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A review by trywii
Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality by Nancy R. Pearcey
1.0
I’m certainly not the target audience, and the amassed 4.5 stars this book has confirms to me that nobody outside of a few outliers have read this book not already loving it.
To give a TLDR if you don’t want to read through this lengthy review: This book poorly applies “personhood theory” to be a motivating factor for behaviors and practices outside of Christian faith. The author backbends to apply this philosophy in every chapter, and to make matters worse, her citations are not only often inaccurate but also *blatantly misquoted to assert her belief.* That, plus the massive amount of contradictions and muddied stances, earns this book 1 star.
Alright, if you’re looking for a more detailed look, do be warned this review is long.
Let’s start with the driving point of the book: Personhood Theory. ‘Personhood’ is made to distinguish the status of being a person, that is to say what human rights someone is owed or what legal, social, or cultural bearings one may have or be responsible of.
Now ‘Personhood Theory’, or how we set such standards to determine who is a person, can reasonably be brought up when discussing something such as abortion. However, because it’s the running theme, the author clumsily tries to weave personhood theory into all other topics mentioned, made worse by the egregious charts to visualize it.
Part of the problem as well is the author’s black-and-white view on every topic, making it continently easy to draw up charts of a ‘Good’ level (Christian POV) and a ‘Bad’ level (all secular worldviews). I know reading that may seem like I may be exaggerating, but I’m being genuine when I say it’s THAT much like a Saturday morning cartoon the way there’s only Good vs Evil in this book.
Now let’s move on to abortion, which is a discussion made early in the book.
Abortion is a polarizing topic, and knowing how most Christians feel, it’s unsurprising to me the author would take a pro-pregnancy stance. The author does not hesitate to make it a thoughtless moral stance to be otherwise:
“If you favor abortion, you are implicitly saying that in the early stages of life, an unborn baby has so little value that it can be killed for any reason—or no reason—without any moral consequence.”
It makes a hideous picture for the (already agreeing) reader- Pro-choice means heartless baby killing with no regard for human life. More like pro-murder, amirite ladies?
Not only that, but throughout the book there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it message of what it *really* means to be human.
“…the instruction manual for becoming the kind of person God intends us to be, the road map for reaching the human telos. This is sometimes called natural law ethics because it tells us how to fulfill our true nature, how to become fully human.”
There’s an implication here as well as in other passages that isn’t lost to me. To be Christian is to be human, but to be secular…hmm…
That’s part in why I believe the author was so firm on using ‘Personhood Theory’ as a foundation for the book. It’s easy to see people as being ‘mixed up’ if your basis of being human to any extent means being a Christian.
“…virtually all professional bioethicists agree that life begins at conception. An embryo has a full set of chromosomes and DNA…Why isn’t this taken as conclusive evidence that abortion is morally wrong?”
Because when we talk about abortion, we’re not just talking about an embryo, we’re also talking about the person who may have to carry that embryo for several months at the detriment of their health, finances, career, and sometimes community and social life.
The author acknowledges that many who get abortions or are pregnant worry about careers, money, and daily life in general. Instead of rearing a head at the American healthcare system and how community support for all persons have been choked by the need to survive off money alone, the author tisk-tisks at those naughty seculars for changing everybody’s ‘worldview’ into thinking it’s okay to have an abortion.
I want everybody to look up how much daycare for a child costs in your area, multiply that for several years plus healthcare, food, clothing, etc. Now imagine doing that while single, or having ran away from domestic abuse, or while having a disability. Then tell me if this is purely a ‘secular’ problem.
The book goes so far as to bring up Terri Schiavo (Please listen to the ‘You Were Wrong About’ podcast episode on this court case, as it covers it more thoroughly than I or the book ever could.), as well as court cases where former physicians have been found guilty of murder against infants to be on the same basis as abortion.
Uh. No.
The former being a case where a woman with half of her physical brain left was kept alive against her and her husband’s wishes for a decade, and the latter being two court cases where the doctors were found *guilty* of abusing their medical licenses, these situations are not in the slightest like abortion.
Misinformation Intermission
The book has much to say on Planned Parenthood, one of the first things being that they “harvest and sell”, and in fact-
“At Planned Parenthood clinics, aborted baby parts are treated as nothing more than tissue for research, or garbage to pick through for sellable bits and then thrown away.”
