies is often exactly the same as an abortion.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterine cavity. About one in 50 pregnancies are ectopic, and they are nonviable. Bleeding from ectopic pregnancies caused 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths, and ectopic pregnancies were the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

One out of every ten pregnancies ends in miscarriage. The drugs used for medication abortions are the only treatment recommended for early miscarriages. For later or complicated miscarriages, the same surgical procedure used for abortions is recommended.

While some abortion bans include specific exceptions for nonviable pregnancies and miscarriages, other bans are too vague to be practicable. Healthcare providers may refuse to perform a procedure that could be interpreted as an "on-demand" abortion for fear of liability or prosecution.

Further, bans are a slippery slope to contraceptive and other healthcare restrictions. For example, some already wrongly view Plan B (the morning after pill) as an abortifacient and are thinking of including it in abortion bans.
Read More

Pro 3

Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, "eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.... In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce."

After being denied an abortion, household poverty increased and lasted four or more years, resulting in an inability to cover basic expenses including food, housing and transportation. A denied abortion was associated with a lowered credit score, increased debt, and an increase in negative public records including evictions and bankruptcies. The households were also more reliant on government assistance. Transgender and nonbinary people denied abortions may face even worse outcomes.

And the consequences can be much more dire. "If a woman of childbearing age dies, it has enormous economic consequences.... It's someone who society has invested in and who has many productive economic years ahead of them," according to David Slusky, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Often, death also removes a wage-earner and caregiver from the household.

60% of women seeking abortions already had other children. Being denied an abortion worsened the well-being of their older children, including not meeting childhood development markers.

The Turnaway Study concluded, "Abortion does not harm women," and "Women who receive a wanted abortion are more financially stable, set more ambitious goals, raise children under more stable conditions, and are more likely to have a wanted child later."
Read More

Con 1

Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.

Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human.

Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, "life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet." The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans.

Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death.

Pope Francis explained, "Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.... At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear.... Scientifically, it is a human life."

That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: "I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face-that I can't even imagine facing-seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn't even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses."
Read More

Con 2

Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.

Echoing a 2014 remark by Pope Francis that connected abortion to " throwaway culture," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stated, "abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem."

Tobin previously declared legal abortion a "brutalization of the American heart" on par with the "dehumanization of the undocumented" immigrants.

Alveda King, former Georgia state representative and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., also connected abortion to other societal ills: "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. We create the deceptions that the other person is less important, less worthy, less human. We are all fully human. When we face this truth, there is no justification for treating those who look different than us as lesser beings. If we simply treat other people the way we'd like to be treated, racism, abortion, and other forms of inhumanity will be things of the past."

As King notes, some fetuses are treated as less than human. This ideology combined with legal abortion could create a slippery slope to designer babies, gender selection, termination of disabled but healthy fetuses, and other trait-selection-based abortions. The slippery slope can then extend to the mentally disabled and elderly in general.

"[A]bortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation," according to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability."
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Con 3

Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

Experts largely contribute the decline in abortions in the United States and elsewhere to the improved safety and availability of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) including IUDs and contraceptive implants that can last up to 10 years.

Access to health insurance to pay for contraceptives also contributed to a drop in abortions. With the passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), more people were insured with access to free or low-cost contraceptives and reproductive care.

Linda Rosenstock, Public Health Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, summarized the simplicity of the connection: "In the United States each year, about half of pregnancies are unintended and about 40% of those lead to abortion. Access to birth control leads to fewer abortions."

Further, teens are having sex later in life than their parents. 38.4% of American high schoolers reported they have had sex (down from 54% in 1991) and only 27.4% reported they were currently sexually active (37.5% in 1991).

Because teen birth control use has not increased significantly, experts attribute the decline in part to better sex education. A 2021 study found that students who received comprehensive sexual education initiated sex later than students who did not participate in sex ed. The later teens have sex, the less chance there is for them to become pregnant unintentionally, which leads to fewer abortions.
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Did You Know?

1. Throughout much of Western history, abortion was not considered a criminal act as long as it was performed before "quickening" (the first detectable movement of the fetus, which can occur between 13-25 weeks of pregnancy).

2. In 1821, Connecticut became the first US state to criminalize abortion.

3. The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

4. Abortion rates in the United States have fallen at what the CDC called a "slow yet steady pace" since a peak in 1981. That year there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The rate fell to 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019.

5. 60% of women seeking abortions already had other children.

