The video starts by Samantha Bee saying that “the religious right” melted brains to believe that God outlawed abortion from a burning bush. This is complete rubbish; yes, people who are religious and on the right oppose abortion but Christianity has always been explicitly against abortion and claiming they melted brains is just bias against the arguments, which they never address in the video. They instead claim that opposition to abortion is just because they are religious and demand it with no reasons and Bee states her confusion at why the bills passed would limit it at 15 weeks. The reason it was 15 is to gradually build towards a total outlawing but this is irrelevant anyway to whether God is against abortion and whether abortion is right or wrong.
Why Abortion Is Morally Wrong Abortion is wrong regardless of the authority of the Bible. The argument follows as such: Premise One: It is morally wrong to kill innocent human beings. Premise Two: The unborn are innocent human beings. Premise Three: Abortion is the killing of an unborn human being. Conclusion: Abortion is morally wrong. As premise one and three are self explanatory, I’ll defend premise two. As all humans get human rights, if the foetus is human, they get human rights from the point they are human. So, when do humans begin their lives? A research paper called When Does Human Life Begin [1] by bioethicist science professor Dr. Maureen Condic of the United States’ National Science Board gives us a good illustration. The paper explains that life begins at fertilisation and in particular, at the beginning of the process of fertilisation because fertilisation takes about 24 hours. Condic makes the case for life beginning at the start of that 24 hour period by focusing on two things. When scientists want to distinguish one cell from another cell, they look at two criteria; cell composition and cell behaviour, i.e. what is it made up of and what does it do. For example, when we look at the sperm cell, the composition is the genetic material of the father, different from the egg cell which is the genetic composition of the mother. When we look at the behaviour of the sperm, it is to swim around, find the egg and penetrate it and when we look at the egg, it sits and allows for penetration. We can see that the sperm and egg are different by looking at composition and behaviour. Now, let’s consider the one cell embryo or zygote in contrast to the sperm and the egg cell. When we look at cell composition and behaviour, we can see how the zygote at fertilisation is substantively different from the sperm and the egg. The composition is the genetic material of the mother and the father even before the chromosomes have intermingled. At that first point of sperm-egg fusion, that one cell embryo contains the genetic material from both parents, making it different from the sperm and the egg. When we look at behaviour, when another sperm comes along, as the first sperm came to the egg, and that sperm tries to penetrate the one cell embryo in the same manner, the embryo behaves differently to the other two cells, creating a zone or wall around it that prevents penetration. Via composition and behaviour, we know at fertilisation that we are dealing with something new. The genetic material that each of us has distinguishes us from our mother, father and every single other human being unless there are identical twins and this is determined at the moment of fusion. From that point forward, we develop what we look like and what we’re able to do and our essential nature remains the same. We’re human at that moment because our parents are human and beings reproduce after their own kind and we are alive at that moment because the cell is growing and this growth is indicative of life. Furthermore, even the heart begins to beat between around 21-35 days after conception, before almost all surgical and chemical abortions. Now we know life begins at fertilisation, we need to see where parenthood starts. Parenthood begins when a child is growing in the womb of the mother and begins their life. The obligatory responsibilities of parents are to provide the ordinary, natural means of care to their children, who have a right to food, hydration, shelter, ‘clothing’ and medicine. The United Nations have a declaration ‘on the Rights of the Child’ in which they say the child, by rights of their physical and mental immaturities, has rights to special safeguards and care before as well as after birth. The UN has also adopted a document called the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [2] and in this document, it says that in countries where the death penalty is legal, it may never be done on a pregnant woman. Setting aside the topic of the death penalty, which is used as an objection that we will cover later, which is the punishment of guilty