Supremely Wrong sets the record straight while delivering hope and healing to those impacted by the scourge of abortion.
Dr. Alveda C. King
Evangelist, Civil Rights for the Unborn
Niece of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Brent Boles has written a medically informed and deeply challenging book about the nature of the abortion debate, and why—nearly five decades after Roe v. Wade—it is the most contentious and portentous clash facing the nation. Supremely Wrong is a must-read on an issue that will not and cannot go away.
Chuck Donovan
President, Charlotte Lozier Institute
Have you ever felt helpless when trying to explain your thoughts on abortion? The divisions in our culture’s life-and-death battle deepen daily. Arm yourself with the knowledge necessary to not only stand up for life, but feel comfortable while doing it. This book by Dr. Brent Boles is filled with facts and expert medical information essential for defending the most important issue of our time—life.
Sue Thayer
Director of Outreach, 40 Days for Life
Former Clinic Manager, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (Iowa)
More inspired and detailed than any pro-life handbook to date, Supremely Wrong will be a treasure for the entire movement. Dr. Brent Boles leverages his unique personal experiences in the fields of medical practice and legislation to reveal a clear roadmap to the future in America.
Matt Lockett
Executive Director, Bound4LIFE International
Author, The Dream King and Prayer That Impacts the World
In his book, Supremely Wrong: The Injustice of Abortion, Dr. Brent Boles removes the veil on all things related to both sides of the abortion issue. No one can plead ignorance any longer.
Victoria Robinson
Author and Speaker
Director of External Relations, Save the Storks
What impresses me about Dr. Boles isn’t his credentials as a physician— it’s his love for truth grounded in medical ethics. This book provides new insights into why and how we must defend every precious life.
Harry R. Jackson Jr.
Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
Bishop, Ambassadors of Hope
Supremely Wrong
Copyright 2019 by C. Brent Boles, M.D.
All Rights Reserved. No part of Supremely Wrong may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – in any form without permission. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws.
Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.Zondervan.com. Scriptures marked ESV are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version®. Copyright© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.
Published by NEWTYPE Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-949709-77-3
eISBN:978-1-949709-80-3
Printed in the United States.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Understanding When Life Begins
Chapter 2: Abortion Is Not Health Care
Chapter 3: When Abortion Is Part of Your Story
Chapter 4: Refuting Abortion’s Rationale
Chapter 5: Murderous Jurisprudence
Chapter 6: Failure: How the Church Continues to Achieve It
Chapter 7: Failure, Part 2: How the Republican Party Continues to Achieve It
Chapter 8: God Wants to Answer Our Prayers to End Abortion
Chapter 9: A Winning Strategy
There is perhaps no greater divide in America today than the divide between those who celebrate Roe v. Wade and those who mourn it. Gallup polls1 over the past forty years consistently show Americans come down nearly equal on the question of how they self-identify; in late 2018, the figures were 48 percent “pro-life” and 48 percent “pro-choice.”
As I sat in Labor and Delivery one day several years ago, I became aware of the fact that that particular date was the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade. For the remainder of that day, I worked intermittently to write my thoughts. It was a busy day. With one young mother about to deliver her first child and another patient of mine who had just arrived in early labor, I was struck once again by just how far the Supreme Court missed the mark with that decision.
When the Supremes handed down their decision, the only evidence of independent life in the unborn child they had to consider was the mother’s perception of the baby’s movement. We now have very different technology—technology that demonstrates early life as soon as a couple of weeks after conception. We can detect the hormonal evidence of that life with a blood test before the mother (not mother-to-be) is even late for her menstrual period. We can see a heart beating within the early fetal pole as early as three weeks after conception. This is life…and while it certainly is not independent of its mother’s life, it is most definitely distinct from the mother’s life.
Dr. Keith Moore’s classic textbook on embryology, used in almost all medical school classes on human development, refers to the single-celled zygote and says “The cell results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of a human being.”2 Dr. Bradley M. Patten’s textbook Human Embryology says that fertilization “marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.”3 There is no real scientific uncertainty about when life begins—and even if there were, the benefit of the doubt should go to the preservation of life.
What is the real and practical difference between the newborn I was about to deliver and a walking, talking two-year-old toddler? The most fundamental and essential difference is two years. That’s right—time only. There are other things to which most people would point as obvious differences, but consider this: each and every difference between a newborn and that same child as a walking, talking toddler is the result of the passage of time. What is the most fundamental difference between the four weeks post-conception fetal pole and the newborn in the warmer? The passage of time. Any and all differences to which one can point in an attempt to make a distinction between the fetus and the newborn are the result of the passage of time. The act of ending the life of a toddler, or even of the newborn on the warmer, is indisputably murder—yet our laws allow the daily destruction of the lives of unborn children who have simply not yet lived long enough to cry, mess a diaper, or walk into the room and enthusiastically yell, “Daddy!” when daddy gets home from work.
