The premise of the abortion argument in today’s society is that the unborn are non-living, and therefore the host of the pregnancy has the prerogative to decide whether it lives or dies.  However, if those who are so-called pro-choice have any interest in biology, they would know that the unborn meet the criteria for the definition of life.

So, which characteristics do the unborn contain and exhibit?  The answer is all eight of them. But first, what is pregnancy?  Pregnancy is the development of human life, which takes place in the uterus.  Structure dictates function, and each sect of the human body serves a purpose.  In this case, the uterus is the female’s reproductive organ which harbors the unborn baby during development until birth.  Without that female structure, the fetus has no room for development, and ultimately function.

Scientists culminated a common list of characteristics by which living things are defined.  The first of which (the list is in no particular order) is cell organization.  Another argument that abortion advocates like to utilize is that fetuses are nothing more than clumps of cells.  The argument is both silly and self-defeating considering that all living organisms are essentially clumps of cells.  That is a second characteristic of life: living organisms are composed of atoms, molecules, organelle, cells, tissue, organs, etc.

A third characteristic of life is living organisms respond to their environment.  The unborn have the ability to respond to both their internal and external environment. Babies are not just sitting inside the womb waiting to be born.  Like us, they breathe, hear, smell, see, eat and sleep; which introduces another characteristic of life: living organisms obtain and use energy and materials.  The mother’s placenta makes it possible for everything she eats and drinks to reach and fulfill the developing human’s needs. We are not autotrophs.  Each human being is constantly acquiring energy and materials and using it to fulfill their needs.  A fifth characteristic of living organisms is their ability to grow and develop, which is what the definition of being pregnant is.  Life derives only from life, and each being’s existence begins small.  Humans were all once fertilized eggs.

The ability to maintain internal balance is a sixth characteristic of living organisms.  During growth and development, the baby’s immune system is in the process of growing and developing.  Their immune system—our immune system—makes it possible for them to fight off infections and protect against various diseases.  The immune system and homeostasis go hand in hand.

Reproduction is the seventh characteristic of living organisms.  We are all born with the potential ability to reproduce, even the unborn.  In fact, it has been reported that scientists are harvesting the eggs of aborted baby girls in order to assist infertile women in the reproduction process via IVF (in vetro infertilization).  The life of the wanted baby is only born as a result of ovaries extracted from its biological mother, whose life was terminated in the womb.  While this practice is a sick one, it reinforces the indisputable fact that life derives only from life.  You do not get life from a nonliving thing.

The last characteristic of life of a living organism is the ability to allow adaptation.  Throughout pregnancy, unborn babies spend their nine month gestation period allowing for adaptation in order to become better suited for their external environment.  For example, if programmed cell death did not occur in babies during gestation, they would have webbed fingers and toes.  As a result, they would not have the ability to walk or hold their food properly, except in the case of surgical alterations.

Unborn babies are not parasites that suddenly become humans once they are born.  Parasites are parasites, which belong in an entirely separate domain from which humans belong.  Humans don’t reproduce and create parasites; humans reproduce and create other humans.

Abortion is the violent termination of human life.  One being leaves the abortion clinic alive, and the other is either thrown in the trash or the deceased body is incinerated and used to heat hospitals.  Abortion is not controversial because it is dealing strictly with the woman’s body, as pro-abortionists often reduce the abortion issue to.  Women can do with their bodies that which they so choose: amputate a certain portion of their body, undergo plastic surgery, or tattoo their body in its entirety.  These choices impact the woman solely.  Abortion, however, does not.

Biology is the study of life, and the definition of life, while sometimes difficult to define, is not a concept one can change at one’s arbitrary whim.  If one were to truly study life, the humanity of unborn babies would not be up for debate.