The latest actions of our new president, funding embryonic stem cell research, has brought new attention to the fight over abortion. In the discussion, the amount of smoke blown by those supporting the unrestricted killing of children is amazing. Some will charge that how I framed that last is meant to inflame, but it is the sort of attack used regularly against the pro-life movement.

In the last two days, I have heard two accusations that are common in defense of abortion and they are examples of errors in logic, but very powerful rhetorical tools. With political discourse rhetoric is often more important than logic. Jay Heinricks, in his book Thank You For Arguing, defines rhetoric as the art of persuasion and shows that many forms of persuasion are logical fallacies, but still quite effective. One such tool is the ad hominem attack. Logically, the character of the one testifying does not effect the truthfulness of a statement, but since we can not always discern the truth easily, we must take many things into account, including the character of the witness or opposition. To undermine this the ad hominem is used.

An example of this attack, often used against supporters of the rights of the unborn, is the charge that we fight for the unborn but don’t care about homeless or unwanted children. In other words, we fight to keep the mother from ending an unwanted pregnancy, then leave the poor mother and child to their own devices. While this produces powerful imagery and emotions it is far from true. Those who fight for the rights of the unborn also support Crisis Pregnancy Centers and have historically given far more to shelters and services to support these people and to help them. I personally know of several people who have taken young girls into their homes to make sure the child gets a chance to start life off right. Even with all of this aside, this does not change the issue and is easily seen as obfuscation. Abortion is the unjust use of force against one human being for the convenience of one and the profit of another. There is nothing admirable about this. The embryo is human and is alive, therefore it has the rights of the rest of humanity. To allow abortion is to permit the creation of a class of lesser humans without rights and without protection.

Another smokescreen thrown up by the pro-abort is the charge that those of us in opposition are being hypocritical when we support capital punishment or military action. This moral equivalence is a dishonest effort to turn the argument. When someone is given the death penalty they are tried and found guilty of a heinous crime. They are given scores of appeals and their case will work its way through the courts for years. Prior to carrying out the sentence the defendant will have chance after chance to convince a judge that in his case the sentence is not appropriate. With the exception of a few states the condemned will still never see the inside of a death chamber, but even if they do make their appointment with the needle they are not equivalent to the aborted child, who is murdered out of convenience. The death of the condemned is an act of the state in its complementary roles of protector and punisher. The death of the child in the abortuary is an act of a misogynistic industry taking advantage of a woman in need of help.