Abortion and Women's Rights

Abortion has nothing to do with women's rights.  Murder is not a right. 

So far we have been talking about when a fetus becomes a human being. The only thing mentioned thus far is a conscious.

One might argue that a fetus is not a person until higher level brain functions present. Only when higher level brain functions are present does one have the ability to form language and perform logical deductions. Elements that are often attributed to consciousness occur because the brain performs this higher level functions. Basic biological functions, such as breathing, occur as a result of lower level functions of the brain. It is the presence of higher level brain functions that makes a human being a person. Because higher level brain functions are not present in a fetus in the first and second trimester of pregnancy, it is not morally wrong to terminate the pregnancy during that period.

The latter position, that a fetus is not a person until there are higher brain functions, is the correct position. Consciousness is a quality that is undeniably a component of personhood. Being conscious is distinct from being potentially conscious. Between the point of potentially conscious and actually conscious, any number of things may occur, preventing the fetus from living the full life that it is thought persons should live. Perhaps the fetus will develop anencephaly, a disorder that results in a child being born without the cerebrum and cerebellum, parts of the brain responsible for higher brain functions and motor activity. Thus, until consciousness is actually achieved, it cannot be certain that fetus will achieve it.

From what I read, consciousness doesn't develop until the seventh month in pregnancy when the cerebrum starts developing, so some argue that it is morally wrong to terminate pregnancy at that time. But that time is only when it starts developing, there's still a window of problems that may occur, such as the possibility of the cerebrum malforming or not forming at all, or the cerebrum may develop a disorder and render the fetus at birth a vegetable or make it still born. The brain is still undeveloped even after birth.

So now we tackled consciousness. Let's tackle another factor. The fetal blood circulation.

The fetuses' blood circulation is not like ordinary human beings', it it completely alien to ours. The fetus doesn't have a pulminary circulation system like ours, instead, the fetus's veinous and arterial blood are mixed together from its one-way circulation. Only after birth does the fetus then immediately transfer to pulminary circulation and its ductus arteriosus withers away, and it becomes a human being. So aborting it wouldn't be morally wrong in this factor.

Another factor is the respiratory system. The fetus doesn't breathe like us, it doesn't breathe gases, but the liquid in the embryonic sac. In fact, this isn't real 'breathing' in a sense, it's the flucuation and current of the liquid inside the embryonic sac that gives the fetus the image of breathing. It's lungs don't function, and the fetal heart refrains from pumping blood to them. Only after birth does the lungs activate and the fetus breathes its first 'breath of life' of air from the outside, and the heart starts pumping blood to the lungs.


These factors make the fetus a human being only after birth.