three little sparrows

 Is assigning human attributes to a fetus hurtful to women?  This article on slate thinks so.

“But it got us thinking about how the more we treat fetuses like people—including them in our family photo shoots, tagging them on our Facebook walls, giving them their own Twitter accounts—the harder it will be to deny that they are people when the next, say, personhood amendment comes up, with legislators and activists arguing that “the unborn child” inside a pregnant woman’s womb should have the same rights as the living among us.”

In other words: “I’m totally pro-choice, but could you please refrain from making choices that I disagree with, namely treating the unborn as members of your family?  Because I don’t want anti-choicers to point out the inconsistent logic here.”

“Still, casually and publicly assigning human attributes to not-yet-human embryos—including an avocado-sized embryo in the family portrait—does not seem like the best way to argue against measures that seek to treat that avocado like a member of our collective American family.”

Not-yet human embryos?  Someone needs a lesson in biology.  It’s unbelievable that some people still say the embryo isn’t human; it’s flat-out inaccurate and soaked with rhetoric.  Furthermore, there is no such thing as an avocado-sized embryo, but there is such a thing as an avocado-sized fetus (16 weeks).  An accurate comparison would have been a blueberry-sized embryo, or a kidney-bean-sized embryo.  Aside from obvious biology lessons, perhaps someone needs lessons in logic as well:  just because a human being is the size of an avocado doesn’t mean it is an avocado, but nice try with yet another de-humanizing tactic.

Women, take note: you must ensure that your maternity photographs don’t politically undermine pro-abortion talking points.  Resist your completely natural impulse to personify your unborn and embrace them as members of your family and as members of humanity.  Be careful how you present the children in your wombs to society, lest we make the author of this article feel uncomfortable.

I’m pretty sure most people, even pro-choice ones, think people should be able to bling out their ultrasound pictures however they want to.  I think most pro-choice individuals can understand that if they truly believe a woman’s abortion is “none of your business,” then how other women celebrate and prepare for their babies is also none of your business.