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Bioethics: Conception and Birth

 

Introduction

 

The following resources examine common arguments made from the political Left about abortion policy.

 

Messages and Resources on the Bioethics of Conception and Birth

 

Today’s Christian pro-life movement has misplaced its priorities. The issue of abortion is more complex than the movement often appreciates. For a start, Scripture is less clear about the moral weight of the fetus than we often think. In fact, early Christians took different positions on abortion because they also relied on different scientific sources about the unborn. Furthermore, Christian conservatives today do not acknowledge that in American history, as today, Christian stances on abortion were motivated by other political fears: White Protestant Americans developed different state laws on abortion to accomplish anti-immigrant goals in the North, but anti-black racism in the South. That messiness impacts U.S. constitutional law, including Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, Scripture commissions God’s people to confront socio-economic factors that push abortion rates higher: male privilege and the disempowerment of women; the high cost of childraising; the causes of birth defects; the desire to care narrowly for just “my children”; mistaken views about contraception and the “culture wars”; and most of all, poverty. The Study and Action Guide to Abortion Policy distills Mako’s book down to three sessions, with some readings and videos.

 

Abortion Policy and Christian Social Ethics in the United States.

Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2021. See Facebook author page for discussion.

 
 
 

Other Resources on Christian Approaches to the Bioethics of Conception and Birth

 
 
 

Other Resources on Conception and Birth

 

Thomas A. Long, Infanticide for Handicapped Infants: Sometimes It's a Metaphysical Debate (Journal of Medical Ethics, 1988)

George McKenna, On Abortion: A Lincolnian Position (The Atlantic, Sep 1995)

Katha Pollitt, Abortion in American History (The Atlantic, May 1997)

Mark A. Graber, Rethinking Abortion: Equal Choice, the Constitution, and Reproductive Politics (Princeton University Press, 1999) see also reviews on Amazon. Graber makes an outstanding contribution by also asking about the implementation of the law in this case.

Grzegorz Gorn, Abortionist Turned Pro-Life Apostle: The True Story of Stojan Adasevic (Love One Another magazine, Jan 2004)

Colin Fernandez, Hundreds of Unfaithful Women Having Paternity Tests on Unborn Babies to Determine Whether to Have Abortions (Jan 26, 2009)

John Simerman, DNA Evidence from Aborted Fetus is Key to Aggravated Rape Conviction in New Orleans (Times-Picayune, Aug 11, 2011)

Steven Ertelt, Police Obtain DNA From Planned Parenthood in Abortion-Rape Case (LifeNews, Sep 23, 2011)

Alberto Giubilini, Francesco Minerva, After-Birth Abortions: Why Should the Baby Live? (Journal of Medical Ethics, Jan 2012)

Michael Brendan Dougherty and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, Time to Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right on Birth Control (Business Insider, Feb 8, 2012)

Ross Douthat, What Reduces Abortion Rates (The New York Times, Feb 21, 2012)

Stephen Adams, Killing Babies No Different From Abortion, Experts Say (Telegraph UK, Feb 29, 2012)

Gary Kowalski, The Founding Fathers and Abortion in Colonial America (Revolutionary Spirits blog, Apr 6, 2012) also posted here, see comments

Jennifer Steinhauer, House Rejects Bill to Ban Sex-Selective Abortions (The New York Times, May 31, 2012)

Andrew Pollack, Before Birth, Dad's ID (The New York Times, Jun 19, 2012)

Lucina Suarez et.al., Neural Tube Defects on the Texas-Mexico Border: What We've Learned in the 20 Years Since the Brownsville Cluster. Clinical and Molecular Teratology, Sep 3, 2012. A study of the unusually high incidences of a specific fetal anomaly: anencephaly. This condition raises the question of whether God ensouls the fetus without a brain or functional nervous system. It raises the question of relational personhood acutely: If a pregnant mother is missing key nutrition, in this case folic acid, how might the fetus be impacted?

