Guide to Abortion Definitions & Language

The “Pro-choice” definition is to believe that abortion is morally and legally acceptable in most or all circumstances. Someone who is pro-choice thinks that a woman’s right to choose abortion is above a fetus’s right to live. Some abortion-rights supporters are divided as to the types of abortion services that should be available under different circumstances, including periods in the pregnancy such as late-term abortions. 

Abortion advocates are also divided on when personhood begins. Some believe abortion is ethically acceptable no matter how human the baby in the womb is. This goes directly against human rights and a Constitutional right to life. On the other hand, some argue that a fetus isn’t human. This gives a woman the right to terminate the pregnancy without “killing.” But there are many factors indicating otherwise.

For one: 96% of biologists believe that life begins at fertilization. At fertilization, the sperm and egg combine their genetic material to form a one-of-a-kind human organism, distinct and unrepeatable. From conception, a fertilized egg (or embryo) is biologically programmed to grow and mature—just as a baby naturally grows into a toddler.

Scott Klusendorf explains in “The Case for Life” that most scientists define life by three traits: response to stimuli, metabolism, and growth. An embryo possesses all these capabilities while also possessing the ability to progress in ways that benefit its survival and development. Additionally, the embryo comes from human parents and contains human genetic material. In other words, human life begins at conception.