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Human Rights  » Mommy, Can I Kill This?

Mommy, Can I Kill This?

Opening Scene Imagine you are doing the dishes in your

kitchen sink, up to your elbows in soap suds and water. Up

behind you comes your five year old son. He asks, "Mommy, can

I kill this?" Immediately, before you even have a chance to

turn around, the first thought that flashes through your head

is, "What the heck is it?!"

If it is an ugly, icky Black Window spider, you will quickly

knock it out of your son's hands and kill it yourself. If it is

the neighbor boy's puppy, the answer is an immediate, "No!

And just what were you thinking, even wondering if you

can kill a puppy?"

We all know that, essentially, whether or not you are permitted

to kill something depends upon just what it is you are

killing. Or do we?

On the issue of abortion, I used to be adamantly and

passionately pro-choice. It was none of my business to tell

a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body. And it sure

as heck wasn't the government's business to get into our private

lives and tell us what to do either.

That was my passionately held view, hence I was pro-choice.

That was, until I began to consider just what it was that

was being killed.

You see, both those who are pro-choice and those who are

pro-life essentially agree on morality. They both passionately

agree that it is evil to kill children.

However, where they differ is on matters of fact, i.e., whether

or not the unborn is actually a child/human being (or at what

point the unborn becomes a child/human being).

I finally moved from being pro-choice to pro-life when I

realized that the issue was not primarily women's rights, or

government intervention, or opposition to fundamentalist,

right-wing religious zealotry, or even a difficult moral issue.

I realized the fundamental issue is, just what is

it? Once you resolve what it (i.e., the unborn) is, all

the rest of the moral and legal questions resolve themselves.

If the unborn is not a human being, then no justification for

abortion is needed.

If the unborn is a human being, then no justification for

abortion is possible.

I have moved from being passionately pro-choice to now being

adamantly pro-life and believe abortion should be outlawed in

all instances, save when the life of the mother truly is in

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jeopardy.

My reasoning boils down to the following syllogism:

Major Premise: It is immoral to intentionally kill an

innocent human being.

Minor Premise: The unborn is an innocent human being.

Conclusion: It is immoral to intentionally kill the

unborn.

Certainly both pro-choice and pro-life people agree with the

major premise, i.e., it is immoral to intentionally kill and

innocent human being. (And, certainly someone who believes it is

not wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being can

hardly complain about someone else forcing morality down their

throat in making abortion illegal.)

The primary issue comes down to the minor premise, i.e., whether

or not the unborn is an innocent human being.

I will address the minor premise in the next installment of

Mommy Can I Kill This?

About the author:

Jarrod J. Williamson earned his doctorate in chemical

engineering from UCLA and now works in the So. Cal. public

school system. He can be emailed at: bakupulu@hotmail.com. His

personal blog, Asphalt Adventist, is at http://www.AsphaltAdventist.blogspot.com