Kaitlyn Thornton Abbott

A nurse sits in a back room, looking at a baby.  The baby’s seventeen-year-old mother rests in the recovery room.  The nurse empties the contents of the suctioning tube into a bucket and onto the table.  She counts one head, a whole torso, two arms, two legs, ten fingers, and ten toes.  She sees thousands of babies like this a year; babies who were too young to die.  Suddenly, she bursts into tears.  This time it was too much.  She saw the eyelids, the nose; all she could imagine was her own infant at home, sucking on his thumb.  “How is this one any different?” she wonders to herself.  Slowly, she gets herself together and goes back into the operation room and nods at the doctor, signifying everything was accounted for.

This may seem like a made up story, but this is the testimony of a former abortion clinic worker (Meyers 2).  This woman knew the unborn fetus, what the doctors like to call a “clump of tissue,” was an actual human child.  She knew what they were doing was wrong.  This woman knew what my thesis is here to prove.  Abortion cannot be justified, morally or medically, because the fetus is human, very much alive from the moment of conception.

The question “when does life begin?” has echoed across the generations, and each generation takes its turn trying to answer that question.  The problem was, and still is, they ask themselves the wrong question.  The question, “when does life begin?” is inherently flawed.  Life doesn’t begin; it began.  Life began once, at Creation.  The question that needs to be answered is “when does each human fetus gain the status of being biologically alive?”  There is no question: the fetus is human; a human being is a member of Homo sapiens.  When humans reproduce, a monkey is not created, nor is a turtle, nor is any non-human entity; the fetus growing inside the mother’s womb is biologically human.  The question drawn from this understanding is if it is human, is it alive?  And if it is alive, is it a person?  Because the answers to those questions are, yes, the fetus is alive, and yes, it is a person, you will see through my thesis abortion cannot be justified morally or medically.

Abortion is a word thrown around, with a general understanding of the idea.  The concrete definition of abortion, however, is “the deliberate termination of one’s pregnancy.”  The terms going to be associated with this thesis are as follows: morally, justified, life, individual, viability, gestational, and living.  Morally means “in relation to standards of good and bad character or conduct.”  Justified means “having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason.”  Personhood is defined as “the quality or condition of being an individual person.”  Viability is “having attained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother’s womb.”  Gestational is “the period of development in the uterus from conception until birth.”  Also, individual is defined as “a single human being distinct from any other human.”  Merriam Webster defines life as “an opportunity for continued viability,” but speaking from a medical perspective life is defined as “the energy that enables organisms to grow, reproduce, absorb and use nutrients, and evolve, and, in some organisms, to achieve mobility, express consciousness, and demonstrate a voluntary use of the senses.”  The five criteria all organisms must meet to be declared “living” are having highly organized systems, having an ability to acquire materials and energy, having an ability to respond to their environment, having the ability to reproduce, and having the ability to adapt (Stone 2).  Although fetuses may not have the ability to reproduce in the sense of offspring, they reproduce in the sense the cells divide to reproduce more cells to allow the fetus to continue to grow and develop.

The idea of terminating one’s pregnancy dates back to ancient cultures.  Many methods early cultures practiced were non-surgical.  The earliest written record of an abortion was found in the Ebers Papyrus, an ancient medical text drawn from records that date back as early as the third millennium B.C.  The Ebers Papyrus says an abortion can be induced through an herbal tampon, which was the most common practice.  The Egyptian recipe is based on acacia berries and it specifically states that it can stop a pregnancy at any time (“History of Abortion” 2).

Not only was it done in the world of the Egyptians, but it was also a common practice in China.  Folklore speaks of it (mercury potions were said to be used) and royal concubines were documented to have abortions as early as 515 B.C.  They, like the Egyptians, understood the basic concept of activeness during pregnancy.  For example, they realized any action that could result in a miscarriage could be done on purpose to achieve the same result.  Hard rubbing or massage on the uterus, riding a horse, and heavy lifting were all common practices of removing an unwanted pregnancy.  Unwanted pregnancies happened for a variety of reasons, just as they do today; however, these reasons usually stemmed from economic problems and famine.  Other Asian observations, such as Japanese texts, state there were shrines dedicated to the lost and aborted babies.

