“I’m Pro-Choice and Anti-War.”

Can the Anti-War Position become a Springboard to Help People become Pro-Life?

Steve Wagner

It’s election season.  If you’re like me, you venture into discussions about issues and candidates a bit cautiously, but you’re happy to find people more motivated to discuss abortion than they normally are. 

Have you noticed, though, that discussing abortion quickly evolves into a conversation about war? 

One CNN.com reader named Anuj shared a typical view recently: “I also don't understand how Republicans say every baby has the right to live, and support a war which has killed hundreds of innocent children. I am pro-choice and anti-war.”

Typically, pro-life advocates who are not opposed to the Iraq war focus on showing that they’re not inconsistent: “It’s a just war.  We are saving innocent children.”  Their points may be valid, but their strategy entails two mistakes.  First, these pro-life advocates implicitly agree with the anti-war advocate’s ad hominem argument: “If you are an inconsistent pro-lifer, the pro-life position is false.”  Even if I am inconsistent, though, my argument for the pro-life position can still be true.  Second, they miss a chance to help someone like Anuj change his mind on abortion. 

Avoid both mistakes.  Instead of focusing on yourself, focus on him and help him rethink whether he’s consistent.  Like most people, Anuj cares about consistency.  He thinks people who oppose the killing of innocent children should, by the force of their own logic, oppose war.  What’s curious is this: Anuj is angry about killing children in war, yet he’s pro-choice on killing children in the womb.  Clearly, he doesn’t agree that unborn fetuses and embryos are children.  He hasn’t argued for this.  He’s simply assumed it.

Here’s how I would help Anuj see what’s happened.  I don’t know how many people have lost their lives due to the Iraqi conflict, or how many should be considered innocent, or if any of those deaths were justified killings, or if all of them were unjust.  Just for the sake of argument, I'd grant the worst possible scenario: “Let me simply grant your point that 1.1 million people, most of them innocent, have been killed as a result of the Iraq War in the last five years.  If that’s the case, can we agree it’s a horrific injustice?”  (1.1 million is the highest claimI found on the web.)

I'd continue: “I’m curious.  Over five million American children have been killed by abortion in the last four years.  If we just look at the numbers, isn’t the war in the womb a greater injustice than the war in Iraq?  Why aren’t you outraged?”  Anuj would be quick to respond: I don’t think abortion kills children. 

I granted the worst possible scenario on war, so now it’s time to ask the same courtesy from Anuj.  “I can see then why you are pro-choice and anti-war.  You think abortion doesn’t kill children and war does.  But what if abortion does kill children?”  Anuj might say, “I still think women have a right to choose.”  Fair enough.  But he can no longer simply assume the unborn is not human.  He’ll have to argue for that.

Both of usare left to make their case for or against abortion, for or against war, and for either political candidate based on who has better policies for protecting the rights of human beings.  We’ve leveled the playing field, though, so that we’re not simply assuming the unborn is not human. 

For my part, I’d try to help Anuj rethink his pro-choice view.  First, I'd point out that the innocent children of Iraq differ from us in only four ways: They are smaller, less developed, in a different environment or location, and more dependent than we are.  (We call this the SLED Test.)  We shouldn’t consider them less valuable because of these differences.  We should consider them fully valuable based on the fact that they share a human nature with us.  Notice that I’m making his case for him.  (I’m not necessarily making the case that the war is immoral.  I’m only arguing for one important aspect of the anti-war case, that Iraqi children have equal value to any American adult.)

Then I'd ask, "Do you realize that the unborn is situated exactly as the Iraqi child is?  She differs from us in the same four ways, but shares our human nature.  If it’s wrong to kill an innocent Iraqi child, isn’t it also wrong to kill an unborn American child?  If you are against the war in Iraq, shouldn’t you also be against the war in the womb?"

Perhaps our discussions will simplify our voting decisions.  Perhaps things just get more complicated.  With Supreme Court justice nominations, decisions about embryo research and cloning, genocides around the world, and concerns about killing in war on the table, how you vote in this election really matters.  Helping others think clearly on these issues matters even more, because our conversations can influence how they think for many elections to come.