Essay, Research Paper: Abortion

Abortion is pro choice and women all over the United States are struggling and coping to make the critical decision. The genesis of a new human life begins when the egg with 23 chromosomes joins with a sperm with 23 chromosomes and creates a fertilized cell, called a zygote, with 46 chromosomes. The single cell zygote contains the entire DNA necessary to grow into an independent, conscious human being.
But being alive does not give the zygote full human rights- including the right not to be aborted during its gestation. A single-cell ameba also coverts nutrients and oxygen into biological energy that causes its cells to divide, multiply, and grow. It shares everything in common with a human zygote except it is not a potential person. It is just as alive as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact.
All of the arguments boil down to three specific questions that focus on the pro-choice of the practice. First, is it a person? Second, does it have human rights? Finally, is it murder?
Is it a person? Interesting question. Webster’s Dictionary defines “being an individual or existing as an individual whole’” as a person. Therefore I must say NO. But it is a potential person. For example, a simple hair follicle is just as human as a single-cell zygote, and that unique DNA doesn’t make the difference since two twins are not one person. Therefore, something else must occur to make one human being different from another. The defining mark between something that is human and someone who is a person is ‘consciousness.’ It is the self-awareness quality of consciousness that makes us different from others. The problem is that consciousness doesn’t occur until months after a baby is born.
Does it have human rights? Yes and no. A potential person must always be given full human rights unless otherwise destroyed by his or her doing. If a fetus comes to term and is born, its because the mother chooses to forgo her own human rights in order to allow that future person to gestate inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbirth, then she has the full right to terminate the potential person.
Finally, is abortion murder? No, it is not murder if it is not an independent person. Although a premature baby is still not a potential person, but because of its independence from its mother, we give it full human rights. So therefore, a single-cell zygote is no more a person then that of a human hair follicle. No one thinks abortion is a wonderful thing. No one try’s to get pregnant so they can kill it. Consider that most women who have an abortion have just made the most difficult moral choice, for any woman wanting to control her body, of their life. Even though it’s not murder, it still does away with a potential person.
Anti-abortion activists often mistakenly use this fact to support their cause. “Life begins at conception.” Anti-abortionists say that each new fertilized zygote is already a new person because its DNA is different.
Abortion is therefore a moral and pro-choice decision. It is a decision based solely on the above statements that the zygote is not a person, does not have human rights, and that it is not murder in any way, form or fashion. Pro-choice is having freedom of everything the constitution has provided us with, even with our own bodies.
Abortion is Pro-choice
Eng. 1302.38
2/8/2001



Word Count: 603