William Lane Craig's Questions on Abortion, Part II

Answering WLC's two questions about abortion.

Part 1 of this series presented arguments in the affirmative to William Lane Craig’s first anti-abortion question: Do human beings possess intrinsic moral value?  We showed that they indeed do possess this value and that this value comes from God.  This essay will examine whether the developing fetus is a human being.

Science provides an easy answer.  Sometimes hostile witnesses can be the best to prove a point, and in the abortion debate we are not disappointed.  Both Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan agree that the fetus is a member of homo sapiens. {1}  However, does this mean that they would agree that all humans ought to be treated equally in this regard?  That is, ought humans to be treated the same?  It depends on when human life begins, and when a person can be considered fully human.

Aquinas argued that life began with ensoulment, which to him happened at a later time than we now know scientifically.  “At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun...The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life". {2}  If life begins directly at fertilization, then the zygote/embryo must be human.

After all, an act between two human partners that results in conception would logically result in the conception of another human; what other option is there?  What results from conception is “a new and distinct organism”.  {3}  This is further confirmed by the embryo having its own DNA, separate and distinct from that of the mother. {4}

Defending a “right to life” is possible only if we define our terms so that we can understand what it is we’re defending.  A Google search for “what is life”, besides sounding uniquely depressing, turns up the following: “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death”.  Put into Thomistic terms, something that is alive possesses some aspect of the tripartite soul, whether it be vegetative, sensitive, or rational.  Human beings are the only creatures possessing a rational soul, combining the powers of the lower two with intellect and free will.

For living creatures, and especially humans, the soul serves as the “animating principle”, giving a body the power to do as it ought.  This understanding serves two purposes.  First, it shows that at the moment of conception, the rational soul is infused into the fetus, allowing it to grow and develop.  Second, it shows that a fetus is human, for, without a soul, a human body can no longer be properly called human.  Change or growth does not affect human substance, but rather merely the form.  As Dr. Craig explains, “The later development of sexual organs and other secondary sexual characteristics is only evidence of a difference in sexuality which has been there from the very beginning. Moreover, all of the individual's traits like body type, eye and hair color, facial characteristics, and so forth are all determined at the moment of conception and are just waiting to unfold”. {5}  

This ties back into question one.  If the fetus is human then it possesses the same intrinsic moral value and rights as any other “born” human being.  The only differences are size, environment, and development. {6}  As a human being, the fetus’ first right is that to life, as both Jefferson and Locke would argue.

In Part I, I showed the error of arguing that human life is dependent on the capacity to have meaningful experiences. {7}  I also mentioned one anti-life analogy about a coal miner not having meaningful/pleasurable experiences, but instead having the potential thereof.  In retrospect, this is very Platonic.  In the Republic, Book III, Plato talks of people and their roles by using a metallurgy metaphor.  The top class of people is the gold-souled, followed by the silver and bronze-souled.  Those like coal miners would be considered bronze-souled.  Adhering to this thinking makes it much easier to deny the equality of humans and even to think of certain groups as “expendable”.  The more correct school of thought would be the Aristotelian-Thomist, believing all humans possess a rational soul.

At the end of these two essays, two things ought to be clear: philosophy tells us that humans have intrinsic moral value, and science tells us that the developing fetus is human.  Putting these together we can formulate an argument against abortion:

1. A human being has intrinsic moral value.

2. A developing fetus is a human being.

3. It is wrong to kill a human being unjustly.  (Inferred from premise A.)  

4. Elective abortion kills a human being unjustly.

5. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a fetus through abortion.

This is a logically airtight argument.  The conclusion follows from the premises, both the premises and the conclusion are true, and the argument is sound.  The only way to continue supporting abortion is to deny premises A, B, or D, but the anti-abortion defender has plenty of arguments to demonstrate the objective truth of these premises.    

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1. Xavier Symons, “Ethically speaking, Is a Fetus a Person?”, at O&G Magazine (2018), at ogmagazine.org.

2. Douglas Considine (ed.), Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia, 5th edition, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), p. 943.

3. Robert P. George and Patrick Lee, “Embryonic human persons. Talking Point on morality and human embryo research”, Embo Reports 10, no. 4 (2009), at National Library of Medicine, at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

4. Paul Stark, “The unborn is a human being: What science tells us about unborn children”, at MCCL (20 December 2017), at mccl.org.

5. William Lane Craig, “Abortion and Presidential Politics”, at Reasonable Faith (16 June 2008), at reasonablefaith.org.

6. For an explanation of these factors, see Steve Wagner, “The SLED Test–Four Top Arguments”, at Focus on the Family (6 January 2016), at focusonthefamily.com. 

7. See Michael Joseph Carzon, “William Lane Craig’s Two Questions: Part I”, at Missio Dei, (16 June 2022), at missiodeicatholic.org.