In my previous blog I argued from science that a fetus is a distinct human life. I now want to appeal to something entirely different. I propose that we humans intuitively know that a fetus is a human is a baby is a child. Our language and our emotions give us away. Let me tell a story.
When I taught English, I gave my students each year a persuasive essay assignment in which they could write on any topic they chose. Abortion was by far the most popular topic, and every year I found myself reading scads of essays on abortion – pro and con. And every year I had multiple students who took a proabortion stance and argued for “aborting the baby” or “aborting the child.” It’s just the way they talked.
I would point out to these students that their language hurt their argument, for if the fetus is (as they admit) a baby, then abortion kills a baby, but if the fetus is not human, you can do with it as you please. This “baby” language was so common that it often made it into my generic comments to the class on common errors or weaknesses I found across many essays.
One year I was pointing out this pattern to the class and told them that if you want to take a proabortion stance, you weaken your argument by referring to the baby. Babies are human. Babies are children.
When I had finished, a young man in the front row (who did not write on abortion) replied, “Of course it’s a baby! What else could it be?” He then went on to say that he believed a woman should be able to abort that baby. I was stunned not at the gross contradiction in his moral reasoning but at how confidently he stated it and how strongly he believed it. He was utterly convinced that pregnant women carry babies. He had no doubt that a fetus is a baby.
You can write off that young man as being a high school kid who simply hadn’t thought through the issue, and you certainly would be correct. But that’s precisely my point. When we are at the dinner table describing what a pregnant woman is carrying, “baby” is the normal word we use. And we don’t think twice about it. It’s just natural. I’ve never heard anyone address a pregnant woman and say, “How’s the fetus today?” No. You greet your pregnant friend and say, “How are you and the baby doing?” The mother tells her husband, “I felt the baby kick today.” Or she says, “The baby is hungry today.” Or “we heard the baby’s heartbeat today.” Or they see the ultrasound and say, “It’s a girl!”
We talk this way all the time, and our language says something about what we think. We intuitively know that a pregnant woman is carrying a baby. Or a boy. Or a girl. Or a child. Those are the words we use. And when we use those words, we don’t mean baby dog or baby fish or baby bird. We mean baby human.
That young man in my class is not alone. What he intuitively understood is what most people intuitively understand. The overwhelming majority of pregnant women intuitively know they are carrying a baby. They don’t need scientific arguments. Just ask them what they are carrying. Or try this. Try telling a pregnant woman that she is not carrying a baby and see how that goes.
And here’s the thing. Most proabortion people talk this way. They may avoid “baby” language in formal arguments, but in personal settings they still revert to it. I’ve heard this with my ears. Our language communicates something about what we believe deep down.
But so do our emotions. Recently, a woman I work with announced that she was pregnant. We all rejoiced. We congratulated her. We high fived. And this reaction is the normal human reaction to a pregnancy. Why? We are not rejoicing over a clump of cells. We are rejoicing over a human life. And proabortion people do the same rejoicing in most situations.
But our emotions don’t have to be joyful to betray us. Even when we face a crisis pregnancy – an unwed mother, a rape – and our emotions may be sad at the situation or we may feel a sense of loss, these emotions also suggest that the mother is carrying something more than a clump of cells. If the fetus is just a clump of cells, why do we feel a sense of loss? Our emotions need not get entangled with a clump of cells. We have no reason to be sad over a clump of cells. The mother has an easy way out. What is in her body is no more special than a wart. Just remove it and move on.
But that’s not how we feel. There’s no tragedy in having a clump of cells that you can easily remove with no harm done. The fact that we consider crisis pregnancies tragic betrays the fact that deep down, we know we are dealing with more than just a clump of cells. Deep down, whether we are happy or sad, we know what a pregnant woman is carrying.
A fetus is a human is a baby is a child. This is the intuition most of us have. Now I understand that intuitions are not formal arguments. Intuitions can be wrong. But neither are they nothing. Intuitions do push us in a certain direction, and that direction is toward the humanity of the fetus. If you want to say that the fetus is not human, you must argue against the way most people naturally think and feel. In other words, the burden of proof is on you.
