By: Jojo Ruba, Chief Ambassador

Last month, Canadians marked the grim anniversary of our Supreme Court striking down any legal protections for pre-born children. In doing so, it made Canada one of a handful of countries with no formal legal protection for children in the womb. For 34 years, children can be killed at any time during pregnancy for any or no reason at all. Worse, Canadians fund these deaths when their taxes pay for legal abortion, now at about 100 000 each year.

No wonder, our Canadian political elites insist that the abortion debate is over. Before becoming Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced that all his MPs would have to vote for legal abortion in order to run for the Liberals. As government, not only do they force Canadians to pay for abortions in Canada but for abortion overseas through non-profit pro-abortion advocacy groups. Months from now, the federal government may prevent any pro-life counseling groups such as pregnancy centers, to receive charitable donations. They want to make it clear that they are so pro-choice about abortion, all other choices will not be as supported equally.

But despite calls to censor it, Canadians are still engaging in the abortion debate. Pro-life organizations have been working behind the scenes (and increasingly in front) despite the censorship of mainstream Canadian media. Just a few weeks ago, the Conservatives toppled their “pro-choice” leader who seemed hostile to our views with the help of the pro-life movement. Shockingly, on a CBC news panel about the removal of the leader, one reporter even suggested that Canada’s lack of Canadian law was not supported by the majority of Canadians – something unheard of on a panel that has explicitly attacked pro-lifers. Polling shows that most Canadians support fetal protections at least for older children in utero.[1]

One way abortion advocates have tried to dismiss pro-life arguments is to associate them with religious views. Canadians today tend to disregard any religious arguments on social issues. Whether same-sex marriage, pot use or legalized prostitution, advocates for more liberal laws, dismiss religious opposition as archaic and an attempt to force a religion on society. One must not legislate what they deem are personal preferences on others. These liberal activists also want to dismiss the pro-life view this way. Read any on-line commentary on abortion or listen to any call-in shows and you’ll hear a variation of comments like this from “Kristy” (note: spelling mistakes are hers)

“I contend that those in the relgious corner are not educated on the matter and are spouting non-sensical religious beliefs like they're fact. Let's get this straight, religiion does not equal fact, it equals faith. When it comes to medical science and the laws of our country, let's stick to facts.”[2]

“Vliegende Hollander” commenting on a similar Globe and Mail story goes further: “Careful. Sharia law and stoning of women that ave (sic) an abortion can not (sic) be far away. Typical for neo Nazis…”[3] Not only then are pro-lifers ignorant for “imposing” their religious views, they are downright evil for advocating for them.

This religious fear-mongering is commonplace in abortion advocacy. Consider Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, the leading abortion advocacy group in Canada. She writes, “These claims that embryos are persons with rights, and that women should be forced to have babies, are both based on narrow, sectarian religious beliefs. The anti-choice movement consists almost entirely of fundamentalist Protestant Christians or devout Roman Catholics who follow the Pope. These people wish to impose their private religious beliefs about abortion on the rest of us by law. By doing so, they deny and violate everyone's freedom of religion.”[4]

But unlike those other issues, the abortion debate cannot so easily be dismissed as religious, personal preferences. You can make a robust and rational case against the liberal views of those other issues as well, of course. However, the pro-life argument can make moral claims that are clearly accessible to anyone, regardless of their religious views.

Pro-lifers’ argument against abortion consists of two essential observations: First, we argue that abortion kills a new human being. Secondly, we believe that it is morally wrong to kill innocent human beings, a moral idea that is universally accepted. Because both are true, we conclude, abortion is wrong.

Articulating these two elements of our argument shows why abortion advocates are confused. Our first observation, that abortion kills a human being, is a scientific not a moral or religious claim. It simply is an observation that every organism that reproduces sexually begins its existence when the male gamete, the sperm, fuses with the female gamete, the egg. When fertilization takes place, a brand new member of the species is created that is biologically distinct from either parent. This is also true of human beings. Biology then, not the Bible, tells us that a new human being begins its life at fertilization and that abortion kills that human being.

Abortion advocates can’t dismiss this as a religious or subjective claim. If they disagree, they need to show why these biological truths are factually wrong using better observations. As self-appointed experts on sexual rights however, abortion advocates still seem to be having problems with this science.[5]

It is the second element of the pro-life argument that delves into religion. When pro-lifers say the human child killed by abortion has equal worth to a born child, that isn’t a scientific argument that is a moral argument. No experiment or biology textbook can prove this claim or any moral claim. Instead the only way to argue for a moral position, that there is right and wrong behaviour, is through foundational worldviews, often informed by religion. Interestingly, most religious faiths do oppose abortion based on the idea that the pre-born child has inherent value.

