Is Abortion an Act of Murdering a Human Being?

Is abortion an act of murdering a human being? Many will argue that abortion isn’t wrong on the basis that a fetus is not a human being; however, many will argue that abortion is wrong because its taking a human life, no matter what stage of pregnancy it is in. In my paper I will argue that life begins at conception and arrive at the conclusion that abortion is killing a human being. As well as providing premises for my view, I will also provide an objection to my argument. Whatever leads up to the statement, “He killed a human,” or, “she killed a human,” or, “the animal killed a human,” is an act of murder. There is no justification for a man to kill a human being other than for self-defense. Any other act than that of self-defense that puts an end to human life, is an act of murder. To stretch that even further, murder is an unlawful, premeditated killing of one human being by another. Now lets take this information and apply it to the killing of an unborn child. First and foremost, we must establish when exactly human life begins in order to determine whether abortion, the killing of an unborn child, is murder. After the moment of fertilization, nothing is added to the embryo except nutrition and oxygen from that moment until death. Since food and air consumption do not create human beings, the human embryo is fully human from the moment of fertilization. As stated in Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, “Human development begins at fertilization...”₁. There are only four differences between a newborn baby and a pre-born baby: size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. A person’s size, intelligence, location, and need for help should not determine his or her worth as a human being. The difference between a 30 year-old male and a 3 month-old baby does not determine the value of human life in the 3 month-old. Thus we can say, an unborn child is not a potential human being, rather an unborn child is a human being with

Cited: Keith L. Moore, T. V. N. Persaud. Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edi tion. W.B. Saunders Company, 1998 C. Ward Kischer, “The Corruption of the Science of Human Embryology” November 23, 2008.