Examining Rights: Abortion, Autonomy, and Ethical Implications

The first is sometimes I'm not sure what people are meaning when they use the word 'right' in that proposition. We know that again there's another fallacy of logic that is one of the most frequently committed fallacies there is, which is called the 'fallacy of equivocation.' And basically what happens in the fallacy of equivocation is that in the course of the discussion or of the argument, sometimes very subtly the meaning of a word changes. [00:04:09]

We tend to use the term 'right' when we talk about rights in two distinct ways. We may and must distinguish between legal rights that is, those actions or activities that are protected by and sanctioned by the government. But we also speak about moral or ethical rights. And I think we'll agree that it has happened in many governments, if not all governments in the history of the world, that governments will make mistakes ethically with respect to what they sanction at a given time. [00:04:54]

Now, if someone is arguing that we ought not to change the law on abortion because every woman has the right, that is, the legal right to her own body. And then I would say, "Well, where do you get the legal right to your own body?" They say "Well, from Roe v. Wade." Now, do you see the circularity of using the argument in that way? Right now, presently, the woman does have the right to her own body with respect to her unborn children and so we're saying therefore she should continue to have the right because she already has the right. [00:07:00]

I think what people mean (although I don't have an opportunity to question everyone who makes this argument) that every woman has a right to her own body -- I think what they mean by that is that every single woman in the world has the moral and ethical right to her own body. In other words, I think people are arguing ethically here not legally. They're arguing for a legal position from an ethical basis. [00:08:39]

If I know anything about the character of God, I know that God hates abortion, and nothing is more foreign to His character than to maintain that God Almighty grants an inalienable right to any woman to have an abortion. That is not true. I'm not saying that people are saying God gives them the right. They're not telling me where they're getting the right, but I know they're not getting it from God. [00:12:27]

Is a woman's right to her own body, and this is the crucial point, is it an absolute right? Is it an unlimited right? Or are there other principles and rights that impose limits and restraints upon whatever right we have to our own bodies? From a biblical theological society, we know for example that in Old Testament Israel in the legislation that God gave to his people he prohibited self-mutilation of the human body of both male and female. [00:15:05]

The debate is: "Is the unborn child, technically speaking, really a part of the mother's body?" Now, it's obvious, isn't it, that in a normal pregnancy the unborn child is in the mother's body? So, here we have a woman who has something going on inside of her. Now, there's no dispute that that embryo, fetus, whatever you want to call it, that baby that is developing in there is the inside of that woman's body. [00:18:33]

If you take a tissue sample from an unborn child and examine its genetic structure, it's genetic fingerprint will not match the fingerprint of the mother because it carries the genetic code both of the mother and of the father and what is growing in there, from a biomedical perspective, is not part of the woman's body. So I don't want to labor this point any longer but to simply say that every woman has a right to her own body therefore she has the right to destroy the developing baby within her involves some very, very serious questions. [00:20:37]

Now, one wonders how in the space of two decades -- public opinion -- which of course does not determine the issue, but how public opinion has changed so radically in such a short period of time. Two things I think explain that in the main, the first is of course it was legalized and many people in our nation take their cue in determining what is right by looking and seeing what is legal. If the government says it's OK, it must be OK, and so then you have a whole shift in people's perception of what is permissible and what is not permissible. [00:23:36]

The principal being is everybody ought to have a right to express and exercise their own choice in the matter. Those who don't want to have abortion don't have to have them. Those who do, it's up to them. And how many times we hear people say, "I would never have an abortion but I will defend the right of another person to have it." But remember, ladies and gentlemen, what we're talking about here that if -- if -- I'm convinced it is, but if abortion is murder that is like saying I personally wouldn't want to murder anybody, but I'll defend your personal liberty to do it if you like. [00:25:30]

But to protect human life against unjust destruction does not invade personal privacy other than to save persons and that's what the discussion is about. I never have the right by my personal privacy to kill you or you or you or any living, human person. [00:29:32]

But, ladies and gentlemen, I don't have the right to steal as long as I do it in privacy, nor do I have the right to murder if I do it in privacy. Now, what people are afraid of is that if we begin to regulate by Federal Law, abortions and so on, this come so close to our sexual behavior that we have this fear of a slippery slide that this means that the government is going to come in to our bedroom and invade our privacy in our most intimate personal relationships. [00:28:57]