Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume4, Number 1 9

Human Personhood Begins at Conception

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D.

Previously unpublished paper from CMDS Imago Dei Symposium in 1988.

There is one and only one reason why people argue want to appeal first to an attitude of will because it is to
about the topic of this paper, whether human the argument like a frame to a picture. Our will often
personhood begins at conception: because some people moves our reason, for good or for ill. "For ill" refers to
want to justify abortion. Therefore I begin with some rationalization, but how can will move reason for good?
remarks about abortion. By the initial attitude of honesty, which is a fanatical and
uncompromising love of truth, objective truth.
Non-Christians and even Christians can take opposite
positions on abortion even when they think rationally, Objectivity does not mean abandoning or weakening
honestly, and with good will. The continuing our convictions. An honest conviction is one arrived at
controversy over abortion shows that it is a truly after an open-minded search for truth; a prejudice is
controversial issue. It is not simple and clear-cut, but one arrived at before. Honesty leads to conviction, not
complex. Just as the choices for action are often difficult away from it.
for a woman contemplating abortion, the choices for
thought are often difficult for open-minded I think we will have little hope of attaining this goal of
philosophers. honesty unless we first realize its difficulty and the
sacrifices of self-will it demands. The most prejudiced
Everything I have said so far is a lie, in fact a dangerous people in the world are those who think they are
lie. unprejudiced. In my own thought life, I find this total
honesty to be very demanding, very rare, and absolutely
Abortion is a clear-cut evil. Anyone who honestly seeks necessary.
"peace on earth, good will toward men" will see this if
only he extends "men" to include women and children. Please turn to yourself for one moment and ask yourself
Especially Christians should see this very clearly, for this one question: Am I reading this paper because I
their faith reinforces their natural reason and conscience, want to be the servant of truth or because I want truth
a faith that declares that every human being is sacred to be my servant? Do I want to win an argument or win
because he or she is made in the image of God. The a truth? Am I willing, even eager, to admit I was wrong
fact that some people controvert a position does not in if reason proves me wrong:
itself make that position intrinsically controversial.
People argued for both sides about slavery, racism and If Freud is right, we have no hope of being honest, for
genocide too, but that did not make them complex and all our reasoning is rationalization. If that were true, it
difficult issues. Moral issues are always terribly would be self-eliminating, for that belief too would be
complex, said Chesterton - for someone without only rationalization.
principles.
If we believe that objective truth does not exist or
I think I have already offended every reader who is not cannot be known, we shall cease to fight for it with
clearly pro-life, and before I begin to argue my case I words and begin to fight for domination over each
would like briefly to examine that offense. Though I other, replacing reason and justice and morality with
shall appeal only to reason in the body of my paper, I power - as is done in abortion clinics to unborn
children.

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Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume4, Number 1 10

It is not easy to argue about abortion objectively. Our economic, political, or military issue. For instance,
choice of words is already prejudicial - as mine was just artificial immortality would change mankind more
now, but no more so than calling the killing of a fetus radically than a nuclear war, and surrogate motherhood,
"the termination of a pregnancy." I wonder when they which brings us to Brave New World, is a more radical
will start calling it "the final solution to the pregnancy development than totalitarian dictatorship, which brings
problem"? us only to 1984.

