{"id":73838,"date":"2015-09-19T13:05:04","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T17:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=73838"},"modified":"2015-09-18T00:15:21","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T04:15:21","slug":"back-to-the-basics-what-does-abortion-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/back-to-the-basics-what-does-abortion-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the basics: What does abortion do?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Every once in a while when you\u2019re looking into an issue that seems complex, it\u2019s good to take a step back and look at the big picture.\u00a0 It brings clarity.\u00a0 Getting lost in the details, forgetting the thrust of the debate, and losing the purpose of a discussion are the dangers of becoming too fixated on one aspect of a story.<\/p>\n

The recent Planned Parenthood videos give us an excellent opportunity to take a step back from the crossfire and look at abortion from a broad perspective.\u00a0 What does abortion do?<\/p>\n

The basics of abortion are very simple, but it\u2019s inexcusable and harmful to forget the facts.\u00a0 It can be handy when someone describes the key components of a thing.<\/p>\n

It is so straightforward it may even sound comical, but the beginning facts preceding an abortion are these: when a man and woman come together, they make a living human baby.\u00a0 This is true of every normal pregnancy, and it\u2019s inescapable.<\/p>\n

You can draw several key facts from that beginning.\u00a0 The baby is living, is human, and is in the right environment to grow up healthy.\u00a0 These are not debate points, but an explanation of the way it is.\u00a0 This is not new, but like many truths, the important thing is remembering it.<\/p>\n

The baby is living, otherwise there\u2019d be no demand for the abortion.\u00a0 Nobody chooses to argue against this because it\u2019s obviously utterly true.\u00a0 If you need help seeing life, look at the fact that the baby is growing and developing (two more basic facts).\u00a0 It\u2019s much more common to see people avoid the next part of the truth.<\/p>\n

The baby is human.\u00a0 What else can two humans make?\u00a0 This is the only option.\u00a0 The resulting baby is always human, never something else.\u00a0 Dad is never hoping for a puppy.\u00a0 Pregnancy is exciting for new couples, but not THAT exciting.\u00a0 If it\u2019s not a human in there, you\u2019ve got bigger problems.\u00a0 Before you start thinking about your peers\u2019 lessons on identity, personhood, and the many varieties of human expression,* notice that humanity is the prerequisite for any of those.\u00a0 Biologically, every human infant is human.\u00a0 Given time, the baby will grow to be your age.\u00a0 The only difference between you and the baby is time.<\/p>\n

Those two facts together mean that every pregnancy involves a very young living human, and every abortion kills one.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way to honestly claim a baby is merely a clump of cells.\u00a0 Next time you see a post about the Planned Parenthood mess, remember the basics.\u00a0 Regardless of any choice the parent makes, the baby inside is both human and alive, like the rest of us.<\/p>\n

*Also, think about whether any of those really even matter or exist in the way you think they do.\u00a0 I\u2019m inclined to hesitate before suggesting that our generation has singlehandedly discovered categories that bestow rights nobody else ever knew about.\u00a0 Perhaps \u201cinvented\u201d is a better term than \u201cdiscovered.\u201d\u00a0 This is worth mentioning because newly claimed rights are part of the reason it has become so easy for some parents to justify killing their baby.<\/p>\n

Ben Kauffman is a Michigan resident and Hillsdale College alumnus.\u00a0 His four years at Hillsdale helped foster his interest in the pro-life cause, but he is most of all thankful to his parents for their care and thoughtfulness in teaching him.\u00a0 He led two buses packed with Hillsdale students to the March for Life in 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while when you\u2019re looking into an issue that seems complex, it\u2019s good to take a step back and look at the big picture.\u00a0 It brings clarity.\u00a0 Getting lost in the details, forgetting the thrust of the debate, and losing the purpose of a discussion are the dangers of becoming too fixated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[5231,1106,14,298],"yoast_head":"\nBack to the basics: What does abortion do?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The recent Planned Parenthood videos give us an excellent opportunity to take a step back from the crossfire and look at abortion from a broad perspective.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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