The Ancient Greeks also practiced abortion and quite commonly, too.  For example, Soranus, a second-century Greek physician, was a strong advocate for abortion, but only in the cases of woman’s health and emotional immaturity.  His methods were said to cause the woman no harm, and all that would physically happen was a miscarriage.  His methods included fasting, bloodletting, energetic walking, riding animals, and jumping so one’s feet hit one’s butt.  He highly disagreed to the use of sharp instruments to terminate a pregnancy due to the risk of harming the woman by perforating her organs (Merino 26).

One of the most extreme methods of abortion during the medieval period was a surgical practice called embryotomy.  Simply put, this was the removing of a dead or alive fetus from the mother’s womb.  This was a fairly common practice whenever complications appeared, and some archaeological discoveries point in this direction.  For example, a decapitated infant with other multiple mutilations found at a gravesite in Dorset buried without the mother shows she probably survived after undergoing an embryotomy, based upon the mutilation of her baby (45).

Abortion dates back to ancient cultures, and the procedures were just as harmful then as they are today.  Abortion is argued it is a woman’s choice, but abortion was tried as a crime in the ancient cultures.  They believed a woman who had an abortion not sanctioned by her husband was undermining his authority and was punishable by death (47).  In many cultures it was not legalized; however, many spoke out against the illegality of it, pushing for changes in the law, based upon the presumption of women’s health.  The issue of legality remained prevalent until 1973 in the case of Roe v. Wade when abortion upon demand was legalized with the defense of “women’s choice.”  Today, 1.21 million abortions occur annually, with nine abortions every four minutes, and one abortion every twenty-six seconds in the United States.

In order to prove my thesis, that abortion cannot be justified medically or morally, I will prove abortion cannot be justified medically because life begins at conception, and I will prove abortion cannot be justified morally because the fetus is alive, and abortion is unjust, and since our society is founded on justice, it is not right.  I will also be refuting three counter arguments to my thesis: it is a woman’s choice to do what she pleases with her own body and her reproductive rights should not be infringed upon, the fetus is not a living entity, and in the case of rape or incest, all abortions are just.

My first point is life begins at conception. Keith Moore explains in his book Essentials of Human Embryology

Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).  Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm with a secondary oocyte and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei 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 (6).

The size of that zygote when first formed is smaller than your fingernail, but the size of the fetus cannot be a determining factor in whether or not the fetus is alive (9).  The embryonic stage is merely that — a stage in development, just as puberty and menopause are stages in development people hit as they age.  Just because someone hasn’t hit puberty doesn’t mean he’s any less of a person than an eighteen-year-old.  In the same way, just because the fetus isn’t fully grown yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t alive and it isn’t a person.  The stage of development is not a deciding factor in whether the fetus is alive or not.  The deciding factor which determines whether life begins at conception is the biological standards all living things must meet, which are having highly organized systems, an ability to acquire materials and energy, an ability to respond to their environment, the ability to reproduce, and the ability to adapt.  The systems the fetus has are exceptionally organized; they have all of the systems you and I do, only less developed, depending on gestational age.  The fetus acquires energy from the mother and continues to grow; the fetus also responds to the mother’s and father’s voices and music.  The fetus may not be able to reproduce in the sense of offspring, but the cells that make up the fetus are continuously reproducing and multiplying, which grows the fetus.  The fetus also can adapt to environments, such as a petri dish to the mother’s womb.

For my second point, I will prove abortion cannot be justified morally.  A federal law in America is not to kill.  If something is alive, then it can be killed.  Being alive means to “continue in existence.”  A fetus will continue on in existence until it is born, if left alone.  People will claim because a fetus is dependent on another human being, not only for nutrients but for simple existence, then they are not to be considered as people.  In today’s world of medicine and technology, however, doctors are able to keep humans existing through the use of respirators and dialysis machines; dependency on a machine or another human can’t determine personhood or lack thereof.  A person is no different from a human and can be defined as such.  Merriam Webster states a person is “a human being, that which is regarded as an individual.”  Every fetus, from the moment of conception, is biologically alive.  The heartbeat that can be heard, the brainwaves that can be measured, and kicks that can be felt are signs of a living human being.  Illegality is formed based off of morality.  Something is made illegal because it infringes upon the rights of another person.  The fetus meets the requirements that fit the definition of a living entity, and therefore it is immoral to abort a fetus.

