A Simple Thought Experiment on Abortion

Photograph of Dr. Joseph Bruner, surgeon at Vanderbilt University, who was fixing the spina bifida lesion of 21-week-old Samuel Armas.

Suppose, in the encounter between doctor and child [in an abortion], the child won half of the time, and killed the doctor in self-defense—something he would have every right to do.

Very few doctors would perform abortions.

They perform them now only because of their absolute power over a small, fragile, helpless victim.

—Stephen D. Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990), 143.