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The Case for Life
- 04/14/09
- 23
There was a time when my mother was actively involved in the pro-life movement here in the Toronto area. I have many memories of journeying downtown with her, taking the subway and bus with mom, so we could volunteer in some way in the fight against abortion. I have fond memories of it, mostly. At times, though, I am prone to despair as it seems that in the twenty or twenty-five years between then and now, there has been little change, little progress. The United States has not seen an overturn of Roe v. Wade and Canada still has no abortion law at all (which is really little different than enacting a law protecting a woman’s right to abort her child). I am buoyed, though, when I hear stories of individuals who have been impacted by pro-life work, stories of women who have encountered pro-life advocates, who have realized the value of life and who have chosen to save the lives of their unborn children. At least for the time being, this seems to be how God would have us fight this battle—not in court rooms or parliaments or senates (or not primarily, in any case), but in encounters with individuals.
Though I have always been staunchly pro-life, it occurred to me as I picked up Scott Klusendorf’s The Case for Life that I had never read a book-length treatment of the case against abortion. For that reason I was eager to read this one. Klusendorf is a disciple of Gregg Cunningham of the Center for Bioethical Reform and of Gregory Koukl of Stand to Reason. In the book’s opening pages he expresses his admiration for both men and his debt to them. Cunningham, he says, taught him courage while Koukl taught him to be a gracious ambassador for the Christian worldview. In both cases the similarities are clear.
The thesis of this book is “that a biblically informed pro-life view explains human equality, human rights, and moral obligations better than its secular rivals and that rank-and-file pro-life Christians can make an immediate impact provided they’re equipped to engage the culture with a robust but graciously communicated case for life.” Making that case is the purpose of the book. The author does so under four broad headings:
- Pro-Life Christians Clarify the Debate
- Pro-Life Christians Establish a Foundation for the Debate
- Pro-Life Christians Answer Objections Persuasively
- Pro-Life Christians Teach and Equip
In the first part he helps Christians understand and simplify debates over abortion and over embryonic stem cell research. The issues are often presented as being far more morally complex than they actually are and he seeks to cut through the complexity to show what is objectively right and what is objectively wrong. “Can we kill the unborn? Yes, I think we can, if. If what? If the unborn are not human beings.” Proving the humanity of the unborn simplifies and, as far as the Christian is concerned, ends the debate.
In the book’s second part Klusendorf explains why there is no such thing as moral neutrality when it comes to abortion and to embryonic stem cell research. A standard tactic of the pro-choice movement is to paint every pro-life advocate as a religious fundamentalist who brings faith, not reason, to the discussion. Klusendorf shows, though, that both sides “bring prior metaphysical commitments to the debate” and that both are asking the same foundational question: what makes humans valuable in the first place?
In the third part the author gives answers to the most common objections to the pro-life position. He focuses attention on the hard cases and the emotionally manipulative cases. “Women will die from illegal abortions.” “You shouldn’t force your views on other people.” “Rape justifies abortion.” “Men can’t get pregnant so should have no say in the debate.” “I am sovereign over my own body.” He advocates using Greg Koukl’s classic Columbo tactic, going on the offensive in a respectful, measured way by asking questions that advance the conversation. In every case he offers a useful response to questions anyone will face as he discusses this topic with others.
In the fourth and final part Klusendorf looks to pastoral implications of pro-life advocacy. He looks at the role of the pastor in the fight for life and he offers hope for men and women who feel burdened by guilt for abortions. The book concludes with a short look at what is always a controversial subject among Christians: co-belligerence. He advocates working with Catholics or Jews or Muslims or Atheists or anyone else who is pro-life but always with a view to maintaining sound doctrine. “Those truths must never be discarded so as to achieve a greater unity with non-evangelicals.” He offers a useful argument here and one that is compelling. While I would tend to agree with him, I do think he ignores the fact that co-belligerence often does lead to compromise; it is more difficult than we may think to maintain doctrinal distinctives when working hand-in-hand with those whose beliefs differ from our own. It can be done, I am sure, but it appears to be difficult to do over a long period of time. I suspect the downgrade often begins when pro-life Christians begin to pray together with those who are not believers; holding hands and praying with others can be a powerful force for unity, even if that unity (or perceived unity) advances at the expense of biblical doctrine.
