Abortion-a Baby or a Fetus?

This is a silly argument as used by one side or the other. One term is the term most commonly used in society when discussing the human being in conversation while the other is a medical term when discussing it for purposes of therapeutic procedures. It still is what it is regardless of the term used and has no bearing on the morality of destroying its existence.

The only difference is that the term fetus is always used to describe this human being while in the womb and never after its birth. The term baby has been used as a description of it while in either state and has been used in that manner long before this controversy has arisen.

The whole idea behind the distinction of these terms is, again, to provide an emotional appeal to the issue. It is strictly an attempt to give that human being greater or lesser value in the eyes of people discussing the issue. It should neither add nor take away from the value of either side’s argument.

The only thing that might give us the need to make this distinction is a matter of attitude. This attitude being that both sides recognize that a baby is a person therefore deserves the protection of the law. So, we can see that one side of this issue needs to make that distinction in order to justify their position. It also shows how weak their argument is though. If their argument is as strong as they’d like us to believe they would not need to have and use this distinction.

One last thing in regards to these terms. Neither are terms of definition. They are terms used to describe the stage of life that this human being is in at the moment. The medical profession uses these terms for the purpose of discussing and determining the type of therapy that is to be used when attending to the well being of this human being. This is the case for each of us throughout our life cycle. As we all grow older we go through these stages and the therapy is determined by the stage of life you are in.

Parents do this also. With each stage of life that they see their children enter they will begin to treat them in a different manner then they did previously. It is this aspect of parenting that I think makes the role of a parent such a hard undertaking, the knowing when and how to change their behavior in order to meet their child’s needs.

One last thing on this topic. Every woman that I have asked in regards to these terms have all said that they viewed the human being that they gave birth to as a baby while in the womb. To make it clear, most of them were for the legalization of abortion even with this attitude. I'll also grant that my survey cannot be considered as a scientific survey. This does lead me to the conclusion that the term fetus is used only when the topic of abortion is being discussed while the term baby is used when speaking of that human being that is to live. I wonder why?