January 22, What is an Apple?

January 22, 1973 - January 22, 2010

Roe v. Wade

37 Years

What does abortion do? Or rather, what is abortion? Peter Kreeft wrote an article entitled The Apple Argument Against Abortion. I am not a student of philosophy, debate, nor logic. But from my feeble attempt to understand this article, which can be found here http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0045.html, if we know what abortion is, Roe v. Wade must be overturned. So the question is, can we really know what abortion is?

Mr. Kreeft starts with, can we know what an apple is? No, REALLY know? Do we REALLY know what an apple REALLY is? If I was a student of philosophy, debate or logic, I would now reason, obviously, that if I denied that I really know what an apple really is, then I know, but not really, what an apple is, but not really. Or something like that.

Now when I look at an apple without all the analysis, philosophy, yes logic, etc, I think I can be pretty sure the I really know what an apple really is, no really.

Now I turn to a human being, can I know what human beings are? This is a much bigger question, maybe. Mr. Kreeft boils this down after 6 pages to this:

Case 1. The fetus is a person, and we know that.

Case 2. The fetus is a person, but we don’t that.

Case 3. The fetus isn’t a person, but we don’t know that.

Case 4. The fetus isn’t a person, and we know that.

What is abortion in each of these four cases?

Case 1, if the fetus is a person and we know that and we participate some way in an abortion, this is first-degree murder, the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.

Case 2, if the fetus is a person but we do not know this then participation in an abortion under these circumstances would be manslaughter. Mr. Kreeft describes this as driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street, you’re not quite sure that there is a person there, but you are not altogether sure that there is not. There turns out to be a person in there which, of course you didn’t know that, nor did you know there wasn’t, kind of iffy.

Case 3,the fetus isn’t a person, but we don’t know that and we still drove over the man-shaped overcoat in the street. Now, if you didn’t care or didn’t take care to make sure there wasn’t a person under the man-shaped overcoat in the street and you still drove over the man-shaped overcoat in the street, this could be called criminal negligence if there did in fact turn out to be a human being under the man-shaped overcoat in the street and this human did not survive being run over.

Case 4 the fetus isn’t a person and we know that. This is the only case where abortion may be permissible. What makes it permissible is not the fact that the fetus is not a person, but that ones KNOWS it is not a person. Or as Mr. Kreeft concludes, we can pretend we do not know what an apple is and if so we have an excuse for pleading our case that we don’t know what an abortion is.

On the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, on the heals of the 37th March For Life on Washington, D.C. I offer Exhibit A from the Endowment for Human Development www.ehd.org a beautiful human being 4 weeks in gestation, a little more than 1/8th of an inch, with a heart beating 113 times per minutes please witness the heart changes color as blood enters and leaves its chambers with each beat.








Do we REALLY know what an apple REALLY is? Do we REALLY know what a human being is? REALLY know? If we truly know, then abortion stops a beating heart……………….

For all those who have suffered because you did not REALLY KNOW, because you were not given the facts. You are not to blame, but those that REALLY have known all along have much to account for.