some people say that abortion is
permissible because a pre-born child or
fetus is not a person
so let's ask the question what is a
person in everyday conversation we use
the terms person and human being to mean
the same thing i'm a person you're a
person your parents are persons
children yours or somebody else's are
persons
your dog your dog might have a lot of
personality but your dog is not a person
your car or computer definitely not
persons but the terms human being and
person do belong to different categories
human being is mainly a biological term
whereas person is mainly a moral term
referring to an individual's value or
rights
now it's simply a scientific fact that
pre-born children are human beings every
prenatal human being is an individual
member of the species homo sapiens from
the moment when the sperm fertilizes the
egg the pre-born child has his or her
own unique genetic identity the question
then arises do all human beings deserve
basic human rights
are all human beings persons
or do only some human beings those
similar to us have value and worth
every time in human history that we have
said that a certain group of human
beings are not persons
it's resulted in a horrible tragedy
think of the slavery of africans
or the holocaust of jewish people
or the oppression of women
all of these human rights abuses came
from denying a group of human beings
their personhood
so
let's look at the differences between
persons like you and me and prenatal
human beings
we can easily remember all these
differences by the acronym sled
size
level of development environment and
dependency
first size
some abortion advocates will say that
prenatal human beings are not persons
because they're so small about the size
of a dot on a page and less than a
couple inches long in the first
trimester but obviously size is
irrelevant for an individual's value
each one of us is tiny in comparison to
a huge boulder but we are much more
valuable
is a newborn baby less valuable than a
huge football player
if you were zapped with a shrinking ray
that made you two inches tall would you
no longer be a person what about level
of development
some say that persons must have
developed a certain level of rationality
or capability of thought
fetuses are not persons they say because
they lack rationality and so it's okay
to abort them
if this were true we would have to deny
personhood to infants since they can't
mentally outperform animals like dogs or
cats
indeed many full-grown adults have
severe mental handicaps but we do not
hold their lack of rationality as
grounds for mistreating them
others might say that persons must have
developed the ability to suffer
if fetuses are not able to suffer then
it's okay to abort them
well is it okay for an adult to be
killed painlessly while they sleep
no of course not that would be murder
moreover rats have the ability to suffer
but no one thinks that rats are persons
with equal rights to us
what about environment is a pre-born
child not a person just because it's
still in the womb
what's the magical thing that happens at
birth that suddenly bestows personhood
on the baby
it's hard to believe that killing
immediately before birth is morally fine
but killing immediately after birth is
morally monstrous
for this reason some defenders of
abortion also defend killing babies
after birth
they defend infanticide
lastly dependency some say person it
happens at viability when the fetus can
live independently from the woman's body
but a newborn infant is also completely
dependent on adults to survive
moreover ever-changing technology causes
the line of viability to move closer and
closer to conception
so dependency is arbitrary as well
in conclusion to say all human beings
are persons
is to promote human equality and
inclusivity and to ensure that no human
being born or unborn is ever deprived of
their intrinsic dignity and their basic
human rights
you