We Should Not Fear the Fetus

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling that fertilized embryos are the beginning of human life, and hence should be protected, has raised some difficult issues for both the Left and Right of the political spectrum. The uncomfortable question for the Left is when, along the continuum of human life from conception to death, does a person deserve to be protected.  For the Right, the difficult question is how to protect human life in different ways at different stages of human life.

We should at least give credit to the Alabama Supreme Court for having the courage to make a decision that no court (including the U.S. Supreme Court) and only a few politicians have been willing to make.  In Roe, the Supreme Court said they could not determine when human life deserves to be protected.  President Obama said that deciding when human life begins is “above my paygrade”.  Courts have used vague terms, like viability, to draw a line in the sand for protecting humans but viability is a constantly changing timeline based on technology, and viability varies from baby to baby depending on their own health.  The constitutional right to life should not be based on such nebulous guidelines.

Abortion advocates are terrified of any discussion on when human life should be protected because it shifts the focus away from their main messaging point of women’s rights.  Ignoring even the potential that another person’s rights may be involved in the abortion decision has been a very successful strategy for them as witnessed by the passage of pro-abortion laws in red states.  But events like the Alabama Supreme Court ruling will continue to bring this issue to the front. 

Abortion advocates have several reasons for being afraid of a debate on the fetus.

1. They cannot reconcile how a baby in the womb is treated differently between women who want them and those that don’t. To distract from this dichotomy the abortion advocates focus on a “right to privacy” and self-autonomy for the woman.  But this is not a valid argument for abortion unless the right to life is denied to babies in the womb, and this right cannot be denied to babies without declaring them to not be members of the human race (i.e. persons).  Openly declaring that a fetus is not human would alienate all the mothers and fathers who loved their baby before it was born.  A result of dehumanizing the fetus is that abortion has corrupted the purest and most unselfish love that humans experience.  Even though parents have not seen their baby, touched them or had experience with them, they still love them with all their heart and will nurture and care for them in the womb without reservations.
2. They cannot point to biological differences between a preborn child and other people which does not fall under a government protected characteristic. The government has passed laws which protect people from discrimination based on age, mental capacity and appearance like skin color.  So even though the preborn child is very young, has limited mental capacity and does not look like people who are older than them, these are not valid reasons for saying they are not human beings, especially since they have a unique human DNA that makes them a separate entity from the mother’s body.
3. They do not want to debate this based on ethics either since ethics is based on a hierarchy of rights with the top priority being the right to life which is enshrined in our Constitution. Abortion causes us to weigh the right to life of the baby versus the physical, mental and emotional health of the mother.  Even if the humanity of the baby is in question, the consequences of guessing it is not a human being is so great that abortion should not be allowed until there is a factual definition of when life begins because the consequences are too high.  The result of legal abortion is that about 60 million Americans are not alive today.  That is a heavy consequence to weigh against the wellbeing of a person.  When politicians say they don’t know when life begins then they are admitting that the baby in the womb could be a human life.  The ethical response to this uncertainty is to defer to the higher principle of a right to life until they know whether or not they are ending a human life. 

On the other side of the political spectrum, pro-life politicians have been hesitant to talk about whether a fetus is a person because of the implications of applying existing law to this stage of life.  This was exemplified when the IVF clinics in Alabama stopped providing services after the court declared the fertilized embryos were children.  This does not mean the court’s ruling was incorrect but only that there should be laws that address the early stages of human life.  Some may think that this is inconsistent with the declaration of the fetus being a human worthy of protection but we already protect life while treating crimes differently based on the circumstances.

• When a life is taken there are different punishments based on the intent of the perpetrator (1^st & 2^nd degree murder, manslaughter, etc.).
• The ultimate example of varying the punishment is when courts provide different sentences for the exact same crime based on the feelings of the criminal, i.e. hate crimes. This opens the door to a wide array of treatment for criminal action.

We already have a big discrepancy in how we treat preborn life.  If a person ends a preborn babies life, for example, by giving the mother Mifepristone without her knowledge, and she wanted the baby, then we are horrified and want justice for the baby’s life that was lost.  But if the mother does not want the baby then we allow other people to come and end that life.  The only difference in these two scenarios is whether the mother wants the baby.  There is no other instance in our society where we give the choice of life or death to any single individual without due process.

It took almost 50 years to change American’s attitude toward abortion.  To hide the humanity and the right to life of preborn children behind a curtain of self-autonomy, devotion to self and a “right to privacy”.  It is time to bring that child out from behind the curtain and challenge every American to look at the facts and decide with an open mind how old a fetus needs to be before we, as a society, are willing to protect them from harm like we do every other human being in America. 

Abortion is a product of systemic dehumanization which has caused plagues on our society like genocide and racism.  If we cannot respect the most vulnerable members of our society then it is easy to disrespect others.  It is time to respect all human life regardless of what stage they are in or their characteristics.  Perhaps pro-life organizations should take a tip from the Left and coin the term “fetusphobic” for those who do not want to debate when life begins.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.