The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

502 THE FREEMAN Augustthe amniotic sac, if it is ever toexperience a later stage of humanexistence. No human life has everbypassed this requirement, or everwill - at least not for many millionsof years, if then, consideringthe present rate of evolution. Everynew human life must also havefirst been a zygote, then an embryoand finally a fetus before itis prepared to live outside thefluid medium. To contend that humanlife is only human at thetime of birth, that the intrauterineentity is not an actual, butonly a potential human being, isuntenable.If Not a Human Being,Then What Is It?For those who insist that humanlife begins only at birth, thequestion that must be asked is:What is this entity developingwithin the uterus if not an actualhuman being? Is it possible thatby some magic, at the time ofbirth, that this alleged potentialbeing is somehow, within a matterof minutes, transformed into anactual human being? To rationalindividuals, in possession of scientificfacts, the answer is incontrovertible.Both the unborn childand the new born child is an actualhuman being, and at the time ofbirth, the child is merely movingfrom one required environment(aquatic) to a new required environment(gaseous) so that itcan continue to develop into thesucceeding stages of its life untilit eventually ends its existence atthe time of death.The biological facts relating tothe reproductive process and thefirst stages of human life havebeen established. It is now necessaryto relate this knowledge tothe issue of rights.Those that contend that the intrauterinebeing is not humanhave no problem in their attemptto settle a controversy over rights,f or if this living "thing" is nothuman, it can possess no rights.Since it is a well substantiatedfact that the zygote, embryo orfetus is a human being, their argumentbecomes meaningless andrequires no further discussion.Those who contend that a humanlife is existing within themother during the period of pregnancydo ascribe rights to thisnew human life, but it is arguedthat the rights of the mother takeprecedence over those of the unbornchild and thus she- has, orshould have, the legal and moralright to terminate the life of thisnew individual at any, or certainlimited, stages of its existence.This latter position requires asuccinct examination.A woman must have full controlover her own body at all times.She must be free to take any ac-