Persuasive Pro Life: How to Talk about Our Culture's Toughest Issue

by Trent Horn

Pro-choice advocates who think the embryo is “constructed” believe that the philosophical concept of a “person” or a “human being” emerges once the unborn child reaches a certain level of biological complexity. This is similar to saying that a car begins to exist once its construction reaches a certain level of complexity, such as when you can drive the finished product. Although people may disagree on when a car becomes a car during construction (Does it need an engine? An outer body shell? An air freshener?), hardly anyone would say that when the first nut and bolt are screwed together a “car” exists. The concept of a car includes things like “capable of being driven” or “a metal vehicle with four wheels.” Nuts and bolts make up a potential car, not an actual one. Likewise, pro-choice advocates usually don’t consider a two-celled embryo a human being, because for them the concept of a human being includes things like “being born” or “capable of thinking or feeling.” In their view, a two-celled embryo is a potential human being, not an actual one. Stith argues in response to this view that human beings are not objects that are constructed but organisms that develop and retain their identity through change.