A person’s right over their own body are held in the highest regards. Whenever we look to overrule an individual’s personal rights we must provide the argument that shows that we can. When you say, “the fetus is its own human,” then the mother’s body is not the body of the fetus. So it is on you to explain why a fetus is to be granted this special moral status that allows it, separate from all other people, to override the mother’s rights.

What is it that you think allows us to force a woman to carry a fetus to term, but doesn’t allow us to force anyone to donate blood, a kidney or bone marrow to save a life? Surely the life of any living person is worth as much as a fetus, but where are the cries to legalize forced blood donations? We cannot criminalize abortions without legalizing forced blood, kidney and bone marrow donations. It should also be noted that donating blood takes less time and is less life threatening than pregnancy. Donate today!

While I can ignore it when looking at the legality of the medical procedure, the separate question of the humanity of the fetus still remains.

I would like to differentiate between “human” and “person.” A human is just another animal with its own particular genetic makeup. Being a person is what grants us our unique moral standing. By themselves, the genes that make us human fail to enunciate the nuances of what it means to be a person. Relying on them also threatens to deny non-human persons the same moral status as humans. It seems more appropriate to use things like consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the capacity to communicate and the presence of self-concepts when deciding something’s status as a person. 

However, because you do not make this distinction, I will take something to be human, and therefore a person, “once a man’s and woman’s DNA merge and a new human genome forms.”

This means that when a fetus separates into two individuals 24 hours or more after fertilization, identical twins, only the first is to be considered human, as the second was not formed by the merging of two different sets of DNA and does not have “its own unique genome.” We could possibly consider them one and the same person, but would that mean one twin could donate all of the other’s organs?

Also, anyone born with one more or fewer chromosome is not to be considered human, as they do not have the standard 23 pairs that you deem to be the standard. Is a person with chimerism one human or two? Would an alien life form be considered a person? It is certainly not human, but does that mean we could enslave them?

That final question may seem out there, but using the genome to dictate what is and is not a person has been used many times to justify racial and sexual discrimination. So, be careful when you use it.