PZ Myers Encourages People to Abort Their Children

At our Apologetics Mega Conference in July I will be giving a presentation entitled “Eugenics and Abortion.” It’s one of those presentations that I know is necessary to give, but at the same time it’s very difficult because of the subject. As I’m getting ready to start working on the presentation, I came across a few blogs that famed atheist PZ Myers wrote on the topic of abortion several months ago. He started off one blog with this startling statement:

I’m about as pro-choice as you can get; I'm even willing to say that I'm pro-abortion, and would like to encourage more people to abort.

While consistent with his atheistic worldview, it’s still amazing to hear someone say that they would actually encourage people to abort their children. This is very similar in tone and language to many of the eugenic activists I've been studying, both past and present.

Relating to a pregnant couple who allowed people to vote online as to whether they should have an abortion, PZ stated the following:

I don't care how you vote; what's at stake is a mere embryo, so it's no big loss if it's flushed and incinerated, and I don't have any illusions about whether this is deciding the fate of a human life — it's not. There's no person in Alisha's belly yet.

So when does PZ think a human should be granted personhood? In response to another blog he wrote on personhood and abortion, someone stated that birth should be the moment when personhood is granted. PZ responded:

Nope, birth is also arbitrary, and it has not been even a cultural universal that newborns are regarded as fully human.

I've had a few. They weren't.

Can you imagine being one of his children and reading this? He’s absolutely right that saying personhood begins at birth is arbitrary from an atheistic worldview; but then, we really don’t get a good idea of when he believes a human is a person—or “fully human” as he states it. Does it happen when they are three months old, five years old, 10 years old, or 20 years old? How is it determined and who decides? It’s an important question to answer because ideas like these have the potential to greatly (and horrifically from a biblical perspective) modify our laws concerning what and what does not constitute child abuse and murder.

In the original blog post regarding the couple and their poll, PZ states what he thinks of their potential for being good parents:

I have deep reservations about voting on this at all, because it is not and should not be my decision. But I had to vote to abort, not because of any consideration about the embryo, but because I'm looking at Pete and Alisha, the full-grown, conscious, decision-making human beings who are considering whether to take on the responsibilities of a child. And no, they are not. I'd say the same thing to someone who decided whether to have a baby or not by a flip of the coin. If that's how you make decisions about whether to commit a significant part of your life to a lot of hard work and the emotional roller coaster of child-rearing, then NO, you do not want to do it.

PZ is making an arbitrary assertion regarding their parenting skills. In his mind they would not make good parents because they decided to conduct this poll. But why should that be the deciding factor as to whether or not they make good parents? Who defines what makes a good parent and why should good be the standard? Why not bad? What if someone else agrees with PZ but thinks that being bad parents should be the standard. Both are arbitrary assertions concerning the definitions of good and bad and what should be the standard. Without the Bible as a source of truth, they are left with a moral quandary that can never be resolved because there is no basis or foundation for defining good and bad or right and wrong apart from the Bible.

Starting with the truth of God’s Word, I have a basis for saying their decision to have a poll to decide whether their child lives or dies is atrocious and wrong. They are showing complete disregard for the life of a child that is precious to God and made in His image (Psalm 139, Genesis 1:27). For me this issue especially hits home since I fully recognize that the birth parents of our daughter (whom we adopted from China) were faced with a similar decision. They chose to give Elizabeth life, and God chose for us to be her parents—and for their choice to give her life, I will be eternally grateful.