I am responding to Andrew Meyer’s article published in the Iowa State Daily on April 5, 2017, “A response to ‘What’s the difference between us and a fetus?'”

First off, I want to say great article. It engages the reader, brings up great ideas and encourages more debate. I do want to address a few things though. 

I believe that we need to clarify when someone becomes human. When a sperm cell meets an egg cell they almost immediately start dividing and reproducing.

According to science, if something is changing or growing, it is alive. So, the fetus is alive at this point. When does it become its own human though? I would argue that it becomes human, and therefore has its own rights in accordance to America’s Bill of Rights, when in America, once a man’s and woman’s DNA merge and a new human genome forms.

This happens within 12 hours after fertilization. Also, this would then mean the fetus is more human than your goldfish. 

Now, Meyer stated that no one is able to force another person to go through pregnancy. By this logic, you reason that it is then moral to abort a fetus.

What if we change the situation and say a toddler is terminally ill? The mother can save her toddler if she dedicates nine months of her time. Caring mothers would of course do this for their child.

This is not a perfect analogy though. The toddler’s life is not at risk as a direct result of the mother, but in the case of abortion it is. And if a fetus is human once it has its own unique genome, why does the fetus’s mother’s right trump that of the fetus?

The fetus, or human, did not have a say in this situation. We cannot decide to kill the fetus. The fetus does not have a voice of its own. That is why it is so important for people to speak out against abortion, because the fetus cannot.