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Fact #1: Every abortion kills Selected content reprinted with

permission from John C. Willke

an innocent human being. M.D., Barbara H. Willke R.N., John

Jefferson Davis Ph.D., David C.
Reardon Ph.D., Abort73.com,
Eternal Perspective Ministries,
Abolish Human Abortion, Life
Issues Institute,
BlackGenocide.org, Heritage
House '76, Inc. & The Center for
Bio-Ethical Reform. Please click
here to donate to these
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It is false to claim that no one knows when life begins and dishonest to
argue that abortion does not kill a human being. (https://amzn.to/2Lp9H7b)

Every new life begins at conception. This is an irrefutable fact of biology.

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It is true for animals and true for humans. When considered alongside the
law of biogenesis – that every species reproduces after its own kind – we
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can draw only one conclusion in regard to abortion. No matter what the
(https://www.abortionfacts.com/get-
help)
circumstances of conception, no matter how far along in the pregnancy,
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abortion always ends the life of an individual human being. Every honest
(https://www.abortionfacts.com/get-
abortion advocate concedes this simple fact.
involved)
Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion
provider in the United States – Planned Parenthood – argued as far back Manifesto

as 1997 that everyone already knows that abortion kills. She proclaims (https://www.abortionfacts.com/mani

the following in an interview with Ms. Magazine: [1]

Contact
(https://www.abortionfacts.com/conta
I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know
that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a
signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a
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fetus.
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On the other side of the pond, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the
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largest independent abortion provider in the UK, said this in a 2008
debate: [2]

We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a
beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly
human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is
human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does
it really begin to matter?

Naomi Wolf, a prominent feminist author and abortion supporter, makes a

similar concession when she writes: [3]

Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no

death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and
evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us
with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women
who share a cheapened view of human life…we need to contextualize
the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits
that the death of a fetus is a real death.

David Boonin, in his book, A Defense of Abortion, makes this startling

admission: [4]

In the top drawer of my desk, I keep [a picture of my son]. This picture

was taken on September 7, 1993, 24 weeks before he was born. The
sonogram image is murky, but it reveals clear enough a small head tilted
back slightly, and an arm raised up and bent, with the hand pointing
back toward the face and the thumb extended out toward the mouth.
There is no doubt in my mind that this picture, too, shows [my son] at a
very early stage in his physical development. And there is no question
that the position I defend in this book entails that it would have been
morally permissible to end his life at this point.
Peter Singer, contemporary philosopher and public abortion advocate,
joins the chorus in his book, Practical Ethics. He writes: [5]

It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as

equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’. Whether a being is
a member of a given species is something that can be determined
scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the
cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first
moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and
eggs is a human being.

Bernard Nathanson co-founded one of the most influential abortion

advocacy groups in the world (NARAL) and once served as medical
director for the largest abortion clinic in America. In 1974, he wrote an
article for the New England Journal of Medicine in which he states: [6]

There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within
the womb from the very onset of pregnancy…

Some years later, he would reiterate: [7]

There is simply no doubt that even the early embryo is a human being.
All its genetic coding and all its features are indisputably human. As to
being, there is no doubt that it exists, is alive, is self-directed, and is not
the the same being as the mother–and is therefore a unified whole.

Don’t miss the significance of these acknowledgements. Prominent

defenders of abortion rights publicly admit that abortion kills human
beings. They are not saying that abortion is morally defensible
because it doesn’t kill a distinct human entity. They are admitting that
abortion does kill a distinct human entity, but argue it is morally
defensible anyway.

We’ll get to their arguments later, but the point here is this: There is
simply no debate among honest, informed people that abortion kills
distinctly human beings.

The Case Against Abortion: Medical Testimony

The problem is, Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 verdict which legalized
abortion in the U.S. is actually built on the claim that there’s no way to say
for certain whether or not abortion kills because no one can say for
certain when life begins. Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored the
majority opinion wrote: [8]

The judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not

in a position to… resolve the difficult question of when life begins… since
those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and
theology are unable to arrive at any consensus.

Justice Blackmun’s assertion is a ridiculous one, at least as it applies to

the field of medicine. Dr. Nathanson had this to say about the ruling: [9]

Of course, I was pleased with Justice Harry Blackmun’s abortion

decisions, which were an unbelievably sweeping triumph for our cause,
far broader than our 1970 victory in New York or the advances since
then. I was pleased with Blackmun’s conclusions, that is. I could not
plumb the ethical or medical reasoning that had produced the
conclusions. Our final victory had been propped up on a misreading of
obstetrics, gynecology, and embryology, and that’s a dangerous way to
win.

Dr. Nathanson would eventually abandon his support for elective abortion
and note that: [10]

The basics [of prenatal development] were well-known to human

embryology at the time the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 rulings,
even though the rulings made no use of them.

Modern Teaching Texts on

Embryology/Prenatal Development
In biological terms, life’s beginning is a settled fact. Individual human life
begins at fertilization, and there are all sorts of authoritative, public
resources to prove this. Consider the evidence below:

Human development begins at fertilization, the process during

which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon development) unites
with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a
zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning
of each of us as a unique individual…A zygote is the beginning of a
new human being (i.e., an embryo).
Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented
Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16,
2

Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the

male gamete, the sperm, and the femal gamete, the oocyte, unite to
give rise to a zygote.

