Trent Horn, an adjunct professor of apologetics at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, equated abortion with slavery in a lecture hosted by the Boston College Pro-Life Club on Tuesday night.
“People will say, ‘I don’t care if it’s a baby, I can do whatever I want,’” Horn said. “And to that, I say, ‘Okay, what do you call it when we believe you can treat a human being any way you want? Slavery.’ … If you can treat another human being any way you want, you reduce them to the level of property. That is a barbaric world.”
Students—some clad in cowboy attire—attended the event in Fulton Hall where Horn argued that abortion is immoral.
Horn encouraged people on both sides of the abortion debate to approach the issue from a philosophical perspective. This method prevents people from shying away from their beliefs, according to Horn.
“Sometimes, we want to shrink away because they want us to,” Horn said. “I’m not shoving my beliefs. I’m just here to propose them to people. We want to really placate people who are upset. … What I find helpful in these, or really any situation, is to ask a good question to get to the root of someone’s concern.”
According to Horn, it is a scientific fact that fetuses and embryos are members of the human species.
“It’s just a stage of development,” Horn said. “Every human fetus or embryo is a member of the human species. So the scientific claim that human embryos and human fetuses are members of the human species—scientifically, there’s no debate here.”
Horn also compared having an abortion to killing a 2-year-old child, arguing that society does not kill children because of poverty, rape, equality, and safety, so people cannot justify abortion using those reasons.
“We don’t kill 2-year-olds because someone has a right to choose,” Horn said. “If an argument for abortion does not justify killing a 2-year-old, then the argument is incapable of justifying killing an unborn child because that’s what abortion is.”
If a woman becomes pregnant, Horn said that because they chose to have intercourse, they are responsible for the baby’s life.
“People say, ‘What if you needed my organ to live?’ Well look, if I don’t give you my kidney, I’m not responsible for why you’re dying,” Horn said. “Pregnancy is caused by people who engage in activity they know is working towards making a needy person. Second, if you’re dying of a kidney ailment, I didn’t start your dying process. If I don’t donate a kidney, I’m not killing you. But abortion—you initiate the dying process.”
During the question-and-answer portion of the event, one student asked Horn what society should do with all the children born without homes. Horn replied that while he does not know what the correct answer is, he knows abortion is not the solution.
“What I would say is I do not have a fully fleshed-out solution to help all those born children,” Horn said. “What I would say is that even if I do not know what is a good, practical solution to the social problem, even if I don’t know what the correct solution is, I can still know what the incorrect solution is.”
Another student asked Horn if abortion is as bad as the Holocaust. Responding, Horn said that while the Holocaust was worse in its methods, both events involve killing human beings.
“It’s not as bad as the Holocaust in that there were other harms in killing born people you don’t have with the unborn,” Horn said. “But they still involve something that is equally wrong or is basically wrong. The killing of millions of unborn human beings is equally wrong with the killing of born human beings.”
