One of the most popular abortion arguments from pro-choice activists is that it’s not a baby, it’s just a fetus. Not only is this false, it is extremely dangerous.
This article will examine why it is false and dangerous, and go over the conservative rebuttal against this argument.
In This Argument…
- Why labeling the baby inside the woman as just a fetus is dangerous
- Why the fetus is living and worthy of the right to life
- That personhood comes from God and not government
Table of Contents
Is the Fetus a Human Being? The Conservative Argument
Labeling the baby inside the woman as just a fetus and nonhuman or subhuman aims to dehumanize the baby in order to justify abortion. The logic is simple: if the fetus is indeed a human being worthy of the right to life, then abortion is morally wrong. But if it’s just a fetus and not a human as many pro-choice activists insist, then abortion is OK.
With being a fetus or not being a fetus marking the standard of the right to life of a human, then the pro-choice activist should be OK with abortion for almost all of pregnancy, to stay consistent. But this is an dangerous way to mark the right to life and let’s examine why.
What Is a Fetus?
A fetus, according to the National Cancer Institute, is “an unborn offspring that develops and grows inside the uterus (womb) of humans and other mammals.” For women, the fetus exists in a period from 9 weeks after fertilization to birth.
So those who are pro-choice are not wrong when they say it’s a fetus, but many insist that’s all it is. That it’s just a “clump of cells.” But it’s not just a fetus.
Calling it a “clump of cells” is very misleading and a terrible argument. Yes, it is a clump of cells, but so is everyone that is born. You are also a clump of cells. It’s a very dangerous argument because we can’t just go around murdering people that we label as not living, because we are just a “clump of cells.”
Ultimately, we know that inside the woman, the fetus is a living human being with a right to life. Let’s examine why.
Is The Fetus Human?
The word “fetus” can refer an offspring in the uterus of a human or another mammal, but the only thing that two humans produce is another human. Not a pig, not a dolphin, not a bobcat, a human. So, this means that the fetus is part of the human species. Now is it just a fetus that is part of the human species, or is it something more?
First of all, because something is part of the human species, it should be worthy of protection. But is the fetus alive, or just a fetus?
Is the Fetus Living?
According to “The cell biology of fertilization: Gamete attachment and fusion” (Siu, Wong, & Evans), from 2021, a peer-reviewed article published in The Journal of Cell Biology, and it confirms through detailed scientific explanation that at fertilization a human life begins.
This means that a genetically distinct human organism is created at the moment of fertilization. The diploid zygote has a complete set of chromosomes, 46 of them. Half of the chromosomes are from the mother, and the other half from the father, which marks the first biological stage in the life of a human being.
Read More – Does Life Begin at Conception?
So, the fetus is a human life, a human organism. While this may have settled the moral debate for many Americans before Roe v. Wade, the legal debate was far from uniform. Roe dramatically shifted the national conversation by declaring a constitutional right to abortion, and rejecting fetal personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Does the Fetus Deserve Human Rights?
This is where the debate shifts from purely biological to philosophical, whether the fetus (the human life inside the woman), is worthy of the right to life. After conceding that scientifically the fetus is living, ,any pro-choice activists say no, conveniently, because the fetus does not have “personhood.”
Personhood is “the state or fact of being a person,” according to Dictionary.com. A person, is a “a human being, whether an adult or child:” Now this might seem like the matter is settled, right? Personhood belongs to whomever is a human being. But the real battle is over legal and moral recognition, not just language.
So, the left demands that a person is someone with certain traits, and that personhood only belongs to those who have those certain traits. It is the left’s desperate attempt to keep the pro-choice movement alive. Without personhood being in question, abortion could not be legally justified, because the unborn would be entitled to the same right to life as any other person.
You can read the rebuttals against many of the popular pro-choice personhood claims here: https://rightonred.us/personhood-the-crux-of-the-abortion-debate/
But let’s go over the conservative argument that a fetus does have personhood:
Why Personhood Starts At Conception
While not legally binding, the Declaration of Independence expresses America’s founding moral vision that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. If we take that seriously, personhood begins at creation, not at birth. Our laws should reflect that truth.
The conservative pro-life opinion on when personhood begins is that it begins at conception. Since we know that a distinct human being is created at conception, then we can apply legal and moral standards to them as well.
A human being has inherent dignity, an inherent right to life because they are human, which comes from one of the most consequential founding documents of the United States, the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence states, “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.”
It clearly states that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR. This means, according to the Declaration of Independence, that being a person starts at the moment of their creation, conception.
The text doesn’t say that all men are born equal, it says created equal. Therefore, if you are created, you are already a person in the moral sense, with rights that precede the government. The Declaration of Independence makes it clear that the rights come from something above the government, God, and not the government. So the government doesn’t give or take away the right to life, it is inherently given to all created human beings by God.
This means that personhood is not something we assign, it is something we recognize. Any other argument is not only Un-American because it violates our founding principles, it is unjust because it violates natural law.
So in short, yes, the fetus is a living human being worthy of the right to life.
The Bottom Line
- Labeling the baby inside the woman as just a fetus and nonhuman or subhuman aims to dehumanize the baby in order to justify abortion.
- A fetus is a living human organism.
- A fetus is more than “just a clump of cells,” it is a living human being worthy of the right to life from the moment of conception.
- Personhood is not something we assign, it is something we recognize as coming from God and not government.