There is so much content in this book, and content that is often densely packed, that it is one you will want to keep on-hand to refer to as questions or concerns or debates arise. I suspect you will want to read it through once and then make sure it is available for future reference. I’m quite sure not too many of us will glean all that it teaches in just one pass. This is not to say that it is a particularly difficult read or that it is targeted only at those with degrees in theology or philosophy. Instead, it is aimed squarely at the lay person and any Christian ought to be able to benefit from it. I believe this book can be a valuable addition to your personal library and feel it would be an excellent addition to any church or public library as well.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (23)
Hi Tim,
Sounds like a great little book. I will have to read it. I find so many people want to start out with faith reasons not to abort a child, but if you can get people to admit that a fetus is human, then no matter what other arguments they come up with (my body, etc, and I really want to read it for good rebuttals of those) then at least you have them admitting that abortion involves killing another human being, no matter what side of the debate they fall on.
So endorse abortion I think only because they haven’t stopped to think about when ‘humanness’ begins. But everything that makes us human is right there at conception.
So many memories, Tim…I could write a book! Do you remember that the wife of one of Canada’s foremost abortionists turned out to be a childhood friend…one I did not recognize with the passage of years and the name change?
Thanks for the review, Tim. Scott is doing great work in this arena. I like the way he presents things. It is disheartening sometimes to see how many of our brethren think of abortion as a political hot-button issue, and thus, minimize it; or worse, how many have been won over by the radical autonomous individualism of our culture, which says that we can’t tell people what to do with their own bodies. Keep praying, my brother. And I pray that on this site you will share stories of women who have chosen against abortion, or women who have chosen it and can talk about their experiences in a redemptive way. Perhaps you have been doing this. Keep it up.
This is still one of the great evils of our age. The fact of the matter is the large majority of abortions are stilled performed for convenience and nothing else is sickening. I do agree with the fact it is hard to maintain a doctrinal purity if you begin to pray with those you have major differences.This is one of those battles that as John Piper has said ,we must not grow weary and press on. May we as thoughtful and compassionate Christians,continue to support outreach ministries and pray for those who have been scarred by abortion.
I know Scott’s work from his STR days and I’m looking forward to reading this book. I sometimes feel like there’s little hope in an age of relativism where I hear young people who don’t care whether or not the unborn are human even if you prove it.
But, you pointed out something that I thought was very profound, that “this seems to be how God would have us fight this battle…. in encounters with individuals” which is a very encouraging statement. If every life counts, which it does, then we can’t judge our progress solely on how we’ve changed the law. If 100,000 are to die at the hands of abortion, but 1 is saved because of a conversation, then it was worth the effort and worth equipping ourselves to articulate the pro-life message clearly and persuasively.
I think many abortion advocates try to sidetrack the argument by saying that people only oppose abortion on “religious” grounds. To be certain, there is certainly much in Scripture that would lead us to abhor such a practice, but I think abortion can be argued against without referencing religion at all. (Although I suppose one would still have to affirm objective truth and the immorality of murder.)
The argument can be boiled down pretty quickly:
Genetics tells us that the unborn child is genetically human, and while dependent on the mother for a time, is also genetically different from both mother and father. It is not merely an extension of the mother’s body.
Meanwhile, biology tells us that the unborn child is alive. So, at no point is the unborn child ever composed of dead tissue, at no point does it have anything other than human DNA, and from the very beginning, it is genetically distinct from both parents.
This is generally how we recognize individual human beings - they are alive, they have human genetic material, and that genetic material is different from anyone else on the planet, even from an identical twin.
Thirty years ago, the abortion advocates may have been able to argue that the unborn were not human, but the science argues against them. Ironically, they are the ones holding outdated, nonscientific positions based on dogma.
Now they have to either add other criteria to their definition of “human” or they have to argue that it’s okay to kill innocent humans in certain circumstances. These are much harder positions to defend, but this is the ground the current abortion debate is fought on. They concede that abortion may be killing a human being, but they argue that it’s justified if the mother’s career is on the line, or if the child would be unloved, etc.
And of course, some of the most depraved argue that there’s nothing inherently wrong with murder at all.
Oops - I forgot the fourth criteria. In addition to being alive, having human genetic material, and *unique* genetic material, there is also the aspect that, if not otherwise terminated, the unborn child *will* grow into a fully grown adult human. Not a zebra, not a toaster, not a head of broccoli. When you terminate the life of the unborn, you are stealing their future life.
Incidentally, this is one of the same reasons murder is wrong to even the non-Christian mind - because it wrongly steals someone’s future life from them.
Tim,Thank you for reviewing my book. Your summary of its main ideas was excellent and I’m grateful for the time you took to feature it on your site.
