Reasoning Tips

Use Terms Precisely…

Use terms precisely. Please. Never, ever say that a fetus has dignity because she “will become” a person. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard amateur pro-life apologists say so without realizing that they have just lost the argument. A fetus “will become” an adult, but the pro-life position is that a fetus is a person already.¹

…and Use Precise Terms

Be careful using ambiguous terms like “human” and “life” when you really mean “human being.” we regularly hear amateur pro-life apologists try to prove that an unborn child is “a life.” This is not incorrect, but it is unhelpfully imprecise. “A life” can be a legitimate synonym for an organism, which is probably what the typical pro-lifer means. However, just because something lives does not necessarily mean it is an organism.² On the contrary, parts of organisms are routinely described as being alive. Whether or not one chooses to call it “a life,” a functioning kidney or white blood cell is very much alive, and pro-choicers often fail to draw the crucial distinction between these living components and organismal life. It is your job to elucidate this distinction, and the term “life” tends rather to obscure it.

Incidentally, everyone also recognizes that a human fetus is, well, human. Pro-lifers who congratulate themselves on their carefully honed proofs that aborted fetuses are not in fact orangutans are making no persuasive headway. Remember, the pro-life position is that an entity must be human and alive and an organism in order to be a person.