people, everyone agrees that it is always wrong to punish or administer capital punishment to innocent people. When two different women who committed the same crime are differed between in terms of the death penalty because one is pregnant, that is an admission that in the body of one of those guilty women is an innocent child. If it is wrong to give the death penalty to an unborn child, it is also wrong to abort an unborn child. Let’s look at the different types of abortion. The vast majority of abortions happen within the first three months of pregnancy and the common procedure used at this point is a vacuum aspiration, otherwise known as a D&C abortion (dilation and curettage). This involves a suction tube being inserted into the uterus that causes the baby to be pulled apart. The tiny unborn child, whose heart was beating at three weeks as we established and whose brain waves were detected at six weeks, has their body parts pulled apart by a suction tube piece by piece and the child is decapitated, dismembered and disembowelled. A later D&E abortion (dilation and evacuation) involves the use of forceps, inserted by the abortionist who clamps down on whichever body piece is first reached and pulls out that body part before returning and repeating until all the body parts are removed. When we are talking about body parts, those parts clearly belong to a human. Our human rights don’t come from what we can do; they come from what we are. The best way to define a human being is something that we all share equally and necessarily; human nature. This is the most inclusive definition of human value. Abortion is wrong because it clearly kills an innocent human being. Varying Views On Abortion Back to the video, Bee then says to find out, she will speak to “religious leaders” before introducing the representative in this discussion for Catholicism… Jamie L. Manson, the president of Catholics for Choice. Well, this is a bit selective and she isn’t a leader in Catholicism in any sense, she’s a dissenting Catholic going against the teaching of the Church so she can hardly claim to represent Catholicism. If Samantha Bee was really being honest and fair talking to “leaders” or prominent figures in Catholicism, why wouldn’t she have invited a respected defender of Catholicism or clergy rather than someone claiming to be Catholic while going against the Church who is specifically a defender of being pro-choice? I will focus on the Christian relevant parts of the conversation but something must quickly be said for the other two women, who represent Islam and Judaism. The Old Testament is clearly logically anti-abortion and the commandment not to murder a human being clearly applies when the unborn are human beings, so this covers at least the Scripture involved in Judaism, although the Talmud does hold authority so if what the Jewish panellist is saying is accurate, then this is the case for her sect of the modern version of one of the original forms of Judaism. Islam On Abortion The Muslim representative claims that Islam has no ban on abortion for any reason at any point by any method and while it is true that Islam does not completely oppose abortion and it is permissable, the “for any reason” part is a false, modernist claim; Muslims are obliged to follow a school for jurisprudence. While abortion can be permissable in Islam, it is absolutely not true that it can happen at any point or for any reason. The Maliki school is the only school that considers the unborn child to be a life from conception and all others see the soul as entering later, hence they are a life later on. The Hanafi school permits abortion prior to the four month mark if there is a “valid need”, such as rape or fornication. There are two different views in the Shafi’i school on abortion prior to four months and the most prominent view says that it is permissible. Alahazrat Imām Aĥmad Riđā Khān al-Ĥanafī al-Qādirī al-Baraylawī was asked about a man getting an abortion for a female relative and responded: “If the baby is not yet formed, it is permissible, otherwise it is impermissible as it is murder of an innocent one, and in four months the baby is formed.” [3] The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has an organisation called The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta. In Al-Fatawa Al-Lajnah Ad-Da'imah (12/14) they wrote: ثانيا: الأحكام بعد سقوط الحمل: وهي مختلفة باختلاف زمن الإسقاط في أي من أطواره الأربعة على ما يلي: الحكم الأول: إذا سقط الحمل في الطورين الأولين: طور النطفة المختلطة من المائين، وهي في الأربعين الأولى من علوق الماء في الرحم، وطور العلقة، وهو: طور تحولها إلى دم جامد في الأربعين الثانية إلى تمام ثمانين يوما، ففي هذه الحالة لا يترتب على سقوطها نطفة أو علقة شيء من الأحكام بلا خلاف، وتستمر المرأة في صيامها وصلاتها كأنه لم يكن إسقاط، وعليها أن تتوضأ لوقت كل صلاة إذا كان