We've all heard `pro-choice' people say that pro-lifers can't interfere with abortion because the `fetus' is a part of the pregnant woman's body, no different from her spleen or pancreas or liver.  There are many variations of this theme, i.e., "woman's body, woman's choice!;" "Keep your laws off my body!;" and, of course, the Catholic-hater's favorite, "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries!"

    This slogan has been around for a long, long time.  It was probably first used in this country by Margaret Sanger in the May 1919 issue of The Birth Control Review, the official publication of the American Birth Control League, now the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in her drive to legalize contraception.

    Like all of the other `pro-choice' slogans, this one just doesn't stand up under scrutiny.

    Pro lifers, of course, all agree that a woman does indeed have the right to control her own body.  Pro lifers also support "reproductive freedom" for women.

    However, the right to privacy and control over one's body does not in any way imply the right to destroy another person's body.  Additionally. a woman has already procreated when she has conceived.  The only question that remains is whether or not she will kill.

    Interestingly, the first person to make the "woman's body" argument for abortion was the Marquis de Sade in Juliette.  He said "The penalty against child murdering mothers is an unexampled atrocity.  Who then has a greater right to dispose of the fruit than she who carries it in her womb? ... To interfere with the usage a woman chooses to make of it is stupidity carried beyond any conceivable extreme."

    Sometimes, `pro-choicers' will allege that, since the baby is inside the mother's body, she can do with it as she will.  It is true, of course, that the baby is inside the mother's body.  But this no more makes it a part of her body than being inside a car makes one a part of the car.  Even other living creatures inside a woman's body and entirely dependent upon it -- say tapeworms or other parasites -- are by no stretch of the imagination part of her body.  They are physiologically entirely separate and distinct living creatures.

    Most `pro choicers,' when confronted with this logic, will argue that the baby is totally dependent upon the mother.  They are implying that this allows the mother the `right' to dispose of her baby.  This is a separate argument and should be treated as such.  You can use parallel reasoning to demonstrate that the `pro choicer' is saying that people have the right to dispose of those who are dependent upon them -- such as newborn babies and the ill and elderly, and you can also point out that these "late abortions" are already happening all over the world.

    An analogous situation involves astronauts in space.  They are totally dependent upon their vessel for everything -- their air, water, food, and all of their other needs.  If they should exit the vehicle unprotected, they would be nonviable, and would die in seconds.  This also holds true for a nonviable preborn baby.  Yet no thinking person would argue that the astronauts are only one part of their space vehicle, and, as such, are disposable!

Woman and Child:  Separate Existence, Separate Natures.

    If a preborn baby were part of the woman's body, it should bear the same characteristics as the mother.  After all, geneticists can positively identify the individual person from whom a cell came by examining its genetic structure.
    In order to highlight the fact that the baby is a separate being, consider these facts, which not even the most ignorant `pro choicer' can deny;

*All mothers are obviously female.  About half of their children are male.  How can a human being be both male and female?
*The mother and baby frequently have different blood types.
*The baby can be a different race from the mother.
*Every cell in the mother's body has a set of chromosomal characteristics that is entirely distinct from every cell in the baby's body.
*When the preborn child anchors itself to the uterine wall, there is a concerted attack by white blood cells to defeat it, and the fetus must defend itself.  The mother's immune system recognizes it as "non self."  Therefore, it is not part of her body.
*The baby can die without the mother dying.  The mother can die without the baby dying (the baby can be rescued if he or she is viable.)
*The baby initiates a process that culminates in its leaving the mother's body.  Challenge a `pro choicer' to name any other part of the body that does this.

The "Parasite" Argument.

    Abortionist Warren Hern uses classic doublespeak when he insists in his how-to book Abortion Practice that "The relationship between the gravid female and the feto placental unit can be understood best as one of host and parasite."

    When `pro choicers' insist that "the fetus is a parasite," they are acknowledging its separate nature -- because parasites are never part of their host's body.  If the fetus is simultaneously a parasite and part of the mother's body, that would mean that the mother is a parasite as well!

    Obviously the `pro choice' "preborn as parasite" line of reasoning is profoundly illogical.

    Biology recognizes that all parasites are separate creatures that depend upon the host creature for survival.  The human fetus is not a parasite; `pro choicers' merely use this term to dehumanize those they want to kill.

The Proof is Their Burden.

     Pro-lifers have always made the basic error of being forced onto the defensive by `pro-choicers' in personal debates.  Remember, you never win any kind of battle on the defensive.  If the `pro-choicer' insists that the preborn child is a part of the woman's body, that it is not human, or that it is not a person, the burden of proof is upon him or her to prove that their beliefs are logical and moral.