Zero-Sum

Zero-Sum is a term used to describe a situation in which one entity can gain only if the other entity or entities suffer an equal loss. Cutting pieces of a pie is an illustration of a Zero-Sum activity, because cutting a large piece of pie proportionally reduces the amount of pie available for other pieces of pie. Chess is an illustration of a Zero-Sum game. For example, if we were to play a single game of chess to the end, one of us will win and one of us will lose. If you then add the win (+1) to the loss (-1), the sum of the two numbers equals zero.

Pareto-Optimality

The Zero-Sum concept (i.e., if one gains, another loses) means that any result of a Zero-Sum situation is Pareto-Optimal. Pareto-Efficiency, or Pareto-Optimality, is a concept named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who used the concept in his studies of economic efficiency and income distribution. If given an assortment of alternative allocations of goods and services or outcomes for a set of individuals, any change from one policy to another that makes at least one individual better off without making any other individual worse off is called a Pareto-Improvement or a Pareto-Optimal move.

Abortion Is Not Abstract

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." — Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., Thomas Jefferson

All too often in the abortion debate the Pro-Choice community has framed their argument in Zero-Sum terms (i.e., Any limitation on abortion is seen as an equal loss for women's rights. Here abortion is an absolute right that trumps all other rights.). Like wise and equally often, the Pro-Life community has fought for Pareto-Optimal victories (i.e., Changes in abortion policies that makes at least one individual better off without making any other individual worse off.). Both concepts are academic exercises (i.e., a part of game theories) that can live or die on a chalk board. However, abortion is neither a game nor a concept that lives or dies in academia. In every case abortion kills a baby, an innocent human being. In 1938, Margaret said in her autobiography, "… abortion was the wrong way, no matter how early it was performed it was taking a life."¹ In 1952, even Planned Parenthood admitted that abortion "kills the life of a baby after it has begun."² It's clear what abortion is and what abortion does. Today, after 38 years of legalized abortion and the loss of over 53 million lives since 1973, it is also clear who we are and what we have done to end abortion. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence was right. "God is just and His justice cannot sleep forever."

May God forgive us all!

Brothers, we really need to talk.

Reference(s):
1. Sanger, Margert (1938), Margaret Sanger An Autobiography, New York: W.W. Norton, P. 217.
2. "Planned Parenthood 1952: Abortion 'Kills the Life of a Baby,' Danger to Mother", by Peter J. Smith, Washington D.C., March 16, 2010 (http://bit.ly/aayFx4)