Killing the Young and Calling it Choice: A Rebuttal to Joyce Arthur’s Article “Personhood: Is a Fetus a Human Being?”
Page Two

When the sperm fertilizes the egg (the moment of conception) the sperm and egg no longer exist.  The resulting human being is first called a zygote.  This being is genetically distinct from both of his/her parents.[31]  At conception “the genotype—the inherited characteristics of an individual human being—is established and will remain in force for the entire life of this individual.”[32]  It is an understood scientific belief that living things come from other living things, and they reproduce after their own kind.  Consequently, human parents will only produce human offspring.  A geneticist, Jerome LeJeune, said the following in his testimony to a 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.[33] 

The scientific evidence of the unborn as a human being is clear.  What changes after conception is not who the being is, but what the being looks like or what the being can currently do.  Frank Beckwith explains, “the conceptus is a being who is in the process of becoming.  He is not a becoming who is striving toward being.  He is not a potential human life but a human life with great potential.”[34]  Different stages of development are not to be thought of as different degrees of personhood.  The being you are today is the same being you were yesterday.  The teenager you were 10 or 30 years ago was you.  You did not come from the teenager; you were the teenager.  Likewise, you once were a toddler, newborn, fetus, embryo and zygote.  You did not come from these—you were these.[35]

Concluding Remarks

Ms. Arthur claims that choosing the status of the fetus “belongs only to pregnant women.”[36]  Yet she finds it an “insult” to women to suggest they “casually” have late-term abortions on healthy fetuses.[37]  She also thinks “the state has an interest in protecting fetal life.”[38]  And when she compares the unborn to parasites she says she’s “not trying to disparage fetuses with the negative connotations of the word parasite.”[39]  If only pregnant women can determine the value of their fetuses, then the worth of human life varies from one “person” to the next, based solely on subjective feelings.  Furthermore, if the unborn are not human beings, as Ms. Arthur claims, and if a pregnant woman is the sole decider of the fetus’ fate, then why is she bothered at the suggestion of “casual” late-term abortions?  And likewise, why the concern over “protecting fetal life” and not disparaging fetuses if fetuses are not human beings?  Ms. Arthur attempts to prove the unborn are not human beings; not only are her comments contradictory, her appeals to functionalism, visual/biological, dependency, legal and social aspects lack persuasion and fail to refute the pro-life view outlined above.

Ms. Arthur claims the unborn are not persons; she uses dehumanizing rhetoric, restrictive definitions of value, and laments over the unborn getting in the way of liberty rights.  These are the same frightening tactics used throughout history to justify brutality towards various people.  The very group of people—women—Ms. Arthur refers to as “indisputable human beings with rights”[40] were once described as “excel[ling] in fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason.”[41]  They were not considered persons.  The time has come again for our culture to examine how it defines personhood.  The pro-life view is inclusive; it holds that value is based on a being’s nature—what one is rather than what one does.  The abortion advocate’s view is exclusive; it is based on changing features as well as the feelings and opinions of those with power.  Ms. Arthur’s essay exudes this latter idea as she emphasizes subjectivism and repeatedly focuses on irrelevant differences between the born and unborn.  The past was supposed to teach us that different does not necessarily mean unequal.  In reference to the unborn Ms. Arthur overlooks this, and continues society’s trend to dehumanize in order to legitimize. 

Stephanie Gray is the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.  She teaches pro-life apologetics to university and high school students throughout Canada and the United States.