Should the Unborn be Considered Human?

Pretty good, though at the end you seem to fall into using utilitarian reasons to argue against continued abortion.

That underlines the whole argument for me; many people simply do not know. They are either unknowingly ignorant of the nature of the fetus, or they choose not to learn.

No, they know. As long as women have been getting pregnant and giving birth, they know they have a human child inside them. It's just that at times they choose to consider killing it to be less costly to themselves than allowing it to live. In earlier days, the point at which they could get away with it has gone from leaving newborns exposed to the weather and wild animals to killing it before it before it can leave the relative safety of the womb.

Should the Unborn be Considered Human?

Unborn humans are human. Someone who uses an occasion after which a human individual goes from complete dependence on one person to complete dependence on the same or another person as a means of defining humanity of that individual is just looking for an excuse to off him with impunity while simultaneously absolving herself of guilt.

Personhood, in terms of a unique personality and self-awareness, is an aspect of being human that develops somewhere between conception and the first few years of life. It's inherent in our nature but, like sexual maturity, is something that develops in its own due course. It's something that can be altered or destroyed by drugs or disease (both genetic and otherwise); however, it's not something upon which stands or falls one's right to life.

This distinction is misused by those who call for pulling the plug on brain-dead adults and then reason that the lack of adult-like brain activity in a fetus is sufficient reason for pulling its plug. They reason superficially. The reason that pulling the plug on the post-birth brain-dead is seen by many as acceptable is because it's virtually certain that the brain-dead will never again regain consciousness (though there have been notable cases in which they have recovered full consciousness). However, in the case of the fetus, it's virtually certain that it will become conscious, become aware, develop a personality, and be able to enter into relationships with other people. It's a natural consequence of development. But its humanity underlies and precedes its personhood. Its right to life is based on its being human, not just being a person.

This is why people want to shift the focus to 'person', such as when they ask, "Just when does a fetus become a person with Constitutional rights?" They've begged the question. They play off the qualitative aspect of defining a 'person' in order to ignore the absolute fact of life. This qualitative game has always been used by people in power to define others out of existence. Such a distinction should be acknowledged for the purpose of showing up their 'quality of life' game for what it is--a means of having things their way regardless of the consequences for others.

The question is: Did these aborted unborn have the capacity to grow into anything OTHER than a human being?

And not just "a human being," but a specific human being. Remember that DNA is used to uniquely identify a human being, and even while in the womb, a fetus has unique DNA, different from both the mother and the father.

This is why the people who claim that the fetus is nothing more than a growth or a bunch of cells are wrong. If that were the case, the fetus would have the same DNA as the mother.

Mark

You wrote well. You supported your points cogently. And you covered a broad spectrum of arguments used for abortion without getting polemical. On the other hand, if you didn't want a good grade you could have written something like this (ha ha):

SUPERMARKET MORALITY
or
"If I don't like it, I can always take it back."

Abortion is not a matter of "reproductive rights" or "women's issues" or "constitutional safeguards". It is a matter of selves grown so introverted, of wills of either gender become so fixated on their own fulfillment that the biological, social, and moral consequences of their own actions are set upon by them as infringements on their belief that the vine of reality ought to grow exclusively up the trellis of their own will. It is a matter of selves under the delusion that they are most fully "human" when they are most fully freed from nature's and society's demand that they be either male or female, enjoy (or at least acknowledge) the difference, and accept the consequences.

For them reality therapy is to throw everyone else onto the couch.

Too bizarre to be mistaken for anything else but the condition of a diseased spirit is the dichotomy of thought manifested in the appeal, on the one hand, to the poor, illiterate, unloved, socially-disadvantaged, abused and abusing bastard of incestuous rape who will only be an additional drain on an already overpopulated planet unless he/she/it should first agonizingly die from a genetic defect inherited from parents too selfish and insensitive toward it, toward themselves, and toward the welfare of society to prevent its suffering by means of a "therapeutic" abortion; and, on the other hand, to Noble Woman, guardian and embodiment of Constitutional virtue, struggling to protect herself from the advances of a rapacious, patriarchal religion and society, to cast off the biological shackles slapped on her by a cruel and unjust evolution.

It is a rationale designed to justify any choice and to silence any criticism. It is an awfully big gun to pull out for something they allege to be merely a medical decision between a woman and her physician. To remove or not to remove a wart is a decision on that level.

And here is where the slip shows--although they claim (or want to believe) that doing it is nothing, attempting to prevent, to limit, or even to talk first about their doing it is everything.

"Hey! Get the hell off of my will! Just who do you think you are to attempt to even think about imposing your morality on me? Besides, can't you see how much I'm suffering?" they say while imposing something far more severe than morality on those who literally depend on them for life.

To put it even more into perspective, imagine a bumper sticker reading: My fetus was chosen Unviable Tissue Mass of the Month at the Me-First Womyn's Health Center.

Even lab rats get more consideration.

Abortion is a denial. It is a denial of nature, of responsibility, of self-sacrifice, of love, and of life. And what is left? A will whose choices are unobstructed by any of the above.

"Well, that's done," they say, turning to pat and admire the shape of their uncoerced will. "Maybe I'll take this sweater back today, too."

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