Our passions run hot about abortion. I have repeatedly Abortion is also crucial because it involves at least six
been told that I am naive to argue against abortion other crucial background issues:
philosophically, not realizing that abortion is not so
much about fetuses as about sex; that those who (1) Are there objective values that must be known and
demand to live the "sexual revolution" (i.e. obeyed, or do we create our own values like the rules
promiscuously) must have abortion as a backup, a of a game?
trump card, when other means of birth control fail. I
have been told this by both sides often enough so that I (2) If there are objective values, are any of them
begin to believe it. After all, if we obeyed the absolute or are all relative to changing situations,
commandment against adultery, 90% of all our motives, needs, or desires?
abortions would cease.
(3) Is human life such an absolute, or "sacred," or does
The issue I have been asked to argue, the personhood the "quality of life" or level of ability to perform certain
of the fetus, is triply crucial. It is crucial for abortion, human acts define the value of a person?
abortion is crucial for medical ethics, and medical ethics
is crucial for the future of our civilization. (4) Can human reason discern the truth about moral
values or not? (Curiously, Christian fideists here line up
First, the personhood of the fetus is clearly the crucial with anti-Christian skeptics and secularists against
issue for abortion, for if the fetus is not a person, mainline Christian orthodoxy.)
abortion is not the deliberate killing of an innocent
person: if it is, it is. All other aspects of the abortion (5) What is a human person? Are we made in the image
controversy are relative to this one; e.g. women have of King Kong or King God or both?
rights - over their own bodies but not over other
persons' bodies. The law must respect a "right to (6) Why is a human person? What is the purpose, goal,
privacy" but killing other persons is not a private but a or "final cause" of human life? This question is
public deed. Persons have a "right to life" but non- necessarily involved because the end determines the
persons (e.g. cells, tissues, organs, and animals) do not. means; the destination determines the rightness of the
road. A good end does not justify an evil means, but a
Second, abortion is a crucial issue for medical ethics good end does justify a good means.
because the right to life is the fundamental right. If I am
not living I can have no other rights. Corpses have no (7) Finally, abortion is defended most stoutly by the
rights. The two sides on this issue are more new ideology of radical feminism, which is more
intransigently opposed to each other than on any other fundamentally critical of traditional values than any
issue - rightly so, for if prolifers are right abortion is merely political ideology even in our century. It raises
murder, and if prochoicers are right pro-lifers are such radically new questions as whether the idea of the
fanatic, intolerant and repressive about nothing. We sanctity of unborn human life is part of a dark
must intolerantly kill both intolerance and killing. patriarchal plot to suppress and control women as
reproductive slaves.
Third, medical ethics is crucial for our civilization. For
our lives are more closely touched here than by any All these issues are involved in abortion, but I shall

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Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume4, Number 1 11

argue only one: Is the fetus a person? The case for permissible, like killing warts. But who might these
prolife's affirmative answer is well-known, and so are human non-persons be? Jews? Blacks? Slaves?
the biological facts which constitute its simplest and Infidels? Counterrevolutionaries? Others have said so,
strongest evidence, especially the genetic identity and and justified their genocide, lynching, slavery, jihad, or
individuality of the unborn child from the moment of gulag. But pro-choicers never include these groups as
conception. How does the pro-choice position argue non-persons. Many pro-choicers include severely
against this case? retarded or handicapped humans, or very old and sick
humans, as non-persons, but this is still morally
To understand the controversy, we must understand the shocking to most people, and many pro-choicers avoid
general structure of moral reasoning. A moral that morally shocking position by including only fetuses
conclusion about the goodness or evil of a human act is as members of this newly invented class of human non-
deduced from two premises: a major premise, which persons, or non-personal humans. I think no one ever
states a general moral principle (e.g. "we ought to pay conceived of this category before the abortion
our debts") and a minor premise, which sees a controversy. It looks very suspiciously like the category
particular situation as coming under that principle (e.g. was invented to justify the killing, for its only members
"international debts are debts"). Thus the essential pro- are the humans we happen to be now killing and want
life argument is as follows. The major premise is: "Thos to keep killing and want to justify killing. But the only
shalt not kill" - i.e., all deliberate killing of innocent way we can prove this dark suspicion true is to refute
human beings is wrong. The minor premise is that the category. Are there any humans who are not
abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human persons?
beings. The conclusion is that abortion is wrong.
Soft pro-choicers give reasons for thinking there are.
There are two significantly different pro-choice answers Their position can be fairly summarized, I think, in seven
to this argument. The more radical, or "hard" pro- arguments. Each attacks a basic pro-life syllogism by
choice position denies the major premise; the less accusing it in different ways of an ambiguous middle
radical, or "soft" pro-choice position denies the minor. term "human being."They say a fetus is a human life but
"Hard pro-choice" denies the sanctity or inviolability of not a human person.
all humans; "soft pro-choice" denies the humanity of the
fetus. First, there is the linguistic fact that we can and often do
make a triple distinction among a human life, a human
I think no one in the Christian Medical and Dental being and a human person. Each cell in our bodies has
Society will take the hard pro-choice position, for human life, and a single cell kept alive in a laboratory
Christianity clearly teaches (1) that all of us are made in could be called "a human life" but certainly not "a human
the image of God and (2) that God Himself has being" or "a human person." "A human being" is a
forbidden us to kill, i.e. to murder innocent persons. I biologically whole individual of the species. Even a
confine myself, therefore, to refuting the soft pro-choice human being born with no brain is a human being, not
position. an ape; but it is not a person because it has no brain
and cannot do anything distinctively human: think,
Is the fetus a person? Obviously it is biologically human, know, choose, love, feel, desire, commit, relate, aspire,
genetically human, a distinct member of the species know itself, know God, know its past, know its future,
homo sapiens. So the soft pro-choicer must distinguish know its environment, or communicate - all of which
between human beings and persons, must say that have, in various combinations, been offered as the
fetuses are human but not persons, and say that all marks of a person. The pro-life position seems to
persons, but not all humans, are sacred and inviolable. confuse the sanctity of the person with the sanctity of
life, which is two steps removed from it. Thus pro-life
Thus the crucial issue is: Are there any human beings seems to be based on a linguistic confusion. Not all
who are not persons? If so, killing them might be human life is sacred. Not even all human beings,

