A.

Does the human fetus have any value and any rights?

It’s a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life. Those who argue that human fetus has no rights say that a fetus
is not a person. But even if you believe that, IT DOESN’T MEAN THE FETUS HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE OR NO RIGHTS.
There Are many living beings hat are not persons that have both value and rights. Dogs and other animals for
examples. A living being doesn’t have to be a person in order 6to have intrinsic moral value and rights.

When challenged with this arguments people usually change the right of a mother. Meaning the right of a mother
to end her fetus’s life under any circumstance, for any reason, and at any time in her pregnancy. Is that moral? It is
only is we believe that the human fetus has no intrinsic worth. But is most cases, nearly everyone believes that the
human fetus has essentially infinite worth and an almost absolute right to live. When? When a pregnant woman
wants to give birth. Then, society – and its laws- regard the fetus as so valuable that if someone were to kill that
fetus, that persons could be prosecuted for homicide. Only if a pregnant woman doesn’t want to give birth, do many
people regard the fetus as worthless or no right to live.

Either a human fetus has worth or it doesn’t. On what moral grounds does the mother alone decide a fetus’s worth?
We certainly don’t do that with regard to a newborn child. It is society, not the mother – or the father – that
determines whether a newborn child has worth and a right to live. So the question is: Why should that be different
before the human being is born? Why does one person, a mother, get to determine whether that being has any
right to live? People respond by saying that a woman has the right to “control her body”. Now, that is entirely correct.
The problem here however, is that the fetus is not “ her body,” it is in her body. It is a separate body. No one ever
asks a pregnant woman, “How’s your body?” when asking about the fetus. People ask, “How’s the baby?”

Everyone agrees that the moment the baby comes out of the womb, killing the baby is murder. But deliberately
killing it a few months before birth is considered no more morally problematic that extracting a tooth. How does
that make sense?

Aren’t there instances in which just about everyone even among those who are pro-choice would acknowledge that
an abortion might not be moral? For example, would it be moral to abort a female fetus solely because the mother
prefers boys to girls as happened millions of times in China and elsewhere? And one more example: Let’s say science
develops a method of determining whether a child in the womb is gay or straight. Would it be moral to kill a gay
fetus because the mother didn’t want a gay child? People may offer a practical reasons not to criminalize all
abortions. People may differ about when personhood begins; and about the morality of abortion after rape or incest.
But with regard to the vast majority of abortions, those of healthy women aborting a healthy fetus-let’s be clear.
Most of these abortions just aren’t moral. Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society
cannot survive if it calls immoral things moral.

B.

There has been a lot of debate recently over abortion, and most of it is coming from a good place.
That place being the pro-life place of course. The left no longer controls the debate on this subject
and recently we have seen a resurgence in the movement due to the election of president Trump
and the selection of a new supreme court judge. This nation has also seen a huge uptick in protest
and screeching concerning the possible repeal of Roe V. Wade and unfortunately the arguments
are the same tired and stale ones we have heard since the feminist movement decided it was a
woman’s right to commit murder. The most prevalent one that has been seen recently is the
argument concerning quality of life. The argument goes that children who are raised in single parent
households or into a poor family will have a low quality of life, ergo it’s better that they never be
 born than have to go through said hardship. This is what I like to call the “Overall Happiness
Argument” where the life of a child is gauged by its speculative future happiness in conjunction with
a formula made up of social circumstances. This argument notably saw legitimate traction with Dr.
Karl Brandt, Hitler’s personal physician, who used this argument to justify his euthanasia program
in the 1930s. His was based on racial theory instead of social circumstances but it is the same
argument. He was hanged for war crimes on October 16th, 1946 following the Nuremberg trials.

But his philosophy is well and alive with modern leftists. How do I see this as a racist proclamation?
Good question, let me get into some statistics which may have a bearing on this case. 72% of black
youths will grow up in a single parent household. This is an indisputable fact. 27% of black
Americans live below the poverty line. That means that by leftist standards of the forty five million
black people who live in the United States, 12,120,000 should either have been aborted or be
susceptible to abortion at a philosophical level. This is just one segment of the minority population
in America. Imagine how leftists must feel about Hispanics if 12,120,000 blacks shouldn’t be born
under their philosophy? Or poor whites? This number for one demographic alone shows just how
big this issue is and why its a cultural war that needs to be fought and won without and care for the
feelings of our opponents.