Harry Alsop, US Surrogate Mother Crystal Kelly Flees After Baby's Parents Order Her to Abort Foetus (Telegraph UK, Mar 5, 2013)

John Eligon and Eric Eckholm, New Laws Ban Most Abortions in North Dakota (The New York Times, Mar 26, 2013)

Conor Friedersdorf, Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Front Page Story (The Atlantic, Apr 12, 2013)

Live Action Films, Inhuman: Undercover in America's Late-Term Abortion Industry (youtube video, May 2, 2013)

David Brooks, Beyond the Brain (The New York Times, Jun 17, 2013)

Ranana Dine, Scarlet Letters: Getting the History of Abortion and Contraception Right (American Progress, Aug 8, 2013)

P.J. Saunders, Eight Facts Most People Don't Know About the Physical and Psychological Consequences of Abortion to Women (blog entry, Aug 26, 2013)

Ben Johnson, Jury Awards Couple $50 Million in ‘Wrongful Birth’ Lawsuit (Life Site News, Dec 16, 2013)

Allie Jones, Inside The World Of Anti-Abortion Activists Who Were Conceived In Rape And Incest (Business Insider, Jan 23, 2014)

Mollie Hemingway, The Washington Post Is Super Confused About Where Babies Come From (The Federalist, May 19, 2014)

Kevin Hargaden, On Dawkins, Down Syndrome, and Doing Human Life (blog, Aug 22, 2014)

Jenn Selby, Richard Dawkins on Babies with Down Syndrome: 'Abort It and Try Again – It Would Be Immoral to Bring It Into the World' (The Independent, Aug 24, 2014)

Katherine Dykstra, My Child is Here, But My Body is Still Not My Own (Washington Post, Oct 27, 2014)

Sarah Zagorski, Doctors Euthanize 650 Babies Under Assisted Suicide Law in the Netherlands (LifeNews Jan 2, 2015)

Becky Yeh, 7 Shocking Quotes by Planned Parenthood's Founder (Live Action News, Feb 21, 2015) and Black Genocide website

Marcie Bianco, The Dark History of Birth Control That You Haven't Heard (Mic, Mar 18, 2015)

Carolyn Gregoire, Surprising Study Finds That Babies Feel Pain Like Adults (Huffington Post, Apr 23, 2015)

Bob Smietana, Abortion Video Leads to Claims of Modern Day Grave Robbing: Planned Parenthood Exec Discusses Prices of Fetal Tissue Over Lunch (Christianity Today, Jul 15, 2015)

Ed Stetzer, Planned Parenthood, Selling Body Parts, and Appropriate Outrage (Christianity Today, Jul 15, 2015)

Mollie Hemingway, The Bad, Worse, & Ugly: Media Coverage of Planned Parenthood’s Organ Harvesting Scandal (Federalist Papers, Jul 16, 2015)

Sarah H. Bessey, A Voice for the Voiceless (blog, Jul 22, 2015) about abortion

Kristen Powers, Crush Planned Parenthood (USA Today, Jul 22, 2015)

Jim Wallis, Sandra Villareal, How We Talk About Life - and Death: Planned Parenthood Videos Reveal Our Collective Brokenness (Sojourners, Jul 23, 2015)

Kate Scanlon, We Asked Companies About Their Donations to Planned Parenthood. Here’s How They Responded. (The Daily Signal, Jul 23, 2015)

Ross Douthat, Looking Away from Abortion (The New York Times, Jul 25, 2015) "an institution at the heart of respectable liberal society...deserves to be called barbarism"

Tamar Lewin, Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion if Down Syndrome Is Reason (The New York Times, Aug 22, 2015)

Amy Dockser Marcus, Down Syndrome Blood Test Sparks Abortion Debate (WSJ, Sep 21, 2015)

Chris Langer, Is This Smart Drug The Most Powerful Brain Enhancer in the World? (NBC News, Sep 22, 2015)

Michael Specter, The Gene Hackers (New Yorker, Nov 16, 2015) a new technology enabling us to manipulate our DNA

Robert Tracy MacKenzie, When Being Pro-Life Didn't Make You a Republican (Christianity Today, Nov 23, 2015)

Rod Dreher, Pro-Choice Taunters' Deadly Logic (The American Conservative, Dec 1, 2015)

