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There are a number of clear biological facts, and all sorts of legal precedents, that easily refute the claim that the embryo or fetus is simply part of the mother's body.
1) An individual's body parts all share the same genetic code. If the unborn child were actually a part of the mother's body, the unborn's cells would have the same genetic code as the cells of the mother. This is not the case. Every cell of the unborn's body is genetically distinct from every cell in the mother's body.
2) In many cases, the blood type of the unborn child is different than the blood type of the mother. Since one body cannot function with two different blood types, this is clearly not the mother's blood.
3) In half of all pregnancies, the unborn child is a male, meaning that even the sex of the child is different from the mother.
4) As Randy Alcorn states in his book Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, "A Chinese zygote implanted in a Swedish woman will always be Chinese, not Swedish, because his identity is based on his genetic code, not that of the body in which he resides."
5) It is possible for a fetus to die while the mother lives, and it is possible for the mother to die while the fetus lives. This could not be true if the mother and child were simply one person.
6) It is illegal to execute a pregnant woman on death row in the U.S. because the fetus living inside her is a distinct human being who cannot be executed for the crimes of the mother.
7) When Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife, Laci, he was convicted on two counts of murder.
8) It has long been known that unborn children play a significant role in pacing a woman's pregnancy. Sir Albert Lilley (the "Father of Fetology") made this observation in a 1970 speech entitled "The Termination of Pregnancy or the Extermination of the Fetus?"
Physiologically, we must accept that the conceptus is, in a very large measure, in charge of the pregnancy.... Biologically, at no stage can we subscribe to the view that the fetus is a mere appendage of the mother.... It is the embryo who stops his mother's periods and makes her womb habitable by developing a placenta and a protective capsule of fluid for himself. He regulates his own amniotic fluid volume and although women speak of their waters breaking or their membranes rupturing, these structures belong to the fetus. And finally, it is the fetus, not the mother, who decides when labor should be initiated.
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