I have heard many arguments for a woman's right to an abortion. I think most people will agree that all arguments end when people agree that the unborn is a living human with the right to live. In others words, the question becomes, "Is having an abortion taking human life?"

Let's start with the issue of the unborn being human. Some have suggested that the baby is a part of the woman's body that she has the right to remove. The problem with this argument is that every cell in a person's body is marked with that person's unique DNA. This is how you body knows what to accept and what to reject. The baby's DNA does not match the mother's, and therefore is not a part of the woman's body. Furthermore, that DNA is human, which I think is the most obvious proof that the unborn is human.

Most will agree that the unborn are human, but what about alive?

How do we measure if a person is alive in other cases. The most obvious is checking for a heartbeat. Most people do know that the baby's heartbeat starts at around 2 weeks from conception. So this begins before pregnancy is even detectable by regular means.

Many people say, what about people who have a pulse but no brain waves? Well, just to clarify on that point, brain waves are detectable 6 to 8 weeks from conception.

Therefore, by 8 weeks from conception, the unborn have a heartbeat and detectable brain waves. If that isn't alive, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, doctors recommend that the best time to have an abortion is from 8 to 12 weeks from conception. (The exception to this is the abortion pill.) Therefore, common sense tells us this is taking a human life.

If you still aren't convinced, let me just say, it's not you that needs to be convinced. It's you that needs to do the convincing. Let me explain.

In law, we say "innocent until proven guilty." You may not know the exact reasoning (beyond common sense) how this policy came to be. If you have studied the principles of statistical analysis, you know that there are two types of errors you can make. You can mistakenly show a conclusion that is false, or you can mistakenly fail to show a conclusion when it is true. The principles of statistics tell us that it's better to make the second mistake than the first. In law, two mistakes are also possible in any given case. You can mistakenly convict an innocent man or you can mistakenly fail to convict a guilty man. Most people agree that it is worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free. This means we do all we can to avoid the first error and increase our chance of committing the second, by saying that the burden of proof lies with the prosecution; in other words, the man is "innocent until proven guilty."

In issues of life and death, it is obvious that the same principles should apply. In other words, we can make two mistakes. We can mistakenly take an innocent human life, or we can mistakenly preserve the development of a non-living ball of cells. Which mistake do you think is worse? Obviously, the first mistake is worse. In other words, the burden of proof lies with those who favor abortion. In other words, the unborn are alive until proven dead.

Unfortunately for the pro-abortion crowd, they are losing ground on this as technology improves. The more we know, the more the facts tell us the the unborn are alive. As one example, with current instruments, the baby's brainwaves are detectable at 6 to 8 weeks, but as instruments improve, this time is likely to move earlier.