It should be noted that Center for Medical Progress (a fraudulent ‘organization’ created solely to go ‘undercover’ on Planned Parenthood, later to have it’s organizers facing over a dozen federal charges) had been exposed for editing videos of these claims. Yes, PP does in fact offer for anything left of an abortion to be used in research, but much like donating organs, you can opt out. You are also offered to have, in some conditions, cremation or burial.
Some ‘smaller’ inaccuracies to point out are “Scientists recently discovered that when a sperm meets an egg, an explosion of tiny sparks erupts…the exact moment of conception…Human life literally begins in a bright flash of light.”
Not quite, it’s actually a burst of zinc. It *looks* like a burst of light due to the special lighting scientists used to record the imaging, but it is not a ‘literal’ burst of light. The imaging taken was also not a sperm meeting an egg, rather a sperm enzyme, meaning the ‘conception’ was more like a test run.
A claim that abortions make it harder for women to get pregnant in the future cited a study, however a retrospective concluded the following, from Association of induced abortion with preterm birth risk in first-time mothers, 2018: “In summary, our study suggested that a previous IA, as compared with women who reported no previous IA, does not increase the risk of PTB or LBW in subsequent pregnancy for the first-time mothers (among Southern Chinese women.)”
The scare tactics of mentioning that some oral birth control methods are a group 1 carcinogen without clarifying that drinking alcohol, getting an x-ray, going on any form of estrogen hormone treatment, or relaxing in the sunshine is also considered group 1. I can’t for the life of me understand it when Christian books flinch at birth control methods, even within the confines of marriage.
Another that tipped me off was “The New Testament concept of a bodily resurrection was completely novel in the ancient world.”
Egyptian, Canaanite, Greek, Buddhist, and Hindu religions would like a word.
Now let’s move back
“That’s why, as we will see, a Christian ethic always takes into account the facts of biology…” I lol’d.
With the constant mention of Personhood Theory, it’s often used to polarize Christianity vs the rest of the world. Christians understand the basics, but seculars are alllll over the place with their ‘queer theory’ and ‘Darwinism’. Christians are radical, counter-cultural, and borderline punk! Meanwhile, seculars…? Those guys are just way too behind the times.
Theres little place for a ‘good’ non-Christian, unless it’s to vilify the book’s intentions. What makes it all the more infuriating is when there’s a massive double standard being held.
Romans in this book are crooked, they keep slaves, beat their kids, and the whole of Rome is just one big sausage fest with nothing ‘Good’ about it. But the Founding Fathers? You know, the guys that owned slaves, one of them famously keeping one to rape and have kids with and another famously known for having dentures made from them? No, no, those are GOOD guys because they’re Christian, and they made the (for some reason, heavily quoted in this book) Declaration of Independence!
You know Newton? He was a Christian *scientist*! What’s that? You mean he was regarded as a heretic, and in fact the church itself held religious control so tightly that it stunted researchers and scientists from flourishing more in their respective eras? But…that’s so un-Christlike…Nah, it must’ve been seculars.
On and on it goes. It’s one thing to admire the heroes who’ve done massive acts for humanity, cause hey, I’m not gonna knock Newton or the woman who popularized Baby Boxes because of religious beliefs. However, to pretend or even *rewrite* history in service of painting a prettier picture of Christians does a disservice both to the Christians who struggled within their own communities to do acts of good and to the integrity of history as a whole.
To claim Christianity pioneered empathy for the elderly, sick, young, and/or female is to claim these concepts were not a part of any culture at all. Maybe ancient Rome had a Machismo issue, I can believe that, but time and time again ancient history of other cultures and religions that regarded kindly to it’s community and all it’s members is ignored to uplift Christianity as the spearhead of *every good thing*.
The latter half of the book is on gay and trans people, and to be honest, I feel like a broken record when much of the material is the same as all the other books I’ve reviewed that covered the topic negatively. What I will say is if you cite a statistic about a minority group, maybe don’t use the “We Think The Minority Group Doesn’t Exist” org as your source.
Theres much, MUCH more I did not cover that I will instead relegate to highlights as reels. Not a good book.