T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology, 10th edition.

Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11.

[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the

beginning of a new human being.

Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th

edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.
 Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which,
incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under
ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism
is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei
blend in the oocyte.

Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Müller, Human Embryology and

Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8.

Human embryos begin development following the fusion of

definitive male and female gametes during fertilization… This
moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero
time point of embryonic development.

William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology. New York:

Churchill Livingstone, 1998. pp. 1, 14.

Older Teaching Texts on

Embryology/Prenatal Development

It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant

mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that
constitues the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks
the initiation of the life of a new individual.
Clark Edward Corliss, Patten’s Human Embryology: Elements of
Clinical Development. New York: McGraw Hill, 1976. p. 30.

The term conception refers to the union of the male and female
pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being
develops.

The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life.

J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Friedman, Biological Principles and Modern

Practice of Obstetrics. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1974. pp. 17,
23.

Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created
which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought
about by some specific condition.

E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant,
3rd edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975. p. vii.
General Texts on
Embryology/Prenatal Development

Every baby begins life within the tiny globe of the mother’s egg… It
is beautifully translucent and fragile and it encompasses the vital
links in which life is carried from one generation to the next. Within
this tiny sphere great events take place. When one of the father’s
sperm cells, like the ones gathered here around the egg, succeeds
in penetrating the egg and becomes united with it, a new life can
begin.

Geraldine Lux Flanagan, Beginning Life. New York: DK, 1996. p. 13.

Prenatal Development Videos

Biologically speaking, human development begins at fertilization.

The Biology of Prenatal Develpment, National Geographic, 2006

The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the
moment of conception, when an individual’s unique set of DNA is
created, a human signature that never existed before and will never
be repeated.
 In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005.

Expert Testimony Related to Life’s

Beginning
In 1981, a United States Senate judiciary subcommittee received the
following testimony from a collection of medical experts (Subcommittee
on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report,
97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981):

It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…It is

scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at
conception.

– Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical

School

I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life

begins at the time of conception.

– Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics,

University of Pennsylvania

After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into
being. [It] is no longer a matter of taste or opinion…it is plain
experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at
conception.

– Dr. Jerome LeJeune, Professor of Genetics, University of Descartes

By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the
moment of conception.

– Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic

The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a

simple and straightforward matter – the beginning is conception.
– Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School

The official Senate report reached this conclusion: [11]

Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks

the beginning of the life of a human being – a being that is alive and is a
member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on
this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.

The American Medical Association (AMA) declared as far back as 1857

(referenced in the Roe. vs. Wade opinion) that:

The independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a

living being is a matter of objective science.

They deplored the:

Popular ignorance…that the fetus is not alive till after the period of
quickening.

A) It is an established scientific fact that life begins at conception.

B) Even abortion advocates concede that abortion kills a human being.

Why have all the teaching texts and so many medical experts come to
this same conclusion?

Because there are simple ways to measure whether something is alive

and whether something is human.
If Faye Wattleton is correct and everyone already knows that abortion
kills a human being, they have come to that knowledge in spite of the
information circulated by Planned Parenthood and the rest of the
abortion-rights community.

The abortion section of the Planned Parenthood website explains

abortion this way:[12]

Abortion is a safe and legal way for women to end pregnancy.

How’s that for thorough?

Maybe they just assume that the method for ending the pregnancy is so
obvious (killing the human being living in the womb) that it hardly bears
mentioning.

More likely, Planned Parenthood is simply accommodating the general

ignorance which believes abortion to be the mere removal of potential
human life, rather than the actual killing of existing human life.

Biologically speaking, every abortion at every point in the pregnancy

ends the life of a genetically-distinct human being.

Every new life begins at conception. This is an irrefutable fact of biology.

It is true for animals and true for humans. When considered alongside the
law of biogenesis – that every species reproduces after its own kind – we
can draw only one conclusion in regard to abortion: every single abortion
ends the life of an innocent human being.

References:
1. ^ Faye Wattleton, “Speaking Frankly,” Ms., May / June 1997, Volume VII, Number
6, 67.

2. ^ Ann Furedi, “Abortion: A Civilised Debate,” Battle of Ideas, (London, England,

November 1, 2008).

3. ^ Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” The New Republic, October 16, 1995,
26.

4. ^ David Boonin, A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2003), xiv.

5. ^ Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1993, 2008), 85-86.

6. ^ Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., “Deeper into Abortion,” New England Journal of

Medicine, November 28, 1974, Vol. 291, No. 22: 1189-1190.

7. ^ Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., The Hand of God (Washington, DC: Regnery

Publishing, 1996), 131.

8. ^ Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

9. ^ Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Aborting America (New York: Pinnacle Books,

1979), 163.
10. ^ Ibid, 201.

11. ^ Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary

Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7.

12. ^ Planned Parenthood, Abortion, http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-

topics/abortion-4260.asp (Sep 21, 2010).

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