معها دم كالمستحاضة. الحكم الثاني: إذا سقط الحمل في الطور الثالث، طور المضغة، - أي: قطعة من لحم- وفيه تقدر أعضاؤه وصورته وشكله وهيئته وهو في الأربعين الثالثة من واحد وثمانين يوما إلى تمام مائة وعشرين يوما، فله حالتان: ا- أن تكون تلك المضغة ليس فيها تصوير ظاهر لخلق آدمي ولا خفي، ولا شهادة القوابل بأنها مبدأ إنسان، فحكم سقوط المضغة هذه حكم سقوطها في الطورين الأولين، لا يترتب عليه شيء من الأحكام. ٢ - أن تكون المضغة مستكملة لصورة آدمي أو فيها تصوير ظاهر من خلق الإنسان؛ يد أو رجل أو نحو ذلك، أو تصوير خفي، أو شهد القوابل بأنها مبدأ إنسان، فحكم سقوط المضغة هنا أنه يترتب عليها النفاس وانقضاء العدة. الحكم الثالث: إذا سقط الحمل في الطور الرابع، أي: بعد نفخ الروح، وهو من أول الشهر الخامس من مرور مائة وواحد وعشرين يوما على الحمل فما بعد، فله حالتان، وهما: ١ - أن لا يستهل صارخا، فله أحكام الحالة الثانية للمضغة المذكورة سابقا، ويزيد أنه يغسل ويكفن ويصلى عليه ويسمى ويعق عنه. ٢ - أن يستهل صارخا، فله أحكام المولود كاملة، ومنها ما في الحالة قبلها آنفا، وزيادة هاهنا هي: أنه يملك المال من وصية وميراث، فيرث ويورث وغير ذلك. “With regard to the rulings following an abortion, they vary according to the time of the abortion, and fall into four categories, as follows: 1 – If the pregnancy is aborted within the first two stages (the nutfah (drop) stage which results from the mixing of the “two waters” which is the first forty days after the embryo attaches itself in the womb, and the ‘alaqah (clot) stage where it turns into solid blood during the second forty days), which add up to a total of eighty days, then in this case if it is aborted as a nutfah or ‘alaqah, there are no rulings to be followed, and there is no scholarly dispute on this point. The woman should continue to fast and pray as if she had not had an abortion, but she has to do wudoo’ for each prayer if she has any bleeding, as in the case of a woman suffering from istihaadah (non-menstrual vaginal bleeding). 2 – If the pregnancy is aborted in the third stage, the mudghah (chewed piece of flesh) stage, when the embryo looks like a piece of meat with the limbs and features beginning to appear, which lasts for forty days from the eighty-first to the one hundred and twentieth day, then there are two scenarios: (i)This embryo does not have any human features and the midwives or other attendants did not testify that this was the beginning of a human being. In this case the ruling on abortion of this mudghah is the same as the ruling on abortion in the first two stages, and there are no rulings to be followed. (ii)The embryo has complete human features or some human features such as a hand or foot, etc, or there are features but they are indistinct, or the midwives or other attendants testified that this was the beginning of a human being. In this case the rulings on nifaas are to be followed, and this signals the end of ‘iddah (waiting period following divorce or death of the husband, if applicable). 3 – If the pregnancy is aborted in the fourth stage, i.e., after the soul has been breathed into the foetus, which is after the beginning of the fifth month or after one hundred and twenty days of pregnancy have passed. Here there are two scenarios: (i)If the foetus did not cry after birth, then the rulings mentioned with regard to the second stage of the mudghah are to be followed, but in addition the foetus should be washed, shrouded and the funeral prayer offered for him; he should be given a name and the ‘aqeeqah offered for him. (ii)If the foetus cried after birth, then the rulings concerning a full-term baby apply, as mentioned above; in addition the child may take possession of wealth bequeathed or inherited; he may inherit or be inherited from, etc.” [4, 5] Al-Fataawa al-Jaami’ah, 3/1056 says that: “The Council of Senior Scholars issued the following statement: 1 – It is not permissible to abort a pregnancy at any stage unless there is a legitimate reason, and within very precise limits. 2 – If the pregnancy is in the first stage, which is a period of forty days, and aborting it serves a legitimate purpose or will ward off harm, then it is permissible to abort it. But aborting it at this stage for fear of the difficulty of raising children or of being unable to bear the costs of maintaining and educating them, or for fear for their future or because the couple feel that they have enough children – this is not permissible. 3 – It is not permissible to abort a pregnancy when it is an ‘alaqah (clot) or mudghah (chewed lump of flesh) (which are the second and third periods of forty days each) until a trustworthy medical committee has decided that continuing the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s wellbeing, in that there is the fear that she will die if the pregnancy continues. It is permissible to abort it once all means of warding off that danger have been exhausted. 