Frequently Asked Questions about Abortion

Topics:

• THE STATUS OF THE UNBORN
• THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE PREGNANCY
• SOCIAL & LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS

THE STATUS OF THE UNBORN

1. It’s my body.  What right do you have to control what I do with my body?
2. When does life begin?
3. Okay, so the unborn are humans. But that doesn't make them persons.
4. It’s not a human in the first trimester.  Isn’t it just an embryo or a fetus?
5. An acorn has the potential to become an oak tree but isn’t one yet.  So doesn’t that mean a fetus has the potential to become a human but isn’t one yet?
6. But it's not even alive yet, so what's the big deal with abortion?
7. But the unborn aren’t sentient; they don’t experience sensation or feeling.  If they can’t think or function like we do, doesn’t that mean they’re not as important as we are?
8. What about a baby who is horribly deformed? Isn’t it better to spare that child a life of suffering?
9. But if the unborn don’t feel pain then isn’t abortion okay?

Q. It’s my body.  What right do you have to control what I do with my body?

A. Is it really “my” body?  When a woman is pregnant there is another body involved—the child’s.  Roughly half the time the child is male.  The average person who supports abortion is uncomfortable with an abortion in the eighth month of pregnancy.  If, however, one adheres to the idea that because the unborn is in the woman’s body then she can harm the child, then how can that same individual oppose abortion at eight months or even one day before delivery?  Once the woman becomes pregnant, her offspring has come into existence and she should not kill her vulnerable child.  Our country has laws against child neglect which force parents—men and women—to use their bodies to provide care for their children.  Additionally, in cases of divorce, many men are legally forced to use their bodies to earn money in order to financially support their offspring.  With these laws, society rightfully demands responsibility from parents towards their children so that they do not endure suffering and death as a result of neglect.  How logical is it to then say that a woman has a right to choose to kill her child?

Q. When does life begin?

A. Scientists agree that life begins at conception, also referred to as fertilization.  Drs. Keith Moore and T. Persaud’s embryology textbook used by medical students at the University of British Columbia confirms this:

Human development begins at fertilization [emphasis in original], the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell, the zygote.  This highly specialized, totipotent cell is the beginning of embryonic development.  The zygote, just visible to the unaided eye as a tiny speck, contains chromosomes and genes (units of genetic information) that are derived from the mother and father.  The unicellular organism, or zygote, divides many times and becomes progressively transformed into a multicellular human being through cell division, migration, growth, and differentiation.[i]

Just as an adult was once a teenager, toddler, and infant, so too was she once a fetus, embryo, and zygote.  These labels merely identify different stages in the development of a human being.  Moore and Persaud acknowledge this:

Although human development is usually divided into prenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth) periods, development is a continuum that begins at fertilization (conception).  Birth is a dramatic event during development, resulting in a change in environment.  Development does not stop at birth; important developmental changes occur after birth—development of teeth and female breasts, for example [all emphases in original].[ii]

In 1981, French geneticist Jerome L. LeJeune asserted the following when testifying before a United States Senate Subcommittee:

To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion.  The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.[iii]

Common sense supports this perspective: because it has human parents, it is clear that the unborn child is a human being and not some other kind of being.  After all, dogs beget dogs, cats beget cats, and humans beget humans.  Who you are today had a beginning point, and science has discovered that point to be at fertilization.  Although you have changed and continue to change your appearance and abilities, your genetic makeup remains the same.

Q. Okay, so the unborn are humans.  But that doesn’t make them persons.

A. Unlike the humanity of the unborn, which is a scientific question, the personhood of the unborn is a philosophical question.  If personhood is not recognized based on one’s human nature (which exists at the point of fertilization), then it becomes a subjective notion based on the functions of one human being or on the feelings of another.  Inevitably, those in power end up withholding rights of personhood from any vulnerable group they have an interest in taking advantage of.  This is not conjecture, but rather a matter of historical fact: human history is rife with examples of personhood being defined in a selfish and exclusionary fashion.  You can read more about these examples in our Frequently Asked Questions for the Genocide Awareness Project.

Q. It’s not a human in the first trimester.  Isn’t it just an embryo or a fetus?

A. Do you know what the words embryo and fetus mean?  Embryo means “growing within” and fetus is a Latin term that means “unborn offspring” or “little one.”  These words simply describe a human at a certain stage of development (embryo up to the end of 8 weeks post-fertilization and fetus from the end of 8 weeks to birth).  In the same way, the term “teenager” identifies someone from age 13 to 19.  Does referring to a 15-year-old as a “teenager” mean she is not a human?  Why, then, would referring to the unborn as an “embryo” or “fetus” mean he or she isn’t human?

Q. An acorn has the potential to become an oak tree but isn’t one yet.  So doesn’t that mean a fetus has the potential to become a human but isn’t one yet?

A. The acorn is of the oak family.  It has an oak nature.  It simply hasn’t yet matured into a large oak tree.  Philosopher Norman Geisler observes the following:

It is a misunderstanding of botany to say an acorn is a potential oak tree.  An acorn is a tiny living oak tree inside a shell.  Its dormant life does not grow until properly nourished by planting and watering, but it is a tiny living oak tree nonetheless.[iv]

Your statement would be accurate if phrased like this: “An acorn has the potential to become a large oak tree but isn’t one yet.  The fetus has the potential to become a 5-year-old but isn’t one yet.”  The fetus is of the human family.  The fetus has a human nature.  It simply hasn’t matured into a child or an adult yet.  So what?  That statement only reveals the unborn to be less developed than born people; it does nothing to reveal that the unborn are not human.

