Why Abortion Isn't Murder

Another example, closer in spirit to the abortion debate, is the change in the status of African Americans during abolitionism. Slave owners apparently thought that the slaves weren't fully human. But later on almost everybody saw that that position was unreasonable. People came to accept that the differences between Negroid and Caucasian humans were insignificant.

But in the case of abortion, there's clearly a huge difference between an early stage embryo and a full term fetus. Why or why isn't that difference significant? Just shouting "But it's an innocent child!" doesn't address the question.

If someone thinks that a word is incorrectly used, they need to give substantive arguments about why the old way is inaccurate. Anti-abortion activists haven't added any new knowledge or insight into what it means to be a person (a "precious human"). All they have done is to appeal to our emotions, by holding magnified photos of aborted embryos and by repeating things like "abortion is the murder of an unborn child," when the precise point on which we disagree is whether a brainless embryo has enough inherent preciousness (consciousness, in my view) to warrant being called an "unborn child."

A fertilized egg has no consciousness and no history of consciousness. If it's precious, the preciousness lies entirely in the eyes of the beholder -- or in what it what it has the potential of becoming. But an unfertilized egg and sperm also have a potential for consciousness, and are they precious too? Only a religious zealot would think so.

Alas, I'm sure that for the vast majority of anti-abortion activists, their opposition to abortion is based on religious grounds. They should just come out and say so.

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