Unfinished business part 2: Why oppose abortion

This comment was sent a couple of months ago. After the fantastic debate we had last Monday, I thought it would be good to go through the points:

What makes a cluster of cells inside a woman’s fetus any more “human” than say, a grouping of skin cells that was just scratched off my back? What makes this argument a fallacy is that a zygote does not have the ability to feel pain, suffering, or especially consciousness. What makes killing a human fetus anymore “evil” than a protist. Neither can think, and in fact I would argue that in order for a body to really be considered living it has to be able to live on its own.

The skin cells that were scratched off your back are not new human beings…just cells with the same genetic makeup as your other skin cells. Zygotes constitute a new human entity, irreplaceable and unrepeatable in time and space.

Since when does feeling pain, suffering or consciousness have anything to do with whether someone is a person or not (I assume you are attacking the personhood argument since you seem to conclude that the fetus is human)? The ability to feel pain or suffering does not determine personhood. It should never be defined based on abilities or faculties because what would we call a person in a coma? Not a person at that point?

The ability of the fetus to live on his own is not determined by his stage in life but rather by the technological advances in society. For example, an unborn child at 24 weeks can survive with the technology we have at our disposal that we would not have had decades ago. This does not mean that the present day unborn child at 24 weeks is more of a person than he would have been 40 years ago because it is technology that has changed, not the unborn.

The reasons that people come up with to support the non-choice of abortion are almost always based in religion. From a completely unbiased and non-religious view, abortion is no more wrong than squishing an ant (I would argue it’s MUCH less wrong). It would be like suggesting that no sperm or egg should ever go wasted and that it should be illegal NOT to have kids every chance you get (eg. no masterbating).
Your argument is completely fallous and deeply rooted in (very wrong) religion. There is absolutely no reason to suggest killing a fetus is evil. I personally think that it is immortal to deny a woman any choice in the matter.

You are a little all over the place in this next part but I will do my best to sift through it. Sperm and eggs have 23 chromosomes; the unborn have 46 chromosomes. I got this from a biology textbook, not the Bible. Therefore, you cannot equivocate the killing of the unborn to wasting eggs and sperm. They are different biologically. Also, read my post again. I did not mention any religious arguments so I am not sure how you can say the abortion debate is deeply rooted in religion.

To close, the fact that the fetus is human (and I’m pretty sure you agree with me on that) provides a reason as to why abortion can be considered evil. I hope you give it some more thought.