Alexandra Rockey Fleming, This Mother Drank While Pregnant. Here's What Her Daughter's Like at 43. (Washington Post, Jan 18, 2016) and note the difference in opinion about drinking alcohol while pregnant by right-leaning Forbes Tara Haelle, No Amount Of Alcohol In Pregnancy Is Safe, Ever, Pediatricians Group Says (Forbes, Oct 19, 2015) and left-leaning Salon Nora Caplin-Bricker, Light Drinking While Pregnant Is Probably Safe (Salon, Oct 19, 2015) which were published on the same day

Micaiah Berger, British Govt Encouraging Women to Give Birth to Disabled Babies to Harvest Their Organs (LifeNews, Mar 9, 2016)

Dominic Lawson, Would the World Be a Better Place Without People Like My Daughter? (Daily Mail, May 8, 2016)

Aaron Cline Hanbury, The Surprising New Findings that Could Re-Shape the Pro-Life Movement (Relevant, May 25, 2016) that 25% of all pregnancies worldwide end in abortion

Mary Eberstadt, The First Church of Secularism and Its Sexual Sacrament (National Review, Jun 15, 2016)

Michael E. Miller, ‘No More Baby’: Sorority Sister Gets Life Term for Tossing Newborn Into Trash to Die (Washington Post, Jun 28, 2016)

Stephen Freeman, Blood Brothers of the Incarnation (Ancient Faith blog, Aug 8, 2016)

Rod Dreher, Her Brother's Pregnancy (The American Conservative, Sep 2, 2016)

Ruth Graham, The New Culture of Life (Slate, Oct 11, 2016)

Jonathon Van Maren, Leonard Cohen Against the Sexual Anarchists (LifeSite News, Oct 21, 2016)

Jonathon Van Maren, The Painfully Obvious Reason Christians Voted for Donald Trump (That Liberals Just Don't Understand) (LifeSite News, Nov 14, 2016)

Brandy Zadrozny, Sofia Vergara Embryo Case Could Open Floodgates (Daily Beast, Dec 8, 2016)

Nina Agrawal, Abortion Rate Declines to Historic Low, with Obamacare a Likely Contributor, Study Says (Los Angeles Times, Jan 18, 2017)

Jennifer Ulloa, India’s Commercialized Surrogacy: Blurring the Lines of Empowerment and Exploitation. Nursing Clio, Jan 31, 2017.

Bruce Goldman, Two Minds: The Cognitive Differences Between Men and Women (Stanford University Medicine, Spring 2017) on the neuroscientific study of gender differences. See also Leonard Sax, A New Study Blows Up Old Ideas About Girls and Boys (Psychology Today, Mar 27, 2019) studies of the neural development of fetuses show major differences between girls and boys, challenging the views of Judith Butler and Cordelia Fine that “gender” has no biological basis.

Aarathi Prasad, How Artificial Wombs Will Change Our Ideas of Gender, Family, and Equality (The Guardian, May 1, 2017)

Charles K. Bellinger, A Christian Abortion Doctor? On the Ignorance, Arrogance, and Violence of the Pro-Choice Cause (Witherspoon Institute, May 18, 2017)

Kristen Day, Democrats Don't Need to Be Afraid of Anti-Abortion Liberals (Washington Post, Aug 3, 2017)

Julian Quinones and Arijeta Lajka, "What Kind of Society Do You Want to Live In?": Inside the Country Where Down Syndrome is Disappearing (CBS News, Aug 15, 2017) abortion in Iceland

Adam Gabbatt, Woman Gives Birth to Baby That Grew From Embryo Frozen 24 Years Ago (The Guardian, Dec 20, 2017)

Ruth Graham, Choosing Life With Down Syndrome (Slate, May 31, 2018)

Anna North, Roe v. Wade Is at Risk, But Abortion Rights Groups See Surprising Opportunities for Gains (Vox, Jan 24, 2019) 

Associated Press, Parents Of Dead West Point Cadet Can Use His Sperm To Produce Child, Judge Says (Huffington Post, May 20, 2019) “Typically, court cases involving posthumous reproduction are filed by surviving spouses, not parents.”

Legal Eagle, Are Fetal Heartbeat Laws Constitutional? (and the History of Roe v. Wade) -- Real Law Review (LegalEagle, Jun 13, 2019)

Katelyn Burns, The Ban on Abortion for Low-Income People Is Now a Litmus Test for Congress (Vice, Oct 1, 2019) “People have started calling out Democratic members of Congress for supporting the Hyde Amendment.”

