Abortion
Civil Rights or Birth Control?
by Gina (e-mail: n/a)Pro-choice a civil rights issue, get real. This is a birth control issue; ask Ms. Roe. She started this issue of legalized abortions. Well, if she didn’t, someone else would have come along. She is the one who lied about being raped. So, why did she want an abortion? Because she was careless, got pregnant, and didn’t want the reminder of her mistake. Abortion was a convenient way out. Hence, Roe vs. Wade came about and abortion was made a legal form of birth control.
Is this not true for most women? Or do women get abortions because of rape or incest? Or do women just say it is rape or incest to justify an abortion? Rape and incest are the examples used by pro-abortion activists. They feel abortion should be legal for these two cases and all other cases. What other cases? There is rape, incest, health problems, birth defects, and birth control. Am I missing anything?
What are the most used defenses for having an abortion? Are the reasons of rape and incest used more often? These justifications should be the least often used excuses for having an abortion. But in reality, the statistics are probably higher. Any woman can walk into a clinic and say, "I was raped, I need an abortion," or "I was raped by my uncle, I need an abortion" without proof or evidence. Today, there are more reported rapes and cases of incest.
But let us be realistic for a moment. What is the probability of a woman getting raped where there is penetration and semen left behind, while she is ovulating? The egg, once released, only lives for about 24 hours. Now what’s the probability? Consider the life span of the male’s reproductive cells, low sperm count or whether or not the sperm could successfully penetrate the egg. Granted this is possible, but the probability is very low. The same argument could be used for incest. Unless every Uncle Tom, Dick, or Harry keeps track of his niece’s menstrual cycle. Then why do pro-abortionists use these low probability examples to justify all abortions in any case for any reason? Next case.
The health of a mother or the embryo could be justification for having an abortion, couldn’t it? If the mother is having health problems, then she should be treated first medically before having to abort the fetus. The fetus could be affected, but it may not be affected. Treatment to the mother should be a priority, but the fetus should be left alone. If the fetus is affected it might abort itself, which is an act of nature. There may be a time when the embryo is in danger, when the zygote lodges in the fallopian tubes or cervical opening. This can cause medical trauma to the mother in the way of hemorrhaging, rupture of an organ, or collapse of the mother. Therefore the pregnancy needs to be terminated. If there is a defect in the pregnancy or fetus, most of the time there is a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. Again, an act of nature, not an act of human intervention. So, why is there a need for abortion?
Maybe the fetus has a birth defect. This can be a good justification for having an abortion. But what is the definition of defect? A definition could be very broad and take in a lot of representations. Who has the right to say what a defect is or why it is a reason to abort a fetus? Do doctors, lawyers, mail carriers, teachers, factory workers, the government, you, or I have the right to say what is the definition of a defect? The definition states that a defect is a shortcoming, fault, or imperfection. I hate to burst anyone’s bubble but we all have defects. They maybe small or large, few or many, but every human has at least one defect. Whether it is a mental, physical, or emotional, no one is excluded from the defective group we call the human race.
Getting back to abortion, pregnant women can have tests done to see if the fetus has a defect. If the tests are positive, the doctors are still not 100% sure the fetus will have the defect at birth or throughout life. Those doctors can be sued if they guarantee anything. A fetus might be tested positive for a birth defect, might being the key word here, but this might be a virtue. The fetus should be given the chance to grow and develop. If the fetus is aborted due to a defect, it is not given the chance to grow out of the defect, or overcome the defect.
Here is an example; a woman had many health problems and her husband was a drunk. She had four children, each with the same type of disease or birth defect. She found out that she was pregnant again. With all of those odds (defects) going against her, should she abort this fifth child? If "yes" was the clear answer, then Beethoven would have just been aborted. If "no" was the answer, it becomes obvious that defects can be overcome and there is no room to justify an abortion because of birth defects.
Notice, there was no mention of a "baby" or "child." There were only medical terms used in the previous paragraphs. Pro-abortionists feel if they could call it a fetus, embryo, or zygote, then murder is not being committed and abortion can be justified. They say that it is not a "baby" inside of the mother’s womb, it is just a collection of cells. But most doctors call the embryo a "baby" when speaking with parents, not a fetus. I don’t think, "Oh, the fetus is doing well," is said very often.
When does life begin? Doesn’t an amoebae’s life begin when it divides? This is a single cell organism. Does it not live? This is how a zygote starts off... as a single cell that divides. Is this cell not a living thing? By the first week, the zygote is an embryo. The embryo has an umbilical cord and a blood supply. Do we not have a blood supply? It only takes two months to form the major organ systems, sex, and limbs? Do we, as humans, possess these traits? By the end of two months, this thing that looks human and functions like a human, is still not called a human. It is called a fetus. Sounds like a human to me. The heart is already pumping and the brain is developing in the second month. The last seven months are for maturing and nurturing. No matter which way the argument is looked at, especially by pro-choice activists, this thing inside of a woman is living upon conception. Even by the time a woman finds out that she is pregnant and makes a decision about abortion, the cells have divided, the blood is flowing, and the embryo is growing. If that is not life, what is? Try to justify abortion all you want, it is still terminating life.
Back to the issue of birth control. Most women have abortions for the purposes of birth control. Here are some excuses people use to justify having an abortion: the husband does not want the baby, the boyfriend took off, contraception was not used, or too young to have a baby. Give the husband a chance, he might learn to love the idea of another heir to the family fortune. If the boyfriend is a jerk, the mother can always give the baby up for adoption. There are a lot of good families out there that are not able to have their own children and would love to adopt. Some women don’t want to use or pay for contraceptives. But, when they get pregnant, they can go to a free clinic and get an abortion. We taxpayers pay for those clinics; what a deal! We pay for other people’s birth control. If you are too young to have a child, then you are too supposedly better without contraception. Why should the little living thing, that can’t speak for itself, be terminated because the mother was easy?
I am not totally against abortion, even though it may appear that way from this article. I don’t think abortion should be outlawed all together. I feel abortion should be legal for cases of rape and incest (with physical proof and legal evidence) and when the health of mother or child is in jeopardy (with documentation that every treatment was used first). Abortion can be an option only as a last alternative. With these conditions, abortions should only be granted for girls under 18 years of age with the consent of a parent. Abortion should not be used because Jane Doe had a fun night and forgot to use birth control. Abortion should not be used because a teenager wanted to have sex but did not think about the consequences. There are alternatives to abortion, think about it.
If you would like to see a follow-up to this article, go to Abortion Rights written by Prince Mu-Chao.