Is Being Wanted What Makes Us Human?

The right to abortion reared it's ugly head the other day and the age old argument that what a woman does with her own body was used. Also the argument that the decision should be between a woman and her doctor, not the government. People talk about it like it's an elective surgery to get rid of a tumor. Is that how they see a fetus? As a tumor growing inside the woman that she needs to get rid of?

I've heard it said that a fetus is not person, that it's just a mass of flesh until it is born. But then why, when a woman who wants the child is carrying , does she refers to it as a baby? And if she miscarries we say she lost the "baby". In that case it's not just a mass of flesh but it is a baby. Would you ever dare tell a woman who just miscarried that it was nothing but a mass of flesh anyway? Not if you value your life.

So why is a fetus referred to as a baby in some situations and as not yet a human in others? The only difference is whether or not the fetus, the baby, is wanted. This lends the question of whether or not what really makes us human is being wanted. And isn't that a dangerous place to go.

Can we use that same justification elsewhere? If a woman or a man no longer wants their child and they kill it we call it murder. Why is it different before the child is born? Because it's not yet human? I don't think so. Conception to birth is a stage of human development just like childhood, adolescents and adulthood. It would be very easy to prove me wrong on this. All it would take would be to present me with one person who was never a fetus. Never an embryo. I don't think you can. So people tell themselves that the fetus isn't human in order to justify it's murder. But it's a poor justification.

People say that what a woman does with her own body is her business, and I agree. She can pierce it, tattoo it, nip it, tuck it, wax and pluck it, paint it blue and march it down the street. But there is more than one body involved in an abortion and it's not what the woman is doing to her own that I have a problem with.

In the end, what makes one fetus disposable while another has it's sonogram picture posted on refrigerators? It's whether or not that fetus is wanted. So to a point, we define our humanity by whether or not we're wanted and not our genetic make-up. How terribly sad is that.