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Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume4, Number 1 12

individual members of the human species, are sacred. another person, the mother. Persons are wholes, not
But all human persons are sacred. parts. Persons are not parts of other persons; but the
fetus is part of another person; therefore the fetus is not
Second, pro-lifers seem to commit the intellectual sin of a person.
biologism, idolatry of biology, by defining persons in a
merely biological, genetic, material way. Membership in There is a common premise hidden behind all seven of
a biological species is not morally relevant, not what these pro-choice arguments. It is the premise of
makes persons sacred and murder wrong. Membership Functionalism; defining a person by his or her
in the human species is no more morally relevant than functioning, or behavior. A "behavioral definition" is
membership in the subspecies, or race. If racism is proper and practical for scientific purposes of
wrong, so is species-ism. prediction and experimentation, but is not adequate for
ordinary reason and common sense, much less for good
Third, the very young product of conception, the philosophy or morality, which should be based on
zygote, has no ability to perform any of the distinctive common sense. Why?
activities that anyone associates with personhood
(reasoning, choosing, loving, communicating, etc.) - not Because common sense distinguishes between what one
even feeling pain, for the zygote has no brain or nervous is and what one does, between being and function, thus
system. At first it is only a single cell. How could between "being a person" and "functioning as a person."
anyone call a single cell a person? One cannot function as a person without being a
person, but one can surely be a person without
Fourth, it seems to be an obvious mistake for the pro- functioning as a person. In deep sleep, in coma, and in
lifer to claim that personhood begins abruptly, at early infancy, nearly everyone will admit there are
conception, for personhood develops gradually, as a persons, but there are no specifically human functions
matter of degree. Every one of the characteristics we such as reasoning, choice, or language. Functioning as a
use to identify personhood arises and grows gradually person is a sign and an effect of being a person. It is
rather than suddenly. Pro-lifers seem to be victims of because of what we are, because of our nature or
simplistic, black-or-white thinking, but reality is full of essence or being, that we can and do function in these
greys. ways. We have human souls, and plants do not; that's
why we can know ourselves and plants can't.
Fifth, pro-lifers seem to confuse potential persons with Functionalism makes the elementary mistake of
actual persons. The fetus is potentially a person, but it confusing the sign with the thing signified, the smoke
must grow into an actual person. with the fire. As a Zen-master would say, "the finger is
fine for pointing at the moon, but woe to him who
Sixth, personhood is not a clear concept. There is not mistakes the finger for the moon."
universal agreement on it. Different philosophers,
scientists, religionists, moralists, mothers, and observers The Functionalist or Behaviorist would reply that he is
define it differently. It is a matter of opinion where the skeptical of such talk about natures, essences, or
dividing line between persons and non-persons should natural species (as distinct from conventional, man-
be located. But what is a matter of opinion should not made class-groupings). But the Functionalist cannot use
be decided or enforced by law. Law should express ordinary language without contradicting himself. He
social consensus, and there is no consensus in our says, e.g., that there is no such thing as "river" because
society about personhood's beginning or, consequently, all rivers are different. But how then can he call them all
about abortion. One opinion should not be forced on "rivers"? The very word "all" should be stricken from his
all. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion but, precisely, pro- speech. His Nominalism makes nonsense of ordinary
choice. language.