So here we are—in a situation where political correctness reigns supreme over simple correctness and accuracy. We are told: It’s a choice, not a child. It’s unfortunate, but choice is a right and it must be protected. Millions of women will die in back alleys if they don’t have the right to choose. What about the more than sixty million who have died in operating rooms and clinics, mostly for the sake of convenience? The Nazis killed six million innocent Jews for what they perceived to be the sake of convenience—we in this country have killed more than ten times that many babies. If advocates for the pro-choice movement only had the spine to acknowledge, with truth and accuracy, exactly what abortion really is, it wouldn’t sound so politically correct and inoffensive. Here’s a news flash: Sometimes the truth is offensive!
Let’s consider truth for a minute. What the vast majority of Americans don’t realize is that the lawyers who argued the cases Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton both lied to the Supreme Court. They misrepresented the facts of the cases to the justices. It’s true—what far too many Americans consider to be nearly sacred court precedents were based on lies. The material facts of the cases and the actual circumstances of the petitioners were misrepresented to the justices. Isn’t the pursuit of truth supposed to be the underlying bedrock principle of our court system?
We have become a nation that is truly double-minded about our children. A woman with a child that delivers at twenty-five weeks at home unexpectedly—then decides to put the living child in a bag and throw it in the dumpster—will be tried for murder. A woman who chooses to go see a late-term abortionist at twenty-five weeks can have him administer some sort of poison to the child and then induce labor, so a dead child be delivered, or have the abortionist perform some sort of dismemberment procedure on the living child. To the pro-choice movement, she has bravely chosen an option that the law allows and is seen as a hero to have it done.
Our venerable House of Representatives, with its many pro-choice members, unanimously voted in the year 2000 to make it illegal to execute a pregnant woman. The only reason for such a vote is the recognition that the preborn child is a living individual with the right to live because he is distinct from his mother.4 That same House of Representatives has many members who regard the “right to choose” as a literal sacrament supposedly protected by the Constitution’s “right to privacy.” Let’s consider the implications. That “right to privacy” doesn’t allow me, as a doctor, to help a woman plan the murder of a cheating, abusive spouse, but it allows the relationship between a doctor and patient to plan the termination of a pregnancy. Do you see the double-mindedness?
More than half of the people who find themselves reading this are the result of an unplanned pregnancy. If you were born after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973, you are breathing today because your mother chose to have you. You would most certainly say that she chose well. Those whose mothers chose differently than yours have no voice with which to protest.
In the time it took for me to finish this original writing several years ago, a little bit at a time, I delivered both of the patients of whom I spoke in the opening paragraph. One handsome little boy, and one beautiful little girl. Neither one planned, but both wanted...and each one here simply because their mothers chose well. That which follows in this work is the result of several more years of study, thought, and activism on this issue, and is intended for two audiences. It is my hope that my words have been assembled in a way that those who read will find persuasive.
Those who believe that a woman’s right to choose is of prime importance, but who are willing to consider the subsequent material in this book, will find their worldview challenged. Those who believe in the sanctity of life will, upon complete consideration of this work, find themselves better prepared to participate in this gargantuan struggle in a meaningful and successful manner.
In the quest to understand the discourse about abortion, it is best to start at the beginning in order to grasp all that one must. Those in America who have expended so much effort to convince us all that abortion is good, just, moral, and necessary all have one commonality. They ignore the question of when life begins.
In an interview with Cecile Richards, who at the time was president of Planned Parenthood, news anchor Jorge Ramos tried twice to get her to answer the question: “When does life begin?” She steadfastly avoided his queries and deflected the conversation back to her talking points. Among other responses, she said, “I don’t know that it’s really relevant to the conversation.” In a different interview, with Playboy magazine, she avoided multiple times answering the question in a meaningful way. She said, “It depends on the pregnancy.” Then she claimed to have spoken to doctors who informed her that, “There is no specific moment when life begins.” She was asked, “Is there any point during pregnancy when an abortion would be terminating a life?” To that question she replied, “That’s a question medical folks have dealt with, and I’m not a doctor. I’ve spent a lot of time with OB-GYNs, and they will tell you there is no specific moment when life begins.” Her answers, like the answers of any abortion activist when challenged on these issues, are deceptive subterfuge.