Oh, sorry, I mean it’s a *radical* book, and I’m too marxist to figure it out without the help of a lil ~divine intervention~.
To give a TLDR if you don’t want to read through this lengthy review: This book poorly applies “personhood theory” to be a motivating factor for behaviors and practices outside of Christian faith. The author backbends to apply this philosophy in every chapter, and to make matters worse, her citations are not only often inaccurate but also *blatantly misquoted to assert her belief.* That, plus the massive amount of contradictions and muddied stances, earns this book 1 star.
Alright, if you’re looking for a more detailed look, do be warned this review is long.
Let’s start with the driving point of the book: Personhood Theory. ‘Personhood’ is made to distinguish the status of being a person, that is to say what human rights someone is owed or what legal, social, or cultural bearings one may have or be responsible of.
Now ‘Personhood Theory’, or how we set such standards to determine who is a person, can reasonably be brought up when discussing something such as abortion. However, because it’s the running theme, the author clumsily tries to weave personhood theory into all other topics mentioned, made worse by the egregious charts to visualize it.
Part of the problem as well is the author’s black-and-white view on every topic, making it continently easy to draw up charts of a ‘Good’ level (Christian POV) and a ‘Bad’ level (all secular worldviews). I know reading that may seem like I may be exaggerating, but I’m being genuine when I say it’s THAT much like a Saturday morning cartoon the way there’s only Good vs Evil in this book.
Now let’s move on to abortion, which is a discussion made early in the book.
Abortion is a polarizing topic, and knowing how most Christians feel, it’s unsurprising to me the author would take a pro-pregnancy stance. The author does not hesitate to make it a thoughtless moral stance to be otherwise:
“If you favor abortion, you are implicitly saying that in the early stages of life, an unborn baby has so little value that it can be killed for any reason—or no reason—without any moral consequence.”
It makes a hideous picture for the (already agreeing) reader- Pro-choice means heartless baby killing with no regard for human life. More like pro-murder, amirite ladies?
Not only that, but throughout the book there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it message of what it *really* means to be human.
“…the instruction manual for becoming the kind of person God intends us to be, the road map for reaching the human telos. This is sometimes called natural law ethics because it tells us how to fulfill our true nature, how to become fully human.”
There’s an implication here as well as in other passages that isn’t lost to me. To be Christian is to be human, but to be secular…hmm…
That’s part in why I believe the author was so firm on using ‘Personhood Theory’ as a foundation for the book. It’s easy to see people as being ‘mixed up’ if your basis of being human to any extent means being a Christian.
“…virtually all professional bioethicists agree that life begins at conception. An embryo has a full set of chromosomes and DNA…Why isn’t this taken as conclusive evidence that abortion is morally wrong?”
Because when we talk about abortion, we’re not just talking about an embryo, we’re also talking about the person who may have to carry that embryo for several months at the detriment of their health, finances, career, and sometimes community and social life.
The author acknowledges that many who get abortions or are pregnant worry about careers, money, and daily life in general. Instead of rearing a head at the American healthcare system and how community support for all persons have been choked by the need to survive off money alone, the author tisk-tisks at those naughty seculars for changing everybody’s ‘worldview’ into thinking it’s okay to have an abortion.
I want everybody to look up how much daycare for a child costs in your area, multiply that for several years plus healthcare, food, clothing, etc. Now imagine doing that while single, or having ran away from domestic abuse, or while having a disability. Then tell me if this is purely a ‘secular’ problem.
The book goes so far as to bring up Terri Schiavo (Please listen to the ‘You Were Wrong About’ podcast episode on this court case, as it covers it more thoroughly than I or the book ever could.), as well as court cases where former physicians have been found guilty of murder against infants to be on the same basis as abortion.
Uh. No.
The former being a case where a woman with half of her physical brain left was kept alive against her and her husband’s wishes for a decade, and the latter being two court cases where the doctors were found *guilty* of abusing their medical licenses, these situations are not in the slightest like abortion.
Misinformation Intermission
The book has much to say on Planned Parenthood, one of the first things being that they “harvest and sell”, and in fact-
“At Planned Parenthood clinics, aborted baby parts are treated as nothing more than tissue for research, or garbage to pick through for sellable bits and then thrown away.”
