Abortion

It looks as if your main claim is the fact that life starts at conception. While "life" is a very vague term (technically, the sperm that fertilized the egg cell was also alive) I am guessing by this that you mean that from the moment of conception, a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, and/or fetus is a person and therefore qualifies to be protected under the law. Ultimately, the status of a fetus is a subjective opinion, and will differ from person to person. Some people think that it's not a person until it's born, or it's not a person until the first trimester ends, or it's a person from the moment of conception. Regardless of all of these opinions, keeping abortion safe and legal is paramount. Criminalizing abortion will not stop women from getting them just the same as making thievery illegal has not prevented that, and would actually come with extremely negative consequences. As of right now, abortion is one of the safest medical procedures available, with a death rate of 0.6 deaths per 100,000 abortion (1), significantly less than the childbirth death rate. If such a dangerous procedure was criminalized, all abortions would have to be covert and back-alley. We're talking dirty hangers and vacuum cleaners instead of sterilized surgical equipment. Women who still received these illegal abortions would risk death or diseases. Now, the only reason people want to ban abortion is because they consider the fetus to be a person, therefore it has the right to life. While I understand this rhetoric, historically fetuses have rarely been considered human. Even the Catholic Church permitted abortion until around 1869 (2). It was usually the case that before the "quickening" (i.e., the first detectable fetal movements) babies were not people and could be aborted. Since the claim that fetuses are people is the motivation of the pro-life movement, it should be examined thoroughly. The start of personhood is not a scientifically concluded phenomena, but looking at the information given, it can be easy to form a conclusion. What is a person, first of all? It is defined as "a human being, whether an adult or child" (3). There are other definitions to this as well, but the basic underlying theme of all of them is that a human is distinguished from other animals in its rationality and self-awareness. A fetus is neither rational nor self-aware; indeed, fetuses can't even feel pain until around 24 weeks (4). It is not even an individual, since it lives inside and attached to a woman, completely reliant on her for survival. Is a person a person simply for the fact that they have human DNA, then? That is a potentially incorrect statement; human gametes (sex cells) also have human DNA. Sperm can even survive outside of the testis if in the correct conditions. Does this mean that each individual sperm and egg cell in a human is technically a person? Or even skin, bone, and tissue cells? Now, it could be argued that because none of these things is a separate organism with a unique set of chromosomes it isn't human, but it would only take one skin cell's genetic information to make a new organism through cloning. Is the cloned skin cell a human being entitled to legal rights just for the mere fact that it has human DNA? No; it's a little bit ludicrous to suggest this cloned cell OR a zygote is a person--though both are capable of developing into babies, they are quite literally a single cell. Just to serve as a bit of background information, approximately 90% of abortions occur within the first trimester, with 38% of those occurring before and at six weeks' gestation (four weeks after conception) (5). At six weeks gestation, the embryo is about the size of the tip of a pen (6). By the end of the third trimester, the offspring is about the length of two paperclips and weighs only 14 grams. Why is an embryo that is the size of a pen tip entitled to more rights than an adult woman? Article Three of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (7) states, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." Carrying a fetus to term is a significant disturbance in a woman's life, even if she wanted the child. But forcing someone to take time off work or school and pay for extra medical expenses to ensure the survival of an organism that disputably isn't even a person is a violation of her human rights. Also, the UDHR doesn't even consider a fetus a person. It says explicitly in Article One, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." This specifically references to born persons because they are capable of reason and conscience. Because fetuses are neither born nor capable of either of those things, it can be argued that they are therefore not entitled to the rights set forth because of this. Sources: (1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... (2) http://www.religioustolerance.org... (3) http://dictionary.reference.com... (4) http://www.nytimes.com... (5) http://www.abort73.com... (6) http://www.mayoclinic.org... (7) http://www.un.org...