Abortion

Abortion

Abortion

Abortion is the ending of pregnancy before
birth and is morally wrong. An abortion results in the death of an embryo
or a foetus. Abortion destroys the lives of helpless, innocent children
and illegal in many countries. By aborting these unborn infants, humans
are hurting themselves; they are not allowing themselves to meet these
new identities and unique personalities. Abortion is very simply wrong.

Everyone is raised knowing the difference between right and wrong. Murder
is wrong, so why is not abortion? People argue that it is not murder if
the child is unborn. Abortion is murder since the foetus being destroyed
is living, breathing and moving. Why is it that if an infant is destroyed
a month before the birth, there is no problem, but if killed a month after
birth, this is inhumane murder?

It is morally and strategically foolish,
because we lose the middle when we talk about reproductive rights without
reference to a larger moral and spiritual dimension, and we are unwilling
to use language like transgression and redemption, or right and wrong.
-Wolf p54

The main purpose abortions are immoral
is how they are so viciously done. Everyday, innocent, harmless foetuses
that could soon be laughing children are being brutally destroyed. One
form of abortion is to cut the foetus into pieces with serrated forceps
before being removed, piece by piece from the uterus by suction with a
vacuum aspirator. Another form consists of bringing the foetus feet first
into the birth canal, puncturing its skull with a sharp instrument and
sucking out the brain tissue. The body parts, such as the head, are given
letters, rather than refer to the parts as what they are. In my opinion
this is for the doctors who cannot face the reality of what they are doing.

The remains of the foetus or embryo, as the case may be, are put into everyday,
plastic buckets and then sent to a dumpster where these precious bones
and limbs are disposed. However, how and when an abortion takes place are
matters of little importance to pro- abortionists and other defenders.

Even former abortion practitioners from varying backgrounds and religions
have a new view on abortion. These changes of heart were caused by psychological,
religious and scientific reasons. One doctor, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, performed

60,000 abortions and supervised 10,000, before scientific evidence and
the use of an ultrasound, convinced him he was promoting and participating
what he now calls "the most atrocious holocaust in the history of the United

States." Other doctors refuse to perform legal abortions, saying they should
save lives rather than destroy them.

Many argue is it the women's or the foetus'
rights and values that are being trampled on? "Pro-choice movements sometimes
fall back on an abortion rhetoric that seems to dehumanize and trivialize
the death of a foetus as a way to humanize and make important the reproductive
rights of women." (Wolf p54) "Women can treat an unwanted foetus as a violation
of her civil rights and is therefor justified tin using force to expel
it" (McMillan pA12) The decision is not up to the mother because she is
not God. Only God, the ultimate creator has the right to choose who may
live and who shall die. Humans do not have the right or the power to control
the quality of life and to avoid suffering. "The issue of abortion is not
just life, but how life is created and the extent to which human intention
and control the process, both before and after birth. All humans inventions
and interventions may give us a world to regret." (Clark p3) With abortion,
we humans give ourselves dominion over a large part of God's plans and
our destiny.

Abortion becomes especially evil when the
bond between mother and child is broken and it is being used as an alternative
birth control when humans cannot control their irresponsible sexual hungers.

If beings are responsible enough to be sexually active, they should also
be responsible enough to accept consequences, and if that means becoming
pregnant and creating a life, then that life should have the opportunity
to live. There should be a bond or relationship between a mother and child,
whether born or unborn.

Mothers and her children form a bond unlike
any other felling of love; when a child is aborted, before given the right
to grow in the bond, does the mother feel the connection with her child
or is it just uterine material. Abortion is never about just abortion.

It is about questions like whether the society at large, or individual
pieces of it, regards the fact of women's fertility as burden or gift,
and how they treat it, and what are the incentives ad disincentives they
provide? How the rearing of children is regarded - benefit or burden, or
sometimes a balance of those, and who is responsible for that? And then
one of the deepest things, at the core of what abortion is about, is what
is our understanding of freedom? Is freedom something like will: the ability
to choose something in anyway you choose, freedom without regard to truth,
to what some would call natural law? Freedom without regard to the common
good?"
-Alvare p54

Many women do feel this bond and also feel
a great loss and emptiness in their lives. Several women have confided
in one author, Naomi Wolf. They have come to her in grief. One woman shared
that each year she lights a candle for the foetus that she aborted, and
that she feels like there is no room within the organized reproductive
rights institutions or within mainstream feminism to articulate that grief
and make it meaningful.

