Responding to an Article About Pro-Life Atheists

There's an article I was recently made aware of about pro-life atheists using unsound science, written by Marco Rosaire Rossi. You may want to read it first or this article won't make much sense.

Bodily Rights Arguments

So far we’ve considered three different objections to the pro-life case: that the preborn are not humans biologically, that the preborn are human but are not persons, and that the preborn are humans biologically but are not full-fledged human beings in a morally relevant sense. That is, when someone claims the preborn are human but not persons, they agree that they are human biologically but they do not have rights as other people do (such as the right to life). When someone claims they are human biologically but not in a morally relevant sense, they accept that they belong to the species Homo Sapien but are not part of the “human community” at large. Thus, even though there is a zygote, you don’t actually come “into existence” until some later point in development (such as when you are conscious or able to survive independently of the mother).

Pro-Choice Graphic

There’s a graphic that’s been going around trying to illustrate that the unborn are not persons. There are four panels: the top-left panel has an egg on a plate to illustrate that it’s not a chicken, the top-right panel has an acorn to illustrate that it’s not a tree, the bottom-left panel has a caterpillar spinning silk to illustrate that it’s not a dress, and the bottom-right panel has a sperm fertilizing an egg to show that it’s not a person.

When Does Personhood Begin? Part II

Previously we looked at some of the arguments and assumptions made to assert that the unborn either are not humans or are not “persons”.