But religion is not the same as morality. Religion is a practice of faith, morals are a statement of right and wrong. Pro-lifers aren’t seeking to indoctrinate Canadians to a religion, through the law. Even if we were, we wouldn’t be able to agree amongst ourselves which religion to impose! Rather, we want the law to adhere to a moral truth that everyone should live by. Why? Because the law already imposes moral ideas, including the one we want imposed, that human life has inherent value. We simply want the law to protect all human beings.

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Abortion advocates cannot dismiss this second part of our arguments just because it is a moral argument. Why? Because the only way to argue against our position is by using moral arguments too! The pro-choice view also places a moral value on fetuses – that they are not as valuable as their mothers – which they seek to impose on Canadians. For example, when Justin Trudeau insists that all his MPs should vote pro-choice, he isn’t taking a neutral stand – he is imposing his view on Canadians that the fetus is unworthy of legal protection.

In an attempt to dismiss the value of the fetus, Joyce Arthur writes that, “Regardless of whether a fetus is a human being or has rights, women will have abortions anyway, even if it means breaking the law or risking their lives. Even women who believe that abortion is murder have chosen to get abortions, and will continue to do so. That's why we should leave the decision up to women’s moral conscience, and make sure that they are provided with safe, legal, accessible abortions.”[6] But in that statement alone, she’s made moral arguments that can’t be proven by science! For example, science cannot show us why we should respect human consciences; it cannot tell us a mother’s life is worth more than a fetus’ life and it definitely cannot tell us that we “should leave the decision” of abortion to a pregnant woman. Rather than debating if we should impose morals on others then, shouldn’t we debate which morals we should impose? This is why the pro-life view cannot just be dismissed as “religious” because those advocating for legal abortion are relying on arguments that would qualify as “religious” based on their false definition of morality.

Remember, science can’t prove that born human beings have any value either. Biology cannot tell us that it is wrong to discriminate against people based on ability, skin colour, sexual orientation or class. This is why it is just as “religious” to say that it is wrong to kill pre-born children as it is to say that it is wrong to kill born children. The only difference is that no one dismisses arguments against killing born children because it is “religious.” In fact, we take for granted that human rights are based on something other than scientific understanding. This is why abortion advocates don’t rely on science to argue that women should be treated with the same dignity as men or that women should have the right to control their own bodies. Instead, Arthur and other abortion advocates rely on the idea that there are fundamental rights that are not physical things measured by science but intangible rules about how we ought to behave. This by the way is another way to describe objective morality. In other words, when abortion advocates dismiss the pro-life argument for being “religious”, they would have to do the same to their own arguments about women’s rights.

Abortion advocates, in fact, can’t even argue that it is wrong for pro-lifers to “force” their religious or moral views on others without relying on their own moral arguments that they “force” on Canadians. Veteran abortion advocate, Katherine McDonald, argues that, “Clearly, for women, the imposition of these ‘moral values’ constitutes the violation of women’s right to life, right to health and the right to reproductive self-determination, among other rights violations.”[7] But McDonald’s argument assumes that it is wrong to impose one’s views on other people. Yet this view is her moral view that she seeks to impose on others by telling them not to interfere with access to abortion. Moreover, this view is a religious view held by pro-choice denominations, such as the United Church of Canada.[8]

Now some abortion advocates are willing to concede that pre-born children are biologically human but not morally valuable. Ethicist Peter Singer argues that they should be valued when they reach a certain level of development, which is at a month after birth. But even here, Singer doesn’t rely on science. Science can tell him when a human being develops certain traits but it cannot tell him that these traits have inherent value. The danger of this logic is that it means human rights no longer apply to humans but to abilities and whether those abilities are valuable to other humans, like our parents. When abortion advocates dismiss our arguments because they are based on personal morality, they actually undermine the idea of universal human rights.

In this debate then, pro-lifers can’t let abortion advocates get away with dismissing our arguments because they are “religious.” Religion is not the same as morals. Worse for them, pro-choicers also seek to impose their morals through the law. Unlike other issues attacked by liberal-minded activists, pro-lifers can also tangibly show that we aren’t simply espousing personal “religious preferences” – we are trying to stop the killing of children, a universal wrong. When abortion advocates complain that we want to impose our moral view on others, we can simply point out that the law already imposes the moral view that we are advocating for: the simple pro-life argument that human beings have human rights simply because they are human beings.

[1] https://weneedalaw.ca/2020/06/canadian-opinions-on-abortion/

[2] http://www.therecord.com/opinion/columns/article/649778--proposed-abortion-debate-is-unnecessary-and-unwanted

[3]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/mps-have-duty-to-debate-rights-of-unborn-backbench-tory-argues/article2299369/comments/

[4] http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/prochoicepress/01autumn.shtml

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpssl_ZfPCM

[6] http://www.abortionaccess.info/fetusperson.htm

[7] Human rights trump ‘moral values’, Katherine McDonald, Action Canada for Population Development.

[8] http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/policies/1990/a111