World Population Awareness

Does Human Personhood Begin at Conception?

by Peter Kreeft

The personhood of the fetus is clearly the crucial issue for abortion, for if the fetus is not a person, abortion is not the deliberate killing of an innocent person: if it is, it is. All other aspects of the abortion controversy are relative to this one; e.g., women have rights - over their own bodies but not over other persons' bodies. The law must respect a "right to privacy" but killing other persons is not a private but a public deed. Persons have a "right to life" but non-persons (e.g., cells, tissues, organs, and animals) do not.

Pro-choicers make a triple distinction among a human life, a human being and a human person. Each cell in our bodies has human life, and a single cell kept alive in a laboratory could be called "a human life" but certainly not "a human being" or "a human person." "A human being" is a biologically whole individual of the species. Even a human being born with no brain is a human being, not an ape; but it is not a person because it has no brain and cannot do anything distinctively human: think, know, choose, love, feel, desire, commit, relate, aspire, know itself, know God, know its past, know its future, know its environment, or communicate - all of which have, in various combinations, been offered as the marks of a person. The pro-life position seems to confuse the sanctity of the person with the sanctity of life, which is two steps removed from it.

Pro-choicers say the very young product of conception, the zygote, has no ability to perform any of the distinctive activities that anyone associates with personhood (reasoning, choosing, loving, communicating, etc.) - not even feeling pain, for the zygote has no brain or nervous system. At first it is only a single cell. How could anyone call a single cell a person?

Pro-choicers claim that personhood begins not at at conception, but develops gradually, as a matter of degree. Every one of the characteristics we use to identify personhood arises and grows gradually rather than suddenly. The fetus is potentially a person, but it must grow into an actual person.

Pro-choicers will say that personhood is not a clear concept. There is not universal agreement on it. Different philosophers, scientists, religionists, moralists, mothers, and observers define it differently. It is a matter of opinion where the dividing line between persons and non-persons should be located. But what is a matter of opinion should not be decided or enforced by law. Law should express social consensus, and there is no consensus in our society about personhood's beginning or, consequently, about abortion. One opinion should not be forced on all. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion but, precisely, pro-choice.

Thus there are four and only four possibilities: that it is not a person and we know that, that it is a person and we know that, that it is a person but we do not know that, and that it is not a person and we do not know that. Now what is abortion in each of these four cases? In case (1), abortion is perfectly permissible. We do no wrong if we kill what is not a person and we know it is not a person-e.g., if we fry a fish. But no one has ever proved with certainty that a fetus is not a person. If there exists anywhere such a proof, please show it to me and I shall convert to pro-choice on the spot if I cannot refute it.

Why Abortion is Biblical - From a Christian View

By Brian Elroy McKinley

How anti-abortion activists misrepresent the biblical record

People don't take time to read their own Bibles.This website talks about the few biblical verses that anti-abortionists cite to demonstrate that abortion is murder. But there are others that would seem to make the case for abortion.

This is one of the verses commonly cited to support the stance the abortion is murder: "For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for Thou art fearfully wonderful (later texts were changed to read "for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"); wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." Psalm 139:13-16

But the Bible also says this:

"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Exodus 21:22-25

In Leviticus 27:6 a monetary value was placed on children, but not until they reached one month old (any younger had no value). Likewise, in Numbers 3:15 a census was commanded, but the Jews were told only to count those one month old and above - anything less, particularly a fetus, was not counted as a human person. In Ezekiel 37:8-10 we watch as God re-animates dead bones into living soldiers, but the passage makes the interesting note that they were not alive as persons until their first breath. Likewise, in Genesis 2:7, Adam had a human form and a vibrant new body but he only becomes a fully-alive human person after God makes him breathe.

Making a judgment against people in God's name, when God is not behind the judging, is nothing short of claiming that our own beliefs are more important than God's.

Follow the link in the headline for more articles on abortion, from a Christian standpoint.

Alan Guttmacher Webpage on Abortion

U.S.: The Battle Over Abortion

Since Roe vs. Wade turned 30, the battle over abortion has intensified. Anti-abortion advocates are working to chip away at the landmark ruling that affirmed a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. Abortion supporters are rallying to keep the issue in the public consciousness. In the wake of the Alito nomination, interest groups on both sides revved up their public relations machines. On a state and national level, the status of abortion has seesawed. In the last several years, here are the more relevant events concerning abortion:

U.S.;: Defying Stereotypes on Abortion

The profile on the average woman who seeks abortion, drawn from abortion statistics collected by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, contradicts a lot of assumptions out there about the woman who seeks an abortion. She is a mom, in her 20s, she's attended college, earns a manageable living and is either living with the father or in a long-term relationship with him and has a child. She is not someone's careless teenage daughter.

It is surprising that a woman who has given birth would find herself back in this position.

It is educated women in their 20s who are having most abortions.

And while abortion rates have been decreasing for all women there have been only small declines in the rates for women in their 20s.

There were 1.3 million abortions in 2000, one abortion for every three births.

But 70% were to women in their 20s and early 30s. 80% were to unmarried women, but only 25% to women living in poverty.

She is almost as likely to be white 4% as she is to be a member of a minority.

60% of abortions are to women who have one child.

Though they make the decision not to give birth to another child they don't take the necessary steps to prevent pregnancy.

The idea that abortion is driven by a careless approach to life is not necessarily true. Many of these women believe that this is the responsible choice. rw

Abortion in the United States - Video

Guttmacher abortion video. One out of every three American women will have and abortion by age 45.

U.K.: 22,000 Young Women Have a Repeat Abortion

Over 22,000 women in England and Wales are having two or more abortions by the age of 25. And one-third of all terminations (189,574 last year) are done for women who have had at least one already.

The number of abortions in England and Wales rose 8% more than in 2000, according to Department of Health figures. Increasing numbers of women (76%) are having abortions early in their pregnancy, at under 10 weeks' gestation.

A small number of women who had an abortion last year had already terminated seven pregnancies.

A spokesman for the Prolife Alliance said: "Whatever is being done in the UK in the way of sexual health education, at whatever age, it is clearly not impacting significantly on unplanned pregnancies."

A spokesperson for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said: "Numbers have remained stable despite increasing investment in, and promotion of, longer-term methods of contraception. This shows how difficult it is for women to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Abortion is not a problem in itself. For many women abortion is a back-up to their contraception."

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'We welcome the continued fall in teenage pregnancies. Abortions are traumatic and stressful and should never be seen as a form of contraception. Women and men need to make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and think about contraception before having sex. There is a wide range of information and advice available from GPs and sexual health centres who can advise on the best type of contraception tailored to patients' health and lifestyle needs."

U.S.: Abortion Opponents Should Support Planned Parenthood

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the author of the bill that would end ending federal funding of Planned Parenthood said it is "morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund organizations that provide and promote abortions."

However, only 3% of Planned Parenthood's federal funding goes toward abortion and it's limited to pregnancy caused by rape or incest or when a woman's life is in jeopardy. About a third of its funding goes toward contraception, and the rest goes to testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and cancer screening and prevention.

Federal funding of abortion - with those exceptions - was banned in 1976 by the Hyde Amendment.

Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, which operates clinics throughout Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties, gets 60% of its funding from the federal government, funneled through the state.

"Every year, Planned Parenthood prevents nearly a million unintended pregnancies, half of which would have ended in abortion," said a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest. "We do more to end the need for abortion than any other organization in the country."

Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 40% of those pregnancies are terminated by abortion. For abortion opponents, denying funding for the leading provider of contraception makes no sense.

In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they're ready to have children. That's not going to happen. The worst consequence is the tragedy of abortion.