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S i d e b a r
Massive Violation of Human Rights
By Chris Butler
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This Rock
Volume 12, Number 2
 February 2001 
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I think the following excerpts comprise powerful arguments for the pro-life position. They are taken from "Questions for ‘Pro-Choice’ People," a speech by Michael Pakaluk sponsored by the Augustine Club at Columbia University on February 1, 1995.
I assume that you think that we human beings have human rights. Your position, in fact, is that among the rights a human being has is the right to control one’s reproduction. Well, at what point do you think that a human being, with human rights, comes into existence? Is it at birth, or earlier?
I could ask the question more concretely of you yourself: You have human rights—did you acquire them only when you were born? Surely you must have had them earlier, since premature babies are human beings with human rights, and the only difference between, say, a baby who is born prematurely by two weeks, and one who is still in the womb two weeks before term is that the one is inside its mother, and the other is not; and the one that is inside, if taken out, will live just as much as the one born prematurely.
Then is it at what is called "viability" that you acquired human rights, i.e., when you were capable of remaining alive, if you were taken out of your mother? Or do you think it happened when your brain waves were first detectable (at about six weeks after conception)?
For the moment, I’ll put aside the obvious objections to these criteria; for the question I really wish to pursue is the following. Whatever answer you give—viability, brain waves, whatever—why don’t you oppose abortion after this time? I don’t mean simply why don’t you refrain from seeking an abortion for yourself, or for a friend, after that time. I mean, rather, why do you do nothing to stop those human beings with human rights—as you have conceded—from being killed? It is your view that, after viability, say, the fetus is a human being with human rights, equal in dignity and importance to you and me. There are 150,000 abortions in this country each year after viability. This is, on your account, a massive violation of human rights. . . .
Suppose a woman who wanted an abortion were first to observe her unborn child through ultrasound technology. In such images, the hands and feet of the child are typically discernible, and, even within the first trimester, it is common to see the unborn child sucking his or her thumb. I ask the "pro-choice" person: Why aren’t such images shown to women, as part of informed consent preceding abortion?
You might respond that the images are not relevant, but how do you know whether they are relevant to the woman or not? I think, rather, your view is that such images are too relevant, that very few women who saw them would choose to have an abortion. If this is your view, it is in fact confirmed by experimental data: Studies have shown that a kind of rudimentary mother-infant bonding takes place when pregnant women are shown ultrasound pictures and listen to their unborn child’s heartbeat. . . . Now, would you oppose a law requiring that a pregnant woman. . . . be given the option of seeing [ultrasound images of her baby before getting an abortion]?
If you oppose such laws, then how are you "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion"? . . .
And why isn’t your position manipulative and deceitful? In general it is deceitful to withhold information from someone if you know that, if you released it, the other person would act very differently. For example, if I am a physician and I know that a certain operation has some chance of causing paralysis, and I know that my patient may very well not agree to have the operation, if I don’t tell him, then I have deceived and manipulated him. And this seems to be how "pro-choice" people act who are opposed to informed consent. . . .
Abortion is thought to be justifiable before viability, because up to that time the fetus is completely dependent upon the mother. But why should someone’s being completely dependent upon another imply that he or she can be killed? Suppose a mother and her newborn baby are stranded on a desert island. The baby is completely dependent upon her. How does it follow that the mother has a right to kill the baby?
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