I am not saying that all leftists want there to be no black people. Nor am I saying that they want all
these abortions to happen. What I am sayings is that their philosophy leads to a complete collapse
of morality and will eventually deteriorate to the dystopian point I have outlined for the black
community. My evidence of this is that it already has. When Roe V. Wade was passed it was put
forward that abortion was a necessary medical operation that would be done on a minimal scale
for those that absolutely needed it. Another look at statistics can show us just how that has not
been the case, especially in the year of 2018. There are 161 million women living in the United
States. There are 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States each year with an unknown
number of illegal abortions performed. That means that roughly 0.75% of women in the United
States get abortions. By contrast 22,000 women a year are diagnosed with Ovarian cancer. 14,000
will die from it.Cancer treatment accounts for roughly 0.01% of necessary medical treatment
women will receive in a year. Women get abortions at seventy four times the rate that they will
receive care for cancer. While not conclusive, (women get other diseases), it does show a
disturbing trend. Women are using abortion, not as a necessary medical treatment, but as birth
control.
This is irregardless of the fact that leftists seem to believe that a fetus is not life. A rock cannot turn
into an eagle, and an eagle does not turn into a walrus. Ergo if something later “becomes”
something then it always was that thing it was said to have “become”. The left also needs to stop
telling people that aren’t as privileged financially and in terms of family situations that they, for the
good of society, shouldn’t have been born at all. My birth mother was promiscuous and had
numerous children out of wedlock. She put us all up for adoption. She obviously wasn't ready to be
a parent and her economic situation most likely was not good but I was adopted by a loving family
and I love my life, warts and all, because I have Christ. Christ is what this country really needs to
end abortion but in ending this I'm going to quote Dr. Seuss. Normally I’d think that childish but
since the left weaponized the Lorax I have free reign.

“A persons a person, no matter how small”-Horton

C.

When it comes to abortion, you can probably guess my viewpoint, but I would like to address a little
debated aspect of the argument concerning this issue. It is in regards to attitudes present in this culture-
the justifications and outright apathy (it terrifies me). Given enough time, just what are we as humans
capable of? Allow me to explain.

Not so long ago in an undergraduate medical ethics class at Marist College (which is supposedly Catholic
by the way) we addressed the issue of abortion. Basically, the majority of the students came to the
conclusion that prior to 8 weeks it is difficult to determine whether the embryo was truly a “living” human
being. Logic would have then dictated, it would seem, that one should err on the side of human life and
due to the uncertainty, treat the embryo as a growing person.

Apparently this mattered not to 90% of my classmates. Incredulously, I began to further inquire and push
the envelope, systematically adding weeks to the embryo's (and eventually fetus's) life and becoming
more shocked by the results. Despite knowing full well the fetus was just as alive and living as you or I,
almost the whole class was still willing to do away with the child. Thankfully they all agreed that just prior
to birth it was wrong to abort.

I was stunned. It was at that point in my academic career that I lost all faith in human logic and humanity
itself. Here were fellow biology students, immersed every day in the wonderful complexities of the world,
the human body, and life itself, and yet so blind? We were no longer at the point of debating whether a
fetus was a human being, we were all in agreement that it was; We were merely thinking up reasons for
snuffing out that life for our convenience.

“Convenience?”

Why do we compromise truth and morality for the sake of convenience? Is it out of selfishness or does it
stem from apathy?

Given enough time it would seem any heart can be hardened, any mind calloused; all it takes is just tiny
changes as we little by little become acclimated to immorality. It would seem that so long as the benefits
outweigh what is right, then it is perfectly acceptable to do wrong. This growing trend appears to be true
of just about every aspect of our lives, and most unfortunately, now including the abortion issue.

Some of the “conveniences” of allowing abortions seem to fall into two main categories (granted there are
more, but most of them are completely ridiculous).

1. Ability to care for the fetus, post birth

Concerning the ability to care “excuse” (yes, I am calling it an excuse), it boils down to justification for
killing based on the fact an unexpected new life will make things “difficult” and “get in the way” of one's
lifestyle. Quickly kill it before it gains humanity-or even after! What does it matter so long as I am not
inconvenienced! Ridiculous.

Concerning the usage in scientific research, the argument boils down to potential lives saved through
medical research using aborted embryos and fetal tissue. Yet, might I remind the reader these are
potential lives saved at the cost of actual lives. Furthermore, these actual lives are never given the
chance to decide for themselves whether this sacrifice is merited.

