If you are alive and breathing and reading this blog, you once existed as a one-day-old embryo. You were not a “pre-human” mishap. Even your day-old DNA declared your humanity!
Sixty prominent physicians made that point with great clarity when they issued a declaration in defense of the unborn in the 1980s. The group included Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist and co-founder of NARAL, a powerful pro-abortion organization; two past presidents of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and the former president of the American Academy of Neurology.
In their treatise, which was sent to President Ronald Reagan, they stated:
The developing fetus is not a sub-human species with a different genetic composition…. The embryo is alive, human, and unique in the special environmental support required for that stage of human development.
The American College of Pediatricians agrees, declaring in its 2004 official policy statement that it “concurs with the body of scientific evidence that human life begins at conception—fertilization…. Scientific and medical discoveries over the past three decades [since Roe v. Wade] have only verified and solidified this age-old truth.”
Timeline for Life
Nevertheless, abortion advocates continue to insist that abortion destroys nothing more than clumps of cells or excess tissue. Such arguments can and should be summarily rejected. Here is a timeline of a baby’s development during the first trimester of pregnancy:
Conception: The baby’s DNA (a complete genetic blueprint) is established. This determines the baby’s gender, hair color, eye color, skin tone, height, and more.
18 DAYS: The heart begins to beat.
19 DAYS: The baby’s eyes begin to develop.
FOUR WEEKS: Arms and legs begin to develop.
FIVE WEEKS: The baby’s mouth, ears, and nose are taking shape.
SIX WEEKS: The baby kicks and has measurable brainwaves.(A majority of abortions occur after the seventh week of gestation.)
EIGHT WEEKS: All body systems are present. The baby sucks his thumb and responds to touch.
TEN WEEKS: The structure of the baby’s entire body is formed, even fingerprints and eyelashes.
ELEVEN WEEKS: The baby’s organ systems are complete and functioning. The baby breathes, swallows, digests, sleeps, tastes, hears, and hiccups.
As you can see from the timeline, the slogan “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart” is entirely accurate. We are not discussing the surgical removal of a “clump of tissue.” Abortion is the killing of an unborn human being. The unborn child is a human life from the moment of conception, and that life ends violently, often painfully (as you will see in the next section), on the abortionist’s table.
The entire pro-abortion position hinges on denying the humanity of the unborn. If the supporters of legal abortion were to admit that human life begins at conception, they would be confronted with the fact that abortion is murder.
The Ayn Rand Institute, a pro- abortion organization, conceded:
Abortion-rights advocates keep hiding behind the phrase “a woman’s right to choose.” Does she have the right to choose murder? That’s what abortion would be, if the fetus were a person. The status of the embryo in the first trimester is the basic issue that cannot be sidestepped. The embryo is clearly pre-human; only the mystical notions of religious dogma treat this clump of cells as constituting a person.
Pro-abortion advocates stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the humanity of the child in the womb. The Supreme Court took a similar position in 1973, when it issued the Roe v. Wade decision, which swept away all state and federal laws prohibiting abortion. The Court ruled that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.”
Human From the Get-Go
Thirty years later, we know better. Attributing humanity to the unborn can no longer be brushed off as “mystical notions of religious dogma.” To the contrary, it is a widely accepted scientific fact. After reviewing mounds of evidence, one U.S. Senate committee declared:
physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception … marks the beginning of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings. The facts are incontrovertible; the unborn child in the womb is a human child.
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