Abortion: A Rational Look at An Emotional Issue

by R.C. Sproul

The unborn remain anonymous “things” that are discarded. Fetuses have no names. They have no personal biographies. They tend to be presented to the public mind as abstract entities. I have heard fetuses described in abortion debates as “undifferentiated blobs of protoplasm,” “biological parasites,” and “so much domestic sewage.” It is difficult for people to become concerned about the fate of blobs of protoplasm or domestic sewage. After a child is born, no one is much concerned about the destiny of the placenta. Perhaps this demonstrates why the film The Silent Scream provoked such an outcry. In this film, viewers had a window into the womb that revealed a graphic picture of what actually happens in an abortion. Pro-abortion activists decried the film as emotionally provocative and inflammatory. They were certainly correct in that assessment. The film was indeed emotionally provocative, precisely because what was once hidden from the human eye was made clearly visible.