There is a term in philosophy, prima facie, which is used when some statement is immediately self-evident. For instance, it is prima facie true that two and two make four.
Here is another truth: It is prima facie wrong to directly and deliberately destroy an innocent human life. To put it another way, murder is wrong. This is such a fundamental truth that it takes a Ph.D. to object to it, albeit incoherently.
And although our children grasp such a simple statement with ease, it has proven a source of insuperable confusion for some philosophers. Many are uncertain of what sort of "truth" it is. It is not a mathematical truth, the product of abstract proof. Nor is it a natural truth, the fruit of the scientific method. But if we are to regard it as true, we ought to know in which realm of reality it resides, because what is true is, after all, real.
But there are further problems for the philosopher: What does it mean for something to be "wrong"? Is there some universally binding rule that it violates? Or is it merely violating human ideology, in which case it's not really wrong. I can think that wearing shorts with letters on the buttocks (however callipygian the wearer) is wrong (and I do), but my thinking it does not make it so.
So let's establish some simple philosophical ground rules. For something to be wrong, it must really be wrong, by which I mean that it must really be. Since the prima facie principle I have stated (let's call it the principle of innocent life) is not physical, it must be extra- or meta-physical; since we did not generate it, Something Else-with the ability to make it universally binding-did.
Now, we all react with singular disfavor toward hypocrisy, which is why we all react in some way unfavorably toward ourselves. We tend to be most conscious of those faults in others that we have most despised within ourselves, and there is a struggle within each of us that renders all of us hypocrites: the struggle between our desires and our ideals, in which the latter are too often sacrificed for the former.
There is, absurdly, a lot of hypocrisy among people who accept the principle of innocent life, in a country with law that explicitly professes it. So if we really believe the principle-and we all should-and if we want to be (I'll be frank) morally consistent individuals, there is a lot in the modern world of which we must be intolerable.
Consider abortion, for instance, which is plainly the direct and deliberate destruction of an innocent human life.
Since all clear-thinking-and even most unclear-thinking-people find the violation of the principle abhorrent, the easiest way to convince them that abortion is tolerable is to convince them that the child in the womb is somehow less-than-human. This is a tactic often employed in genocide, in which a race-be it African slaves, Jews, kafir-is portrayed as subhuman.
Let's consider the principle of innocent life applied to an embryo. Is she a human life? Well, she is alive, and she is neither bird, nor frog, nor dog; and while she may not possess every instrument and faculty common to the developed species, these are also lacking in delivered babies. Even the brains of teenagers undergo natural and dramatic anatomical changes. The embryo is a developing human life, a continuously replicating "clump" of cells, just like you. Thanks for that one, biology.
Is she innocent? Surely; she has committed no wrong.
Were the baby killed outside the womb, then, the action would be called murder. Inside the womb it's called abortion, and it's particularly brutal, involving a lot of ripping, crushing and grinding.
Still the sense persists among many pro-abortionists that the embryo is not quite human.
But in order to oppose murder, support abortion and maintain intellectual and moral consistency: Either (1) you are certain that the child in the womb is not a human life (where, incidentally, do you draw the line?); or (2) you believe that there are instances in which the direct destruction of innocent human life is not murder, and is thus morally permissible. I should be loath to think, however, that there are among my peers those who would equivocate regarding murder.
If you're struggling with this issue and, as I suspect, you assume there is a gray area in which the embryo is so developmentally immature that she is not human, ask yourself if you are willing to risk murder; because if you support abortion without complete certainty that she is not a human life, that is what you have already risked.
Justin Noia is a Pratt junior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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