Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. But not really. The reality today is that words can hurt more than ever. Words that some are comfortable with may be extremely offensive to others. Different groups of people interpret different forms of language in a variety of ways. The abortion debate is no different. There is no doubt that the topic of abortion has been brought up at one of your most recent family dinners, parties, or social gatherings, and most of the time, when abortion is brought up, there is some form of discourse on these issues. A crucial part of the debate is being able to understand the common terms being discussed so that one can fully comprehend the debate at hand before forming their own opinions. People have different understandings of the definitions of words surrounding when abortion take place, such as when the baby develops a heartbeat, when it can feel pain, and when it is “acceptable” in the eyes of different groups of people to have an abortion.
The main controversy surrounding the abortion debate always circles back to when in the pregnancy is it acceptable (if at all) to have an abortion. Factors in this debate revolve around the development of the baby in the mother’s womb. Fertilization, also referred to as conception, is the action of a male sperm uniting with a female egg to form a zygote. This process marks the beginning of pregnancy. From there, it takes about five or six days for the zygote to change into a blastocyst, which is a microscopic clump of cells. The innermost group of cells within that clump forms the embryo, which is defined as “an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development… approximately the second to eighth week after fertilization.” This formation process of the zygote into the embryo is called embryogenesis. [2] These words have very neutral connotations and are often used in the abortion debate when presenting facts about babies. Connotation starts to come in when the word “fetus” is brought about in discussion. A fetus is an offspring of a human in the prenatal (before birth) development stage. [5] The word fetus typically comes with a negative connotation, because many pro-choice people argue that a fetus is not yet a baby, and therefore it is less morally wrong to abort it. On the other hand, many pro-life people argue that fetus is simply a Latin word that means “baby,” and that aborting the offspring in this stage is still fundamentally wrong. In Latin, the word fetus means “the bearing, bringing forth, or hatching of young.” The word fetus has become a very political and polarized term in the last fifty years then the abortion debate has truly taken off. Pro-choice people tend to refer to the unborn offspring as a fetus, whereas pro-life tend to refer to the offspring as a baby during pregnancy.
This terminology is applied when people discuss and debate when (if at all) different groups of people believe that abortion is morally justifiable. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a baby in the womb develops the nerves that can send signals of pain to the brain at about twenty-four weeks after conception, meaning that a baby is able to feel pain roughly six months into the pregnancy. [1] However, the fetus develops a heartbeat – the ability to pulsate its own blood into its body – three weeks after conception. These terms are used in the abortion debate to argue back and forth about whether the offspring is far enough into its pre-natal development to abort it. [2] There are political views and extremes on both sides of the spectrum that use this language in their argument. Some conservatives, particularly those with extreme beliefs and values, argue that life begins at conception, and that the baby should not be aborted once the egg is fertilized. [4] They believe that abortion is murder, and Republicans proposed bills to Congress that back their viewpoints, such as the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This legislation would make it so that emergency care to save the life of the aborted baby would be required, as well as criminal punishment for those medical professionals who refuse life-saving care for the child. [3] On the other end of the political spectrum, some liberals, especially the more extreme ones, claim that a fetus is not yet a baby until the moment it is born, and therefore support abortion in the weeks and days right up until the day the child is born. They claim that abortion is not murder, and do not take kindly to being called “baby-murderers.” Many people are very offended by this term, and it can be extremely detrimental for people going through an abortion to hear this from others. At the same time, many people who believe that all life is precious and should be preserved became upset when abortion became legal in the first place. [4]
Although abortion is legal in the United States, people who kill a pregnant women are charged with a double-homicide, which begs the question: when is abortion considered murder? Some say always. Some say never. The majority of people in the United States do not fit either of the two political extremes in the abortion debate, which is why it is more crucial than ever that young people truly understand the terms and connotations involved in the abortion debate as they learn and begin to formulate their own opinions.
Caden Linnert
Works Cited
[1] American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Facts Are Important: Gestational Development and Capacity for Pain.” ACOG. Wolters Kluwer Health, 2021. https://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/gestational-development-capacity-for-pain.
[2] Cherry, Kendra. “How a Baby Develops during the Prenatal Period.” Edited by Carly Snyder. Verywell Mind. Dotdash Meredith, March 11, 2023. https://www.verywellmind.com/stages-of-prenatal-development-2795073.
[3] John Thune Public Relations Team. “Thune, Lankford Introduce Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.” U.S. Senator John Thune, February 1, 2023. https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=A8D4FBFB-E768-40E2-B568-85AE087138A0#:~:text=The%20Born%2DAlive%20Abortion%20Survivors%20Protection%20Act%20would%20require%20life,care%20to%20born%20alive%20infants.
[4] Gary C. Leedes, Liberalism, Republicanism and the Abortion Controversy, 35 Vill. L. Rev. 571 (1990). https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol35/iss3/2
[5] National Cancer Institute. “NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms.” National Cancer Institute. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed April 13, 2023. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/fetus.