Abortion is murder. This is the supposed absolute defense of a prolifer. This makes me think of a bumper sticker I saw recently that said, “abortion what part of thou shalt not kill did you not understand?”. I think it’s time we went into this whole abortion is murder thing and look at how the beginning statement along with other religious defenses just don’t really hold up when you look at it in the bigger picture.

Let’s get into the idea of murder. So, a large portion of people who are prolife are supportive of it. One of the ways they are supportive of murder is war. War by its nature will involve killing and it is still murder. It might be acceptable as it is a way of defending the country and its interest but in the end, it is what it is. Many prolifers I have run into are very supportive of war.

Then you get into other forms of accepted murder, such as self-defense. Generally, if someone is coming at a person with a weapon and they defend themselves, this is considered self-defense. In the act of self-defense, a person could be murdered. This is situational, but at the end of the day, it’s still murder. When you see people talking about their house is their castle and they should be able to shoot people who threaten their family and property, well that’s still murder. 

A third form of accepted murder in the United States is the death penalty which is still in 27 states though some of them are extremely limited (Death Penalty Information Center, 2024). If there are so many prolifers who are so opposed to murder, why do we still have a death penalty? Life without parole, is just another way to make someone disappear, which is its own type of death.

Now, this is where you get the people who will say “it’s a child” or “unborn children aren’t criminals”. Yeah, but that’s not what the abortion is murder statement is emphasizing. It also ignores that a fetus only exists inside of another human being. The other situations explained above are cases of two separate living BREATHING entities acting upon other bodies by choice or by circumstance.

Abortion is not that. A fetus does not exist on its own. Its existence is dependent on another actual full living BREATHING being that gives it its own blood, nutrients, and flesh. So, trying to muddy the waters by saying that abortion is murder, as if it is at all comparable to cases of legal murder is ignorant of the situation that is abortion and pregnancy.

Thou shalt not kill is also absolute. There aren’t any caveats to that commandment. Another sticker that leads into this is “god is prolife” sticker. It’s not hard to find multiple passages, old and New Testament, where god really isn’t all that concerned with children. Everyone knows the story of the flood in which an innumerable number of children perished, if you believe in that.

Theres also Sodom and Gomorrah where not only were the kids killed but the good Christian willing offered up his daughters to be raped by the townspeople. Then we can always go into the death of the firstborn in Egypt. If you go to the skepticsannotatedbible.com, it’s not hard to see what god really thinks about children, lives, or how maybe a good christian prolifer really doesn’t understand the picture.

This isn’t supporting the purge. I despise the movies and will never watch it. This isn’t something supporting an all-out murder fest because someone looked at you wrong. The idea is if you want to use such a bullshit statement like abortion is murder, then make sure you identify that it’s about prolife being the judge, jury, and executioner of all the women and children around you. The statement Abortion is murder has nothing to do with children, it’s just using fetuses as human shields.

Death Penalty Information center. (2024). States with Death Penalties.Retrieved from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/curriculum/high-school/state-by-state-data/state-summaries.

Wells, S. (2024). The Skeptics Annotated Bible. Retrieved from https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/processlong.php?cid=3&pub=1