How can Christians defend the pro-life view and argue against abortion?
In this short video, Dr. Braxton Hunter, President of Trinity’s online seminary and online Bible college, explains the S.L.E.D. test, which debunks several pro-abortion arguments.
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Video Transcript
Welcome to Trinity Insight, the home of the thinking Christian. And today we’re asking the question how can Christians respond to the problem of abortion.
So, how can Christians respond to this problem of abortion in our time? Well, obviously, Bible believing Christians have a good basis for standing against abortion. Check out the Trinity radio podcast and the Trinity Insight blog for more on that. But what are some other good arguments against abortion?
Well first it’s important to understand what happens at the moment of conception. Often we hear that at least in the first few weeks what we have is not what we might call human life, but this is just patently false. The biological material from the human mother is human biological material as is the biological material from the father, and the combination of that material results in new human biological material. Now since biological material is by definition life, at the moment of conception we have new human life.
The question just becomes at what point, if ever, is it ok to terminate human life. One of my favorite cases is called the S.L.E.D., or sled, argument given by Stephen Schwartz.
S stands for size. Is it ok to terminate human life based on size? Well clearly not. My six-year-old daughter is a lot smaller than I am, as are individuals with disabilities that prevent their development in size, but we don’t consider these people to be less human or say that it’s more acceptable to terminate them.
L stands for level of development. It’s not ok to terminate human life because it’s less developed, since also my three-year-old daughter is less developed than my six-year-old daughter, who is less developed than my wife. Yet again, we wouldn’t say that it’s more okay to end the lives of either of my human daughters.
E is for environment. Some may say that since the unborn are in the environment of the womb it is permissible to terminate them, but in no other area do we say that one’s environment changes their value. We wouldn’t say that of someone living in another country.
D stands for dependency. Since the unborn are dependent on someone or something else, they may be terminated some might say but by this logic anyone on insulin or any other medication that keeps them alive is less valuable someone else.
Simply put, the typical arguments in favor of abortion fail. Check out the blog and podcast on these issues at Trinity Insight by visiting TrinitySem.edu today, so you can continue growing in your faith as a thinking Christian.
