The Beginning of Life in Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice Debate

Abortion is one of the most controversial topics debated nowadays. Nearly 2, 500 American women abort a child per day, and the emotional need to excuse what has been done is strong, instinctive, and blind-sided sometime. Politicians, scholars, and people like me and you have all given at some point different perspectives to where they stand. However, judging by certain factors it may be seen as a correct choice that women must be able to make or on the other hand, as a homicide, which should be banned morally and legally from our society. The best we can all do is providing facts and sharing them in a way that we face the truth, not in the language of faith or religion but in the language of the logical reasoning. I believe that the arguments from science and the law are the perfect foundation to advance the pro-life case against abortion.

The basic question where two sides Pro-Life and Pro-Choice do not meet is: “When does life begin?”. Here is a simplified scientific fact of the existence of human life before birth. At the moment when a human sperm penetrates a human ovum, or egg, or the upper portion of the Fallopian Tube, a new entity comes into existence. “Zygote” is the name of the first cell formed at conception, the earliest development stage of the human embryo, followed by “Morula” and “Blastocyst” stages (Marjorie A. England, 1996). Naturally and logically we may raise questions such as: “Is it a life?”, “Is it a human being?” or “Is it alive?”. Based on “Diary of an Unborn Child” by The National Right to Life Committee, on the first day of fertilization all chromosomes are present, and a unique life begins. First cell, “Zygote”, is composed of unique human DNA and other human molecules, so it is biologically human. It is clear that life begins with embryo's conception. The new human species is absolutely different from any other human, including its parents.

Also, the cardiovascular system is the first important system to function. At about 22 days after conception the child's heart begins to beat with the child’s own blood, often with a different blood type than the mother’s. At just six weeks’ brain waves are detectable, the mouth and lips are present, and fingers are forming. By the end of the eighth week, every organ is in place; bones, fingerprints begin to form. By ten weeks after conception teeth begin to form, fingernails develop; baby can turn head and frown. And finally, after eleven to seventeen weeks the baby can grasp object placed in hand and can have dream sleep. Therefore, that new human life deserves legal acknowledgment and protection, which should be provided at any point by law.

It all started with Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), which was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental 'right to privacy' that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion (Chemerinsky, 2015). The court decided that abortion must be authorized for any reason a woman chooses until the child becomes viable; after viability, an abortion must still be authorized if an abortion doctor decides the abortion is necessary to protect a woman's 'health”, defined by the Court in another ruling issued the same day as 'all factors-physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age-relevant to the well-being of the patient”. Journalists such as David Savage of the Los Angeles Times have reported the truth about Roe, saying the Supreme Court created an 'absolute right to abortion' under which 'any abortion can be justified.” It is critical to mention that based on statistics, 86% of Americans say abortion should be illegal after the first six months of pregnancy, and only 6% of Americans believe abortion should be legal at any time, in all circumstances. With that in mind, it is sad to find out that 92% of abortions in America are purely elective; done on healthy women to end the lives of healthy children, just because 23% of them are not ready for another child or timing is wrong. There have been 60,942,033 total abortions, possibility of life, since 1973.

Recently, Alabama passed one of the nation’s most restrictive bans on abortion in decades. “This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection,” Ms. Collins said before the governor signed the proposal, and after lawmakers went along with her efforts to keep exceptions for rape and incest out of the bill (New York Times, 2019). Even though rape and incest cases are left out of the bill, this so-called “heartbeat” law bans abortion after first six weeks of pregnancy, so there is enough time to realize that the new life is developing inside of someone’s body.

In conclusion, the very first step everyone must take, before we expose ourselves to abortion topic, is education. We need to understand and realize the importance of protection of new life, possibility of a healthy future of all pregnant woman and babies too. Being a supporter of pro-choice is a step forward to anti-humanity, anti-life, and anti-woman. In my opinion, our modern society deserves investment on scientific researches, improvement of childcare facilities, and society education, rather than investing on massive murder organizations. As Ms. Ivey said after she signed the bill in Alabama: “We must give every person the best chance for a quality life and a promising future.”