Unborn Children: The Dehumanization Of Children

Unlike the previous cases of dehumanization in the history mentioned, unborn children are mainly dehumanized in today’s society by the lack of understanding of vocabulary, whereas the majority in previous time periods intentionally and strategically used their diction to prove that they are superior. A word involving human development often misinterpreted by society is fetus. Webster’s New Compact Desk Dictionary and Style Guide defines fetus as, “the unborn of young of an animal, esp. in its later stages and specif., in humans, from about the eighth week after conception” (Webster’s Dictionary 2002 180). People often misinterpret fetus as meaning a “clump of cells” a part of a woman’s body, although biologically once a person is conceived

Even though unborn children are dependent on their mother, unborn children are just like any other human that exists on Earth because humans are organisms. Discover Biology 5th Edition, written by Anu Singh-Cundy and Michael Cain, defines an organism by its characteristics: “are composed of one or more cells, reproduce using DNA, obtain energy from their environment to support metabolism, sense their environment and respond to it, maintain a constant internal environment (homeostasis), can evolve as groups” (Sing-Cundy Cain 12). Technically unborn children can and have the potential to do every characteristic listed in the 5th Edition of Discovery Biology which would classify them as organisms. Similar to children that have been born and adults who obtain energy from their environment, unborn children obtain energy from their environment which would be considered their mother’s womb. So when the right to abortion is being discussed, the act of terminating a human life should be evaluated, not the termination of a “clump of cells” because when unborn children are not classified as human beings, society continues the vicious cycle of degrading the meaning of

The right to abortion is often justified by a majority of people because unborn children are considered unviable due to their inability to survive outside of the womb. A section from Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia titled “Abortion” explains the history of abortion in the United States. This encyclopedia explains during which week of pregnancy a fetus is considered viable, “In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that the right of privacy protected a woman 's right to end an unwanted pregnancy before the fetus has developed the capacity for viability outside the womb—usually construed as 24 weeks after conception” (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia). When someone is considered unviable by society they are not useful to the general populace or themselves. It would be best for them to be disregarded or disposed of to benefit and help society progress as a whole. Nazism is an example of disposing of “unviable” and “inferior” people for the profit of the majority. An article hosted on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s (USHMM) website titled “Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology” states, “The Holocaust…was the premeditated mass murder of millions of innocent civilians. Driven by a racist ideology that regarded Jews as “parasitic vermin” worthy only of eradication, the Nazis implemented genocide on an unprecedented scale” (USHMM). The Nazis took a social