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This is an 8 week old human fetus.It is an individual with fingers, toes, ears and a nose. Inside that tiny chest was a beating heart. He or she is easily distinguished from the fetal forms of other animals. This is a member of the species Homo sapiens. Anyone who defends abortion on the belief that it removes a blob of cells can quit reading now.
In the modern era of ultrasound and 'scopy (the use of cameras inside the human body), it is hard to look very far into the abortion debate without coming face-to-face with, well, a tiny face. Old arguments about tissue and cells have morphed into arguments about whether this tiny body is truly a human life. On a scientific level, only viruses exist in life's grey area. For everything else, the following definition is considered adequate:
Life: noun - the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
By the scientific definition, the fetus is a living Homo Sapien. A question somehow still exists over if it is a human being, and therefore a legal person. It opens up the question of whether Humanity is an innate characteristic of the species, or something that some members possess and some do not. It allows the possibility that personhood is a privilege granted by the state, rather than an inalienable right to be defended by the state.
This is certainly not a new idea. In the first hundred years of our own country, we did not recognize the full personhood of slaves. To the early American society, the African and his descendants failed to meet all the criteria for humanity. It has been about a century since we extended full-personhood to women. Less than 80 years ago, the personhood of Jews, homosexuals and political dissidents was suspended in Nazi Germany. It's not a new idea that we draw lines around some groups of human beings and don't treat them as persons, But since the 1850's we've been moving in the general direction of believing that a living human being is not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
Since the humanity of the fetus is harder and harder to deny, the pro-abortion movement has brought forth a fictional analogy of a person who wakes up one day in a hospital connected by machines to a famous musician who has a rare disease that can only be cured by nine months of direct transfusions of blood and you are the only person with the right type of blood. They argue that since you are not morally obligated to lay next to the this guy for most of a year to keep him alive, likewise a women is not morally obligated to let a tiny human being use her body for life support.
There are so many problems with this idea. First of all, we generally hold the custodial parent legally obligated to provide housing and nutrition to a child. If a woman shows up on a man's doorstep with his child and says, "I can't do this anymore. Here's your kid." and walks away, the man has to feed and house his child, or arrange for someone to do so. In fact, most of us would agree that if someone leaves their child with you to babysit and doesn't come back at the agreed upon time, you can't just walk away and leave the child. I'm sorry that there is currently no way to arrange for someone else to care for your fetus, but that's physics. The person in custody of a child does have a legal obligation to use their body to provide for the child, even if they didn't choose to.
Secondly, the vast majority of women continue to lead a productive life while pregnant. It's not being strapped into a hospital bed for nine months. Thirdly, most pregnancies are, well, somewhat predictable. You were not chosen at random. Babies are the natural outcome of sex. They are, in fact, the whole reason sex exists. If you feel like having a baby would ruin your life, adjust your sexual practices appropriately.
Lastly, no matter what you may have heard, having a baby isn't the end of the world. Most pregnant women who go on to be mothers wouldn't trade their child for anything. Most mothers would jump in front of a bullet to save their child. It goes completely against a woman's natural instinct to kill her own children. Abortion is the most anti-woman procedure I can imagine. Something like 85% of women who have abortions don't feel like they had any other choice. You know who's really pro-choice? The people at crisis pregnancy centers who make sure that women understand that there are ways to have their baby and have their life. Adoption verses parenting - that's a real choice. Killing your own tiny, living son or daughter should never be.
Since the humanity of the fetus is harder and harder to deny, the pro-abortion movement has brought forth a fictional analogy of a person who wakes up one day in a hospital connected by machines to a famous musician who has a rare disease that can only be cured by nine months of direct transfusions of blood and you are the only person with the right type of blood. They argue that since you are not morally obligated to lay next to the this guy for most of a year to keep him alive, likewise a women is not morally obligated to let a tiny human being use her body for life support.
There are so many problems with this idea. First of all, we generally hold the custodial parent legally obligated to provide housing and nutrition to a child. If a woman shows up on a man's doorstep with his child and says, "I can't do this anymore. Here's your kid." and walks away, the man has to feed and house his child, or arrange for someone to do so. In fact, most of us would agree that if someone leaves their child with you to babysit and doesn't come back at the agreed upon time, you can't just walk away and leave the child. I'm sorry that there is currently no way to arrange for someone else to care for your fetus, but that's physics. The person in custody of a child does have a legal obligation to use their body to provide for the child, even if they didn't choose to.
Secondly, the vast majority of women continue to lead a productive life while pregnant. It's not being strapped into a hospital bed for nine months. Thirdly, most pregnancies are, well, somewhat predictable. You were not chosen at random. Babies are the natural outcome of sex. They are, in fact, the whole reason sex exists. If you feel like having a baby would ruin your life, adjust your sexual practices appropriately.
Lastly, no matter what you may have heard, having a baby isn't the end of the world. Most pregnant women who go on to be mothers wouldn't trade their child for anything. Most mothers would jump in front of a bullet to save their child. It goes completely against a woman's natural instinct to kill her own children. Abortion is the most anti-woman procedure I can imagine. Something like 85% of women who have abortions don't feel like they had any other choice. You know who's really pro-choice? The people at crisis pregnancy centers who make sure that women understand that there are ways to have their baby and have their life. Adoption verses parenting - that's a real choice. Killing your own tiny, living son or daughter should never be.
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