Jon Noyes responds to pro-choice advocates who label Christians “anti-abortionists.”
Transcript
I am an anti-abortionist, just like I’m anti-murder, anti-rape, and anti-anything-else-that-harms-an-image-bearer. Call me an anti-abortionist. Fantastic. Then what’s that make you? Normally, the rhetoric is “pro-choice,” “pro-life.” So, if a pro-choice person is going to call me “anti-abortion,” okay, what’s that make them? Pro-abortion! And they do everything they can to avoid this label. “No. I’m not pro-abortion. I’m pro-choice. I think that a woman should have the right to choose, but I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t have an abortion myself.” Well, why not? Because you know it’s wrong. Because you know it does evil. It harms a human being that’s valuable.
Call me “anti-abortion” because that’s what I am. Everybody’s pro-life to a certain extent, just like everybody’s pro-choice to a certain extent. ”Anti-abortion,” “pro-abortion” would at least narrow the focus and get rid of some of the ambiguity.
Our rights stop at the violation of someone else’s rights. We don’t have the right to harm an individual. It all hinges on what is the unborn? That’s the fundamental question that we have to answer, and we have to show through the biblical data and through the scientific data that the unborn are unique human beings that are valuable apart from anything that we want to assign to them from their intrinsic appearance, or what they can feel, or consciousness.
So, I would own the “anti-abortionist” label, and when somebody says that you’re against basic human rights, I’d ask them to defend that position. I’d say, “What exactly is abortion, and how is it a human right?” I’d have them clarify the issue for me because I want them to argue for it. They’re arguing that it’s a fundamental human right to be able to take the life of an innocent human being. What justification do they have? And let’s apply that justification equally across the board. Why are you making the distinction with an unborn baby and not a born child? We don’t have to argue that position. The defenders of abortion have to argue their position. Let’s not shoulder that burden. We sometimes shoulder too much burden of proof. We take on the burden of proof, and I don’t think we have to.