SLED – How to persuasively present the prolife message

Here is a way to share the prolife message in a clear and compelling way:

Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you had no right to life then but you do now. Stephen Schwarz suggests the acronym SLED as a helpful reminder of these non-essential differences:

• Size: You were smaller as an embryo, but since when does your body size determine value? Large humans are not more valuable than small humans.
• Level of Development: True, you were less developed as an embryo, but why is that decisive? Six-month olds are less developed than teenagers both physically and mentally, but we don’t think the former have less of a right to life.
• Environment: Where you are has no bearing on what you are. How does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from a being we can kill to one we can’t?
• Degree of Dependency: Sure, you depended on your mother for survival, but since when does dependence on another human mean we can kill you? (Consider conjoined twins, for example.)

In short, humans are equal by nature not function. Although they differ immensely in their respective degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature made in the image of God.

The above comes from the article Clarity Not Gadgetry: Pro-Life Apologetics for the Next Generation by Scott Klusendorf.

Click to get Scott's Book The Case for Life.

Philip