Best Regards,Scott
I’ve discussed abortion with some fairly logical, rational folks who managed to treat the issue with a good degree of detachment. One was a secular conservative, who’s actually more conservative than me on most non-social issues. They admit that at fetus is a “human being”; they just liken it to a person who’s been in an accident, is brain dead, and is on life support. Why is it okay to remove such a person from life support, who is clearly a human being? (A position with which many pro-life Christians would agree?) Because all those things that make the person a “person” are gone; all that’s left is the physical body. That’s the condition they argue a fetus is in: possessing a physical, human, body, but lacking all the “other stuff” that would make it “wrong” to kill someone.
The response to this is one of imminence. Consciousness is imminent for the fetus, as it continues to develop, which would then place it the category of “protected” human beings. The accident victim is, presumably, thought to be permanently damaged without any hope of regaining consciousness. The fetus, then, is like a person in a deep coma, but with the likelihood of their regaining consciousness a near certitude within a matter of months. Most people will agree that to kill such a person, even when he is a burden on someone else, and even when that burden was created through no fault of the one being burdened (i.e. rape), that it would be wrong to terminate the coma victim.
This ignores the fact that in the majority of cases the “coma victim” is in his condition because of direct action on the part of the person now tasked with supporting him (i.e. the mother).
If anyone ever wants encouragement, visit your local Crisis Pregnancy Center. I visited one last summer and the Center kept a photo album of all the babies whose lives were saved rather than aborted.
Tim writes: “I am prone to despair as it seems that in the twenty or twenty-five years between then and now, there has been little change.”
It’s actually been 36 years; the Roe ruling on reproductive rights was issued in 1973. There has been little change because there has been little change in the principal of bodily sovereignty: we are protected against having our bodies used, against our will, by third parties, even if their life depends on it. To illustrate: my neighbor is a human being of full personhood, with his/her own unique DNA. However, that fact does not grant my neighbor the right to take or use my body against my will for his/her personal benefit. Even if my neighbor’s life depends on something as small as a blood donation from me, I cannot be forced or coerced to donate my bodily fluids, not even to save my neighbor’s life. (In fact, not even if I caused him to need that blood, say by hitting him with a car). To take it even further, a parent cannot even be forced to donate blood or an organ to their own child, not even if the child’s life depends on it.
That is how sacrosanct the right to bodily sovereignty is. And if one person cannot be forced to donate thier body to another, nor can a parent be forced to donate even blood to save their own child, the law is hardly going to grant an unwanted fetus the right to take or use the body of a citizen against her will.
It really is that simple.
beatrice81,
Going on four decades it may be, but this is the first I’ve heard of “bodily sovereignty,” whatever that is when it’s out in the public square.
I have many issues with what you have said, but the most cut-throat piece of rhetoric in your whole comment is the fundamentally anti-Christian statement that “nor can a parent be forced to donate even blood to save their own child.” What father or mother among you, indeed! (Luke 11)
You make my blood run cold with dread, beatrice81. It really is that demonic.
She makes a good point, Mark. Would you prefer that the state force a parent in such a situation to donate the blood? Have police come apprehend the person, then tie them down and extract the blood?
Where I think the argument breaks down is that if the mother has a right to bodily security, then so does the fetus, assuming it’s a person. Abortions do not just affect the mother’s body; they involve destroying the fetus’s, either directly or by poisoning it through the system of life support.
So, for instance, a mother could have a fetus “extracted” (e.g. c-section) if she wished to have it out of her body. In situations where the fetus has developed past the point of viability, this would have a markedly different result than a standard abortion. Of course when the fetus isn’t viable the result would be the same.
Another possible issue with the “neighbor in a car accident that you caused” metaphor is an individual has no legal responsibility to preserve the health of his neighbor, whereas parents do have that legal responsibility with regard to their children. Also, the neighbor could potentially get a transfusion from someone other than the individual being asked to donate, so the individual’s refusal isn’t guaranteed to be a death sentence in the same way removing a not-yet-viable fetus from its mother’s womb is.
The twenty or twenty-five years Tim referred to was between when his mom was actively involved in the pro-life movement in Toronto. Your assumption seems to be that his mom’s activity in the pro-life movement directly coincided with the handing down of Roe v. Wade, which we do not know.
Another assumption you make is that a woman has no decision in whether to get pregnant or not in the first place. “we are protected against having our bodies used, against our will *emphasis added*, by third parties, even if their life depends on it.” The woman’s will, absent cases of rape, results in the creation of life.
Your analogy breaks down, however, not because it hinges on will but because it hinges on a duty to save a life versus the duty not to kill a life. In a pregnancy situation, you are not saving the child’s life by going to term. You are merely not killing it. A true analogy, using your facts above, would go like this. You hit your neighbor with a car, causing him life threatening injuries. You may not have a duty to save their life (some jurisdictions DO say you have a duty to save the neighbors life). But you always have a duty not to kill the neighbor.
