Birth is the first human right

The argument for abortion is lame.

Wendy Murphy of the Boston Herald wrote, "The Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade as soon as its leaked decision becomes final, probably in a few weeks. The ruling will take away fundamental constitutional rights for women that have been in place for 49 years. It’s the equivalent of ruling that black children no longer have a right to go to school with white children."

No it is not. Racial equality is expressly in the Constitution. Abortion is not. One would think that an adjunct professor of sexual violence law at New England Law would know that by now.

Murphy said she believes that abortion is a reproductive right and hence, abortion is a right.

But reproductive rights, if they should exist, would help people procreate, not stop it. Abortion takes a human life, which means it cannot be a right because by definition abortion deprives someone else of the most basic of all human rights: birth.

You see, life is the first right. Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Now Jefferson owned slaves. He denied them the second and third unalienable rights but he could not deprive them of their first right.

The 14th Amendment recognizes that rights begin at birth. Thus, far from being a human right, abortion is a denial of the first human right, which is life itself. This is done without a judge, jury or trial. The woman alone gets to decide to deny a right to her baby. 

From conception, the baby is separate and distinct from the mother with its own DNA. The claim that the baby is her body, her choice is embarrassingly anti-science. As poorly as it is written and argued, even the Roe v. Wade decision made no such claim. In fact, by mentioning viability, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the baby is an individual human being distinct from its mother.

In its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations declares, "Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

The UN declaration also says, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

As with the U.S. Constitution, the UN document does not mention abortion.

But how can we be born free if someone else is allowed to decide whether we are born? 

Abortion as a right also would be sexist because society does not allow men to rescind their parental responsibilities. In America, men must take care of their progeny financially until they are 18. This obligation comes regardless of whether or not the man wants the child.

But if the man wants the child and the woman does not, too bad for both the father and the child. Under present law in the USA, the mother can deny the man fatherhood and the child life.

The only answer to this conflict among three people is birth. If the mother or the father does not want the baby, too bad because its right to birth trumps their petty feelings. 

Life is the most basic human right. Without it, the rest of the rights have no reason to exist.