Expert: Deborah - 9/9/2009

Question
How can you prove that a fetus is not a person/baby?  I know it's been asked a million times but I'd like to know from a science point of a view and from your personal point of view?  I read on a pro-life site that since it has a beating heart that it's alive and therefore having an abortion is taking away its life and that's really disturbing me.

Answer
Dear Sarah,

The terms "fetus", "person", and "baby" all have definitions.  

A fetus is part of a woman's body that comes after the embryonic stage ends and is lasts from the 10th week through the 40th week.  A person is a living human being, born human being.  A baby is a living, born human being until it becomes a toddler, which then becomes a child, then a teenager,then adult.


People who say that an embryo with a beating heart is alive are saying something different then saying that an embryo is a "life".  A human egg, before it is fertilized, is also alive.  So is the sperm before it fertilizes an egg.  If a woman does not get pregnant and the egg from that month dies, is she taking away "it's" life?  No, because it does not have a life.  Neither does an embryo with a beating heart.

Look at it this way:

an egg is alive
a sperm is alive
an embryo is alive
my arm is alive
my skin calls are alive
the root tips of my hair are alive

But none of these things have their own "life".  Killing or allowing any of them to die is not taking their "life" away from them.  Only complete, autonomous beings have their own lives, not body parts.  All of those things listed are body parts.

Deb