Abortion Is a Hard Question — Pretending Otherwise Is the Real Problem
Few topics shut down thinking faster than Abortion.
- Say “Pro-Life” and people hear Control.
- Say “Pro-Choice” and people hear Indifference to Life.
Usually, very little listening happens after that.
But abortion is not a slogan problem. In my opinion, it is a Moral Collision Problem. And I don’t think moral collisions can be solved by shouting louder or simplifying harder. They require something rarer: Something such as, Intellectual Honesty, Emotional Restraint, and a willingness to separate questions that are usually bundled together.
Let me be clear, this piece is not an attempt to “win” the abortion debate. It is an attempt to Slow It Down and to examine where each side makes Strong Arguments, where Reasoning gets Sloppy, and why so many Conversations Collapse into Bad Faith before they even begin.
If that makes you Uncomfortable, that discomfort is probably the point.
Let me start by Asking this Question – What Is the Unborn, Exactly?
Every abortion argument rests on this question, even when people try to avoid it.
Is the unborn merely a “Clump of Cells,” or is it a Distinct Human Organism at an early stage of development?
Biologically, this is NOT Controversial. From fertilization onward, the unborn has its own DNA, its own Developmental Trajectory, and its own Internal Coordination. Let’s make this categorically clear, it is NOT an organ of the mother in the way a kidney or liver is. It is Biologically Distinct, even while Physically Dependent.
Where I think the Disagreement actually lies, is not Biology, but Moral Status.
When does a human organism become a rights-bearing human person?
- Some say Consciousness.
- Some say Viability.
- Some say Birth.
- Some say Conception.
What matters is that these are Philosophical Thresholds, NOT Scientific Discoveries. And I noticed that many people slide between Biology and Philosophy without admitting the move.
When someone says “it’s just a Clump of Cells,” they are not making a biological claim; I think they are making a Moral Minimization. When someone says “it’s a Baby,” they are often doing the opposite, by morally elevating without clarifying why.
I believe, serious discussion begins when we admit what kind of claim we’re actually making.
When one Ask the Question, Which Rights Are in Conflict?
This is where I believe the debate becomes genuinely difficult.
Pregnancy is not like most moral problems because it involves 2 Beings Occupying 1 Body, with radically Asymmetric Dependency.
On one side is Bodily Autonomy, the powerful and legitimate idea that no person should be forced to use their body to sustain another. For those who don’t know, but this principle shows up everywhere in Modern Ethics and Law.
On the other side is the claim that if the unborn is a human being, then intentionally ending its life is NOT Morally Neutral.
I believe, many debates fail because one side pretends only one right exists.
- Pro-Choice arguments often treat Bodily Autonomy as Absolute, even though society limits autonomy in many contexts where harm to others is involved.
- Pro-Life arguments sometimes talk as if Pregnancy Imposes no serious Physical, Emotional, or Economic burden, which anyone who has been pregnant knows is false.
What makes abortion uniquely hard, I believe it’s the fact that Both Claims Have Moral Weight.
Ignoring that tension doesn’t resolve it. It just hardens positions.
Dependency, Location, and the Slippery Standards We Use
I’ve noticed, one common argument and it’s that the unborn cannot survive Independently, and therefore lacks full moral standing.
But Dependency itself is a Fragile Moral Criterion.
- New-borns are fully dependent.
- Patients on ventilators are fully dependent.
- People with severe disabilities may never be independent.
Yet we do not believe their lives are less worthy of protection.
Others appeal to Location, inside the womb versus outside it. But location is not a morally meaningful difference in most other contexts either, and you can agree with me that viability shifts with technology, geography, and wealth.
I do believe that if moral worth depends on NICU access, then human value quietly becomes a function of infrastructure.
However, that doesn’t mean the Pro-Choice conclusion is automatically wrong. It means some of the Reasoning Used to Support it is thinner than what People Realize.
What the Law Can and Cannot Do
Even if we agree something is morally wrong, it does not automatically follow that the law should prohibit it in all circumstances.
- Law is a Blunt Instrument. It balances Deterrence, Enforcement, Unintended Consequences, and Social Legitimacy.
This is where many abortion debates collapse into confusion.
Some people argue as if the law exists to perfectly encode moral truth. Others argue as if the law should never constrain morally controversial choices.
In my opinion, both positions are naïve.
The real questions are harder:
- What Limits, if any, should exist?
- What Exceptions are morally defensible?
- How should Enforcement work without compounding harm?
- What Obligations does society take on if abortion access is restricted?
These are not questions you answer with chants. They require Trade-Offs.
Rape, Incest, and the Cases People Avoid or Weaponize
I noticed that this is where rhetoric often replaces humanity.
Rape and Incest are horrific violations. Pregnancy resulting from them adds another layer of trauma. Pretending otherwise destroys credibility instantly.
At the same time, these cases raise one of the hardest moral questions imaginable and that is:
- Does the Child’s Right to Life Depend on the Circumstances of Conception?
There is no easy answer that avoids tragedy.
What weakens many Pro-Life Arguments is sounding indifferent to the suffering involved. What weakens many Pro-Choice Arguments is treating these cases as if they resolve the moral status question entirely.
They Don’t!!!
A serious position acknowledges that some situations are tragic regardless of the choice made and that calling them “edge cases” doesn’t make them less real.
This is Where Each Side Gets Sloppy
Pro-life Advocates Often:
- Overstate statistics to score points
- Reduce complex social realities to moral failure
- Underestimate the burden of pregnancy
- Confuse moral conviction with rhetorical aggression
Pro-choice advocates often:
- Avoid defining the unborn altogether
- Rely on emotionally charged but philosophically weak slogans
- Treat autonomy as absolute only in pregnancy
- Dismiss moral concerns instead of engaging them
Neither side benefits from pretending these weaknesses don’t exist.
The Question We Rarely Ask
I strongly believe that this is the question that changes the tone of the entire debate:
- If society asks women to carry pregnancies they do not want, what does society owe them in return?
- Healthcare.
- Financial support.
- Workplace protection.
- Adoption systems that actually work.
- Men being held accountable, not quietly disappearing from the story.
If the answer is “Nothing,” then the argument is not about Life. It’s about Control.
If the answer is “Everything,” then the conversation shifts from punishment to responsibility.
A Final Thought
I think, abortion debates fail not because people care too much, but because they often care Without Thinking Carefully.
This is a moral problem where good people reach different conclusions for reasons that are not always evil or ignorant. Reducing it to caricatures may feel satisfying, but it solves NOTHING.
If we cannot discuss abortion without Shouting, Dismissing, or Moral Grandstanding, that failure says more about US than about the issue itself.
The real test is NOT whether we win the argument.
It’s whether we are willing to sit with the discomfort of a question that has no clean answer and still speak to one another like adults.
That is Where Serious Thinking Begins.
Please note:
I don’t think for one second that my account is a definitive account.
I offer it no more than an opening round in a conversation that I hope
End