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Abortion - Top Arguments For and Against - ProCon.org

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The Pro Choice side says women should have control of their bodies. Pro Lifers say abortion is murder. Explore both sides of the debate.

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Most Americans Are Somewhere Between Pro-Life & Pro-Choice Extremes

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Most Americans Are Somewhere Between Pro-Life & Pro-Choice Extremes

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The article presents the results of a poll revealing that 3/4 of Americans want to keep abortion legal, but with restrictions. Regardless of whether they self-identify as "pro-life" or "pro-choice," most people find the issue of abortion very complex, where "the loudest voices" represent the extreme positions of this debate.

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast

Three-quarters of Americans say they want to keep in place the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, that made abortion legal in the United States, but a strong majority would like to see restrictions on abortion rights, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll.

What the survey found is a great deal of complexity - and sometimes contradiction among Americans - that goes well beyond the talking points of the loudest voices in the debate. In fact, there's a high level of dissatisfaction with abortion policy overall. Almost two-thirds of people said they were either somewhat or very dissatisfied, including 66% of those who self-identify as "pro-life" and 62% of those who self-identify as "pro-choice."

"What it speaks to is the fact that the debate is dominated by the extreme positions on both sides," said Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll, which conducted the survey. "People do see the issue as very complicated, very complex. Their positions don't fall along one side or the other. ... The debate is about the extremes, and that's not where the public is."

The poll comes as several states have pushed to limit abortions in hopes of getting the Supreme Court to reconsider the issue. Abortion-rights opponents hope the newly conservative court will either overturn Roe or effectively gut it by upholding severe restrictions. The survey finds that while most Americans favor limiting abortion, they don't want it to be illegal and don't want to go as far as states like Alabama, for example, which would ban it completely except if the woman's life is endangered or health is at risk.

A total of 77% say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe, but within that there's a lot of nuance - 26% say they would like to see it remain in place, but with more restrictions added; 21% want to see Roe expanded to establish the right to abortion under any circumstance; 16% want to keep it the way it is; and 14% want to see some of the restrictions allowed under Roe reduced. Just 13% overall say it should be overturned.

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Even though Americans are solidly against overturning Roe, a majority would also like to see abortion restricted in various ways. In a separate question, respondents were asked which of six choices comes closest to their view of abortion policy.

In all, 61% said they were in favor of a combination of limitations that included allowing abortion in just the first three months of a pregnancy (23%); only in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman (29%); or only to save the life of the woman (9%).

Eighteen percent said abortion should be available to a woman any time she wants during her entire pregnancy. At the other end of the spectrum, 9% said it should never be permitted under any circumstance.

More than half (53%) of Americans say they would definitely not vote for a candidate who would appoint judges to the Supreme Court who would limit or overturn Roe.

Politically, abortion has been a stronger voting issue for Republicans than for Democrats. This poll found that abortion ranks as the second-most-important issue for Republicans in deciding their vote for president, behind immigration. But for Democrats, it is fifth - behind health care, America's role in the world, climate change and personal financial well-being.

The poll also notably found the highest percentage of people self-identifying as "pro-choice," those who generally support abortion rights, since a Gallup survey in December 2012. In this survey, 57% identified that way versus 35%, who called themselves "pro-life," those who are generally opposed to abortion rights.

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The percentage self-identifying as "pro-choice" is an increase since a Marist Poll in February, when the two sides split with 47% each. The pollsters attribute that shift to efforts in various states to severely restrict abortion.

"The public is very reactive to the arguments being put forth by the more committed advocates on both sides of the issue," Carvalho said, adding, "The danger for Republicans is that when you look at independents, independents are moving more toward Democrats on this issue. ... When the debate starts overstepping what public opinion believes to be common sense, we've seen independents moving in Democrats' corner."

In the case of self-identification, 60% of independents identified as "pro-choice." Asked which party would do a better job of dealing with the issue of abortion, a plurality of Americans overall chose Democrats (47%) over Republicans (34%).

Independents chose Democrats on the question of which party would do a better job by an 11-point margin (43% to 32%).

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Asked if they'd be more likely to support state laws that decriminalize abortion and make laws less strict or ones that do the opposite, 60% of Americans overall, including two-thirds of independents, chose laws that decriminalize abortion and are less strict.
What specifically do Americans support and oppose?
The poll also asked a long series of questions to try to figure out what Americans support or oppose when it comes to potential changes to abortion laws pending in several states. Poll respondents were not told which states these proposals come from.

