The Truth About Choice
Look at your watch and time a minute. In that minute, 2.6 American lives are taken. That’s not a statistic of people who die from natural causes or adults whose lives are purposely cut short. That one minute saw 2.6 babies murdered. Add it up and that means there are about 3,753 babies in the United States of America murdered each day; 1,370,000 murdered in a year. Their lives aren’t taken in secret, it’s perfectly legal. They aren’t mourned and they don’t get a funeral. And because they are the unborn, America doesn’t refer to their deaths as a tragedy - we call it “choice”.
Abortion is one of the most controversial subjects in our country and is not to be taken lightly. Regardless of whether you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life, you must know the reasons for your convictions. I believe the heart of the matter truly lies in the answer to the famous question - “Is it really a baby?” There should be no controversy or confusion as to the answer of this question. Life begins with the replication of chromosomes. This means that according to science, the moment the maternal and paternal chromosomes combine, life is created. Immediately after fertilization, the baby is genetically unique. Science has created different terms for the baby that tend to dehumanize it, such as the zygote, embryo and fetus. It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s still a baby. 18-21 days after fertilization, the baby’s heart will start to beat. By the 6th week, you can measure brain waves. A photograph of a baby in the womb at just 9 weeks proves that every organ system and external feature is present.
Society itself proves that a baby in the womb is indeed a person. Unborn children can inherit property, sue for injury, be named executor of an estate and obtain equal protection under the law. Can something that is not a person do these things? When a woman is pregnant, we do not say that she’s carrying an embryo or that she’s going to have a fetus. We use the terms baby and child.
Women mourn deeply for children that are miscarried. Some say that a mother never forgets the baby that was never born. Isn’t it ironic that it’s a baby when it’s wanted, but when it’s inconvenient, we say it isn’t a baby at all? If a child is born 3 months premature and survives, it is called a miracle, while a child aborted at 6 months is simply called a fetus.
There are absolutely no grounds to deny that a baby at any age is not a person or not worthy of life. Dr. Seuss even wrote “A person is a person, no matter how small”. We do not have the right to decide when a baby becomes a real person; that has already been decided for us.
Abortion was legalized in 1973 and we’ve lost over 42 million little lives to it. Many people think that abortion is a positive solution for those women whose pregnancies threaten their lives and health, or to those who are victims of rape and incest. The reality is that of the millions of babies killed, only approximately 5% of the pregnancies were aborted for the above reasons. There is no way to sugar coat it. Abortion has become a societal norm and an easy way out for inconveniences and irresponsible behavior.
Pro-choice advocates will argue that even if you do consider a ‘fetus’ to be a baby, it is still a woman’s body and she has the right to choose what she will and will not do with it. This sounds reasonable to most. I am a woman. However, I do NOT have the right to do what I please with my body. My rights end where the next person’s rights begin. I do not have the right to hit whoever I want to. That’s because I don’t have the right to harm others with my body. If the unborn child is a baby, and we have already proven that it is, then that child has as much right to life as anyone else.
The right to life does not increase with age. The unborn child has no less of a right to live than the 3 week old infant. Nor does an adult have more of a right to life than the infant. We are all people and we all have the same right to life. To dispute this would be to claim men are created unequally.
Please, do not be deceived. Abortion kills America’s future generations. Already, there are millions of babies who will never be held by their mothers and fathers, who will never laugh or cry, who were not even given the chance to live. We know the dangers and heartaches that life sometimes brings. We have reached a sad day when a child can’t be safe even in his mother’s womb. It may be true that abortion is legal in the United States, but this doesn’t mean that it’s morally right. These children will never be given the chance to speak for themselves - so we who can must speak for them.