In response the Dobbs v. Jackson, the upcoming Supreme Court case challenging Roe v. Wade, Dr. Jon Shields of Claremont McKenna is arguing that the case should serve as a catalyst for the pro-life movement to compromise with the abortion movement. Pointing to research that shows a large number of abortionists dislike and even refuse to practice late second-trimester and third trimester abortions when an unborn child “becomes more recognizably human,” along with the fact that most Americans support restrictions on later abortions, Shields argues that pro-lifers and abortion proponents should reach a compromise. “Since pro-choice and pro-life philosophers respect the reasonableness of their intellectual foes, perhaps they, too, have rational grounds to accept a liberal compromise on abortion,” he concludes.
What Shields fails to grasp is that there is no room for a “compromise” in which pro-lifers are expected to be fine with baby-killing. This is not a question of “reasonableness.” Abortion, at any stage, is radical by its very nature because abortion takes an innocent human life—there is nothing “reasonable” about advocating for or accepting this practice.
The compromise that Shields proposes could be described as the Abortion Doctor Compromise — as Shields relates, most abortion doctors positively refuse to perform late-term abortions because they personally find them horrific, but will end the lives of 12-week-old babies all day every day. So in Shields’s compromise, the slightly less radical wing of the abortion lobby will accept restrictions on the forms of abortion that they already find too horrific to practice and defend while asking that pro-lifers accept these restrictions and absolutely nothing more. Those advocating for this so-called “compromise” would not change their position at all, they would simply demand that pro-lifers accept their terms. Doesn’t sound like much of a compromise.
Furthermore, pro-lifers cannot compromise on abortion. Abortion ends a human life and because of that, there is no point in an unborn child’s development where abortion is acceptable. Science has shown that life begins at conception. Because of that, the right to life also begins at conception. A “compromise” in which only some babies are allowed to be killed is not acceptable. This does not mean that pro-lifers cannot support life-saving laws that do not end all abortions—to the contrary, we should work to save as many lives as possible until we have made abortion illegal and unthinkable. But we cannot accept a compromise in which babies are still murdered in the womb on a daily basis and then stop fighting.
The suggestion that abortion is acceptable because embryos don’t look like adult humans is absurd. Humans are something more than animals, and as such, we understand potentiality. An embryo may not look like a fully developed adult human, but appearance is not what makes us human. A toddler does not look the same as a fully developed adult either, but this does not make a toddler any less human. If appearance was the ultimate factor deciding whether or not we are human, then our humanity would be something that could be lost. Rather, our humanity is innate from the moment of our conception. Humans beget humans, not any other life form, thus the life that results when an egg and sperm meet is a human life — a person with the same rights and dignity as any other person.
A life is a life, and from the moment of conception until natural death each human life ought to be recognized and treated as priceless. By arguing that a “compromise” can be reached with the abortion movement, Shields demonstrates that he does not understand the inherently radical nature of abortion and its attack on human life. At the same time, his article does highlight an important reality — the abortion movement is fracturing. On the one hand are the activists are pushing for abortion on demand up until birth, and on the other hand are a growing number of abortionists who are unwilling to defend or perform late-term abortions. The fact that abortion activists are seeing the horror of abortion is a hopeful sign, and it is worth remembering that the majority of Americans do not support the radical abortion agenda being advanced by the far left.
We cannot and will not accept a compromise that leaves unborn babies to be killed in the womb and we must continue to fight for their right to life until abortion is illegal and unthinkable. The fact that the majority of Americans support significant restrictions on abortion and that even abortionists recognize that abortion is horrific presents an opportunity for the pro-life movement as we continue to help people see the wonder of human life from the moment of conception and work to build a culture where all life is treated as priceless.
(Image: Flickr, Jordan Uhl, CC BY 2.0)
