It is an irrefutable fact of biology that every new life (even single-celled creatures are alive) begins at conception. It is true for animals and true for humans. Taking the law of biogenesis into consideration – that every species reproduces after its own kind – we can logically conclude that the life reproduced is a product of human DNA; therefore, its essence or nature, is undeniably human.

“Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual…A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”

Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2

Visit Abortion Facts for more on this fact.

According to the God who created the universe and all humanity, humans are a unique kind of creation. He has explicitly stated that murder is evil at any age. He Himself took on human flesh to redeem sinners, and when He did so, He did so as a single-celled zygote implanted in the womb of an unmarried teenager living in a culture that shamed fornication.

When does the “product of conception” become human? Whatever your answer, now ask yourself why the child wasn’t a human being one minute beforehand.

Example: “If the baby is human when his heart begins beating, on what basis do you assert that he wasn’t human one minute before his heart beat?”

Example: “If the baby is human after he passes through the birth canal, on what basis do you assert that he wasn’t human one minute before he entered the birth canal? In what way and how do you know that the passage through the birth canal confers human rights?”

The point of this question is to help you see that setting the time of humanity-acquisition anywhere after conception is simply arbitrary, with no foundation beyond your unsupported opinion. See these supporting resources:

Argument from analogy.

Argument from the wider “right to life”.

Argument from medical science.

Argument from development.

Argument related to the nature of humanity.

1) “If you’re against slavery, don’t own a slave.

If you’re against rape, don’t rape anyone.

If you’re against the Holocaust, don’t shove Jews in ovens. But leave me alone to do what I think is best.”

2) We will speak up and fight for the rights of the smallest, least powerful, and most voiceless members of the human race. We encourage you to do the same. Would you have wanted an advocate if you were under the abortician’s knife?

1) So are you. Does that mean it should be legal to put you to death?
This objection is merely a tactic for dehumanising that which is clearly human, so that the conscience is less moved and bothered when you murder the child.

2) So is a corpse that’s been dead for a few days. Death is the irreversible cessation of the body’s ability to function as a coordinated whole. Yet the fetus is nothing like the corpse. In the corpse, the systems are not coordinating together anymore. The fetus doesn’t need a functioning brain for all of his/her systems to function together. Mature humans need a brain, but very young ones do not.

3) Do mere “clumps of cells”, if left alone, grow rapidly in size and complexity and convert magically into fully-developed organisms of the same species as the parent? No. That is what offspring, children, do.

4) If the fetus were merely a collection of isolated cells, each cell undergoing its own developmental process, if left alone wouldn’t each cell develop into its own separate fetus?

1) Many of your run-of-the-(baby-killing)-mill pro-aborts believe that a baby in the womb is nothing more than a parasite that is draining the life from the mother…er…host, which is a direct infringement upon the host’s “right to life”. Extend that reasoning out to its logical conclusion, and a newborn baby also infringes upon that “right”. They will also argue that an unborn child cannot live outside of the womb and is therefore not a viable human being. Based on that, most toddlers are fair game for abortion.

2) As long as someone says “this human is a parasite”, all of a sudden we can kill him? What if someone were just to call you a parasite? Is it justifiable to go ahead and kill you right here and now?

3) In the vast majority of cases, pregnancy is a result of the conscious choice the mother made; nobody forced her to engage in conjugal relations. Thus, the fetus is not “using her body or body parts against her will,” since she consented to the act of procreation in the first place. The vast majority of abortions murder children conceived consensually. Therefore, this argument does not apply to the vast majority of abortions.

4) It is absurd to say that a fetus somehow deprives a woman of her “right to liberty.” Pregnancy is a natural process, over which the fetus has no control. It would be absurd to arrest a newborn baby on charges of kidnapping or forced servitude, for using his/her mother’s body against her will. So also is it absurd to kill the unborn baby on these grounds.

5) There are some fundamental differences between the unborn and parasites. Parasites are of a different species. Parasites usually don’t cause happiness. Parasites are neither the goal nor the product of reproduction. Parasites are not necessary for the continued survival of the host species. The relationship between the unborn and the mother was part of the pre-Fall Edenic paradise, and even post-Fall is described as God’s work, His knitting together. That Christ’s Incarnation as an unborn eventually brought life for all is the opposite of parasitism.

6) How do you evaluate what a parasite is? Do you measure the effects of the organism only for the first nine months? Or should you consider more? Also, do you only evaluate things at a base material, biological level? Also, even if you do, are you really correct in painting the biological picture of child-bearing as primarily negative? There are health benefits to the woman in many cases, not to mention emotional and spiritual elements.

7) You yourself are not independent of anyone else. You are a parasite too. By that logic, anyone on whom you partially rely for your quality of life has the right to put you to death for no other reason.

8) Like the Negro is just an ape?