"All humans have the same right to live
compared to other humans; whether rich, poor, majority or minority this
being deserves the same chance we were all given." (Clark p3) The Vatican
teaches that all humans have a right to life, from the moment of conception
until the natural ordained moment of death. According to the Catholic church,
a person is living when as young as an embryo, which refers to an organism
at its early stage of development, through the foetus stage, which is from
the end of the eighth week until birth and when considered a baby, until
the last second of life before death. It is also selfish to abort an unborn
child. This aborted child could have been destined to create world peace,
make the invention of the century, find a cure foe AIDS or other diseases
or maybe have children of his or her own and continue our human race.

Pro-choice defenders feel that the Roman

Catholic Church's opinion leaves no room for human reason as it instead
tries to unrealistically legislate an uncompromising pro-life policy. There
is no excuse for having an abortion. Pro-choice followers recommend abortion
if the child is a result of rape, a painful reminder, may be born defected
or the female is too young and not ready to raise a child of her own and
be a parent. If these are the cases, adoption agencies are found nationwide
and willingly accept unwanted children giving them the opportunity to live
with another family.

There are many different viewpoints on
abortion in the United States of America. Where most Americans do not feel
that abortion is necessarily 'good,' they do believe it is a 'right.' Others
have similar opinions. They embrace contradictory opinions and consider
abortion a form of murder and yet still feel it should be legal for the
truly desperate. However, most Americans think abortions are morally troubling.

A recent study by George Hunt shows that neither age nor gender appears
to have any effect on people's current views on abortions.

Today, teenagers are getting mixed messages
from parents, peers, and media. This is the reason for the increased birth
rate. Abortion is being used as a method of birth control in this case
which shows in a study in The Lancet magazine that 24.1% of teenagers aged
seventeen through nineteen have undergone induced abortion.

As the world grows with the new times we
must look at these such important issues that will dramatically effect
us soon enough in the future. Sixty million abortions are done yearly,
and that number only increases as more and more countries legalize this
brutal destroying of innocent children who could be successful world leaders.

"What does it mean to choose life? Who
chooses life? Where should the focus be on choosing life?" (Wilson p54)

To choose life not only means to speak out against unnecessary death of
humans but also to take care of one's self, support the good mannerisms
of all and to see good in all. The only being who has a say of life is

God Almighty himself. However, we all have the opportunity and power to
choose to live. The focus on choosing life should be on being happy. A
complete life is a fulfilling and very satisfying life. It is up to us
only to decide and teach others of these brutal acts done daily out of
the laziness, irresponsibility, and ignorance of humans in attempt to escape
from real life. Human life can not run forever and eventually, they will
learn that destroying the innocent is wrong. "Pro- life movement will win,
because when you hold up a picture of a six month old foetus being stabbed
in the neck and all you say is 'choice, choice, choice' you are going to
loose." (Wolf p54)

WORKS CITED

Alvare, Helen, Wilson, Marle, Wolf, Naomi.

"Abortion: Whose Values? Whose Rights?" Tikkun January-February 1997: pp54-60

Clark, Thomas. "Thou Shalt Not Play God"

The Humanist July-August 1995: p3

Hunt, George W.. "Of Many Things" America

31 January 1998: p2

Lavelle, Marianne. "When Abortion Comes

Late In Pregnancy, Though Rare, Most Aren't For Medical Reasons" U.S. News
and World Reports 19 January 1998: p31-32

Lefevere, Patricia. "Ex-abortion Providers;

Conversation Tales" National Catholic Reporter 16 January 1998: p6

Merril, Ted. "Abortion; Extreme Views Ignore

Reality" Medical Economics 15 July 1996: p33

McMillan, Jeff. "Focusing On a Woman's

Right To Self Defense" The Chronicle of Higher Education. 6 December 1996:
pA12

"No Easy Quick Fix Solutions To Abortion

Issues" National Catholic Reporter 8 November 1996: p20

"Reproductive Tract Infections and Abortion

Among Adolescent Girls In Rural Nigeria" The Lancet 4 February 1995: p300

Thomas, Judy. "Pro-life Turns Deadly" Newsweek

26 January 1998: p64

Wallace, Bruce. "When One Fetus Lives and

One Dies" Maclean's 19 August 1996: pp20-21

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