The fetus has the potential to become an adult.  It does not, however, have the potential to become a human because it already is a human.  In the same way, the acorn has the potential to become a large oak tree.  But it does not have the potential to be an oak because it already is an oak.

Q. But it’s not even alive yet, so what’s the big deal with abortion?

A. If the unborn aren’t alive, when do they become alive?  And what magically changes to make something “not alive” to suddenly being “alive”?  It is a widely accepted principle that living things do not arise from dead things.  If you are alive today, for example, you couldn’t have been dead yesterday.  Likewise, a living newborn child couldn’t have been dead for the nine months leading up to birth.  The expanding abdomen of a pregnant woman is a clear external indication of the growth of her unborn child.  And ultrasound technologies provide a “window to the womb” that reveal this fact.  The child who is rapidly developing is most definitely alive. 

Having said that, one may comment that sperm and egg are living too, yet they aren’t considered human beings.  Although they are living, they are distinct from the unborn in an important way.  Sperm and egg are parts of a human being whereas the embryo is a whole human being.  Dr. Robert George elaborates on this in his “Cloning Addendum”:

A human embryo is a whole living member of the species homo sapiens [sic] in the earliest stage of his or her natural development. Unless denied a suitable environment, an embryonic human being will by directing its own integral organic functioning develop himself or herself to the next more mature developmental stage, i.e., the fetal stage. The embryonic, fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages are stages in the development of a determinate and enduring entity—a human being—who comes into existence as a single cell organism and develops, if all goes well, into adulthood many years later.

Human embryos possess the epigenetic primordia for self-directed growth into adulthood, with their determinateness and identity fully intact. The adult human being that is now you or me is the same human being who, at an earlier stage of his or her life, was an adolescent, and before that a child, an infant, a fetus, and an embryo. Even in the embryonic stage, you and I were undeniably whole, living members of the species homo sapiens. We were then, as we are now, distinct and complete (though in the beginning we were, of course, immature) human organisms; we were not mere parts of other organisms.[v]

At fertilization, the new, developing human is called a zygote.  Its one cell divides into two, then four, then eight, and so on.  The zygote “is genetically unique because half of its chromosomes come from the mother and half from the father.  The zygote contains a new combination of chromosomes that is different from that in the cells of either of the parents.”[vi]  At 22 days (3 weeks), the unborn human being (technically termed an embryo) has a heartbeat.[vii]  Between 44 and 46 days (7 weeks) the unborn’s nipples are visible and its eyelids are forming.[viii]  In the middle of the 8^th week the unborn’s fingers are individualized and longer.[ix]  At the end of eight weeks, when the embryo is called a fetus, “the beginnings of all essential structures are present.”[x]  Although the unborn are small, less developed, and quite dependent compared to born people, they are most definitely alive.

Q. But the unborn aren’t sentient; they don’t experience sensation or feeling.  If they can’t think or function like we do, doesn’t that mean they’re not as important as we are?

A. When you’re sleeping, are you sentient as you are as you’re reading this?  What about when you’re in surgery and under anesthetic?  Does your current level of functioning define your importance?  Isn’t your worth rooted in who you are and not in what you do?

Each human being, born and unborn, differs from one another in their functions (what they can do, how they think, how they appear).  Given the inequality in abilities from one person to the next, then some of us would clearly be more important than others if our value was rooted in our ability to function.[xi]  But if we believe that we should treat people equally and not discriminate unfairly, then the only basis for that equality is our common human nature.

Granted, humans are often viewed as different from other beings in that they are conscious or have complex thoughts, but by the fact that a being is human, he or she has an inherent ability for those human behaviours.  The reason that an individual may not be able to currently perform such human behaviours is due to one’s level of development.  That is not grounds to harm someone.

Consider this: one way in which dogs differ from cats is that they bark and cats do not.  Imagine there is a dog that, due to an immature level of development, is presently unable to bark.  Would it still be a dog?  What if its vocal cords were malformed and it was never able to bark?  Would it still be a dog?  Clearly, its current level of functioning does not take away from the fact that it is still a dog.

In the same way, how a young or an old human being currently functions does not affect who he or she is.  Therefore, we must decide if we are going to treat all people equally or if we are going to discriminate against some people because of what they can or cannot do.

Q. What about a baby who is horribly deformed?  Isn’t it better to spare that child a life of suffering?

A. What kind of a society are we creating by killing off sick or disabled human beings?  If we kill the sick human being instead of attempting to cure the sickness, then what is the point of hospitals?  People with limitations have a right to life just like so-called “normal” or healthy people.  Prenatal tests cannot predict defects to a certainty, nor can they determine the severity of the disability.  Why not let these children be born and have a chance to grow and accomplish what they can?

Even if a child is likely to die soon after birth, we should let nature take its course and give the child food, water, and comfort measures—in other words, give the child as much care as we would any person who had a greater chance of survival.  Then the family would be able to hold the baby and love the baby, rather than violently end its life.  As difficult as it would be for a baby to die shortly after birth, there is a world of difference between a death through natural causes and a death that results from a direct, intentional act.  Do those of us who may die later have the right to kill those who may die sooner?

Q. But if the unborn don’t feel pain, then isn’t abortion okay?

A. Why does the ability to feel pain matter?  If someone cannot feel pain, is it okay to kill him or her?  What if the Nazis had given Jews anesthetic before killing them, so that they would not feel any pain?  What if parents were to kill their born children after rendering them unconscious?  If we permit killing simply because the victims are unable to feel the pain of their deaths, then why not permit other acts for the same reason?  Rape, assault, robbery, and many other crimes could easily be justified using the same criteria.  Shouldn’t we be making it more difficult to commit violent acts rather than making them easier?