Seventh, a fetus cannot be a person because it is part of The Functionalist claims he is being simple and

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Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume4, Number 1 13

commonsensical by not speaking of essences. He says assassinations by inventing a new ethic which pretends
that traditional talk about essences is dated, dispensible, that the people they want to kill are not people. I would
mystical, muddled, and antiscientific. But he is wrong. feel more comfortable conversing with a hired killer than
Talk about essences is not dated but perennial, built into with an abortionist, for an abortionist is also a hired
the very structure of language, for most words are killer, but pretends not to be.
universals predicable of many individuals. Essence talk
is not dispensible without dispensing with understanding The Functionalism that is the basis of the "Quality of
itself and reducing us to an animal state of mind where Life Ethic" is morally reprehensible for at least three
brute empirical fact reigns alone. Essence-talk is not reasons. First, it is degrading, demeaning and
mystical but commonsensical. It is not muddled but destructive to human dignity; it treats persons like
clear to any child. It is not anti-scientific, for science trained seals. Second, it is elitist; it discriminates against
always seeks universal laws, truths about the species, less perfect performers. Third, it takes advantage, it is
not quirks of the specimen. power play, it is might over right rationalized. To see
this point, let us dare to ask a very naive and simple
Functionalism is not only theoretically weak, it is also question, a question a child might ask, especially a child
practically destructive. Modem man is increasingly like the one in "The Emperor's New Clothes": Why do
reducing his being to functions. We no longer ask "Who doctors kill fetuses-rather than fetuses killing doctors?
is he?" but "What does he do?" We think of a man as a Fetuses do not want to die. They struggle to live. (I
fireman, not as a man fighting fires; of a woman as a hope you have all seen "The Silent Scream" and its
teacher, not as a woman teaching. sequel.) The answer is power. Doctors have power,
fetuses do not. If fetuses came equipped with suction
Functionalism arises with the modem erosion of the tubes, poisons, and scalpels to use to defend
family. Our civilization is dying primarily because the themselves against their killers, there would be no
family is dying. Half of our families commit suicide, for abortions.
divorce is the family commiting suicide qua family. But
the family is the place where you learn that you are The eventual social consequences of Functionalism are
loved not because of what you do, your function, but George Bernard Shaw's utopia of the future in which
because of who you are. What is replacing the family, each citizen would have to appear annually before a
where we are valued for our being? The workplace, Central Planning Committee to justify the social utility of
where we are valued for our functioning. his or her (or its) existence, or else be painlessly
"terminated." That is the crotch of the Functionalist
This replacement in society is mirrored by the camel whose nose is already under out tent. The nose is
replacement in philosophy of the old "Sanctity of Life abortion. The camel is all one piece. Let the nose in and
Ethic" by the new "Quality of Life Ethic." In this new the rest will follow. To keep the camel out you must hit
ethic, a human life is judged as valuable and worth living it on the nose.
if and only if the judgers decide that it performs at a
certain level - e.g., a functional I.Q. of 60 or 40; or an Returning to our logical analysis, let us now refute the
ability to relate to other people (it would logically follow seven pro-choice arguments. First, the pro-choicers are
that a severely autistic person does not have enough correct to claim that the "person" and "human being" are
"quality" in his life to deserve to live); or the prospect of not identical, but wrong to claim that the "human being"
a fairly normal, healthy and pain-free life (thus active is the broader category and "person" the narrower
euthanasia, or assisted suicide, is justified). If someone subset. It is the other way round. There are persons
lacks the functional criteria of a "quality" life, he lacks who are not human persons: the three Persons of the
personhood and the right to life. Trinity, angels, and any rational and moral
extraterrestrials who may exist, such as the E.T,
I find this ethic more terrifying than the ethic of the Martians, and someone who has never heard of the
Mafia, for the Mafia at least do not rationalize their Boston Red Sox. But though not all persons are human,

