A fetus, embryo and zygote are all alive, just like an egg and a sperm are alive. Person is a legal term, and personhood is only granted after you are born.
The right to life does not give anyone the right to use another person’s body to ensure their own survival. To grant a fetus the right to inhabit the uterus of another person without their consent would be to give that fetus more rights than anyone else has, and to remove rights from pregnant people, such as the right to bodily autonomy.
Abortion is not okay because a fetus is small, but because it is relying solely on the body of one individual to sustain its life, and that person has the right to decide whether they agree to it or not. All born people have the right to live as long as they do not require the non-consensual use of another person’s body to live. If a born person requires a blood transfusion, they do not have the right to take that blood from another person without their consent. If a born person requires a kidney transplant, they may not take it from someone else. So why should a fetus be allowed to use the blood, nutrients, body, organs, etc. of another person without their consent?
A pregnant person is not a house, an incubator, or an inanimate object. They are people and their bodies are not “locations”. A fetus in the womb is using another person’s body, and when they make the “eight inch journey down the birth canal” they are no longer reliant on the body of the pregnant person to sustain them. They are now people, as well.
An infant is bodily autonomous. An infant has rights. An infant requires care from someone, but that person does not necessarily have to be the one who gave birth to them. There are millions of people capable of taking care of an infant, but only one person is capable of caring for a fetus. An infant can be placed in someone else’s care. A fetus is inside the body, using that body 24/7. An infant can be placed in a crib. There’s a huge difference between a fetus and an infant. An infant requires someone to feed it, clothe it, bathe it, and so on, but an infant does not need someone else to breathe for it, pump its blood for it, etc. An infant does not have the right to infringe on the bodily autonomy of another person, since no one has that right. An infant is not owed anyone’s body to sustain its own life, just like a fetus. There is a huge difference between relying on someone else for things like food, clothing and shelter and relying on someone to provide you with the use of their internal organs. An infant needs to eat, but we do not force people to breastfeed against their will, since that would be an infraction of bodily autonomy. “What if you depend on dialysis or insulin or a breathing apparatus?” - Those are medical tools to help someone with daily life; a pregnant person is not a breathing apparatus.
“Would it be right to take the life of your child on his first birthday because he came to you through sad and tragic circumstances?”- Of course not, because that would be murder. A one year old has rights, and more importantly, a one year old is not infringing on another person’s rights.
Abortion does not infringe on the rights of another. If someone is using your body, you have the right to allow or deny consent. If consent is denied, then the fetus does not have a right to be in the body of the pregnant person. It is not about the value of the fetus, but the rights of the person who is pregnant.
And FYI, Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Suess) was pro choice.
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