Justice is a main foundation of our society, and justice is founded upon equality and the value of human rights (Meyers 35).  Justice also proceeds on the idea if there is a clash of rights, then, the right that does the least harm will be the most just.  Injustice is the infringement of any basic human right.  Justice is also a consequence of choices.  The mother and the father were the ones who made the decision to be in a sexually active relationship, and sometimes becoming pregnant is a consequence of that.  That doesn’t mean the child should be the one being punished.  To punish the child for existing is morally wrong because the child cannot help the fact his or her parents had sex and created a baby.  The mother and father are the ones who are responsible for their choices, not the child.  And therefore, it is just to require the mother to bear the weight of her greater responsibility in the circumstance and not require the ultimate price of the child who bore no responsibility for existing at all.

The Declaration of Independence says each American has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because these are innate rights, endowed by our Creator.  The right to life means every human has the right to be born.  No human can take that away from another human.  For us to be under the presumption embryonic fetuses are not human denies one of the simplest biological truths: fetuses are just as human as you or I.  There is no scientific way to deny the fetus growing inside the womb is not human.

Not only does the Declaration of Independence guarantee each and every human individual, which includes the unborn, the right to life, but the Preamble to the Constitution also touches on the subject of the unborn.  The main aim of the Constitution is to “secure the blessings of liberty for us and our posterity.”  This is in reference to the children of the day, but the Constitution and Declaration were not written simply for the people of the time period.  They were also written for the unborn children of the future and future American citizens — whether they are in the womb or out of it.

The first counter argument against my thesis is “It’s a woman’s choice to do what she pleases with her own body and her reproductive rights should not be infringed upon.”  This argues the woman and the baby are the same individual until birth, the baby growing inside her is not its own person, and no law should be written to tell women how to exert their reproductive rights.  What’s interesting about this argument many self-described pro-choice activists tend to give is it’s not solely the woman’s body.  This argument implies because the fetus is developing inside the woman, and the woman provides the nutrition and oxygen for the fetus, the fetus is a complete part of the woman’s body, and she can do with it as she pleases.  While the counter argument is partially correct in stating the fetus is part of the woman’s body, it is necessary to understand it is not solely the woman’s body; it is still another individual.  Simple anatomy and biology show us a woman has one head, two arms, two legs, ten fingers and toes, one heart, one brain, and one of every system her body needs to survive.  As the fetus starts to develop, more of these body parts start to show themselves and continue to develop.  The genetic codes are also distinctly separate.  Every body part that belongs to a woman has a certain genetic code that matches the rest of her body; the fetus, on the other hand, has a separate code, proving its individuality as a separate biological entity.  If the unborn child had the exact same genetic code as the mother, then it would be only her body; however, its genetic code is half of the mother’s and half of the father’s.  As Randy Alcorn says, “A Chinese zygote implanted in a Swedish woman will always be Chinese, not Swedish, because his (the child’s) identity is based on his genetic code, not on that of the body in which he resides.”  The DNA of a child is the defining factor in distinguishing the child from the mother while the child is still in the womb.

The second part of the argument, “it’s a woman’s choice to do what she pleases with her own body and her reproductive rights should not be infringed upon,” is what I will be refuting next.  The main point of this argument is women have the right to choose.  They argue since it is their bodies, they have the right to do with them what they want.  The problem with this argument is while they do have the right to choose what happens to their bodies, it is not wholly the woman’s body being affected.  The child in the womb is the one being affected more than the mother.  The child’s right to life is being taken from him, and he isn’t given the right to choose whether he exists or not.  The pro-choice side is very correct in saying the woman has the right to choose.  But what they refuse to acknowledge is women make their choice when they choose to engage in sexual activity.  Once they engage in sexual intercourse, they are exercising their reproductive rights; women know they are putting themselves up to the risk of getting pregnant.  Once that right is exercised, and the result is a pregnancy, then their rights end because the right to life supersedes the right to not be pregnant.

