Speaking For the Unborn (5.3)
“It’s not ‘alive’ or ‘human’ or a ‘person.’”
Argument 7: “An embryo or fetus is part of a woman’s body, and a woman can do whatever she wants with her own body.”
Rebuttal: The embryo is not a “part” of a woman’s body. Science clearly defines a “body part” as a structure that shares the same genetic code as the rest of the body (appendix, heart, arm, or tonsils) and does not direct its own development. The unborn child has a completely unique genetic code. Half of the time it even has a different sex. It directs its own development. So the embryo is clearly a separate human being residing temporarily inside his or her mother. That’s the science of the matter.
Argument 8: “A fetus does not have rights until it is ‘viable’— until it can live independently.”
First Rebuttal: “Viability” is a purely arbitrary determinate of rights. How is temporary dependency on another for life grounds for someone killing you? How about a man in a temporary coma? He’s fully dependent on feeding tubes, ventilators, intravenous lines, and twenty-four-hour medical care. Does he also forfeit his right to life when he finds himself in this condition?
Second Rebuttal: “Viability” is arbitrary because it is not a fixed point in time. It is dependent not only on the stage of the unborn child’s development but also on the medical technology available to the child if he or she were to be born at that minute. What was not viable in 1973 is now viable in 2022. How can any assessment of whether the unborn is “alive,” “human,” a “person,” or “possessing rights” depend on the technology in your particular town or the year you were conceived?
Third Rebuttal: In the end, if it’s not a life, you can do whatever you want with it. But if it is a life, you can’t do anything to it. Ref.
Fourth Rebuttal: “Imagine that if a woman is pregnant in New York City and she has a viable fetus. She is 22 weeks pregnant. If she gets on a plane and she flies to Bangladesh—guess what? That human fetus is no longer viable because viability in Bangladesh doesn’t occur until about 35 weeks. So let’s just assume she’s hanging out in Bangladesh, she doesn’t like it very much, so she decides that she’s going to come back to New York City, Are we actually going to suggest that she had a ‘person’ there in her uterus in New York City, a ‘non-person’ in Bangladesh, who, when returning to the United States of America, became a ‘person’ for the second time? It is absolutely absurd.” Ref.
Argument 9: "A fetus is not a person—and has no rights or intrinsic value—until it is a certain size, developed to a certain level, outside the uterus, and independent.”
First Rebuttal: Since when does the size of a human being determine his or her value? Smaller humans have no less a right to life than larger ones. The right to life does not increase with size or age. Otherwise, toddlers and adolescents would have less of a right to live than adults.
Second Rebuttal: Human development is simply a series of progressive stages, including embryo, fetus, adolescent, and adult. These are advancing stages of human development, not advancing stages of intrinsic value. Just as an adolescent doesn’t have greater intrinsic value than an infant, and infant has no greater intrinsic value than a fetus.
Third Rebuttal: Where you are located —in or out of the uterus—does not determine what you are or what your value is. We shouldn't discriminate against anyone because of his or her place of residence. How does a six-inch journey through the birth canal magically confer life or value?
Fourth Rebuttal: Dependence on another for life is no justification for killing them. Newborns are fully dependent on the adults in their lives, but they don't have less intrinsic value than adults. Should people in comas, stroke victims, or Alzheimer's patients also forfeit their rights to life? Are they no longer "persons" because they're dependent on others? A human's dependency is not grounds for forfeiting one's right to life. Someone's helplessness should motivate us to protect him or her, not to destroy the them.
Argument 10: “Abortion should be permitted until the fetus can feel pain.”
First Rebuttal: Why should the inability of an unborn child to feel pain at a certain stage make the killing of that baby OK? Do you really want to argue that as long as we make sure the killing of people is done without pain, it is somehow acceptable? And what about fully grown adults who suffer from medical conditions where they cannot feel pain? This condition is called “congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis (CIPA).” Should these adults also have no right to life?
Second Rebuttal: Even if we accepted the “abortion until ability to feel pain" criterion, this would still prohibit all abortions after twenty weeks, since there is universal scientific consensus that the unborn child feels pain at twenty weeks, possibly earlier. Source. Ref.
Argument 11: “An embryo is unaware of its own destruction, so it doesn’t matter.”
Rebuttal: "Awareness of harm" has never been required to make an act morally wrong. Nor should it. A drunken woman who passed out at a college frat party might never know she was raped by three men. Does her lack of "aware-ness" make the rape acceptable? A morally wrong act is morally wrong whether or not it is observed or felt.
