Kumquat-sized human beings

Steve Wagner at the STR Blog links to an editorial by a pro-choice college student which is filled with a number of bad arguments, ignorance of fetal development and complete contradictions.

Zoe Williams tells us that, "Honestly, I do not care what a woman's reason is for having an abortion, as I am not in a place to judge." Yet her entire editorial is filled with instances of judging people who are prolife and calling them names.

She also says, "Regardless of whether I think their judgment leading up to such a choice was the best or if I myself would make the same choice, it is a person's right to do so." Yet she's mad that Justice for Life chose to display pictures of unborn children (some aborted) on her campus. Isn't it their right to display pictures and isn't it your right to look away if you so choose? Pro-choice people are often extremely tolerant of a woman's "right" to abort yet have absolutely no tolerance for a prolife person's right to peacefully protest abortion.

"I do not care how many abortions a woman has or for what reason; it is her body and her choice, bottom line.

Of course, I will discourage one from undergoing numerous abortions as a casual affair. I would also encourage an individual from casually having root canals and open-heart surgery."

If you don't care then why is it that you actually do care? What's wrong with women having numerous abortions for casual reasons? It's her body, her choice, bottom line, right?

After Zoe spends the majority of her essay assuming that the unborn don't exist or are part of a woman's body, she eventually saves a paragraph to discuss what the unborn are.

"One may ask about the self-determination and autonomy of a child. Once a child is born, I wish it nothing but the best. I would love to see every child have an education, food, shelter and medicine. However, I fail to see how a mass of cells the size of a kumquat, with no nerve endings, or a potentially viable fetus that is so deformed it has no chance of surviving (plus, it may kill the woman carrying it) can qualify as self-determined individuals. I fail to see how one can even consider the aforementioned cellular growths to be humans.

Hmmm.... Let's see, they are humans because they are scientifically speaking....human organisms. I wonder if one of Zoe's science teachers could inform her that we're all "cellular growths." I wish Zoe would let us in on when science started determining that the size of an organism or her ability to survive determines whether the organism is human or not?

Zoe is also mistaken regarding fetal development. The unborn child reaches the size of a kumquat (3-5 cm long or 1-2 inches long) at around 9 to 11 weeks. According to fetal pain expert K.S. Anand, "fully-functioning sensory receptors appear in the skin around the mouth of the fetus at 7 weeks and spread to all skin and mucous surfaces before 20 weeks of gestation." So those kumquat-sized cellular growths do have nerve endings.

Also, notice how Zoe makes no effort to actually argue that they unborn aren't human beings. She describes them in unflattering terms and then determines they aren't humans based on nothing more than her feelings.