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The Journal

2012-03 Summit Journal
IN THIS ISSUE: Worldview and Politics
» Cover Story | Politics, Government, and Worldview
» pg. 2 | Letter from the President
» pg. 7 | Summit Spotlight: Randy Hardman and Apologetics
* Economics, Politics, Marxism

2009-01 Summit Journal
Journal - January 2009

2008-11 Summit Journal
Journal - November 2008

Essays

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 4a) (via Equip)
Some bioethicists, such as Baruch Brody, believe that full humanness begins when the brain starts functioning, which can first be detected by the electroencephalogram (EEG) at about 40 to 43 days after conception. (Although Brody has moral problems with abortion on demand prior to brain functioning, this is not because he believes the unborn is fully human.) Brody maintains that in order to decide when something is fully human, "we must first see...what properties are such that their loss would mean the going out of existence (the death) of a human being." He concludes that since at brain death a human being goes out of existence (at least in this mortal realm), the presence of a functioning human brain is the property which makes one fully human. Hence, it would only follow that the start of brain functioning is the beginning of full humanness.

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 4b) (via Equip)
s I noted in Part Three, viability is the time at which the unborn human can live outside her mother's womb. Some have argued that prior to this time, since the unborn cannot survive independent of her mother, she is not a completely independent human life and hence not fully human. Bioethicist Andrew Varga points out a number of problems with the viability criterion. First...

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 4c) (via Equip)
Some ethicists argue that the unborn becomes fully human sometime after brain development has begun, when it becomes sentient: capable of experiencing sensations such as pain. The reason for choosing sentience as the criterion is that a being that cannot experience anything (i.e., a presentient unborn entity) cannot be harmed. Of course, if this position is correct, then the unborn becomes fully human probably...

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 4e) (via Equip)
Those who defend the gradualist thesis, such as Daniel Callahan and Robert Wennberg, argue that the unborn entity increases in value as it develops physically. Unlike the theories critiqued above, in this view there is no one decisive moment at which the unborn entity moves from nonperson to person. For example, the one-celled zygote has less value than the three-month fetus while the three-month fetus has a lesser right-to-life than the eight-month fetus...

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 4d) (via Equip)
Several ethicists, such as Michael Tooley,17 Mary Anne Warren, James Rachels, and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, have put forth criteria that a being must fulfill in order to be considered fully human. For some these criteria apply to any entity, whether before or after birth. In fact, according to Tooley, birth has no bearing on the moral status of the newborn. Those who defend criteria for full humanness make a distinction between "being a human" and "being a person." They argue that although the unborn are part of the species homo sapiens, and in that sense are human, they are not truly persons since they fail to...

Dead Silence (via Equip)
Abortion advocates contend that the Bible is silent on abortion and that none of the biblical passages cited by pro-life advocates actually say the unborn are human. Are we to conclude from this alleged silence that elective abortion is morally permitted? There are good reasons to say no. First, the Bible’s lack of explicit prohibitions against abortion does not mean that it condones the practice; instead, Scripture writers did not believe prohibitions against abortion were necessary because neither the Hebrews of the Old Testament nor the Christians of the New Testament were likely to kill their unborn children. Second, the Bible need not explicitly say elective abortion is wrong before we can know that it’s wrong. The Bible affirms that all humans are valuable because they bear God’s image. Science clearly demonstrates that the unborn are unquestionably human from the earliest stages of development. Biblical commands against the unjust taking of human life, therefore, apply to the unborn as they do other human beings. Third, abortion advocates cannot account for basic human equality. If humans are valuable only because of some acquired property such as self-awareness, then it follows that since this acquired property comes in varying degrees, basic human rights also come in varying degrees. It’s far more reasonable theologically to argue that although humans differ immensely in their respective degrees of development, they are nonetheless equally valuable because they have in common a nature made in the image of God.

The Vanishing Pro-Life Apologist (via Equip)
The past few years have witnessed a stunning development in the pro-life movement. Many pro-life leaders now think we can make abortion rare by downplaying the moral question, “Does abortion take the life of a defenseless human being?” They favor a new strategy that appeals to the self-interests of women rather than moral truth. One leader asserts that an emphasis on unborn babies will only drive women of childbearing age away from the pro-life movement. But this new strategy is dangerous because it leaves the pro-abortion culture largely unchallenged. At the same time, it unilaterally strips the pro-life movement of its most powerful tools of persuasion. If pro-life advocates are to make abortion unthinkable, they must speak frankly about the nature of abortion...

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 3) (via Equip)
Throughout the history of the abortion controversy, many have put forth criteria by which to judge whether a human organism has reached the point in its development at which it is fully human. Some criteria are based on so-called "decisive" moments in fetal development. Others are based on certain conditions any entity — born or unborn — must fulfill in order to be considered "fully human." And others argue that there is no "decisive" moment but that the unborn's rights increase as its body develops. I believe that all these views are flawed. I will argue that the pro-life view that full humanness begins at conception is the most coherent and is more consistent with our basic moral intuitions. In order to defend this position adequately, I will — both in this article and in the final installment of this series — critique a number of decisive moment and gradualist theories, whose defenses contain many objections to the pro-life view.

The Shifting Focus in the Abortion Debate (via Equip)
Pro-lifers in the United States have always assumed that if they could demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the fetus is a human person, then it would be only a matter of time before the courts and legislatures would declare nontherapeutic abortion — the willful destruction of a living fetus — unjustified homicide. Thus the pro-life view would be vindicated and nontherapeutic abortion would once again be illegal. Even pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973), agrees with this assumption: “If the suggestion of personhood [of the unborn] is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth Amendment].” The scholarly and popular literature produced by evangelicals on the issue of abortion seems to make this assumption as well. In 1985, however, evangelical philosopher Robert Wennberg4 defended a moderate pro-choice position employing an argument first presented in 1971 by M.I.T. philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson. Thomson argued that even if the fetus is a human person, abortion — at least in the early months of pregnancy — is still morally justified...

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 2) (via Equip)
In the first installment of this four-part series we examined a number of arguments for abortion rights which can be classified as appeals to pity. In this article I will present and critique more appeals to pity, along with two additional kinds of argument: appeals to tolerance and ad hominem (literally, "against the person"). Of course, not every defender of abortion rights holds to all or any of the arguments presented in this article. But the truth of the matter is that a vast majority do defend at least some of these arguments. For this reason, the following critique should prove helpful to those interested in providing reasoned answers, rather than inflammatory rhetoric, to the arguments put forth by the abortion rights movement...

Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Part 1) (via Equip)
When the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Missouri was within its constitutional rights to enact abortion restrictions (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 1989), it moved the debate from the realm of the federal judiciary into the lap of the legislative process. It is now possible for other states to enact similar and even more restrictive legislation. This, of course, makes a candidate's stance on abortion rights much more important in the electoral process, since his or her view on abortion can now make a practical difference in terms of what laws will be enacted if he or she is elected. And, since our judiciary has become more conservative, it is apparent that the abortion rights movement has the most to lose if the issue returns to the courts. Thus the arguments for abortion rights are being put forth in the political arena with greater vigor and hotter rhetoric than ever before...

Truth & Consequences

Abortion and the Supreme Court
Thirty-four years ago this month something happened to a new term, and a novel idea was ushered into our national consciousness. The novel idea was "reproductive rights" and the occasion was the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade, handed down on January 22, 1973. But does a woman's "reproductive rights" supercede the unborn child's "right to life"? This issue has been the central point of contention for the past thirty-four years. To answer that question, we need to evaluate a key point raised in the original decision...

Fact Sheets

Ethics & Bioethics