Again, is it apathy or selfishness that leads humankind to make justifications for what is wrong? I think I'll
just chalk it up as sin nature, so really it shouldn't come as much of a shock.
D.

Sadly, the rape numbers for the Philippines essentially remain disturbing.

According to the Philippine Commission on Women, 4% of women age 15-49 experienced forced first
sexual intercourse and 10% of women age 15-49 experienced sexual violence.

The Center for Women’s Resource reported that cases of rape “have reached an alarming level. For the
year 2010, a total of 4,572 cases of rape were documented by the Women and Children Protection Center
of the Philippine National Police (WCPC-PNP), 19 of which were incestuous or perpetrated by a victim’s
blood relative. This was equivalent to a 13% increase in reported cases of rape and incest from 4,048 in
2009.”

Philippine National Police data do indicate an 11.65% drop in rape, from 4,301 in 2015 to 3,800 in 2016.
The true figures, however, could be much higher. Of course, there’s also the reported alleged rape
committed by elements within the PNP itself.

It is partly due to the tragic reality of women impregnated due to rape that moves to legalize abortion in the
Philippines became foreseeable. The argument has a strong emotional pull. Whether it is the right thing to
do is another matter.

One statistic brought up was the Alan Guttmacher Institute’s finding that around 50% of Philippine
pregnancies were unintended. This, however, should be distinguished from pregnancies arising from rape.
To put a not too fine point: unintended pregnancies do not necessarily mean the sexual act was also
unintended and non-consensual.

The Philippines is not alone with regard to banning abortions. From the World Economic Forum, “26
countries still ban abortion altogether, with no explicit legal reason for exception” and a “further 37 countries
ban abortion unless it is necessary to save the life of the woman. These include major economies such as
Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Indonesia and the UAE.”
In the Philippines (although our laws don’t expressly say so), if doctors fully intending to save a mother’s
life effected fetal abortion as an unfortunate happenstance such should arguably not lead to criminal
prosecution.

Nevertheless, whether the Philippines is alone or not isn’t important. The one question that truly matters is:
can a deliberately intended abortion be ever considered right?

Sandra Mahkorn, (MD, MPH, MS and former counselor for sexual assault victims) puts that issue in
perspective: “The number and percent of pregnancies resulting from rape is frequently overstated. There
are two main reasons why relatively few rapes result in pregnancy. The average rate of pregnancy from a
single act of unprotected sexual intercourse ranges from 2 to 4 percent. In addition, 10.9 percent of U.S.
women of childbearing age are infertile and over 41 percent have undergone surgical sterilization or are
using a continuous form of contraception, reducing (though not eliminating) the likelihood of pregnancy. A
survey of U.S. women’s reasons for choosing abortion found that only one percent reported ‘rape’ as a
reason and less than one half of one percent reported that rape was the main reason.”

“The abortion rate among rape victims (50 percent) is not substantially higher than among all women who
report an ‘unintended pregnancy’ (40 percent). The majority of those who decided against abortion chose
to raise their child, while a small percentage opted for adoption. A study of 164 such women found that the
majority of those who had abortions regretted having done so and said the abortion caused them additional
problems.”

Ultimately, however, as Dr. Mahkorn points out: “we are dealing not with a statistical issue, but a human
one.”

So, setting aside what’s basically a tautological argument that abortion is “a choice”: what exactly is being
aborted?

Princeton’s Robert George’s remarks before the American Political Science Association Convention is
relevant: “A human being is conceived when a human sperm containing twenty-three chromosomes fuses
with a human egg also containing twenty-three chromosomes (albeit of a different kind) producing a single-
cell human zygote containing, in the normal case, forty-six chromosomes that are mixed differently from
the forty-six chromosomes as found in the mother or father. Unlike the gametes (that is, the sperm and
egg), the zygote is genetically unique and distinct from its parents. Biologically, it is a separate organism.”

Thusly, anybody can now logically conclude, as George does, that: “The scientific evidence establishes the
fact that each of us was, from conception, a human being. Science, not religion, vindicates this crucial
premise of the pro-life claim. From it, there is no avoiding the conclusion that deliberate feticide is a form of
homicide.”

This is why abortion, intended or in negligence, is considered criminal under the Revised Penal Code.

This is why rights are granted to the unborn under the Civil Code

This is why the unborn is protected under the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

This is why we call pregnant women “nagdadalang tao.”

A good society knows this.