Women's rights vs. a baby's right to life?
Great point and raises a great many issues. Let’s walk through some of them together, shall we?
1. When does a fetus stop being a fetus and becomes a baby? Is the clump of cells that exists a second after conception a baby? What about a week later? Two weeks? A month?
2. A “right” can’t impose obligations on others. Your right to free speech doesn’t require anyone to provide you with a megaphone. My right to bear arms doesn’t require anyone to provide me with a free S&W. Our “right to life” doesn’t require anyone to provide us with the barest necessities of life: food & water. A fetus is entirely dependent on the woman carrying it, so its “right to life” actually is very different than all these other rights, which begs the question: is it a right at all?
3. If a fetus does, indeed, have a right to life, why is it not
illegal for women to do things that might or surely do increase the risk to their fetus? Why not prevent them from drinking? Why not force them to eat nutritious meals? Why not prevent them from participating is potentially dangerous activities like playing sports or riding bikes?
4. If a fetus is entitled to all the rights and protections afforded citizens, why aren’t children
conceived in the U.S., U.S. citizens? Why is
birth the “cutoff”? Seems wrong, doesn’t it?
5. Where, exactly, in the Constitution is there a reference to a “right to life”?
Don’t interpret these questions as indicative of my support of abortion; I find it to be both barbaric and sick and I don’t think I’d ever opt for one for myself if I were a woman. But my
personal feelings about abortion are just that: my personal feelings. I don’t believe that they should be the law of the land or they others should have to placate me or be reduced from “human” to “gestation chamber” for a period of time.