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all humans are persons. Old humans are persons, young Jews, or Armenians, or Cambodians, or heretics, or
humans are persons, very young humans are persons, prophets, the killers will simply define their victims as
and unborn humans, fetal humans, are persons too. non-persons by pointing out that they do not meet
certain criteria. Who determines the criteria? Those in
How is a person to be defined? The crucial point for power, of course. Whenever personhood is defined
our argument is not which acts are to count as defining functionally, the dividing line between persons and non-
a person (is it speaking, or reasoning, or loving?) but persons will be based on a decision by those in power,
the relation of these personal acts to the person-actor. a decision of will. Such a decision, given the fallenness
Is a person: of human nature, will inevitably be based on self-
interest. Where there is an interest in killing persons,
(1) one who is consciously performing personal acts? If they will be defined as nonpersons.
so, people who are asleep are not people, and we may
kill them. To the second argument, it must be said that "human
being" is not a merely biological term because the
(2) Is it one with a present capacity to perform personal reality it designates is not a merely biological reality,
acts? That would include sleepers, but not people in though it is a biological reality. To identify human beings
coma. and persons is not biologism; in fact, it is just the
opposite: it is the implicit claim that persons, i.e., human
(3) How about one with a past history of performing beings, have a human biological body and a human
personal acts? That would mean that a 17-year old who spiritual soul; that human souls inhabit human bodies.
was born in a coma 17 years ago and is just now
coming out of it is not a person. Also, by this definition The reason we should love, respect, and not kill human
there can be no first personal act, no personal acts beings is because they are persons, i.e., subjects,
without a past history of past personal acts. souls, "I's", made in the image of God Who is I AM.
We revere the person, not the functioning; the doer, not
(4) What about one with a future capacity for the doing. If robots could do all that persons can do
performing personal acts? That would mean that dying behaviorally, they would still not be persons. Mere
persons are not persons. machines cannot be persons. They may function as
persons, but they do not understand what they do and
(5) Surely the correct answer is that a person is one they do not have freedom, or free will to choose what
with a natural, inherent capacity for performing they do. They obey their programming without free
personal acts. Why is one able to perform personal choice. They are artifacts, and artifacts are not persons.
acts, under proper conditions? Only because one is a Persons are natural, not artificial. They develop from
person. One grows into the ability to perform personal within (like fetuses!); artifacts are made from without.
acts only because one already is the kind of thing that
grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a This justifies abortion, of course and infanticide. The
person. camel is a one-piece camel. I know no argument
justifying abortion that does not also justify infanticide.
To say that some human beings are not persons is to
say that only achievers, only successful functioners, only To the third argument: the zygote has no brain, true, but
sufficiently intelligent performers, qualify as persons and it does have what will grow into a brain, just as an infant
have a right to life. And who is to say what "sufficient" does not have speech but he has what will grow into
is? The line can be drawn at will - the will of the speech. Within the zygote is an already fully
stronger. Nature, reason, and justice are then replaced programmed individuality, from sex and aging to eye
by artifice, prejudice, and power. When it is in the self- color and aversion to spinach. The personhood of the
interest of certain people to kill certain other people, person is already there, like the tulip-hood of the tulip
whether fetuses, or the dying, or enemies of the state, or bulb. One must actually be a human being, after all, to