9) It denigrates the pregnant mother to reduce the beautiful and natural function of her body – nourishing and building the body and brain of a growing baby – by referring to her as a “host” just as it denigrates the baby to refer to him as a “parasite”.

1) The body inside your body is not your body. Pregnant women do not have penises, or four eyes, ears, and feet. The baby’s body is his own distinct body, nourished and embraced by the mother’s body.

2) The baby has different DNA, brain waves, blood type (often), organs, preferences, reflexes, nervous system. What other part of your body has different DNA than the rest?

3) Can you think of any other part of the woman’s body that develops over the course of some months in that way and then emerges of its “volition” as a fully autonomous other? Do baby teeth and hair really compare?

4) Many post-abortive women experience significant emotional and psychological trauma from the murder of their child. Is the same thing true of those whose wisdom teeth are removed? Who undergo an appendectomy?

By this we mean a situation where the fertilised embryo has implanted in a part of the body other than the uterine lining, especially inside the fallopian tube. Pregnancies like this are often dangerous to the mother, especially as the baby grows larger but is not located in the place in the mother’s body that is best suited to house and nourish him. The potential danger and difficulty are often used as excuses for abortion. That is to say, the fact that the baby is in a difficult situation means a greater inconvenience for the mother, and this increased inconvenience becomes the sword that leads to that baby’s slaughter.

Yet the baby is a human being, created in God’s image, just as the mother is. Both lives must be upheld as equally valuable. Medical care should be provided to the mother and the baby. They are both patients. It is wrong to kill the baby because he is difficult in the same way it is wrong to drown a three year old because she is difficult.

The mother must seek medical care, not to destroy her baby. Physicians must give care. An ectopic pregnancy is not a threat to the mother’s life while small. When the child is larger, it may well be that his presence in her body creates an immediate threat to her life. Fortunately, with advances in medical technology, the child can be given an excellent chance to stay inside his mother during the crucial weeks of development, when he really needs the nurturing environment that only his mother’s body can provide, even if he is not ideally placed therein.

If his birth has to take place before his fetal development has run its full course because either baby is in imminent danger or his mother is in danger, then the medical practitioners must take care to do what is best for both lives, treating them as equally valuable patients.

“Imminent danger to life” is not equivalent to inconvenience or an avoidance of some measure like bed rest. By “imminent”, we must understand that death is inevitable within an emergency framework, with all medical options to save both patients exhausted.

In a right side up world (and in the case of most born children) we all recognize that it is good and honorable for a mother to put the life of her child before her own. None of us would admire a woman who pushed her child into traffic to save her own life. Rather we all rightly recognize that a woman who sacrifices herself to save her child is performing the role of the mother. The fact that such thinking is so foreign to the topic of preborn children only demonstrates how much we have dehumanized them.
Let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus:
“It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
“Greater love has no one than that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

1) See our article on Abortion and the Life of the Mother.

2) Abolitionists have no interest in placing the rights of the preborn child above the rights of the mother, any more than the original abolitionists wanted to replace the royal family of England and Parliament with an all-black oligarchy. Rather, we, like they, want to see equal rights, equally respected, no matter what age. We demand a system that recognises that human rights are based on essence, not on level of development, such that the system can consistently refuse to allow an 80 year old to put a younger person to death if he inconveniences his elder, just as it consistently refuses to allow a 21 year old mother to put to death her 21 day old son if he inconveniences her.

3) In a high-risk pregnancy, a woman who is determined to do all she can to carry her baby to term and give him the best chance at life may put herself under close medical supervision. As stated above, medical professionals should behave as they would in any other situation involving multiple patients. Typically medical professionals have learned to treat the child as dispensable, but they ought to treat both patients (mother and baby) with equal respect and urgency, and work to save both lives. If, in the attempt to save both lives, one is tragically lost, that life (whether it’s the mother or the child) should be grieved. But it is never necessary to intentionally kill one of the patients. Early delivery may sometimes be necessary (and may sometimes result in the unintentional and death of the child, if life saving measures fail). Removal of a miscarried child’s corpse from his mother’s body may be necessary, but actively killing a living child is not.

4) Even if it were ever justifiable to intentionally kill a child, ‘therapeutic abortions’ performed to save the life of the mother would be a poor foundation for legalized abortion. Compared to the total number of abortions performed in the USA, these comprise an infinitesimally small %.

5) A recent international symposium on maternal healthcare in Ireland concluded that abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a mother.

6) In a right side up world (and in the case of most born children) we all recognize that it is good and honorable for a mother to put the life of her child before her own. None of us would admire a woman who pushed her child into traffic to save her own life. Rather we all rightly recognize that a woman who sacrifices herself to save her child is performing the role of the mother. The fact that such thinking is so foreign to the topic of preborn children only demonstrates how much we have dehumanized them.
Let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus:
“It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
“Greater love has no one than that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).