Is a Fetus a Human Life?
"Fetus 10 - 12 weeks" by lunar caustic is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
I believe that the most pertinent issue in the abortion debate is whether or not a fetus is considered a human being. This is most often the largest point of contention between those who are pro-life and pro-choice. I’d like to show why I believe that the science demonstrates the pro-life side to be correct on this issue.
The most qualified people to talk about the beginning of human life are biologists. The first biologist I’d like to reference is Dr. Steve Jacobs, graduate of University of Chicago’s department of Comparative Human Development. I believe his contributions to the abortion debate heavily favor the scientific basis of the pro-life side. He emailed a survey to thousands of biology professors from over 1,000 universities across the world. Of the 5,577 biologists that took the survey, an astounding 5,337 agreed with the statement that human life begins at conception. More surprising is the fact that 85% identified as pro-choice and 65% as non-religious. From a general biological view, the fetus is deemed as a life. For some, however, such a general survey is insufficient in proving the biological science. Thus, I believe a deep look into the biology would help further support the pro-life side.
The second biologist that I’d like to reference is Dr. Dianne Irving, M.A., Ph.D biologist from Princeton University. In her article, she lists a number of reasons why a fetus should be considered a distinct human life , but there is one point that I see to be the most substantial. It is her point that a zygote is a single-celled human. As she explains, the union of an ovum and sperm results in the formation of a zygote (single-celled human). This is the moment when the zygote’s path of development is determined. It has its own distinct DNA and produces proteins and enzymes that are exclusively human, meaning the zygote is not that of any other plant or animal. With these points in mind, I believe that a specific, scientific pro-choice idea is refuted. The dehumanizing thought of the fetus being a “mere” clump of cells holds much less weight in the face of the expression “single-celled human”; a fetus is a human with its own traits, but is in a different stage of development.
As the work of Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Irving demonstrates, a fetus is a human being. While the debate on abortion is definitely not solved entirely by these points, I believe that the pro-life side is favored by science.
-Anonymous