J.P.H.,
One of us doesn’t understand where beatrice81 is coming from. I’m quite certain her stance is “bodily sovereignty without exception.” Consider her “unwanted fetus” line - there’s something very sinister in that. I’m withholding further comment if/until she clarifies.
I think I understand where she’s coming from pretty well. My point is that the concept of sovereignty she outlined must be applied to both mother and child if we consider the fetus to be a full person. This confronts the argument that goes, “It doesn’t matter if the fetus is a person, since bodily sovereignty trumps any claims another person might have to an individual’s body.”
J.P.H.,
Now that you’ve emphasized that point, I understand you much better. Thanks for clarifying.
In Canada - where Tim is from - we generally see R. v. Morgentaler (1988) as the landmark case where our old abortion laws were struck down. As Tim accurately notes, since Morgentaler, there are no abortion laws in place in Canada at all.
With respect to Roe v. Wade (1973), “Roe” (Norma McCorvey) never actually had an abortion, despite her legal “victory” and in the years since has become a pro-life advocate.
To my mind, there is no greater evil today than abortion. But to win this war will require far more than preaching or politicking—both are essential, both need to be done with urgency and unwavering resolve; but we need to understand why women choose to have abortions in the first place. E.g.: Some/many already have children, are living at or near the poverty line, and in their minds, can’t afford another. If we want her to choose life, we need to work for more affordable housing, easier access to quality day care, better schooling, etc., etc. Abortion, in other words, requires a holistic response. Which is, at the end of the day, what the gospel calls us to.
Steve,
Abortion decisions do not flow from economic issues, or housing issues. A woman who is right with God will not get an abortion, regardless of her circumstances. Abortion decisions are first and foremost a spiritual issue, flowing from not being in a right relationship with God. Addressing issues like affordable housing, access to day care, etc are important, but are not the reason women have abortions.
JPH properly understands the dangers of granting the government the power to forcibly extract body fluids or organs from its citizens. But she/he doesn’t appear to understand how bodily sovereignty works: bodily sovereignty means you have control over your own body, not the bodies of others. Thus, any woman is free to refuse to donate the use of her uterus to a fetus, just like any citizen is free to refuse to donate their body fluids or use of their body to any other third party. The woman owns her own uterus and has sole right to determine what can occupy it. The fetus has control over its own body (inasmuch as a non-sentient being can have “control”), but it does not have any right to the bodily property of others, nor is it entitled to use the bodies of others against their will. To state it even more plainly: the fetus does not own the uterus of someone else, therefore the fetus has no right to occupy a uterus belonging to someone else, against the owner’s will. The owner has every right to withhold the use of her uterus from the fetus, i.e. expel it., just like anyone has the right to refrain from donating their blood or organs to needy third parties.
Of course, it’s an admirable thing to donate blood or organs to someone who needs it, but it’s perfectly acceptable to decide NOT to make such a donation as well. One is not a murderer because they failed to donate a pint of blood at the scene of an accident, any more than a woman is a murderer because she decides not to assume the risks and burdens of pregnancy on behalf of a fetus.
Hope that clarifies things.
I think that this will be a great book for all types of people, Christians and non-Christians. There are so many questions and different types of views on the abortion subject. This book will help clarify where Christians stand on this issue. I wish this book would have come our before the 2008 US Presidential Election because I feel that is would have helped a lot of people understand the presidential candidates views and stance better. This book is completely jam packed with information.
Beatrice,
“One is not a murderer because they failed to donate a pint of blood at the scene of an accident, any more than a woman is a murderer because she decides not to assume the risks and burdens of pregnancy on behalf of a fetus.”
Is there not a distinction to be made between inaction (failure to donate blood) and action (abortion)? If a pregnant woman fails to act, generally speaking, the baby will be born at the end of the pregnancy. Whereas, in the cases of abortion the baby’s life is actively terminated.
Thank goodness the Supreme Court of the United States has not even adopted this view of “bodily sovereignty for the mother only and not the baby.”
Beatrice-
While the fetus may have no right to its mother’s uterus (for the sake of argument), as you said, it does still retain some right to its own body. Abortion impinges on that right insofar as it involves destroying the fetus’s body prior to removing it from the mother’s uterus.
If the fetus can be removed from the mother’s uterus, which it is occupying against her will, in such a way that its life is preserved, that would seem to be the only option that best preserves both the mother *and* fetus’s right to bodily sovereignty. Practically speaking, it would mean that any woman wishing to abort who is past the point of fetal viability must instead deliver the fetus by the available means (c-section, induced labor, etc.)
The above would contradict current abortion laws, which permit abortion well past the age of viability.