Why Pro-Life?/Is the Unborn Part of the Woman’s Body?

From Gospel Translations

As have many others, philosopher Mortimer Adler claimed that the unborn is “a part of the mother’s body, in the same sense that an individual’s arm or leg is a part of the living organism. An individual’s decision to have an arm or a leg amputated falls within the sphere of privacy—the freedom to do as one pleases in all matters that do not injure others or the public welfare.”^[1]

TRUE OR FALSE?

A body part is defined by the common genetic code it shares with the rest of its body. Every cell of the mother’s tonsils, appendix, heart, and lungs shares the same genetic code. The unborn child also has a genetic code, but it is distinctly different from his mother’s. Every cell of his body is uniquely his, each different from every cell of his mother’s body. Often his blood type is also different, and half the time his gender is different.

If the woman’s body is the only one involved in a pregnancy, then consider the body parts she must have—two noses, four legs, two sets of fingerprints, two brains, two circulatory systems, and two skeletal systems. Half the time she must also have male genitals. If it’s impossible for a woman to have male genitals, then the boy she is carrying cannot be part of her body.

A Chinese zygote implanted in a Swedish woman will always be Chinese, not Swedish, because his identity is based on his genetic code, not that of the body in which he resides.

A child may die and the mother live, or the mother may die and the child live, proving they are two separate individuals.^[2]

In prenatal surgeries, the unborn, still connected to her mother by the umbilical cord, is removed, given anesthesia, operated on, and reinserted into her mother. The child is called a patient, is operated on, and has her own medical records, indicating blood type and vital signs.

In 1999, an unborn child named Samuel Armas was operated on for spina bifida.His photograph in Life magazine captured the world’s attention. As the surgeon was closing, Baby Samuel pushed his hand out of the womb and grabbed the surgeon’s finger. Photojournalist Michael Clancy caught this astonishing act on film. (See the very similar award-winning Life magazine photo of unborn Sarah Marie Switzer on the back cover of this book.) Clancy reported, “Suddenly, an entire arm thrust out of the opening, then pulled back until just a little hand was showing. The doctor reached over and lifted the hand, which reacted and squeezed the doctor’s finger. As if testing for strength, the doctor shook the tiny fist. Samuel held firm. I took the picture! Wow!”^[3]

Samuel Armas was sewn back into his mother’s womb, and then born nearly four months later. How did seeing Samuel grab the surgeon’s finger affect Clancy? “In that instant, Clancy went from being pro-choice to being prolife. As he put it, ‘I was totally in shock for two hours after the surgery…. I know abortion is wrong now—it’s absolutely wrong.’”^[4]

Does anyone seriously believe that this pain-feeling, finger-grabbing patient was simply an appendage of his mother’s body? Can it be credibly argued that once he’s placed back inside his mother, it should be legal to kill that same patient anytime during the remaining four months until he’s born?

INCONSISTENCIES EVERYWHERE

At the Medical University of South Carolina, if a pregnant woman’s urine test indicates cocaine use, she can be arrested for distributing drugs to a minor. Similarly, in Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for “delivering a controlled substance to a minor.” This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights, deserving protection even from his mother.

However, that same woman who’s prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is free to abort that same child. In America today, it’s illegal to harm your preborn child, but it’s perfectly legal to kill him.

Every alcohol-serving establishment in Oregon is required to post this sign:

If alcohol harms unborn babies, what does abortion do to them?

The U.S. Congress voted unanimously to delay capital punishment of a pregnant woman until after her delivery. Every congressman, even if pro-choice, knew that this unborn baby was a separate person, innocent of his mother’s crime. No stay of execution was requested for the sake of the mother’s tonsils, heart, or kidneys.

Many states have passed fetal homicide laws, declaring it murder for anyone but the mother to deliberately take the life of a preborn child. These laws are explicit affirmations that the child is a human being. In 2004 Congress passed the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act,”which states that someone who “intentionally kills or attempts to kill the unborn child…be punished…for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.”^[5]

Consider the bizarre implications of this double standard. If a woman is scheduled to get an abortion, but on her way to the abortion clinic her baby is killed in-utero, the baby’s killer will be prosecuted for murder. But if this murder doesn’t occur, an hour later the doctor will be paid to perform a legal procedure killing exactly the same child (in a way that is probably more gruesome).

To the child, what’s the difference who kills her?

A LESSON FROM LOUISE BROWN

Being inside something isn’t the same as being part of something. (A car isn’t part of a garage because it’s parked there.) Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was conceived when sperm and egg joined in a Petri dish. Did she become part of her mother’s body when she was placed in her uterus? No more than she’d been part of the Petri dish when she lived there.

Human beings shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their place of residence. There’s nothing about birth that makes a baby essentially different than he was before birth. There’s no magic that changes a child’s nature when she moves twenty inches, from inside her mother to outside.

1. ↑ Mortimer J. Adler, Haves Without Have-Nots: Essays for the 21st Century on Democracy and Socialism (New York: MacMillan, 1991), 210.
2. ↑ “Brain-Dead Woman Gives Birth,” The Oregonian, 31 July 1987.
3. ↑ See www.michaelclancy.com/story.html.
4. ↑ Chuck Colson, “Life-and-Death Decisions: Praying for the Supremes,” BreakPoint Commentary #000425, 25 April 2000.
5. ↑ HR 1997 was passed by a Senate roll call vote of 61-38,March 25, 2004.