Prochoice Argument: “The fetus is just a part of the pregnant woman’s body, like her tonsils or appendix.”
Prolife Answer: I don’t believe a large portion of America has this view, but nonetheless some more radical individuals, possibly radical feminists or those trying to suppress guilty feelings over an abortion through false reasoning, do share this position. The idea is that the baby is attached to the mother’s body, therefore it’s her body and she has a right to do with her body what she wills. The problem with that is that this statement doesn’t carry with it medical support. Every baby’s genetic code differs from his mother’s. John Jefferson Davis states “It is a well established fact that a genetically distinct human being is brought into existence at conception. Once fertilization takes place, the zygote is its own entity, genetically distinct from both the mother and father. It is simply untrue that the unborn child is merely ‘part of the mother’s body.’ In addition to being genetically distinct from the time of conception, the unborn possesses separate circulatory, nervous, and endocrine systems.” Randy Alcorn states in his book “Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments,” “A Chinese zygote implanted in a Swedish woman will always be Chinese, not Swedish, because its identity is based on his genetic code, not that of the body in which he resides. If there were only one body involved in a pregnancy, then that body has two noses, four legs, two sets of fingerprints, two brains, two circulatory systems, and two skeletal systems. Half the time the child is male; clearly his sexual organs are not part of his mother’s body, but his own. In reality, it is a scientific fact that the mother is one distinctive and self-contained person, and the child is another.” Alcorn points out other obvious evidence such as the fact that a child can die in the womb and the mother live or the mother die and the child live. Alcorn quotes New Zealand fetology professor A.W. Liley, known as the “father of fetology,” making the point that the fetus actually has control of the pregnancy and not the mother. He states “It is the embryo who stops his mother’s periods and makes her womb habitable by developing a placenta and a protective capsule of fluid for himself. He regulates his own amniotic fluid volume and although women speak of their waters breaking or their membranes rupturing, these structures belong to the fetus. And finally, it is the fetus, not the mother, who decides when labor should be initiated.” Alcorn references Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby. He states “She was no more a part of her mother’s body when placed there (after being conceived when sperm and egg joined in a petri dish) than she had been part of the petri dish where her life began.” Lastly Alcorn states “Consider this true-to-life scenario. Two women become pregnant on the same day. Six months later Woman A has a premature baby, small but healthy. Woman B is still pregnant. One week later both women decide they don’t want their babies anymore. Why should Woman B be allowed to kill her baby and Woman A not be allowed to kill hers? Since there is no difference in the nature or development of the two babies, why would Woman B’s action be exercising a legitimate right to choose, while Woman A’s action would be a heinous crime subjecting her to prosecution for first degree murder? It is irrational to recognize the one child as a baby and pretend the other one isn’t. I know a former prochoice nurse who was converted to a prolife position after seeing premature babies being frantically saved by a medical team in one room, while down the hall, babies the same age were being aborted. In 1974, the U.S. Congress voted unanimously to delay capital punishment of a pregnant woman until after her delivery. Every congressman—including those of the prochoice persuasion—knew in his heart that this unborn baby was a separate person not guilty of his mother’s crime. No stay of execution was requested for the sake of her tonsils, heart, or kidneys. It was done only for the sake of her child, a separate human being with a life and rights of his own.” This reminds me of a question I heard asked a few years ago. What if the baby is girl that is aborted? What about the rights she had concerning her body? However, the issue is not the gender of the child, but individuality. The baby inside a pregnant woman is simply a separate human being. To argue other is to simply ignore science and to irrationally reason based on presuppositions that are simply incoherent, selfish, and religious in nature. The fetus is not “just a part of the pregnant woman’s body, like her tonsils or appendix.” Grace and understanding to us all, Kevin Boone
Tags: abortion