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grow a human brain. There are no "potential persons" any more than there
are potential apes. All persons are actual, as all apes
The fourth argument is right, of course, to say that are actual. Actual apes are potential swimmers, and
development is gradual - after conception. Conception actual persons are potential philosophers. The being is
is the break, the clear dividing line, and the only one. I actual, the functioning is potential. The objection
am the same being from conception on. Otherwise we confuses "a potential person" with "a potentially
would not speak of the growth and development and functioning person" - Functionalism again.
unfolding of that being, of me. I was once an infant. I
was born. I was once in my mother's womb. My Sixth, is personhood an unclear concept? If it were a
functioning develops only gradually, but my me has a matter of degree, determined by degree of functioning,
sudden beginning. Once again, the pro-choice objection then it would indeed be unclear, and a matter of
confuses being a person with functioning as a person. opinion, who is a person and who is not. Refuting
objection four undercuts objection six.
Furthermore, if personhood is only a developing,
gradual thing, then we are never fully persons, because Personhood is indeed unclear - for Functionalism. Such
we continue to grow, at least intellectually and questions as the following are not clearly answerable:
emotionally and spiritually. Albert Schweitzer said, at Which features count as proof of personhood? Why?
70, "1 still don't know what I want to do when I grow How do we decide? Who decides? What gives them
up." But if we are only partial persons, then murder is that right? And how much of each feature is necessary
only partially wrong, and less wrong to kill younger, for personhood? And who decides that, and why?
lesser persons than older ones. Also, all the performance - qualifications adduced for
personhood are difficult to measure objectively and with
If it is more permissible to kill a fetus than to kill an certainty. To use the unclear, not-universally-accepted,
infant because the fetus is less of a person, then it is for hard-to-measure functionalist concept of personhood to
exactly the same reason more permissible to kill a seven decide the sharply controversial issue of who is a
year old, who has not yet developed his reproductive person and who may be killed, is to try to clarify the
system or many of his educational and communications obscure by the more obscure, obscuram per
skills, than to kill a 27-year-old. The absurd conclusion obscurius.
follows from defining a person functionally.
Seventh, if the fetus is only a part of the mother, a
No other line than conception can be drawn between hilariously absurd consequence follows. The relation of
pre-personhood and personhood. Birth and viability are part to whole is what logicians call a transitive relation: if
the two most frequently suggested. But birth is only a A is part of B and B is part of C, then A must be part
change of place and relationship to the mother and to of C. If a wall is part of a room and the room is part of
the surrounding world (air and food); how could these a building, then the wall must be part of that building. If
things create personhood? a toe is part of afoot and a foot is part of a body, then
the toe is part of the body. Now if the fetus is a part of
As for viability, it varies with accidental and external the mother, then the parts of the fetus must be parts of
factors like available technology (incubators). What I the mother. But in that case, every pregnant woman has
am in the womb - a person or a non-person - cannot be four eyes and four feet, and half of all pregnant women
determined by what machines exist outside the womb! have penises! Clearly, the absurd conclusion came from
But viability is determined by such things. Therefore the false premise that the fetus is only part of the
personhood cannot be determined by viability. mother.