The poll found that Americans are very much against requiring fines and/or prison time for doctors who perform abortions. There was also slim majority support for allowing abortions at any time during a pregnancy if there is no viability outside the womb and for requiring insurance companies to cover abortion procedures. A slim majority also opposed allowing pharmacists and health providers the ability to opt out of providing medicine or surgical procedures that result in abortion.

At the same time, two-thirds were in favor of a 24-hour waiting period from the time a woman meets with a health care professional until having the abortion procedure itself; two-thirds wanted doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges; and a slim majority wanted the law to require women to be shown an ultrasound image at least 24 hours before an abortion procedure.

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"What's most interesting here," Carvalho said, is that "the extremes are really outliers. When they advocate for their positions and change the debate toward the most extreme position on the issue, they actually do the opposite. They move public opinion away from them."

The more vocal advocates on either side, however, have had the ability to shift the debate and public opinion to their point of view. Consider that many of the specific items above, at one point or another, have been hotly debated.
When does life begin?
The poll also asked the very big question of when Americans think life begins. There was not an overwhelming consensus. A plurality of the six choices given, but far less than a majority, said life begins at conception (38%). Slightly more than half (53%) disagreed, saying that life begins either within the first eight weeks of pregnancy (8%), the first three months (8%), between three and six months (7%), when a fetus is viable (14%) or at birth (16%).

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Gender gap? Try a stark party divide, particularly among women
The most acute divide among Americans on the issue of abortion, arguably, is not a gender divide but between the parties - and of women of different parties.

For example, 54% of men identified as "pro-choice," compared with 60% of women. For women of the different parties, 77% of Democratic women identified as "pro-choice," while 68% of Republican women identified as "pro-life." (A lower percentage of Republican men, 59%, considered themselves "pro-life.")

Throughout the poll, the divide was stark. On Roe, for example, 62% of Republican women said overturn it or add restrictions; 73% of Democratic women said keep it the way it is, expand it to allow abortions under any circumstance or reduce some of the restrictions.

Eighty-four percent of Democratic women said they are more likely to support state laws that decriminalize abortion and make laws less strict; 62% of Republican women said they are more likely to support laws that criminalize abortion or make laws stricter.

On requiring insurance companies to cover abortion procedures, 75% of Democratic women support that, while 78% of Republican women oppose it, higher than the 63% of Republican men who said the same.

Republican women also stand out for the 62% of them who said they oppose laws that allow abortion at any time during pregnancy in cases of rape or incest. They are the only group to voice majority opposition to that. Fifty-nine percent of Republican men, for example, said they would support such a law.

And Republican women are the only group to say overwhelmingly that life begins at conception. About three-quarters said so, compared with less than half of Republican men and a third of Democratic women.

It's a reminder that Republican women, in many ways, are the backbone of the movement opposing abortion rights.
The survey of 944 adults was conducted by live interviewers by telephone from May 31 through June 4. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Editor's note: The survey asked respondents to identify as either "pro-life" or "pro-choice." This question wording, using the labels "pro-life" and "pro-choice," was included in the survey because it has tracked the public debate on abortion over decades. It is sensitive to current events and public discussion even though it does not capture the nuanced positions many people have on the issue.

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Poll: Majority Want To Keep Abortion Legal, But They Also Want Restrictions

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast Three-quarters of Americans say they want to keep in place the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, that made abortion legal in the United States, but a strong majority would like to see restrictions on abortion rights, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll.

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The observation expressed in this TED talk is that we stopped talking about abortion outside of the political agenda. There is a gap between public debate and real life, and this gap is being filled by a "battlefield" forcing people to pick their side. Rather than being "pro-life" or "pro-choice," the speaker calls herself "pro-voice." She advocates for storytelling and listening when it comes to discussing such a complex issue as abortion.

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Aspen Baker: A better way to talk about abortion

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Abortion is extremely common. In America, for example, one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime, yet the strong emotions sparked by the topic -- and the highly politicized rhetoric around it -- leave little room for thoughtful, open debate.

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A Dialogue Between Pro-Life & Pro-Choice Advocates

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A Dialogue Between Pro-Life & Pro-Choice Advocates

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6 young people (3 pro-life and 3 pro-choice activists) are brought together to have a conversation about the differences and similarities of pro-life and pro-choice positions. This debate stands out from thousands of other public debates on this topic in that it's held in a mutually respectful manner. At the end, both sides exchange hugs.

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Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life: Can They See Eye To Eye?