Pro-choice response: About more than “personhood”

Life begins at conception.

­­­­This is perhaps the most common and misleading argument made by pro-life advocates. When pro-lifers claim that life begins at conception, they blur the distinction between biological cell division, viable fetuses, and legal personhood. The question is not where life begins, but where personhood is recognized.

In the sixth issue of the MN Hoofbeat, Tyler Collins suggests that a fetus is a human life and thus abortions must be outlawed. While I applaud Collins for taking a courageous stance, his reasoning for when personhood begins is flawed and he does not consider the consequences of outlawing abortion.

There are many interpretations of personhood, but the stance that it begins at conception is flawed. Conception is not pregnancy. Medically, an embryo has not started developing at conception, and only begins to grow once the egg is implanted which takes 6-12 days after conception (WebMD Health Services).

Collins states that “the rights of a woman end where the rights of another human begins.” A single cell zygote (forms at conception) is not a human. It is a clump of cells. An embryo is not a human either. It’s simply a larger clump of cells. Neither of these trump the rights of the woman upon whose body they depend.

Collins also states that a zygote that forms at conception “has every bit of genetic information” from the moment it is conceived and it “meets all of the seven requirements for life.” But, he fails to provide a compelling reason for why these ought to be the standard for human life. If possession of DNA is a standard for life, we must grant embryonic stem cells the same rights as “real babies“ since they carry genetic traits. If meeting the seven requirements for life demands rights, we must grant animals the same rights as humans. None of the arguments presented by Collins are reasons to grant personhood to fetuses.

Moreover, Collins, along with many pro-lifers, frames abortion entirely as a moralistic debate about whether fetuses are human. These advocates have sidestepped the question of consequences. This debate is a question that must be anchored in legislative reality with a focus on the impact on women’s lives.

Anti-abortion laws and rhetoric that restrict safe abortion access have dire consequences; they restrict women’s opportunities, increase abortion stigma, and push legislation that outlaws abortions in all cases, including rape and a deadly threat. Studies show that banning abortion increases self-induced abortions which cause severe bodily injuries to women. The New York Times 2014 research finds that 80,000 woman in the US die from illegal abortions annually, and shutting down abortion clinics will create a sharp increase in mortality rates.

Women are being hurt because people care more about fetuses that rely on a woman’s body, rather than women’s well-being. When the financial, emotional, and social baggage that comes with raising a child is something that a woman cannot carry, paternalistic legislators (who know nothing about her situation) should not make life choices for her.
Collins calls for America and MN to “wake up.” Yet I am unsure how the patronizing pro-life lullaby that victimizes women is doing anything but hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock of women’s rights. Have fun sleeping—I’ll be over here fighting in the meantime.