You have freedom over your body, so long as your freedom does not impinge upon the rights of another human life. When it does, and the murder of an innocent human life in the womb (again, that is a scientific fact of genetics) certainly qualifies, then your rights must be limited, to protect the rights of another.
In a recent Facebook post on the topic of abortion, a young woman responded to my ardent support for life with the following counterclaim.
Now, because I think that this conversation is vitally important, and because I think this could be instructive for others who are thinking through how to provide an answer, I am providing my response below.
May the Lord richly bless you as you fight for life, combat demonic ideologies, and use whatever means you can to save as many lives as you can.
Dear Mrs So and So,
I would simply ask you to define what you mean by “person”. If you mean sentience and survivability, then I would ask you to apply the same standard to others. For instance, what about people in a coma (lacking signs of sentience and the ability to survive independent of a machine)? Or what about people in a vegetated state, or men and women in nursing homes with dementia or Alzheimers, etc? If they do not meet the standard of personhood, then wouldn’t euthanasia (abortion for the adult) be an acceptable practice to deal with members of the human community, who are not deemed to have adequate displays of personhood, sentience, or independent survivability?
If you go that route, you must also understand that the 24-week-old preemie, also cannot survive outside the womb, without an adult and medical intervention. There is nothing qualitatively different between the preemie and the person in the coma in that sense. Neither are fully sentient and neither can survive without massive intrusive medical aid.
The same is true for newborn baby, who cannot survive outside the womb without adult intervention. They do not understand the sentences we speak and they have no ability to keep themselves alive. Even a two-year-old, would likely not survive without adult intervention because they are vulnerable and totally reliant upon loving members of the community to help them until they can do it themselves.
What do all of these real human examples have in common, from the 24-week-old preemie to the 24-month-old toddler? First, they are all fully human and have a complete set of unique fully formed DNA. Second, while they are at different points on the continuum of development, their humanity remains equal and constant.
For this reason, I can be rigidly consistent in saying that all human life has value and that all human life should be protected. My standard, since human life beings at conception, is consistent.