The second point I’m going to refute is the unborn is just an embryo or a fetus; it is just a product of conception — a simple blob of tissue, not a baby.  This argument says abortion is terminating a pregnancy, not killing a child.  Yes, the “product of conception” is exactly what the opposing side calls it: an embryo, and a fetus.  But those are scientific terms to differentiate between different stages of development for this tiny little human.  Right now it may be an embryo, a few months from now and it’ll be a fetus; give it a few years and she’ll be a toddler, and then a teenager, and so on.  The point here is yes, the pro-choice side is very correct in using the terminology of “fetus” and “embryo,” but that does not mean the fetus is not a person.  Personhood is defined as membership in the human species, not by stage of development within that species.  The law has proven a fetus is person.  Thirty-eight states have fetal homicide laws that give fetuses legal rights and protection if killed against the mother’s wishes.  If a fetus is not a person, then it cannot have rights regarding protection, because they wouldn’t be necessary.  But because the law gives the fetus rights, it makes the distinction of two different bodies, which would mean two different persons.  “If both the woman and the child were killed and we can prove the child was killed due to the actions of the perpetrator, then we charge both,” said Stanislaus County Assistant District Attorney Carol Shipley (qtd. on CourtTV).  This gives the child rights and legal status as a person.  An implication within this pro-choice argument is fetuses are considered alive when wanted by the mother, but when the mother does not want the baby, then the fetus returns to being “just a blob of tissue.”  These children are victims of chance.  If the mother does not want her child, then the fetus automatically loses its personhood, and along with it, its rights and legal status.  Logically, this argument does not make sense if the personhood is dependent on circumstance; the child is either alive or it’s not.

The third point I’m going to refute is in the case of rape or incest, all abortions are just.  This argument argues women should not have to face the trauma of carrying the rapist’s child.  However, pregnancies as a result of rape as exceptionally rare (Ginsburg 765).  A statistical study done by the Department of Justice showed there are approximately two hundred thousand rapes committed a year in the United States.  They found through statistical reasoning only 1 out of every five hundred women raped end up becoming pregnant (qtd. in Ginsburg 769).  The prochoice side is right in saying the woman who has been raped experiences emotional and physical trauma.  And that is very true.  The issue with their argument, however, is the woman is under no obligation to keep her rapist’s baby; there are many routes she can take.  For one, the Safe Haven statute all hospitals or police departments fall under will take the child and place it as a ward of the state; the woman is stripped of her right to ever claim that baby as her own, legally (Meyers 62).  Another flaw with the argument is while it is understood pregnancy from rape is traumatic, it does not statistically support the argument for “abortion on demand.”  One in five hundred a year is not enough reason to allow abortion to be justified.  A third flaw with this argument is the fetus is innocent.  The fetus is not the one who deserves to be punished for the rapist’s acts; the fetus is just as innocent as the mother; there doesn’t need to be two victims because of one man’s crime.  Because abortion cannot be justified on the moral and medical grounds of the fetus being fully human and alive, abortion cannot be justified in the case of rape or incest either; emotional distress and trauma does not exceed the right to life.  Sanctity of life cannot be circumstantial.  If it is a life, and is alive at the moment of conception, the doctor, nor the woman can justify killing it because of the way it was conceived.  Rape is extremely emotional and traumatic.  But so is being aborted.

Throughout this thesis, I have proved abortion cannot be justified morally or medically by showing how the biological evidence proves unborn fetuses are living human persons.  I have also refuted the arguments it is a woman’s choice to do what she pleases with her own body and her reproductive rights should not be infringed upon, the fetus is not a living entity, and in the case of rape or incest, all abortions are just.  Since abortion cannot be justified morally or medically, it can be argued it cannot be justified lawfully either; after all, aren’t our laws based off of moral justification?  Abortions kill a living, feeling child.  The child killed within the womb is no different than the child a new mother holds in her arms.  Pope Benedict XVI said it well when he said, “The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right is the right to life itself.  This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end.  Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right — it is the very opposite.  It is a deep wound in society.”  The testimony of the woman who had to count out the aborted baby’s limbs explains through tears what I’ve told you through scientific fact, logical reasoning, and evidence from law: Abortion cannot be justified, morally or medically, because the fetus is human, very much alive from the moment of conception.

Works Cited

“Gestational.” The American Heritage® Stedman’s Medical Dictionary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Dictionary.com. Web. 14 January 2013.

Ginsburg, Faye. Contested Lives. California: University of California Press, 1989.

“Justified.” Op. cit.

“Life.” Op. cit.

Merino, Noel. Abortion. Michigan: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Print.

Meyers, Chris. The Fetal Position. New York: Prometheus Books, 2012. Print.

Moore, Keith. Essentials of Human Embryology. St. Louis: Mosby-Year Book, 1988. Print.

“Morally.” Op. cit.

National Abortion Federation. “History of Abortion.” National Abortion Federation, 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.

Nilsson, Lennart and Lars Hamberger. A Child is Born, 4th ed. New York: Bantum Dell, 2003.

“Personhood.” Op. cit.

Sanger, Alexander. Beyond Choice. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2004.

Stone, Carol Leth. Basics of Biology. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.

“Viability.” Op. cit.