4 – After the third stage, and after four months have passed, it is not permissible to abort the pregnancy unless a group of trustworthy medical specialists decide that keeping the foetus in his mother’s womb will cause her death, and that should only be done after all means of keeping the foetus alive have been exhausted. A concession is made allowing abortion in this case so as to ward off the greater of two evils and to serve the greater of two interests.” [6] Catholic Teaching On Abortion Jamie Manson, speaking for Catholicism, says that we must bear in mind that Catholic teaching is created by men who are extensively celibate. This is totally irrelevant and disregarding of Catholic authority. If you deny the authority you have to logically believe in as a Catholic, you aren’t a Catholic. Bee says it’s a “great start” that the people who wrote Catholic teaching have no connection to women as if they are incapable of speaking about abortion. This is again totally irrelevant as anyone can clearly come to see that abortion is morally wrong and again it disregards the authority of the Church. If someone makes the argument that men can’t comment on abortion, this could be said of many people on many issues, even other women who haven’t ever been pregnant. This view would also mean you cannot comment on a moral issue if it does not affect you, so for instance you couldn’t say it’s wrong for the owner of a restaurant to refuse to serve a black person because they are racist if you are neither a restaurant owner nor a black person. Women can have an opinion on the draft even when they cannot be drafted. Even if something doesn’t affect us or directly relate to us, we can still see or logically deduce that it’s wrong and why. The arguments against abortion are true or false irrelevant of the person who is presenting them or what their gender is and it would be fallacious to suggest otherwise. This objection would also mean Roe vs Wade would be illegitimate because the decision was made by 9 male justices. For some reason, the Catholic ignores this binding authority that she has to give assent of mind and will to and then appeals to Sola Scriptura by saying it isn’t however in the Bible. This is false but even if this were true, it would be irrelevant as the Bible isn’t the sole infallible authority in Christianity as a Catholic. It is false because the Bible clearly speaks of the unborn as persons. For example, in Luke 1:39-44, we see reference to an unborn baby. In Jeremiah, we see that a person is formed in the womb, as well as Psalm 139:13. In Job, we are moulded like clay in the womb. As we know the Bible condemns the killing of people, we can conclude definitively the Bible condemns abortion. Any professed pro-choice Christian would have to necessarily contradict infallible Scripture to state that abortion can in any circumstance be moral as they would have to either state that it is sometimes morally right to kill an innocent human being or that the unborn child is not an innocent human being, both definitively taught in Scripture. The claim that the Bible doesn’t specifically name abortion would be equivalent to saying that God doesn’t condemn nuking a country; we can see logically that it is morally wrong from other truths in Scripture, namely murder. Not only does the Bible clearly teach abortion is wrong and not only does the Catholic Church teach against abortion in its magisterium through the ordinary and universal magisterium which requires assent of mind and will of all Catholics but the Catholic Church also has taught ex cathedra that abortion is wrong. In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI writes: “14. Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded [omnino respuendam esse] as lawful means of regulating the number of children. (14) Equally to be condemned [pariter damnandum est], as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. (15) Similarly excluded [item respuendus est] is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means. (16)” [7] As per Vatican 1, there are three essential criteria for a decree to meet the standard of papal infallibility. One is that the pope has to be acting as the head of the whole Church, as pastor and teacher of all Christians. That one is fulfilled in this case because the encyclical is addressed to the whole Church and at one point in number 6, he says he is speaking “in virtue of the mandate entrusted to us by Christ” so this is an official formal papal act. The second criteria is the object of papal infallibility so whether this is a matter of faith or morals, which it again meets. The third criteria is the note of definition, where the pope must directly and conclusively pronounce his judgement in a way that manifests the intention of settling all doubts and imposing an obligation on Catholics to accept this. In the document, he states that