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First, it is NOT your body. The thing growing inside a woman has an entire, 100% unique human genome all its own. The thing is effectively a parasite until removed or expelled, but it is unquestionably, inarguably, a human thing in its own right. When an ovum and a spermatozoon get together and form a cell, that cell has its own DNA. It has its own life, separate from its mother or its father. It just so happens that the mother supports the zygote/foetus/baby inside her body. Any biologist worth his salt will say with certainty that this thing inside a woman is a separate homo sapiens. It is in her body, but her body is not the one destroyed during a miscarriage or abortion. The body of that tiny, separate, immature human is destroyed, and hers is only injured somewhat. She will suffer emotionally, but it is fashionable to let her figure that out on her own, after the fact. Let us be quite clear: when a foetus us removed from a uterus, it is the ending of the life of a homo sapiens. This is beyond debate, unless you are so mentally broken that the debate would do you no good anyway.
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Second, when do its rights begin? If we call for rights for the helpless, regardless of status of having been born or not, the question is the same. Aside from drawing their own air, post-partum babies can't do anything. They will die without care from another human. Those not yet born will also die, and for the same reasons, if separated from their caregivers if born a few weeks before their due date. The maintenance of life gets slightly more complicated the farther back you go, but get this:
Babies can (we know, because it has happened) survive with extreme medical assistance after gestating for only 5 months. It is possible for such a very prematurely-born PERSON to live separate from their mother. Toddlers can (we know, again, because it has happened) continue to sustain themselves for days after the death of their custodians, if they know where food and water are to be found. There have been cases of children feeding themselves the food they could reach (like cereal) and getting at the liquids they knew how to get, and living for DAYS when their parents were decomposing in the next room. These children are obviously able to live with some limitations, entirely autonomously.
Before the child is able to be born and rushed to the NICU ward so that it can live, it is without question totally helpless. There is basically zero chance (at least, not yet) of saving a baby born, e.g., in the first trimester of gestation. They are 100% dependent on the wombs of their mothers. Before a child is able to get up and go to the pantry when Mommy just won't wake up, it is also 100% dependent on other people. They can't DO anything for themselves, and life is totally unsustainable without someone to supply their needs. To those with twisted minds, this is only a matter of degree.
At what point does a human become entitled to human rights? At the point they are self-sustaining? At the point they are medically able to be saved from death outside the hospitable uterus?
This is a debate from which our country has shied. We need to decide, as a people, what is the answer. And by the way, except as pertains to hypothetical future actions, this is entirely a State question. A person who is not born is beyond the jurisdiction of the Federal Government of the United States.
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Third, and this is one that practically NObody wants to discuss, anywhere in any forum, is the fact that just because you are inconvenient does not mean you deserve to die. And before you read on, just remember that yes, I did go there and I mean it.
The jews, homosexuals, christians, mental defectives, etc. were considered to be inconvenient to the Race and generally a burden on the world, so the NAZIS murdered them by their millions in what became known as The Holocaust. The free people of the Ukraine were inconvenient to the Soviets, so they starved them to death by their millions in what became (less-well known) as The Holodomor. And children not yet born were inconvenient or politically incorrect at the time of their gestation, or would have raised questions and eyebrows the mothers and grandmothers didn't want raised, or god-forbid you should be sad because you didn't want to have sex in the first place (yes this even goes for rape and incest) . . . so we Americans have killed, in numbers greater than the Holocaust and Holodomor COMBINED, children whose only crime was being fertilized inside your holier-than-thou-and-hell-no-I-don't-want-this-baby uterus.
If being the cause of mental anguish is an acceptable reason to kill someone, then why does a stepchild go to jail for killing the step-parent? If causing emotional distress is enough, how is there a single mother in-law in the world? If being inconvenient will do as a reason to kill someone, why is your kid brother still alive? If a person deserves to die because they raise inconvenient questions by merely existing, then why is Vince Foster . . . oh, wait.
It does not matter why a woman is pregnant. If she is, she is the host to a separate human being who depends on her for its life. The question rather is, on what grounds to you end that life?
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For those who honestly have to make the choice between the life of a mother and the life of her baby for medical reasons, I give both a very large amount discretion and my heartfelt condolences. This is the only case in which a mother is entitled to end the life of her child without blood guiltiness. In this case only does the "It's my body/It's my choice" argument apply.
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Tell me how we are not deserving of the worst that God could do to us, when our society allows this to happen for the convenience of the DNA donors?
