How to Get Away with Murder

7 half-week_embryo
Baby at 7 1/2 weeks after conception

There is a curious inconsistency in American law right now. Many states have laws stating that if a pregnant woman is murdered, the assailant will be charged with not one, but two, murders. Even if she is only injured but the fetus is killed, murder (or manslaughter) charges may be brought against the assailant for the death of the fetus. 23 of those 38 states count the killing of the fetus as murder/manslaughter at any stage of pregnancy from fertilization to birth.[1] For instance, Scott Petersen in California was charged in 2004 with 2 counts of murder after he murdered his wife who was 8 months pregnant.[2] But most of these state laws also have a very specific exception for when the intentional killing of an unborn child is not considered murder: when the person doing the killing is an abortionist. But what’s changed for this exception? What, precisely, is the difference between the criminal and the abortionist?

Is one killing and the other not? No. Clearly, the baby is alive in both cases prior to the act, and dead afterward. In the case of late-term murders and late-term abortions, the presence of detectable heartbeat, brainwaves, metabolism, and response to stimuli makes it clear that the baby is alive in both cases. The absence of these signs of life (and the dismemberment common in abortion)  makes it clear the baby is very much dead after both acts. But even in the first trimester, there are certainly enough signs of life to say the object being killed is not inanimate (fetal heartbeats, for instance, have been detected at 22-30 days after conception, brainwaves as early as 6 weeks, 2 days).[3] Even assuming the baby were just a “clump of cells” as some like to say, there is no question that they are living cells at the very least.

So both involve killing something, but is abortion killing a human? That’s really the only question that matters, isn’t it? If the baby isn’t a human, then why are are people like Scott Petersen sitting on Death Row with two counts of murder against them instead of just the mother’s murder? I’ve heard abortion compared to having a tumor removed, that they’re both just unwanted, parasitic blobs of tissue. The claim that a fetus is just a clump of cells or a “blob of tissue” is a bit of an oversimplification as the the baby is already made up of roughly 1 billion cells and has most of its adult organs formed by the time its embryonic stage is complete at 8 weeks (from conception). At best, that “blob” comparison is only valid for the first few days after conception.  Of course, the tumor alluded to would also be considered living cells, and animals also exhibit the same signs of life like heartbeat, brainwaves, breathing, and response to stimuli. So what makes this rapidly developing “clump of cells” human? First, it has human DNA, and it gets this individual-specific DNA within the first  day after conception, as 23 chromosomes from the father and 23 chromosomes from the mother are combined to form a new 46-chromosome human with all the genetic information needed to form a fully-functioning human. The degree of development doesn’t change this basic genetic criteria. It has the same DNA at 80 years old that it did 1 day after conception. Second, an adult human is the natural consequence of the development of this “blob of tissue”. While a tumor may share a person’s DNA (with certain mutations), tumor growth never results in the formation of a new person.

So it’s human. But why think this baby is a separate human? Isn’t it just a part of its mother’s body? The baby’s connection to the mother (the umbilical cord) is one of life support. If you were connected to another person for an emergency blood transfusion, would you then become part of that person? Of course not. Your dependence on the other person does not change your status as a person. One could also point to things like its unique set of fingerprints (present by 10 weeks). After all, we’ll often use these to uniquely identify a person throughout their life post-birth. Of course, the baby often having a different blood type from it’s mother and a different gender half the time clearly confirms it is not part of it’s mother’s body even though it resides inside her body. But even with the same blood type and gender, and before unique fingerprints have formed,  DNA testing will show the baby is a distinct, separate human from it’s mother as half of it’s 46 chromosomes came from the father to form a genetically unique human.

So the baby seems to be unequivocally a distinct living human. But is killing it murder? After all, murder is more than just killing. In cases of self-defense or protecting innocent life, killing an assailant is not considered murder, but justifiable homicide. Does abortion fall into this category? That is how it’s viewed in these legal exemptions for abortionists. But generally, the other exceptions have to be justified by saying that an innocent person might’ve been killed or some other serious crime would’ve been committed if the assailant hadn’t been killed first.[4] Yet, the unborn baby seems to be the very picture of innocence, having had no chance to do anything malicious to anyone that should warrant death.

In the end, we need to recognize that the abortionist is committing murder by intentionally killing a unique, living, innocent human without provocation. And what’s worse, through decades of scientifically, philosophically, and legally false propaganda, generations of women have been tricked into supporting institutionalized murder on an epic scale. I haven’t used any religious rationale in this post, just basic reasoning and science. But notice how the science supports the historic Christian position that abortion is wrong. This is to be expected if Christianity really is the true revelation of our Creator, for science is simply the observation of the physical world He has made.


[1] http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/fetal-homicide-state-laws.aspx, accessed 9/20/2015.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Peterson, accessed 9/19/2015.
[3] http://www.ehd.org/science_main.php?level=i, accessed9/19/2015.
[4] Other noncivilian justifications include the carrying out of legal duties by agents of the state such as judges, police, etc, or soldiers following lawful orders in wartime.

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