withdrawal, abortion, sterilisation and contraception must be rejected and condemned absolutely. In the Latin, the phrases are “respuendus est”, must be rejected, “damnandum est”, must be condemned and he uses the word “omnino” which means absolutely, without any doubt, hesitation or possibility of exception and so forth. Those clearly indicate intention to oblige the faithful to give a firm and unqualified assent to the doctrine of the intrinsic immorality of these acts. These three criteria being met means this is an ex cathedra decree. The Opposition To Abortion Again, Bee then states that opposition to abortion is a small minority of religious people creating laws that will affect her body based on the idea that at conception, the foetus has a soul. This is again just a strawman, arguments proving abortion is morally wrong are easily made outside of Christianity. The Catholic representative then states that 56% of Catholics think abortion should always be legal but a majority also don’t believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; these numbers are just totally irrelevant. Bee wonders why the laws are like this when this is the case but this should clue her in to the fact that the laws aren’t just made based on some religious conviction. This however is irrelevant to Church teaching on abortion and whether abortion is morally right or wrong. You don’t need to even believe in the existence of the soul in the argument for abortion being morally wrong. The Catholic panel member then says fragile men project their own fragility onto god and their god is male and does not believe in women's equality before the Jewish representative says that religion has been used for atrocities and to maintain power for centuries, again an ahistorical cliche. The claim regarding men’s fragility is just totally false. God isn’t male, God doesn’t have a gender like humans but the Father and Son do choose to reveal themselves using male pronouns and Jesus was a male. To state that this was a projection of their own fragility is just pure conspiracy and ludicrous. Ironically, this comment is a projection of the Catholic woman’s own fragility when it comes to this topic by making such a claim. Furthermore, God does believe in total equality between the sexes and believes in that equality when it comes to reproductive rights. Neither men nor woman have a right to end the life of their child. It is also massively insulting to claim that the want to protect life is men being fragile and this is an ad hominem argument trying to delegitimise the arguments against abortion by going after the aims, motivations and emotions of the people making the argument. The Muslim representative calls those who oppose abortion sadistic in their treatment of pregnant people and Bee uses an expletive. Bee concludes that the religious right use religion to uphold the patriarchy and that everyone is free to believe what they want but don’t impose your theology on the law. This isn’t the case and abortion being wrong is totally irrelevant from Christianity but the point must always be made that the law always imposes someone’s worldview. She concludes that the law should be atheist to be neutral. Yes. She said that. Atheism isn’t neutral; agnosticism towards religion is neutral. This is because unlike agnosticism, atheism necessarily includes beliefs in the worldview, such as that God does not exist and materialism is true. However, this isn’t relevant anyway. Just like agnosticism, an atheist worldview with regard to abortion is still beholden to the same arguments and truths that prove abortion is morally wrong. References 1. Condic, Maureen L., 2013, When Does Human Life Begin? The Scientific Evidence and Terminology Revisited Terminology Revisited [Online], https://ir.stthomas.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=ustjlpp, University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy, volume 8, issue 1, fall 2013, article 4. 2. United Nations, 1966, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [Online], https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights, part III, article 6. 3. Khan, Ibne, Preserving Orthodoxy, 2021, Abortion prior to 120 days in Ĥanafī fiqh, https://ibnekhan01.wordpress.com/2021/04/27/abortion-prior-to-120-days-in-hanafi-fiqh/. 4. Shamela, https://shamela.ws/book/8381/16413#p1. 5. Islam Question & Answer, 2009, Rulings to do with abortion [Online], https://islamqa.info/en/answers/12475/rulings-to-do-with-abortion. 6. Islam Question & Answer, 2003, Ruling on aborting a pregnancy in the early stages [Online], https://islamqa.info/en/answers/42321/ruling-on-aborting-a-pregnancy-in-the-early-stages. 7. Vatican, 1968, Humanae Vitae [Online], https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html.
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