There are an estimated 3,000 abortions performed each day in the United States. This results in approximately 766,000 abortions performed each year, allowing for slight fluctuations in the reports garnered by the CDC. This means that every year abortion technicians kill ~766,000 babies, and since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion on demand in 1973, approximately 50 million babies have been killed. Compare this to the genocides committed by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and countless other human rights violators and their number pale in significance. In light of this atrocity, many people have made "arguments" that endeavor to justify this act of murder. Lets take a look at some.
The first argument can be summed up as follows: "The fetus (Latin for child, which implies human) is not even a life. It is just a clump of cells. It does not matter." This is often based from an ignorance of biology and can be rectified with 3 facts. Number 1: a "fetus" comes from human parents, so if it is not human, what is it? Will a frog "fetus" ever be a chicken or a goat? I think not. Number 2: There are no significant differences between a "fetus" and other human beings. Sure, other humans may be larger and smell better and look more pleasing, but at the base level of what makes a human a human, a "fetus" shares all the requirements with any other "legal" human. Finally, number 3: Science tells us that a human life begins at fertilization. Here are some quotes from some embryology text books, with a few added commentary notes: "Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
(Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2)
"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]
"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being.The common expression ‘fertilized ovum’ refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1] For even more proof that life begins at fertilization, here are some links (because I do not want to numb your brain with hundred of scientific phrases when I can encourage you to do it to yourself):
(this one is even a video!)
When faced with the scientific facts, many pro-choice adherents will insist that while it may be a human, it is not a person. Well, lets get into the legal history of "personhood." I warn you, it is bloody, but you opened this can, not I.
When you refer to the child in the womb as a human but not a person, you are using discriminatory and exclusionary language. Think about it: Can you name one time in human history when "legal personhood" was used to include or protect a group of people? The answer is no, because, up until now, this silly phrase has never been around. Let us take a look, however, at when the concept has been used to deprive humans of their human rights based on arbitrarily selected criteria. Black Americans, American Indians, Jewish people in Germany under Hitlers policies, women before suffrage and other women's rights movements, homosexuals and "trans" gender people, (especially in Germany during the Nazi regime), peasants in China and the U.S.S.R., serfs, the list continues on and on. Do you now, perhaps, recognize the danger of assigning a human "personhood" based on what you think defines a "person?" While you have your right to an opinion, you do not have the right to use it to justify the destruction of other human beings. If you believe the opposite of this, then perhaps you belong grouped in with the likes of Mao Tsedong and Stalin.
Finally, there is the "But it is just a parasite!" argument and here we come again back to the ignorance of basic human, or any, biology. A parasite is a foreign organism that feeds on a host for its own benefit. A baby in the womb is not foreign and is doing exactly what the womb and reproductive process are meant to do. Humans were not built to produce parasites, we were built to produce other, smaller, humans for the benefit of the species. Besides, if you truly believe that an embryo or "fetus" is a parasite, then by association you must also believe that any child up until they leave the house and become financially, emotionally, and mentally independent of the parents are also parasites and, as such, the parents may kill them as well with no justification beside the statement that "they are parasites."
Considering the plethora of evidence to support the fact that a fertilized human egg is a human and the fact that killing a human is considered murder if it is not in self defense or they a combatant, then the question "why is it legal to commit abortion?" arises. There are many hypocritical reasons supported by flawed logic and reasoning that will be explored and subsequently dismantled next time. Until then, enjoy your life, and remember that your mother could have had you killed just like the other 50 million+ babies.
