I just started reading, Defending Life, by Francis Beckwith. It is a defense of the pro-life position on abortion.

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA

Who is Francis Beckwith? Let us know what you think about the book!

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DAVIDIVS DOCTVS VTRIVSQVE LINGVAE
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

It's a great read! It might be the best book I've read on the subject. Francis Beckwith is a catholic philosopher, and he has written a lot on the abortion debate. He is always a good read. Very clear, concise, and to the point.

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Caleb
Trinity Baptist Church
Spokane, WA

Beckwith was an evangelical Protestant philosopher until this year. In fact, when he converted to the RC in late April of this year, he stepped down as head of the Evangelical Theological Society (a couple of weeks later). With B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy, M.A. in apologetics, and Master of Juridical Studies, he is one of the better educated Christian philosophers around. He is often characterized as an evidentialist in his apologetic style. He is considered an expert on right to life issues and intelligent design. BTW, he still teaches at Southern Baptist Baylor!

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

I finished reading the book and it is excellent. Here is Beckwith’s argument:
1. The unborn entity, from the moment of conception, is a full-fledged member of the human community.
2. It is prima facie morally wrong to kill any member of that community.
3. Every successful abortion kills an unborn entity, a full-fledged member of the human community.
4. Therefore, every successful abortion is prima facie morally wrong.

He defends his argument well. Beckwith refutes moral relativism. He discusses what the Supreme Court concluded in Roe v. Wade, the Court's reasoning in Roe v. Wade, and how subsequent Court opinions have shaped abortion law. He also talks about various methods that are used to perform an abortion. He also discusses the moral problems with human cloning.

He refutes the arguments from pity, arguments from tolerance, and arguments ad hominem. Pro-abortionists come up with various criteria that determine when an unborn child achieves personhood. Beckwith shows what is wrong with those proposed criteria. He defends the substance view of personhood which says that a human being is intrinsically valuable because of the sort of thing it is and the human being remains that sort of thing as long as it exists (page 132). People are ontologically prior to their parts. People do not come into existence part by part. They come into existence all at once. From the moment of conception to adulthood, a person retains the same identity. The essence of personhood does not come in degrees. If it did, then there would be degrees of personhood.

Judith Jarvis Thomson came up with a pro-abortion argument called the “violinist argument” which is the following:

“I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from here? Something like this, I take it. Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed. It sounds plausible. But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you—we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you. Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says, "Tough luck, I agree, but you've now got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous,which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.”

Beckwith says that her argument contains that following false assumptions: 1) pregnancy is not a prima facie good, and 2) consent-to-sex is not consent-to-pregnancy. There are also ethical problems with Thomson’s argument: 1) it assumes moral volunteerism, and 2) it cannot account for intuitions that result in a pro-life understanding of pregnancy and the unborn.

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA