The Fundamental Question In Abortion Debate

"Life begins at conception".

So says Presidential Candidate John Kerry. Yet Kerry continues to support the most ardent pro-abortion legislation. He voted against a law that would make it a federal crime to abort a child in the second and third trimesters, the partial birth abortion ban. The ban itself is named after how the abortion is performed. He voted against the Laci Conner law, a law that would make it double murder if you kill a pregnant woman and her unborn child. He voted against parental notification in abortion. Etc.

Everybody knows John Kerry is the most pro-abortion Senator in the US Senate. My point here is not to prove that. My point is to ask the question of how someone can be both? How can someone be both, one who believes life starts at conception, and be the most pro-abortion senator in the US Senate? Let's put aside that this is probably another Kerry flip flop, where he tries to be on both sides of every issue. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he truly believes this. My question is, can somebody be consistent in believing both?

I believe one can't. There is no other central issue with regard to abortion than whether or not abortion is murder. The whole debate goes in completely different directions depending on how you answer this one central question. If abortion is murder than it's not a "personal choice", it's a choice whether to commit murder. If abortion is murder than its not "the state interfering with my own decisions", it's the state interfering to prevent a murder. If abortion is murder its not "the government shouldn't have the right to control what i do with my body", it's the government having control in preventing you from commiting a murder. If abortion is murder it's not "I'm for women having a choice", it's "I'm for women having the choice to commit murder". If abortion is murder, than the passage of those very laws Kerry voted against, would be laws against murder, something everybody should support.

In addition, if you believe life starts at conception than abortion must be murder. There is no logical way around it. Since we all agree that the intentional killing of an innocent human life is murder. And since you believe human life begins at conception, and all abortions are performed after conception, than ipso facto abortion is murder. So Kerry is against laws that prevent murder.

Kerry's defense of these contradictory beliefs is to use the "its a religious issue" argument. He argues that his belief is a religious belief, and because of its nature as a religious belief, it should not be forced upon others. But this doesn't cut it either, as Francis J. Beckwith(Philosophy professor at UNLV) proved in his book "Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights" writes,

But this would cut both ways. If the pro-life position cannot be enacted into law because it is philosophical (or religious), then neither can the abortion-rights position. Now the abortion-rights advocate may respond to this by saying that this fact alone is a good reason to leave it up to each individual woman to choose whether she should have an abortion. But this response begs the question, for this is precisely the abortion-rights position. Furthermore, the pro-lifer could reply to this abortion-rights response by employing the pro-choicer's own logic. The pro-lifer could argue that since the abortion-rights position is a philosophical position over which many people disagree, we should permit each individual unborn human being to be born and make up his or her own mind as to whether he or she should or should not die. In sum, it seems that the appeal to ignorance is seriously flawed.

So either abortion is murder or it isn't. Kerry can't have it both ways.