I would submit to you that the question of when life begins is not only important; it is the most relevant question in this conversation. Any statement that indicates that we cannot know when life begins is demonstrably false. In the pages that follow, I will introduce in layman’s terms some basic medical understanding of human reproduction. Even if such frank descriptions seem to go “over your head” or make you squeamish as a non-medical professional, I encourage you not to rush through this chapter. Anyone seeking to engage in serious public dialogue on human life issues must have a firm grasp of the basics.
Embryology is the branch of science that studies human development. All medical schools in America must teach an embryology course, one that most students take during the very first year of medical school. It is a foundational subject, vital to understanding human anatomy and physiology. To those students who wish to pursue careers in obstetrics, pediatrics, or surgery, it is particularly important. All medical students must obtain a passing grade in this course. Virtually all medical schools in America use one or the other of two classic textbooks on embryology. Dr. Keith Moore wrote The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, and Dr. Bradley M. Patten wrote Human Embryology. These books pin down the moment that life begins with no ambiguity whatsoever. In the first chapter of his book, Dr. Moore discusses the zygote, which is the single-celled human that briefly exists after fertilization until it begins to divide and the cells multiply. About the zygote, Dr. Keith Moore says: “The cell results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of a human being.”5 Dr. Patten agrees with Dr. Moore’s statement as to when life begins and says in the first chapter of his book that conception “marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.”6
So much for the “ambiguity” surrounding the point at which life begins! Consider the question another way: If the pregnancy has not produced a living child, why is an abortion procedure needed to end the pregnancy? Isn’t the only reason the administration of an abortifacient drug or the performance of an abortive procedure is needed is that there is a living child? Indeed, a child will deliver soon thereafter if the pregnancy remains uninterrupted. If life hasn’t begun, why must it be killed when it is unwanted? You can only kill that which is alive; and that which is not alive does not need killing.
The mechanics of human reproduction are well known and understood. The facts of embryology cited above have been taught to all doctors in America for decades, including the OB/GYNs to whom Ms. Richards referred. There is no debate about how it happens. Even more significantly, doctors are taught how to assess the microscopic developing human for signs of life at even the earliest stages of pregnancy. Multiple medical texts, as well as instructions from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, teach us how to determine the viability of the pregnancy as early as two or three weeks after conception.
Conception is the moment at which a single sperm enters a single egg. It is at that moment that twenty-three single chromosomes from the mother join twenty-three single chromosomes from the father. This micro-explosion immediately produces a combination of genetic traits and attributes which is not only undeniably human, but also irrefutably unique. The particular combination which then exists has never existed before and will never exist again in all of human history. For a very short period of time, as the chromosomes sort themselves into the twenty-three pairs that each of this person’s cells will now carry for the rest of his or her life, the person exists as a single cell called a zygote. Once that cell begins to divide, the process of human development proceeds at an astonishingly rapid pace. Barring illness or accidents of nature, the only thing that will now prevent the birth of this human being is the intentional intervention of abortion.
Within a very short period of only a few days, the new baby has begun to communicate with his or her mother. At this stage, the communication is via a biochemical message that is unmistakable to the mother’s body. The new life within her begins to produce a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin. This hormone, abbreviated as HCG, informs the mother’s body of the new life within. This communication is vital. There is another hormone called progesterone. One of the mother’s ovaries begins releasing progesterone at the moment of ovulation, even before conception, in order to prepare the uterus to host the new child that will result if conception occurs. Progesterone prepares the lining of the uterus to make it a hospitable place for the baby, and also helps to maintain a state of relaxation in the muscular wall of the uterus so that it will accommodate the growing child. If conception does not occur, then the ovarian production of progesterone ceases fourteen days after ovulation and the next menstrual period begins. Once the ovary detects the HCG being produced by the new baby, the production of progesterone will be maintained until the end of the first trimester. At that point, the placenta will be producing enough progesterone independent of the ovary, and the pregnancy will be maintained. It is at this point that the child has reached his or her first milestone of self-sufficiency.
The interaction between mother and baby is a delicate accomplishment. It only occurs because the child is a living organism, so much more than a “clump of cells.” The mother’s body begins to respond in many other ways because of this biochemical communication with her child. The way her body’s insulin responds to her nutritional intake prepares the mother’s body to store nutrients which will be needed in greater amounts as the baby grows. Her cardiac output begins to change, and her blood pressure and blood volume begin to change in ways that accommodate the growing baby. Her respiratory physiology begins to change in order to provide for the increased oxygen requirements—as you know, oxygen is vital to life. Since this child is alive, he or she needs oxygen. If the child was not alive, these accommodations would not be necessary. After all, toenails and tonsils don’t change a woman’s physiology. But if you listen to abortion advocates, they have compared the unborn child to those things exactly; and there is no shortage of other ludicrous metaphors they are willing to use to deny the life and humanity of the unborn.
