First, let me get this out of the way: I’m against abortion. I think it’s repulsive and should be banned.

I have debated those who feel I’m wrong, both in person and in print.

But the comments allegedly made by a Planned Parenthood executive that were captured by a hidden camera should shock even the most ardent supporter of abortion. The video was made public this week.

The video was released in an attempt to show that the organization profits from the harvesting of organs from aborted fetuses. While that’s terrible if true, the executive’s comments were more disturbing.

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” she says in the video.

Think about what she is saying. An unborn child will be crushed by forceps in a manner that doesn’t harm the valuable organs, but certainly kills it. How did we get to a point in society where this practice is allowed and championed?

Some will argue that an unborn fetus is not a human. Really? How do we know this? How do we define the point at which a fertilized egg becomes a human? Science has tried for sure. But science has been really wrong before — scientists once thought the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth.

If we can’t know 100 percent when the point of becoming fully “human” is, why aren’t we erring on the side of life? Our society and government are built around the central idea of protecting and preserving life. Why have we strayed so far from that tenet when it comes to abortion?

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision holds that “women have a constitutional right to abortion up until viability, or the point at which the fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb.” Eleven states have enacted so-called “fetal-pain” abortion laws, restricting abortion at 18 or 20 weeks.

Science first said that the viability threshold was 28 weeks. That number has been reduced as medical technology has advanced.

But some in favor of abortion don’t care about any particular threshold, they simply believe a woman’s right to her own body trumps any right to life that the unborn child has.

Others believe abortion is acceptable because a fetus can’t feel pain before 24 weeks — according to some scientists. That logic is confusing to me. So it’s OK to take the life of another being as long as it doesn’t experience pain during the process? Why should the ability to feel pain be a factor here? Does feeling pain make us human? Does the absence of pain mean we are not human?

If a pregnancy is threatening the life of the mother, then I can buy the Constitutional argument — all people are afforded the natural rights of “life, liberty and property.” But in those cases when the mother’s life is not threatened, I’m not convinced.

Already, we have laws that trample citizens’ rights to their own bodies in favor of preserving life. The most basic is the seatbelt law. The government has decided — and society has agreed — that your desire to control what happens to your body by remaining untethered in your vehicle is outweighed by a desire to preserve life. It’s not as though you are a danger to anyone else if you don’t buckle up. You are only threatening your own life.

So why then has society agreed that preserving life trumps personal rights in this case, but not in the case of abortion?

Some argue from this basic position: Women have a Constitutional right to decide what happens to their bodies and nothing else matters. The Constitution does not, however, give them the right to decide what happens to others’ bodies. But that’s exactly what happens during an abortion. A human is deciding what happens to the life of another human.

Again, the only rebuttal to this logic is that the fetus isn’t human and has no rights. Well, what is it then? It’s human enough for its organs and tissues to be used to save the lives of other humans.

I realize nothing I write will convince anyone who is pro-abortion to change their mind. It’s too emotional a topic for logic to prevail. But I wish our courts, when in doubt, would err on the side of life.

Luke Horton is the publisher of the Daily Leader.