Logan Godfrey

Mr. Isgar

English 100

8 December 2020

The simple distinction of whether a clump of cells makes a human has polarized

the American population for decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported

that in 2018, over 600,000 women chose to terminate the fetus inside of them. According to the

United Nations, Luxembourg has a population of about 600,000 people. An entire nation's worth

of people is gone from the Earth. Additionally, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

stated that out of the 2.8 million people that died in 2018, cancer killed 600,000 people, which is

the second leading cause of death in the US. More fetuses are killed by abortion than cancer kills

people. Also, abortion kills more people annually than accidents, chronic lower respiratory

diseases, and strokes combined. The Constitution protects the right to abortion, but many states

have restrictions on abortion. Lastly, studies have shown that fetuses do not feel pain and are not

sentient until around 25 weeks. With all this information taken into consideration, a divide exists

between the libertarian instinct to make abortion an affair of choice, and the humanist instinct to

acknowledge the fetus’s dignity as a human.

Libertarian principles state it is immoral to deny people their right to liberty. Meanwhile,

humanists want abortion to be illegal due to it being immoral to kill a living thing. Abortion is an

ethical dilemma that has an endless cycle of questions with no definitive answers as to if it is

right or wrong to allow abortions. If abortion is made illegal, that is intruding upon the woman's

self-evident rights. On the other hand, if abortion remains legal, over half a million unborn

children are murdered. Abortion should remain legal because the research on fetuses shows that
a fetus should not be considered a human until a specific timeframe because the fetus does not

share attributes that define what a human being is.

The definition of a human is sharing attributes of a rational being, like being self-aware

and responding to noxious stimuli. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated

in a report, “In reviewing the neuroanatomical and physiological evidence in the fetus, it was

apparent that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 24 weeks of

gestation and, as most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception, it

can be concluded that the fetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation.”. The

fetus cannot feel pain, so abortion before the 24th week would be something that libertarians

whole-heartedly support. Furthermore, they also said, “ The cortex is an important step beyond

the spinal cord and brainstem because it facilitates pain experience by enabling the higher

functions of cognition, emotion and self-awareness that are realised in the postnatal

environment.”. Since the fetus cannot feel pain and is not self-aware until late in the second

trimester, it is not a human until late in the second trimester. Libertarians believe that everyone

has the right to do whatever they desire. A libertarian, therefore, would conclude that abortion

should be legal due to the core belief that you have the right to do whatever you want to your

own body. Also, libertarians do not support harming others. This research has shown that

according to what defines a human, fetuses do not meet those requirements until 24 weeks.

Therefore, libertarians would be against abortions past 24 weeks because the fetus qualifies as a

human being but would approve of abortion before the 24-week mark because the fetus is not a

human, and the woman's right to do whatever they desire is most important.

Unlike libertarians, humanists believe that everyone is entitled to respect, and all individuals

should obey moral laws such as not killing another living being. A fetus is indeed a living thing
even before it is a fetus. Once an egg and sperm cell unite, they create a new life. A fetus has the

same genetic makeup as a person, and it would not be morally sound to abort it under humanist

beliefs. Humanists also believe in only doing something if it is right and necessary, not because it

is useful or convenient. The Guttmacher Institute observed that only 12% of abortions were

performed due to the risk of the mother or fetus. Also, under humanist philosophy, you cannot

use people to achieve your goals. The objective of an abortion is to get the fetus out of your body

by eliminating it in some way. Having to kill someone to get what you want is immoral and does

not give them respect. The selfish act of abortion leads to women killing beings before they have

a chance at life and leads to people believing that the woman’s right overpowers the fetus's right

to live. This causes society to make decisions based on their desires. Not only does abortion

create self-centered, selfish individuals, but it also ignores the science of personhood. D Gareth

