“Human life deserves protection at every single stage, and we have to fight to protect it,” commentator and author Ben Shapiro told a packed auditorium at Focus on the Family’s Colorado Springs campus earlier this summer.
Harvard law school graduate, conservative media host, and former DailyWire.com editor Shapiro served as keynote speaker during Focus’ SeeLife 2022 conference, held in June.
“The pro-life cause is on the march,” Shapiro began.
During his 30-minute talk, Shapiro outlined arguments given by abortion advocates to justify their cause.
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He opened his presentation by outlining the scientific development of the unborn child, including heartbeat starting at 18 days, circulatory system developing at 21 days, toes forming at week seven, and “external genitalia” forming around week nine, determining the child’s sex.
“Contra to the left which says you literally cannot tell what sex you are sitting in this audience right now,” Shapiro quipped.
Personhood and viability, and what those words mean, are often used to scrabble and scramble pro-abortion views, including those for infanticide and abortion through birth, he said.
“This is a human life, (and) the quest to protect pre-born human beings is just beginning,” Shapiro stated.
Shapiro cited the states of California and New York as abortion tourism destinations, and reminded the audience, “More African American children are aborted than are born (in New York City).”
He also discussed a ‘right’ to abortion, a mantra used by many pro-abortion advocates. Such a viewpoint is a myth, Shapiro said.
“The right to kill an unborn human being appears nowhere in the constitution,” he stated. “It is simply not there.”
Tweet This: “The right to kill an unborn human being appears nowhere in the constitution,” he stated. “It is simply not there.”
The 14th amendment exclusively guarantees a right to life as does the fifth amendment,” said Shapiro. “The constitution has nothing to say about abortion.”
He added that, “Roe v. Wade is an evil case … the right to remove the life of another human being. Every human life should be protected by the 14th amendment.”
Human or something else?
Another concept that resonates with pro-abortion advocates is “unborn human lives are not persons,” Shapiro said.
“The argument here is that women are pregnant with something non-human, like a chicken, frog, something like that,” he bantered. “After all, even adults can identify as chickens or frogs, as we learn from my friend Matt Walsh’s documentary, ‘What is a Woman?’”
“There is no evidence that a woman is pregnant with anything else but a human,” Shapiro continued. “Every single biology textbook informs us when life begins – at conception. At conception, a unique human being comes into being by every scientific measure. Even Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, knew this.”
He quoted a writing from Sanger: “Abortion was the wrong way, no matter how early it was being performed; it was taking a life.”
Responsibility and a woman’s issue
Another argument from pro-choice people that Shapiro discussed was responsibility, that abortion is a responsible act for those not ready, or wanting, to have children.
“They would have a more responsible life if they got rid of a child,” he said of that mindset. “Guess who isn’t ready to have a baby? Any parent in the history of mankind. I’m a parent of three – I’m still not ready to be a parent!”
He turned to an “inconvenience” mindset toward others who need care, such as the elderly in nursing homes or people with physical challenges.
“What about other people we take care of?” Shapiro questioned. “Are we allowed to kill them because they’re inconvenient?”
The fourth argument used by pro-abortion advocates is that “women should have the only say,” he told the audience.
If that is the case, he countered, then men should be the only ones with a say about military matters since they are the majority on the front lines and have the most investment.
Shapiro remarked that abstinence is a way to be responsible.
“If you don’t want to have kids, then here’s a good idea: don’t have sex with someone you don’t want to have kids with,” he advocated.
Rape, incest, and the life of the mother
Shapiro brought up exception cases many people give for abortion: rape, incest, and the life or health of the mother.
“Statistically-speaking,” Shapiro said, cases of rape and incest make up minimal number of reasons given for abortions done in America.
“Every year in the United States there are about one million abortions performed, so you are talking about an extreme statistical rarity,” he stated. “The bottom line is this: one evil crime does not justify another.”
“Rape, in my view, is the single worst crime one human can commit against another person, which is why the rapist should be castrated or killed,” he said. “That doesn’t mean; however, you get to kill the baby who is not responsible for the circumstances of its creation.”
Regarding the health and life of the mother, Shapiro said, significant advancements in medical technology create improved help for pregnant women experiencing health issues, and therefore, is also a very rare instance for abortion.
“Fortunately, medicine has progressed to where this is not an issue,” he said. “If you talk to any qualified OBGYN, they will tell you that the number of cases in which an abortion is medically necessary … to preserve the life of the mother, … are so statistically rare that they border on the non-existent.”
Other pro-abortion reasonings: Bodily autonomy and hypothetical scenarios
The bodily autonomy argument has “two major problems,” Shapiro said.
“First, unless you’re a victim of rape or incest, you were a voluntary creation of this unborn child to which we have a moral duty,” he stated. “Pregnancy is a foreseeable event of consensual sex regardless of whether you used birth control. Those who refuse to connect sex with pregnancy are either lying or they are stupid.”
“Abortion is not passive,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of cutting a cord – it’s a matter of violently ending somebody else’s life.”
Subjecting women to back-alley and coat hanger abortions is used also as a means to justify legal abortion, Shapiro said. However, there are statistical holes in this argument as well, Shapiro pointed out as he provided figures on the number of women who died from legal and illegal abortions during the 1960s early 1970s, before the national legalization of abortion.
“In 1972, the year before Roe, there were 24 deaths nation-wide from legal abortion, and 39 from illegal abortion,” he said, “meaning that illegal abortion and legal abortion were causing approximately the same number of statistically insignificant deaths in the United States right before Roe v. Wade.”
The eighth argument Shapiro highlighted was that the pro-abortion movement uses “hypotheticals.”
“They love hypotheticals because hypotheticals allow you to create your own wild universe and not look at the cases that are the most statistically significant right in front you,” he said. “You can construct hypotheticals that come to your preferred conclusion very easily under all circumstances.”
“These are false choices,” Shapiro said. “In abortion, you’re not choosing between objects, you’re just choosing what you wish to do with the human life that already exists.”
“Weak” arguments, deep problems, valuable people
“All the arguments in favor of abortion are extraordinarily weak,” Shapiro stated toward the end of his keynote. “In the end, it comes down to, for our society, ‘I want to do what I want, and I don’t care about the externalities or whom it hurts.’
“And all the high-minded, highfalutin talk about how it’s anything more than that is just cover for the expressive individualism that dominates our society in which the only thing that matters is your internal sense of subjective well-being.”
Such thoughts and actions deepen a society’s problems, he said.
“It ties into a much deeper problem in American and western society which is the only thing that matters is how I feel on the inside,” Shapiro said. “’You must accept what I do and celebrate what I do, and if you don’t, you’re a bigot.’”
“That is a lie,” he stated. “We as human beings have an obligation, we have duties. That’s what makes us human beings. This is what gives our lives worth.”
People are valuable, Shapiro concluded, no matter born or preborn, physically, or emotionally challenged or not, elderly, or young, male or female, black, brown, red, white, and they have purpose and right to life for one simple reason.
“Human life is valuable because we are made in the image of God,” he said, every single one of us. Let us be creators, not destroyers, and let us always continue the fight.”
