Violence, sex, and fallacies: why abortion is not comparable to murder.
When the yearly homicide data is laid out and it becomes evident that, out of every 100 murders, over 90 are committed by men, a predictable reaction comes from certain sexist sectors. One of their typical responses is to appeal to a false equivalence: they insert abortion into homicide statistics in order to divert attention. In doing so, they place the millions of legal and illegal abortions alongside the roughly 380,000 homicides committed by men each year, as if abortions were murders committed by women. The move is transparent: shift the burden to women by suggesting that they, in fact, kill more than men. A rhetorical fallacy wrapped in moral cynicism.
Let’s dismantle that fallacy and explain—using facts and reason—why each voluntary termination of pregnancy involves multiple actors: doctors, legislators, healthcare institutions, legal frameworks… and cannot be reduced to an individual act solely attributable to the woman who chooses to abort.
The fallacy of false equivalence consists in presenting as comparable two facts, concepts, or situations that differ in fundamental aspects. It creates the illusion of similarity to invalidate a counterargument or inflate the strength of one's own, even when the comparison fails both logically and empirically.
Take a simple example: “Not recycling cans is as damaging as dumping toxic waste into a river.” Both actions harm the environment, but their impact is vastly different. This type of comparison ignores context, cherry-picks attributes, and generalizes without basis. It equates things that are not the same, omits key variables, and manipulates public perception.
Applied to abortion, the fallacy becomes obvious. Neither the legal framework nor the actors involved make abortion comparable to homicide—except in one point: there is a death. But that single overlap is not enough to equate the two. The entire comparison collapses when context is added.
Controlling pregnancy has long been a tool of patriarchal power. Whoever controls reproduction controls the world. And controlling reproduction means controlling women—the ones who gestate, give birth, and raise children (when permitted).
To blame the woman who aborts as the sole culprit is a manipulative simplification. It conveniently ignores the complex web of social, medical, legal, and economic factors surrounding that decision. Abortion is not a unilateral act. It is a decision shaped by multiple pressures and agents.
Parents, partners, friends, employers, health conditions, age, mental state, financial stability, and educational background all play a role. So do institutional structures: parliaments, governments, healthcare protocols, conscientious objection policies, welfare systems, and judges. A woman never acts in isolation. Her will is exercised within a collective framework.
Reducing all that to the headline “women kill more than men” is a lie disguised as moral argument.
It’s absurd for a man—who will never bear the physical or social consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, nor the real burden of raising a child alone—to appoint himself judge of someone else’s uterus. Some even boast of never using condoms or having abandoned pregnant partners, all while defending “pro-life values” from the comfort of a podcast studio.
The real paradox is this: there’s a historic interest in preventing women from fully controlling their fertility. Because controlling birth means controlling life. And that means controlling the women who give it.
Those who call themselves “pro-life” are, in reality, defenders of mandatory birth. Their concern ends with the delivery. They show no responsibility for raising children or supporting mothers. Meanwhile, those who promote surrogacy or mass adoption also depend on women—either willing or coerced—to hand over their children. In both cases, babies become commodities.
The emancipatory alternative is full maternal autonomy: that every woman decides when and how to become a mother—free of religious, political, or economic coercion, and backed by real support. Only when children are truly wanted does patriarchy begin to tremble.
During pregnancy, mother and child build a unique bond. After birth, skin-to-skin contact regulates vital functions and strengthens attachment. Interrupting that process is not neutral. It is traumatic—and it mobilizes legal, medical, and emotional systems.
Instead of condemning women who abort, we should focus on dismantling the conditions that push them into that position in the first place. Only then will the slogan “we decide” mean something real. Only then will motherhood become a free choice, sustained by a just social structure.
Even if someone managed to defend the abortion-equals-murder argument with logically coherent points, the moral conclusion would not be neutral. When both sides appear logically sound, the final battleground is moral.
And the morally superior position is the one that:
– Respects the dignity of women
– Recognizes the social complexity of abortion
– Protects the vulnerable without imposing guilt
– Remains coherent between its means and its ends
In a scenario where logic permits both sides to claim rationality, the winner is the one who offers the more just, humane, and reality-based framework.
Let’s not forget: abortion requires a whole network of actors, institutions, and contexts.
To carry a pregnancy to term, a woman just needs one thing: the will to do so.
That’s where everything begins. And that’s where our respect should begin, too.
Isabel Salas
