Unanswered Questions

Some abortion-choice advocates make a claim for an individual human being's sovereign right to use their own body at any moment, as they wish, including giving life, or killing the life inside.

To be meaningful, such a right must be held by a living human being, a somebody; the dead don't exercise such rights over their bodies, for rather obvious reasons.

What gives rise to individual body rights if there is no life?

This is the studiously avoided question, one which abortion-choice advocates fail to answer.

Human life is a prerequisite for any other right a human being might possess, including bodily sovereignty. Life is of infinite worth, but what is assumed is that it is not of infinite worth (that it has less value than a "right") for the purposes of killing the unborn. The "right" cannot stand without that question begging assumption. The argument is then made that giving life is an act of voluntary charity that is extended to another human being and so giving life need not be extended to the unborn.

Such an argument is generally ignorant of virtues, and lacks an understanding of how the virtues impact lives. To one who makes such an argument, compassion must be shown, their misunderstanding forgiven, for they are in the dark.

Whenever one lives completely at the sovereign power of another being, they live at the mercy of that sovereign power, because charity is a distribution of benefits, but mercy is shown by the powerful towards the weak, when it comes to life, and the execution and judgement of sovereign power. Mercy is about compassion, that is suffering, whereas charity doesn't require suffering of the giver. If such suffering does occur in the execution of sovereign power, then that's called grace.

So the claimed "right" to abort is the "right" to be unmerciful to one who is completely dependent upon that living sovereign, and utterly lacks compassion and grace.

So here's some more questions:

What does it mean to be merciful?
What's unique about the mother/child relationship?
Can you kill someone who is fully dependent upon you?
Your mother extended mercy to you, why don't you extend it to others?
Is such a right a sign of love?
Is killing your child an act of love?

Do you devalue your own life when you do so?

Why should anyone be shown mercy, if a mother doesn't show it to her own child?

The biggest thing missing in such arguments is love, because it is upon love that the other two, mercy and charity, exist.

So here's another question: by who's grace was that original sovereign bodily right given?