Fifth, if the fetus is only a potential person, it must be I have refuted the pro-choice position (1) in general, by
an actual something in order to be a potential person. the basic prolife syllogism, (2) foundationally, by
What is it? An ape? identifying and refuting Functionalism as the root pro-

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choice error, and (3) specifically, by refuting each of the a person, but the killer does not know for sure that it is
seven pro-choice arguments against fetal personhood. not a person, we have criminal negligence, as in the
But just suppose all of my arguments are somehow above three cases if there happened to be no man in the
inconclusive. Suppose I was wrong in my very first coat, the bush, or the building but the driver, the hunter,
point, that abortion is a clear evil. Suppose abortion is a or the fumigator did not know that, and nevertheless
difficult, obscure, uncertain issue. Even if you take this drove, shot or fumigated. Such negligence is instinctively
"softest pro-choice" position, which we can call and universally condemned by all reasonable individuals
"abortion agnosticism," you stand refuted by the and societies as personally immoral and socially
following quadri-lemma. criminal; and cases (2) and (3), murder and
manslaughter, are of course condemned even more
Either the fetus is a person, or not; and either we know strongly. We do not argue politely over whether such
what it is, or not. Thus there are four and only four behavior is right or wrong. We wholeheartedly
possibilities: (1) that it is not a person and we knew condemn it, even when we do not know whether there
that, (2) that it is a person and we know that, (3) that it is a person there, because the killer did not know that a
is a person but we do not know that, and (4) that it is person was not there. Why do we not do the same with
not a person and we do not know that. Now what is abortion?
abortion in each of these four cases?
The answer to that question is not an easy one to admit.
In case (1), abortion is perfectly permissible. We do no It is this: If we do not see the awfulness of abortion, that
wrong if we kill what is not a person and we know it is is not because the facts and arguments are unclear but
not a person - e.g., if we fry a fish. But no one has ever because our own consciences are unclear. Mother
proved with certainty that a fetus is not a person. If Teresa says, "Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of
there exists anywhere such a proof, please show it to the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother."
me and I shall convert to pro-choice on the spot if I
cannot refute it. Abortion is profoundly anti-woman. Three quarters of
its victims are women: half the babies and all the
If we do not have case (1) we have either (2) or (3) or mothers.
(4). What is abortion in each of these cases? it is either
murder, or manslaughter, or criminal negligence. If Mother Teresa is right, the second killing that
abortion does is even worse than the first, if souls are
In case (2), where the fetus is a person and we know more important than bodies. If abortion kills
that, abortion is murder. For killing an innocent person consciences, it kills souls. To the extent that conscience
knowing it is an innocent person is murder. is killed, repentance is killed, and without repentance
and faith we simply cannot be saved - unless Jesus was
In case (3), abortion is manslaughter, for it is killing an a liar or a fool when he told us-that.
innocent person not knowing and intending the full,
deliberate extent of murder. It is like driving over a This is not to condemn the personal motives or integrity
man-shaped overcoat in the street, which may be a of all who abort. We must distinguish the sin from the
drunk or may only be an old coat. It is like shooting at a sinner, and hate and judge the sin but not the sinner.
sudden movement in a bush which may be your hunting Both aborters and justifiers of abortion may be victims
companion or may be only a pheasant. It is like as much as victimizers: victims of souls are victimized -
fumigating an apartment building with a highly toxic their thoughts, their consciences. But the victimization
chemical not knowing whether everyone is safely must start somewhere, the buck stops somewhere, and
evacuated. If the victim is a person, you have not in safe abstractions like "society" but in the choices
committed manslaughter. And if not? of individuals.

Even in case (4), even if abortion kills what is not in fact All of us are implicated in some way, for "the only thing

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Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine – Volume4, Number 1 17

that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that the good

do nothing." What should we do? For one thing, we
must put up one hell of a stink, for abortion is, precisely,
one hell of a stink.

There is a time to be polite and scholarly and a time to

tell the truth plain and prickly. Plainly put, abortion
comes from Hell and it can lead us to Hell if not
repented. Any unrepented sin can, and we all need
repentance, whether we abort or hate or lust or despair
or coldly condemn. But abortion is more likely than
most sins to be unrepented because there are so many
pro-choice voices justifying it. The justification of
abortion can be more lethal than abortion itself.

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