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| More On Abortion by Jeffrey M. Palun |
To the editor:
Maybe now the true issue of the debate on abortion will come to the forefront. When does a human life become a human life? Well, to answer the question let us look at what happens.
First the egg and the sperm are both separate. They each have half of the DNA of the parent. Suffice to say they are still part of the parent's body. Somehow the egg and the sperm meet and they combine their DNA to form a new set--different from that of either parent. The egg and sperm have just made a new cell. From here on out the new cell will grow and divide.
Really the only new things that happen are that the cells start to divide differently and eventually the baby is on the outside of the mother. So where would life begin look at it logically?
Some people say that life begins at birth. Does that mean nine months is signigicant? What if a child was born after eight or seven?
Maybe it's the action of giving birth that gives the child life? Then what about children delivered using a caesarean section surgery? Does that cheapen their lives or mean that they aren't alive? I would hope not.
Other people believe that the child is alive once it can survive on it's own. Again, babies are being born earlier and earlier that can survive. How arbitrar is that? How can one exactly determine viability? How many days or weeks after conception is it?
Still others just think that it is an even more arbitrary point in time. One chosen just because it seems right. One week, two weeks, 4 hours... it really doesn't matter. Notice that in most of these cases, the point people pick is based on how much time has passed since conception. Conception is an event--it actually happens.
If something else as significant as conception happens, I might agree that life begins elsewhere. But clearly conception is the start of the new human life.
It has a complete set of DNA, separate from that of the mother and father. We don't refer to other things in the mother's body with different DNA or RNA as the mother's body do we? Otherwise doctors would refer to viruses and bacteria as parts of the human body. Clearly, the new cell is a separate life. If anyone would argue that it isn't a human life, I say to them, "What do you think it is then, a chicken?"
Nowadays it seems that everyone is fighting for their own rights. Women, minorities, veterans, disabled, those physically challenged... no one deserves to be abused, mistreated, or even killed. Don't discriminate against those people not born yet--they may be young, but they are as valuable as you or me.
This article taken from the University of Cincinnati Student Newspaper, The News Record October 15, 1997.
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