Jones, a professor of anatomy wrote, “Employing the appearance of brain stem functioning as

one's criterion, brain birth would be placed at around 6-8 weeks gestation. I shall refer to this as

brain birth I, which is a vitalist interpretation, with its emphasis on biological integration and its

stress on mere human biological life. In contrast, a second definition may be determined by the

beginning of consciousness at 24-36 weeks gestation. This is brain birth II, which parallels the

personalist overtones of the higher brain definition of death, with a sufficiently well-developed

neural organization to serve as the substratum from which self-consciousness and personal life

subsequently emerge.”. Although the brain is more formed and conscious at 24 weeks, the

brainstem that controls life functions like heartbeat and breathing appears much sooner and is a

living being with rights. Moreover, humanists would not want abortion to be legal unless the

mother’s life was in danger. Humanists would argue to people that support abortion such as
libertarians that regardless if a fetus feels pain or is aware, genetically it is a human being and

therefore should not be killed.

Libertarians say that harming other humans to get what you want is wrong, but a fetus

does not have an exact time where pain is first felt or it is self-aware. This means that every fetus

becomes a human on its own regardless of any factors. Since only 1% of abortions are performed

in that time window and some states prohibit third-trimester abortions, libertarians being against

late abortions make no sense because they are so rare and are usually performed in dire

circumstances like the mother or fetus's life is at risk. Also, humanists argue that the fetus

deserves the right to live, but how to determine when the fetus gets those rights is very unclear.

A fetus is merely the genetic makeup of a human but does not resemble or have human

attributes, so it should not have human rights until it is born and an infant. Abortion should

remain fully legal due to the inability to feel pain and the fetus not being sentient until 24 weeks,

making it not a human. The CDC reports that only 1% of abortions occur past 21 weeks, and

most abortions past 21 weeks are where the mother or the fetus is at risk. The right to remove a

fetus is given to the woman because a fetus is not a human based on the definition.

JCC English 100 Essay Rubric

Instructor: Ken Isgar, Pulaski High School

Exceeding Standards Exceeding Standards Meeting Standards Approaching Not Meeting

A B C Standards Standards
D F
Strong thesis that Clear thesis Recognizable thesis Broken or abandoned No thesis
guides essay thesis
development
Strong organization, Organization suited Organizational Broken or inadequate No organization
suited to topic, to topic, purpose, and pattern observed in organization
purpose, and audience majority of the essay
audience
Strong, coherent, and Good relevant and Relevant and mostly Broken or irrelevant Inadequate or no
clearly relevant coherent coherent development and development and/or
development with development with development of poor coherence with weak coherence with
 explanations and explanations and supporting points few or weak no or inadequate
connections to thesis connections to thesis with some explanations explanations
explanations and
connections to thesis
Integrated, varied Varied and accurate Adequate research, if Faulty and/or No or inadequate
and accurate research, if required required incorrectly research when
research, if required interpreted or research called for
applied research, if and/or
required undocumented
research
Correct MLA Correct MLA Few errors in MLA Error-ridden MLA Many serious MLA
documentation and documentation and documentation and documentation and documentation errors
paper format paper format paper format paper format
Strong diction for Appropriate diction Few errors in diction Many errors in Substantial errors in
subject, audience, for subject, audience, diction diction
and purpose and purpose
Strong and logical Logical transitions Transitions Weak or No transitions
transitions inappropriate
transitions
No grammatical No serious Some grammatical Serious grammatical Many serious
errors grammatical errors errors, meaning clear errors, obscuring grammatical errors,
meaning obscuring meaning
Strong evidence of Good evidence of Some evidence of Little or poor No evidence of
effective revision effective revision effective revision evidence of effective effective revision
revision

Grade: A+
Comment: Logan, you do an excellent job working through each moral framework alongside technical vocabulary. This is
the best developed essay in the class. Style wise, look to your intro for exemplary active voice, but look to your next
paragraph for the overuse of passive voice. Try to sync these up.. Content wise, although you do an excellent job teasing out
both frameworks, I’m not sure you fully develop and make sense of your own position. It is not clear at all, for example, why
you ignore the humanist categories for personhood. There is a lot of room for slippage in talking about human attributes.
Still, you are searching enough and strong enough in your grasp of key concepts that I leave impressed. Nice work.