Let There Be Growth

The right to self-determination is a fundamental human right recognized by the United Nations since the aftermath of World War II. Its roots date back to as early as the French and American revolutions and was made international law in order to protect underrepresented people groups. This wonderful and vast right uniquely allows for human flourishing in a way few other “rights” do. To determine your own potential and to self-actualize is a desire that lives in the deepest depths of our human hearts, both toward ourselves and toward our communities. On the issue of abortion, we find ourselves confronted with the most vulnerable and underrepresented group of all: the unborn. This voiceless group, living inside of another underrepresented and vulnerable group (women), is intelligently designed to have the same innate human desires we have, should we allow them the right to self-determination—the right to live, to grow, to actualize, and to be in community with one another.

First, we have to address whether or not the unborn constitute a people group. We in the pro-life movement agree that personhood cannot be given to you by your government or by the law—it is a divine gift from our creator that applies to all human beings. Despite this, we have to indulge our counterparts and ask the question: are the unborn humans in the womb actually people?

Legal Personhood

In the anti-abortion argument, we often run into the supposed mystery of personhood. Although 96% of bipartisan biologists agree human life begins at conception, the scientific community has taken a backseat on whether or not said human life is a person. Many will say an unborn child is not recognized by the law; they don’t have a Social Security number, they cannot hold property, and they cannot sue or be sued. A legal person has at least some of these things, but by that logic, anyone in the U.S. under the age of 18 would lack certain personhood and therefore certain rights. Of course, we do not find it morally acceptable to discard minors based on their level of convenience to us. In fact, by the law’s own standards, a corporate entity can even be considered a “person.” They can be sued, they can hold property, and they are recognized by the law. This can start to feel like a dirty game of semantics until we remember that the Unborn Victims of Violence Act was signed into law in 2004. In addition, 38 states still have fetal homicide laws. These laws clearly state that an unborn human in the womb has at least some legal protections and therefore the right to not be physically harmed—the same right as us born folk. If another person fatally harms you, that person has infringed upon your right to grow and to actualize. If another person or group fatally harms you and all your peers, they have infringed on your community’s right to self-determination.

Moral Personhood

If we now know that the argument for legal personhood on behalf of growing fetuses in the womb is a winding road toward fetal homicide laws, we now find ourselves on the path of moral personhood. Many pro-abortion advocates will argue that a fetus lacks certain conscious experiences and therefore certain rights. They cannot reason, nor can they decipher good vs. evil. Except we do know that unborn babies in the womb are having a human experience. Twins at as early as 14 weeks gestation interact with each other in the womb and are increasingly less likely to spend time by themselves as they grow. Furthermore, while we might not know for certain that a fetus is having an emotional “feeling” the same way we experience feelings, we know that they respond to the emotions of their mother and, even more so, have a memory of their mother’s actions. For example, once a fetus has experienced a drop in the oxygen content that passes through the placenta when their mother smokes a cigarette, the fetus will later flinch in noticeable agitation when their mother even thinks about smoking. Clearly, babies in the womb are having at the very least a semi-conscious experience. One could even argue that any born human being is not having a fully conscious and self-aware human experience until their brain develops around the age of 25. The ability to reason and differentiate between right and wrong exists on a spectrum, both of age and of IQ, and is therefore not a proper justification for the disposal of unborn human beings. St. Thomas Aquinas believed a human person to be “an individual substance of a rational nature.” To be a human being, even as young as an embryo, means you have the natural capacity to reason, should you be allowed to grow. Considering this, we can conclude that fetuses in the womb are moral persons in that it is morally erroneous to harm them.

Now that we’ve established that abortion does indeed infringe on the unborn’s right to self-determination, I want to shed some light on how abortion is an infringement on everybody’s right to self-determination, especially the rights of women and other minority groups.

Abortion as an Infingement on Self-Determination

In 1921, founder of Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger wrote, “The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” This quote is in reference to her eugenics beliefs and ideas regarding birth control. Sanger’s intent to eliminate births in poor Black communities is heavily debated, but we know for certain that many of her contemporaries in the early birth control movement viewed these clinics as effective tools in forced sterilization and population control, also known by many as “family planning.” If these were undertones in the early birth control movement, we cannot expect the modern-day abortion movement to be completely free of these insidious and terribly misguided ideas.

The sugarcoated version of this we tend to hear from abortion advocates is a merciful attempt to eliminate suffering entirely based on the potential future suffering of a person. Oftentimes, it sounds like sparing a poor, unwanted child from the corruption and abuse of the foster care system or preventing a family from incurring greater financial strain by supporting an unplanned pregnancy and then another child. This sounds fine and good until we look at the statistics. Black women account for more than 40% of abortions nationwide, despite being 7-8% of the population. They have the highest number of unintended pregnancies and, therefore, the highest number of abortions. If 19-20 million Black children had not been aborted since 1973, the Black population in this country today would be doubled. Now, over 100 years after Margaret Sanger founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and after almost 50 years of legal abortion nationwide, can we say that we’ve helped this community? Can we say that we’ve helped Black women by championing their reproductive rights when their maternal mortality rate is 3.5 times that of white women? And on a larger scale—can we say we’ve helped women when we have the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries? How about when 1 in 5 women in America will experience impaired fecundity (infertility) and 1 in 8 will be diagnosed with breast cancer?

This is not an attempt to say these things are proven and direct results of the birth control and abortion industries, although more research into the correlation is absolutely necessary. This is more so an attempt to bring attention to a failing system and the Band-Aids we put on it in the name of reproductive freedom. We as a people cannot truly experience self-determination and self-actualization if we find it morally acceptable to eliminate those among us who are most vulnerable. Not only are we doing this through abortion, but we have tricked minority communities into thinking this is the key to human flourishing. The longer we as women rely on government-sanctioned violence in order to move up in the world, the longer we allow the government to continue overlooking women’s health and evading the issues at hand. Why fix the hard things when we can apply Band-Aids and make money while we do it?

The right to life means the right to grow, and without this, we concede to extinction. If we cannot let there be growth in the womb, which was once the only home each of us ever knew, we cannot grow as a people. The most vulnerable among us deserve the same rights to self-determination that we claim for ourselves, and to pretend they are excluded from the collective “we” is a mistake. To abort is to destroy humankind little by little, from the inside out, until we see the collapse of societies slowly—and then all at once.

“No man is an island ...

any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls

for thee.” - John Donne

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You grew from the gleam in your parent’s eyes

Now is the time to fulfill your dreams in life

What you create is for all to see

You sow your own destiny

Let There Be Growth

Entrust future generations to reap the rewards

Trust your faith and your ambition

Use the gifts you’re given

Set your goals without regrets

Use the gifts that you are given

Let There Be Growth

There is not a cycle of growth on your own

You sow what you reap

You sow what you reap

Pleasure to share these rewards

Let’s prepare for the cycle of life
Let There Be Growth