All of these changes begin taking place in the first trimester, which ends at the gestational age of thirteen weeks from the beginning of the last menstrual period. During that incredibly busy time, much has happened for the child. During the fourth week after the last period, the baby’s brain has become a distinct structure initially called the neural plate—just eighteen days after conception. Two days later, the brain and early spinal cord are visibly separate and distinct structures. Two days after that, just five weeks and one day after the last period and only three weeks after conception, the baby’s heart begins to beat. Later that week, the earliest recognizable limbs are present as the arm and leg buds. During the early part of the next week, eyes, ears, a nose, and mouth are present. All these events are occurring during the embryonic period, which ends eight weeks after conception or ten weeks after the last menstrual period. This is when the child transitions from the embryonic stage of development to the fetal stage.
It is always amazing to me when those who support abortion say: “It’s not a baby, it’s a fetus.” The word fetus is the Latin term for “little one,” and is in no way an indication of the child’s status as anything other than human. In like manner, the terms “infant,” “toddler,” “child,” “adolescent,” “teenager,” and “adult” are not reflections of one being more or less human. These are simply terms which describe points along the timeline of the lifespan. As the child enters the fetal stage of development, he or she has ten fingers and ten toes—all of which have the same unique set of fingerprints, which will be carried throughout life.
Growth and development are rapid at this point. From the end of the fourth week to the end of the fifth week, the baby doubles in size. By the end of the embryonic period, he or she will have doubled in size two more times and will have all the structures needed for eventual life outside of the mother’s body. All, then, that is needed is the passage of time to reach that point; and all this has happened before the end of the first trimester. The distinctions at different points during a pregnancy that have been drawn by the courts are completely arbitrary. Such distinctions are not grounded in scientific medical fact in any way, shape, or form.
The framework into which the Supreme Court, in 1973, placed the entire first trimester provides for the mother, in consultation with an abortionist, to be able to abort that pregnancy for any reason. Roe v. Wade prohibits the states from placing any restrictions whatsoever on abortion during that period of time. In doing so, the Supreme Court’s seven justices, voting in the majority, concocted a line of reasoning never before employed in the history of legal jurisprudence. It not only denied that the unborn child is a person but also codified protections for those who seek to end the lives of unborn children.
While Roe v. Wade goes on to open the door for the individual states to enact some protections in a graduated way in the second, and then third trimesters, it does so in a completely arbitrary manner. You see, there is science and then there is social policy. The scientific facts which I have laid out for you are indisputable. They are a matter of unarguable scientific knowledge, proven over and again by extensive study and evaluation. These facts are taught to all medical students without exception. Science itself is neither right nor wrong, good nor bad, beneficial or harmful. Science is simply a sum total of knowledge and fact and has no innate goodness or evil.
Social policy is a matter of opinion. It is debatable and subject to changes of whim, and prone to wide swings based on shifts in political realities. Social policy can be good or can be evil. Social policy is always designed to provide some benefit for at least some members of society or for those in power. Social policy can be good, in that we have instituted social policies that protect children from abuse, that provide for a retirement benefit and for health care for our elderly, and that do any manner of other good things. Social policy can also be evil. Horrifically, slavery was an accepted social policy in the United States of America for almost a hundred years after the Declaration of Independence. Segregation in our schools, in the provision of health care, and in the arena of the service industry (among many others) was a widespread social policy for almost another hundred years. Nazi social policy enabled the murder of eleven million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and political dissidents. Communist social policy allows the mistreatment, imprisonment, torture, and murder of political opponents. Some countries have social policies that discriminate against those of a particular religious persuasion. All these social policies are evil, and they all have one key central tenet in common with the social policy of abortion: they dehumanize a particular class of human beings in order to make their mistreatment and/or their extermination more palatable to the remaining population, or to provide those in power with the ability to do so without obstruction.
Abortion dehumanizes the unborn child—a living, unique, individual human being. It says that the unborn child is completely disposable, simply because they are unwanted. Those who support abortion have chosen to deny the personhood of what science clearly shows is a human being. The position of science on the beginning of life and the human nature of the unborn is now so clearly known that it is, and always will be, a fixed point in time. The removal of personhood from that fact-based assessment of humanity was required for us to have today’s current abortion policies in our country. Many fail to see the clear and present danger of our society having allowed this to happen.