The “parthood” ploy

Secular academics will do just about anything to avoid engaging with the physical and biological realities of abortion. Their latest effort to dehumanize the unborn is exacted inside the philosophical and metaphysical study of “mereology,” which is the study of parts and wholes. In a recent paper, medical ethics theorist Arjun Devanesan argues that a “fetus is not merely contained by the gestator’s body but a part of it.” Her conclusion, then, is that any part of the “gestator’s” body is hers to do with as she wishes. Basically, “My body, my choice” with a lot of extra words. 

But how does metaphysical theory—defined as something that goes “beyond what is perceptible to the senses”—hold up to the heart-beating, brain-buzzing, blood-pumping physicality of a pre-born child growing rapidly by the second? The kicks a mother feels in her abdomen aren’t heartburn or some other chemical reaction, but the squirmy movements of a separate human being. That being, existing in the natural eco-system of a womb, isn’t transcendent—he’s a tangible, physically real human being in the earliest stages of life.

The truth is that academia debating whether a fetus is “part” of the mother or merely “contained” by her exemplifies secular philosophy’s refusal to address reality. By not recognizing a pre-born child as a person, crafted by a Creator, they can categorize it as they please. That means labeling the unborn everything from a “clump of cells” to a “parasite” to a “cancer” merely invading the mother—the human they consider more human than the baby merely by nature of her age and size. 

Those who operate on a worldview of evolutionary randomness are blinded to the obvious truth implanted around them. Truths about “heavens that declare the glory of God,” “the skies that proclaim the work of His hands,” and the beings He “knit together” in a mother’s womb. By necessity, these academics must overlook material evidence found in ultrasounds, fingerprints, and the distinction of DNA codes—all testaments to unique human being and form. 

One philosopher, Hilary Yancey, has posited that the “parthood” argument actually loses credibility when taken to its logical end. In pregnancy, the mother’s entire physiology reorganizes itself to accommodate the developing child. She argues that when “something is part of a human being’s body” it “functions in the right way for the sake of that person.” In this case, that person is the growing baby. 

Put simply, the mother’s body isn’t just “supporting” the fetus as host or helper, but she literally becomes part of the fetus’ body because her organs are directed toward the flourishing of that child. 

Detractors might argue that this framing is evidence of the “parasite” argument, but a pre-born baby is exactly where he or she is supposed to be—inside a body that naturally and actively adapts to everything about him or her. A woman’s body is not a “host” being invaded or a “whole” that includes this “part.” She is a mother nurturing naturally created offspring. 

Yancey’s theory is interesting to those who care to engage it, but ultimately, neither her position nor the “parthood” argument means much of anything if you remove God’s design and conception of purpose and personhood from the equation. None of these elite, philosophical debates has any grounding in the actual, sacred reality of biological motherhood. 

Without a God-infused worldview, the body in every stage of development is considered through a purely materialist and functional lens. That view ultimately leads to death and destruction as human beings are callously classified by mental and physical capacity, potential societal contribution, and independent functionality. 

Survival of the fittest is the secularist’s only possible end point. If a baby growing in a woman’s womb is unwanted, according to secular theory the woman is the only one that matters, and her desires trump any inherent dignity of the being within her. 

To latch onto the “parthood” theory is to depart from one’s humanity and innate understanding of life itself. Every conscious adult knows that human life begins at conception. Some of us believe that life is valuable from moment one. Others will go to the depths of metaphysical theory and philosophical confusion to excuse their inexcusable belief that it is not.