Abortion should remain legal in the United States

*All persons will be referred to as he/him/his. Premise I: Definition of a Living Human: Before answering if Abortion is a violation of Human Rights, as I’m sure Pro already knows will be my aim, we must answer if the “Fetus” is a living human. At conception, the Zygote is formed. Immediately it has 23 pairs of Chromosomes, to equal 46 Chromosomes [1: http://tinyurl.com...]. The DNA is human at this stage. Since a species is determined by its DNA, as scientist will take DNA from an animal to determine its species, we can determine that a Zygote and all following stages of the baby is Human [2: http://tinyurl.com...]. But is the baby alive? Biologists have built at least ten signs that something is alive, often displayed in lists of 7. The list is as follows: 1- Homeostasis [3: http://tinyurl.com...] 2- Organization [3] 3- Metabolism [4: http://tinyurl.com...] 4- Growth [5: http://tinyurl.com...] 5- Response [6: http://tinyurl.com...] 6- Adaption [6] 7- Reproduction 8- Excretion [7: http://tinyurl.com...] 9- Movement 10- Respiration [8: http://tinyurl.com...] With the exception of Reproduction, the baby supports each of the prior listed signs. As for being alive as a Zygote, how does one measure that? You can’t measure a single-celled organism using the signs of life given to multi-celled organisms. We must use the standards used by scientist to measure life among singled-cell organisms. Reproduction. If a cell performs cell division in the proper medium, it is considered alive, and one does not need to explain that a Zygote preforms cell division [9: http://tinyurl.com...]. If we consider the evidence, we must conclude that even at conception, the Zygote and all following stages of the baby is both 1) Human and 2) Alive. Premise II: Declaration of Rights: Person: n. : In general usage, a human being… [10: http://tinyurl.com...] : human, individual —sometimes used in combination especially by those who prefer to avoid man in compounds applicable to both sexes. [11: http://tinyurl.com...] : A human being, whether man, woman, or child. [12: http://tinyurl.com...] If we consider Premise 1, we must accept the child as a Person. This is made so in Article VI of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which says everyone must be considered a Person by the law. Let’s review the UDHR, which was both Signed and Ratified by the United States. Article II Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. This Article says that everyone, regardless of anything that might make them different, is granted these rights, including those from Article VI and Article III. Article VI Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. This Article prescribes everyone the right of Personhood under the law. Article III Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. [13: http://tinyurl.com...] This Article is pretty explanatory. Argument I: The Human Rights of a Baby: If we conclude that a Zygote is both alive and human, than it’s a living human. Being human makes it a person. Article VI says that the law must recognize the baby’s Personhood. Article III says that nothing that makes a human different may be used to revoke its rights as granted by the UDHR. Distinction is defined as: 1. The act of distinguishing; differentiation. 2. The condition or fact of being dissimilar or distinct; difference: [14: http://tinyurl.com...] 3: difference or contrast between similar things or people: [15: http://tinyurl.com...] Following the definitions, the UDHR grants everyone, regardless of difference, the right to Life and Security of Person. This means the child may not have his life took, a life Biology says he has since being a Zygote.Since the DNA of the Zygote is different from his mother, they aren’t the same person. The Zygote is a separate human from the mother and is not a part of her body. Even Identical Twins don’t have truly identical DNA [16: http://tinyurl.com...]. Conclusion I: An unborn child is a human, and therefore has rights protected under the UDHR, including right to Personhood and Life. Argument II: The Human Rights of the Mother: The main right people use to support choice is Right to Privacy. This seems like a feasible right until you hold it up to logic. Since the Abortion includes the child as well, it’s not so “private.” Although that’s not quite my argument… Even with the Right to Privacy, each city and town has many laws regarding parenthood. A mother cannot kill her child on the basis of ‘Privacy.’ The Right to Privacy also doesn’t allow a mother to let her underage son drink alcohol or stay out late. It also doesn’t allow her to kill another human outside self-defense even in private. The premise I’m getting at is that the Right to Privacy stops where the law starts. Even in private, a mother can’t commit unjustifiable homicide, and Right to Privacy doesn’t let a mother do whatever she wants with her child. When is Homicide justifiable? “2. It is justifiable, 1. When a judge or other magistrate acts in obedience to the law. 2. When a ministerial officer acts in obedience to a lawful warrant, issued by a competent tribunal. 3. When a subaltern officer, or soldier, kills in obedience to the lawful commands of his superior. 4. When the party kills in lawful self-defence.” –Legal Dictionary [17: http://tinyurl.com...] “4. A private individual will, in many cases, be justified in committing homicide, while acting in self-defence. See Self-defence.” -Legal Dictionary [17] Unless in self-defense, homicide is not legal for an individual. Since Abortion is homicide, and only homicide in self-defense is legal, only Abortion to save the mother’s life is justifiable homicide (I’ll discuss that later). Since the Right to Privacy doesn’t protect unjustifiable homicide, it doesn’t protect Abortion. -Right to Privacy doesn’t protect Unjustified Homicide -Abortion outside self-defense is Unjustified Homicide -Right to Privacy doesn’t protect Abortion outside self-defense But what about Abortion during Self-Defense? This is a conflict between two people’s Right to Life. The answer isn’t as simple as “the mother comes first.” The Declaration of Independence makes this clear: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” –Declaration of Independence. [18: http://tinyurl.com...] The Declaration states that everyone is CREATED equal. The moment of a human’s creation is his conception. This means the mother and child are equal, so the mother doesn’t simply come first. It’s notably worth mentioning the Guttmacher Institute, a division of Planned Parenthood, records. The most current report (from 1998) show that only 2.8% of Abortions were for the Mother’s health [19: http://tinyurl.com...]. Making Abortion legal on the premise of saving lives is a bit unfounded. Body Count Without Abortion: 35,000 lives. With Abortion: 1.2 million lives. In fact, in the UK, only 0.006% is to immediately save the Mother’s life. “Between 1968 and 2011 (the latest year for which figures are available) there have been 6.4 million abortions performed on residents of England and Wales. Of these, 143 (0.006%) were performed under Section 1(4), ie where the termination is immediately necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman..” –The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health [20: http://tinyurl.com...] But the number of Abortions in self-defense isn’t so important. The words of Dr. Alan Guttmacher (of the Alan Guttmacher Institute] might show more importance in this debate: “Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and, if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save, life.” – Dr. Alan Guttmacher In nearly all cases when a mother can’t survive a pregnancy, it’s not as simple as the child being the cause. In these cases, an internal or external force like cancer or illness is often the cause of the complication (or in half of all complications, the doctor’s fault [21: http://tinyurl.com...]). In the others, Abortion was usually unnecessary. This isn’t to say abortion hasn’t saved women at times, but many times there were other ways, and the few legitimate issues (such as the 0.33% in the UK) are not enough to warrant the legalization of Abortion. Rape and Incest also do not warrant it, as both together only account for 1% of all abortions. It’s questionable if Rape and Incest is reason for abortion though. Both of them only change how the child was conceived, nothing else. Bodily Autonomy also does not apply, as the unborn child also bares that right. Since two forms of Bodily Autonomy are at odds, one must be voided, and it must be the one that bares the worst consequence (for the baby, death.) Conclusion II: Overall, abortion violates the granted rights of the child, including his Right to Life, which is granted by the UDHR, and his Right to be secure in his person, since the threat to his person is far greater in Abortion than the thread to the Mother’s body without Abortion. As seen from Arguments I and II, Abortion violates the Child’s Rights more than not having Abortion violates the Mother’s rights.