To the Editor:
Carolyn Pippen’s article, “A disregarded truth,” characterizes misconceptions regarding abortion.  She is correct that human life begins at conception. Technically. It depends on what makes life human.
Life requires an active ability for consciousness to be human. A fertilized egg or an early embryo obviously has no ability for consciousness and bears closer resemblance to a jellyfish or a random mass of tissues. It is alive, but it is not living.
It is difficult to respect life that is not living. We disregard this kind of life all the time. Take that cold you had last week. It was caused by a bacterial culture. Are you going to feel bad for killing it just because it is technically alive? What about that cockroach you crunched in your room? It was more alive than the bacteria and certainly more alive than an early fetus. It had a fully functioning brain and nervous system. But, because it was not conscious, you feel no remorse.
To be fair, comparing human life to a cockroach is degrading. However, it illustrates the point that not all life is living.
An abortion prevents the possibility for a future life, which is entirely different than ending a present life. We change the future with every decision we make. Some decisions, like where we decide to work, dramatically affect our future offspring. While the future life from a current pregnancy is clearer and more salient than the future life determined by, say, job locale, both are in the future. No future life is more important than a present life.
Furthermore, as early fetuses are (much) more a part of the woman’s body than a unique entity, the woman deserves full rights over the fetus’ fate. Her body, her choice. It does not affect anyone else. If someone thinks abortions are wrong, that is fine. They should not tell everyone else what to do.
Contemplating an abortion must be a terrible situation. It is not as though I am pro-abortion. I am pro-choice. I hope my girlfriend and I never have the abortion conversation, especially because birth control is cheap and plentiful. However, should accidental pregnancy occur, we should have a choice. The fetus is little more than a mass of unviable, partially differentiated tissues. It is not a baby. It is not homicide.
Every fully formed life should be protected and respected. Moreover, no form of life on the planet is more important than human life. We have only one life and no do-overs. Deciding what should live and what should not is the most important decision we can make. However, we must keep everything in context. Possibly ruining a woman’s life by forcing her into premature motherhood is worse than terminating an unviable mass of tissues, which only happens to have unique DNA. And, since there is such an outcry from those who would choose to ban choice, I wonder how they are helping resolve the very real problems facing children floundering unwanted in our foster care system. Those living children deserve to be saved from a life of uncertainty.
Cameron Pittman
Senior
College of Arts and Science