Alexandra DeSanctis, How Democrats Purged ‘Safe, Legal, Rare’ From the Party (Washington Post, Nov 15, 2019) “The party’s absolutist stance on abortion is out of step with voters’ views.”

Caitlin Flanagan, The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate (The Atlantic, Dec 2019) “Why we need to face the best arguments from the other side”

Stuart W.G. Derbyshire and John C. Bockmann, Reconsidering Fetal Pain (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2019)

Sarah Zhang, The Last Children of Down Syndrome (The Atlantic, Dec 2020) re: Denmark, where prenatal testing reveals DS and parents most often choose to abort

Thom Hartmann, Why Getting Pregnant Increases Your Chance of Being Murdered By 16% (Thom Hartmann Program, Nov 16, 2021) is a disturbing fact for both the right and the left, because a woman who becomes a mother is not always safe from her male intimate partner, revealing that she does not always have the judgment necessary to act on her long-term self-interest.

Kim Iversen, Ryan Grim, and Robby Soave, New Doc Reveals The Corruption Behind 'The Pill ' Blood Clots, Depression Ignored By Big Pharma (Rising | The Hill, Nov 28, 2021)

Emily Jashinsky, Ryan Grim, and Kim Iversen, California Plans To Become A "Sanctuary" State For Abortion-Seekers If Roe V. Wade Is Overturned (Rising | The Hill, Dec 10, 2021) covers recent public polling on views on abortion and Roe. They also discuss the possibility of state-level responses to the likely overturning of Roe, and the eventual pro-life attempt to re-federalize the anti-abortion uniform policies.

Kat Rosenfeld, The Left Killed the Pro-Choice Coalition. Unherd, June 29, 2022. Hilary Clinton’s “safe, legal, and rare” framing was helpful, but was critiqued by those further on the left who wanted to see abortion as one birth control method among others.

Nick Catoggio, ‘Life’ and Death. The Dispatch, Sep 12, 2023. Criticizes the left for not having any gestational limits on abortion policy, although health and viability baselines might be more meaningful.

Alice Evans, Claudia Goldin: Nobel. Dr. Alice Evans | Substack, Oct 9, 2023. Evans discusses the work of economist Claudia Goldin, who focused on women’s labor force participation and outcomes. Of interest here is birth control technology.

Kody W. Cooper, The Vice Presidential Debate Revealed a Powerful Pro-Life Argument. Word on Fire, Oct 22, 2024. On the “born alive infant.”

Emily Chang, How Tech Is Breaking the Rules of Biology | Posthuman with Emily Chang. Bloomberg Original, Dec 2, 2024.

 
 

Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Left: Bioethics Topics:

 
 

Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Left: Domestic Policy Topics:

The section Critique of the Left engages the following topics: Bioethics discusses the impact of technology on conception and birth, enhancement and therapeutics, and aging and death; Consumption challenges the notion that we are “sovereign individuals” who are exercising free choices; Government Corruption spotlights political compromises and dealings contrary to the public good; Immigration highlights the complicity between Left and Right on stalling immigration policy reform; Media spotlights failures of, and possible fixes to, left-wing or left-leaning media; Power and Politics highlights the impact of racial considerations and racism on political campaigns, voting rights, public investments, and other political procedures; Relational Personhood examines how “individualism” fails to comprehend the importance of healthy relationships and communities in human development; Race examines the impact of white supremacy on virtually every aspect of American life; Religious Tolerance focuses on how Christian faith produced a difference between church and society, and argued for religious toleration from its earliest days; Secularized University examines the moral and intellectual problems produced by the cultural Leftism of individualism; Sex Industry documents the moral and policy challenges of treating sex as a commodity, which the majority of people on the leftward side of the political spectrum tend to do. We critique philosophical influences behind some secularists on the left: Myth of Christian Ignorance responds to the accusation that Christian faith led to a “dark ages” and technological backwardness; Secular Liberalism critiques the assumption that political and moral values can be sustained and nurtured by political procedures themselves.

 
 

Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Left: Philosophical Influences