It should be noted that Center for Medical Progress (a fraudulent ‘organization’ created solely to go ‘undercover’ on Planned Parenthood, later to have it’s organizers facing over a dozen federal charges) had been exposed for editing videos of these claims. Yes, PP does in fact offer for anything left of an abortion to be used in research, but much like donating organs, you can opt out. You are also offered to have, in some conditions, cremation or burial.
Some ‘smaller’ inaccuracies to point out are “Scientists recently discovered that when a sperm meets an egg, an explosion of tiny sparks erupts…the exact moment of conception…Human life literally begins in a bright flash of light.”
Not quite, it’s actually a burst of zinc. It *looks* like a burst of light due to the special lighting scientists used to record the imaging, but it is not a ‘literal’ burst of light. The imaging taken was also not a sperm meeting an egg, rather a sperm enzyme, meaning the ‘conception’ was more like a test run.
A claim that abortions make it harder for women to get pregnant in the future cited a study, however a retrospective concluded the following, from Association of induced abortion with preterm birth risk in first-time mothers, 2018: “In summary, our study suggested that a previous IA, as compared with women who reported no previous IA, does not increase the risk of PTB or LBW in subsequent pregnancy for the first-time mothers (among Southern Chinese women.)”
The scare tactics of mentioning that some oral birth control methods are a group 1 carcinogen without clarifying that drinking alcohol, getting an x-ray, going on any form of estrogen hormone treatment, or relaxing in the sunshine is also considered group 1. I can’t for the life of me understand it when Christian books flinch at birth control methods, even within the confines of marriage.
Another that tipped me off was “The New Testament concept of a bodily resurrection was completely novel in the ancient world.”
Egyptian, Canaanite, Greek, Buddhist, and Hindu religions would like a word.
Now let’s move back
“That’s why, as we will see, a Christian ethic always takes into account the facts of biology…” I lol’d.
With the constant mention of Personhood Theory, it’s often used to polarize Christianity vs the rest of the world. Christians understand the basics, but seculars are alllll over the place with their ‘queer theory’ and ‘Darwinism’. Christians are radical, counter-cultural, and borderline punk! Meanwhile, seculars…? Those guys are just way too behind the times.
Theres little place for a ‘good’ non-Christian, unless it’s to vilify the book’s intentions. What makes it all the more infuriating is when there’s a massive double standard being held.
Romans in this book are crooked, they keep slaves, beat their kids, and the whole of Rome is just one big sausage fest with nothing ‘Good’ about it. But the Founding Fathers? You know, the guys that owned slaves, one of them famously keeping one to rape and have kids with and another famously known for having dentures made from them? No, no, those are GOOD guys because they’re Christian, and they made the (for some reason, heavily quoted in this book) Declaration of Independence!
You know Newton? He was a Christian *scientist*! What’s that? You mean he was regarded as a heretic, and in fact the church itself held religious control so tightly that it stunted researchers and scientists from flourishing more in their respective eras? But…that’s so un-Christlike…Nah, it must’ve been seculars.
On and on it goes. It’s one thing to admire the heroes who’ve done massive acts for humanity, cause hey, I’m not gonna knock Newton or the woman who popularized Baby Boxes because of religious beliefs. However, to pretend or even *rewrite* history in service of painting a prettier picture of Christians does a disservice both to the Christians who struggled within their own communities to do acts of good and to the integrity of history as a whole.
To claim Christianity pioneered empathy for the elderly, sick, young, and/or female is to claim these concepts were not a part of any culture at all. Maybe ancient Rome had a Machismo issue, I can believe that, but time and time again ancient history of other cultures and religions that regarded kindly to it’s community and all it’s members is ignored to uplift Christianity as the spearhead of *every good thing*.
The latter half of the book is on gay and trans people, and to be honest, I feel like a broken record when much of the material is the same as all the other books I’ve reviewed that covered the topic negatively. What I will say is if you cite a statistic about a minority group, maybe don’t use the “We Think The Minority Group Doesn’t Exist” org as your source.
Theres much, MUCH more I did not cover that I will instead relegate to highlights as reels. Not a good book.
Oh, sorry, I mean it’s a *radical* book, and I’m too marxist to figure it out without the help of a lil ~divine intervention~.