“A person’s a person no matter how small.” - Dr. Suess
• Remember the core question: Is the occupant of the womb a living human being? Abortion is not about choice, it’s not about privacy, it’s not about healthcare. Abortion is about aborting life.
// Premise 1: t is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
// Premise 2: Abortion kills a living human being.
// Conclusion: Therefore, abortion is wrong.
• Person A: “That’s not a human person in the womb.” Person B: “If it’s not a person, what is it?” Person A: “It’s tissue or a clump of cells.”
• To answer these common objections, Scott Klusendorf developed an acronym known as SLED.
• Today we want to work through this acronym so we can answer these objections.
Size
• Objection: “The occupant of the womb is not a human person. It’s just a fetus, tissue or clump of cells.”
• Response: It’s true that embryos are smaller than newborns or adults, but why is that relevant? Do we really want to say that larger people are more human than small ones? Shaquille O’Neal is 7’1”. Is he more human than you are because he is larger?
• Key Point: Size doesn’t equal value.
Level of Development
• Objection: “A clump of cells is not a person.”
• Response: When does that clump of cells become an individual person? The science of embryology would say that from the moment of conception, you were a unique human individual. The development of a living human being begins at fertilization, where one cell becomes two and two becomes four. The DNA of each of those cells is unique from the mother or the father.
• It is true that embryos and fetuses are less developed than the adults they’ll one day become. But again, why is that relevant? Four year old girls are less developed than 14 year old girls. Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings?
• Some say that because the unborn baby is not mature in their thought, lacking in self-awareness, then they are not a person. Does self-awareness make one a human? If so, then what is the difference in value between an unborn baby and a six month old? According to that logic it is okay to kill a newborn.
• Six-week old infants lack the immediate capacity for performing human mental functions, as do those in comas, those who are asleep, and those with Alzheimer’s. Are they not humans anymore?
Environment
• Objection: The fetus is not a person because they are in their mother’s womb.
• Question: What is magical about the 3-6 inch journey down the birth canal that imparts personhood?
• Key Point: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed? Are people less human because they live in another country?
• If the unborn are not already human, merely changing their location can’t make them valuable and worthy of protection.
Degree of Dependency
• Objection: An unborn baby does not have a right to life more than a woman has the right to do what she wants to with her body and not be pregnant.
• Response: In Roe v. Wade, the justices arguing for the majority opinion brought in the question of viability to justify abortion. An unborn baby cannot live on their own apart from the mother, therefore they are not truly a person worthy of protection.
• Question: Are we not human beings if we are dependent on others to help us live? Once again, this logic means that the six-week old that cannot survive on its own is not a person either. Additionally, are people who are dependent on medications such as insulin or kidney medication not fully human either?