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Micah Coate

Abortion: Babies, Bodies, and Bill Burr

Updated: Apr 27

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah 1:5

One straw-man argument for on-demand abortion employed by pro-choice advocates is that the government, or anyone else for that matter, should not dictate what a woman does with her own body. On the surface, this makes perfect sense because we live with many freedoms and rights in America. Thus, the mantra from pro-choice advocates has been summarized as “My Body, My Choice,” hence their self-proclaimed label, pro-choice. It is then reasoned that if you are pro-life, you must not care about the choice of the mother or that you have some unhealthy interest in what she does sexually or medically with her own body.


As stated above, this criticism and argument is a straw man — meaning it’s not honest. Nor is it a real or accurate portrayal of what pro-lifers actually belief. To be blunt, pro-life advocates do not really care what women do with their bodies. However, they do care about the bodies of their babies! Let me clarify:


From the perspective of Christians, which the pro-life group largely comprises, we actually do care what all people do with their bodies. The Bible reveals God’s will about sexuality, marriage, divorce, childbearing, childrearing, and more. And His will, although difficult to understand at times, is good — it is good by its very nature and beneficial to us when obeyed. As Christians who believe in the authority of God’s word, we naturally desire that others would understand this and come to the personal realization that both the Lord and His will are indeed good.

In fact, it’s hard not to wonder if we’d be having the abortion debate today if men and women sincerely practiced the basics of biblical morality like self-control, sobriety, abstinence before marriage, and faithfulness to one’s marriage partner.

But since we live in a democratic republic and not a theocracy, people are mostly legally free to do as they please, for better or worse. Our government cannot force sexual abstinence or indulgence. Thus, from this political vantage point, pro-lifers are not concerned so much about controlling the mother in regard to her sexual practices but they are deeply concerned about the children who are conceived—their lives and their welfare. Pro-life advocates seek to protect real, not just “potential,” human beings! This point seems so painfully obvious but sometimes I feel alone in trying to make it. Thankfully this truth was just heralded from an unlikely voice in an unlikely place.


Popular comedian Bill Burr, a contrarian who has a disdain for political correctness, recently made the hot topic of abortion into one of his acts. While not taking sides, in his unique, vulgarly candid, and yet comedic style, Burr points out the most obvious truth of what an abortion is:


“Pro-choice always made sense to me ’cause I don’t like people telling me what to do, and I was just like, it’s your body. Who the f _ _ _ am I to tell you what to do with your body? So that always made sense. All right? However, I still think you’re killing a baby. See? That’s where it gets weird.


Yes, we agree, the ending of human life is where it “gets weird.” In fact “killing a baby” is precisely why abortion is qualitatively different from nearly all other forms of contraceptives. Burr continues:


Like, I sit on the fence and the whole thing makes sense to me. When anybody’s saying, like, “Don’t tell me what to do.” “It’s my body, my choice.” That’s right, man, she’s right. Leave her the hell alone. “Well, you’re killin’ a baby!” Well, I mean, there is that. You know? If we’re gonna be honest, that is the whole purpose of the procedure. You’re not going in there ’cause you got an earache.


Next, Burr begins to feign modesty stating that he isn’t a medical professional, but then makes the self-evident truth that you really don’t need to be one in order to understand what’s growing inside a pregnant woman’s uterus. While pro-choice apologists would like others to believe that abortion is not the ending of a life, but the simple removal of a random and mysterious clump of cells, Burr shows us the absurdity of such a claim.


So… Pro-choice people like… “It’s not a baby yet,” that’s what they say, which may or may not be true. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, but I’ll tell you, my gut tells me that doesn’t make sense. It’s not a baby yet. That would be like if I was making a cake and I poured some batter in a pan and I put it in the oven, and then five minutes later you came by and you grabbed the pan, you threw it across the floor. And I went, “What the f _ _ _ ?! You just ruined my birthday cake.” And then you’re like, “Well, that wasn’t a cake yet.” It’s like, “Well, it would have been.” “If you didn’t do what you just did, there would have been a cake in 50 minutes.” “Something happened to that cake, you cake-murdering son of a bitch!” Right? 1


Fellow Christian, there are two truths we need to convince our neighbors of.


The first is that ultimately, pro-choice reasoning extols the freewill of the mother above the choice and life of a real child, whereas the pro-life position extols the right and choice of the child to live over the choice of the mother. In this same vein, knowing that nearly all cases the abortion are a result of consensual sex, this evidently reveals that the pro-life position does not deny the will of the woman as falsely accused, but acknowledges the baby as the natural result of a willful choice. And as advances in medicine, in-utero photographs, 4D ultrasounds and even Bill Burr have shown us, believing that abortion is anything other than ending human life is patently false.


Secondly, we need to show that God’s will is good. If trusting His purpose with our lives could have kept us from the many societal ailments we are suffering today, keeping His commands in choosing life and responsibility over death and sexual freedom will surely deliver us from future cultural maladies.

Micah Coate, President and Host of Salvation and Stuff

  1. https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/bill-burr-live-at-red-rocks-transcript/

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/bill-burr-live-at-red-rocks-transcript/

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