On Choosing Life, Pt. IV

This is part four in a series on abortion.  You can read Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here.

Abortion is not merely about the procedure involved, of course.  There are many related issues, a few of which some friends of mine have reminded me of.

For example, one asked me why it had to be political at all.  That question only works when one looks at abortions as purely about personal choice.  When one side views abortion as murder, political involvement is inevitable because it becomes a legal issue.  If abortion is indeed the murder of unborn children, as opposed to a mere medical procedure, then it transcends the realm of private life into a procedure that should be illegal.  If abortion is not, the argument works.


This is also related to the people who oppose abortion personally, but harbor no desire to see it outlawed.  Many years ago, when I was going through puberty, I held a similar position.  The problem with this perspective is that it is, in essence, someone who starts thinking about the subject, stops midway through, but uses the partial thought as a position.

The problem is, why do people oppose abortion?  I have never heard a cogent argument against it that does not recognize the right of the baby to live.  Indeed, being pro-life means recognizing the baby has a legal right to live.  Therefore, it is contradictory to believe that abortion is wrong personally, but then be comfortable allowing others to abort.  If that is truly a person's position, what does that person stand for?  He or she holds two positions that conflict on every level.

There are, of course, those who defend abortion on the basis of the "burden to the state," particularly in the case of the impoverished and the young, the people who may not care for their children well or give them up for adoption.  I believe this argument to be unjustifiable.  To view an unborn child by whether or not it will cost the government or society anything is to place the government before the lives of its citizens.  To use this line of thinking is to suggest that because someone, anyone, has the potential to be a "burden" on government, their lives are worth nothing.  It suggests that these people, unborn or otherwise, do not have any value as human beings because the government/society "must be burdened" with their care.

Such thinking bears an eerie and unsettling resemblance to that of the eugenicists of the early 20th century.  Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood (the largest provider of abortions in America today), believed in the use of abortion to "stop the multiplication of the unfit," ostensibly those whose existence is "detrimental" to society.  As a racist, she believed the unfit included blacks.  However, like many of her contemporaries, she also believed that the unfit included those with mental and physical disabilities.  Germany's Nazis took the concept to its logical end, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of the disabled (alongside millions of others considered unfit).

Now, am I calling those who see the cost to government as a compelling argument Nazis?  No.  However, I am saying that line of thinking is dangerously close to the disregard for human life expressed by eugenicists and Nazis.  That's just my opinion, of course.

Something I hear few people mention regarding abortion is the effect it has on women.  Abortion does not only affect the status of one's pregnancy, but also has the potential to have serious health effects outside of that.  One would be hard-pressed to learn that, however, as statistics on those effects are uncommon.  Often, the argument is that because abortion is legal, it is now safe.  However, that safety is never defined as few discuss the risks associated with abortions in the first place.

Abortion is treated so casually these days, I am fairly certain that most women who pursue them are oblivious to the potential physical and psychological risks associated them (whether people on the pro-choice side realize it or not).  I was most certainly never taught about these risks before becoming solidly pro-life.  And now many would merely dismiss what I know as pro-life propaganda.  For example, this short (and cited) summary from the Family Research Council helps to reinforce what I believe are the dangers associated with abortion.  Yet even that summary uses language that is not particularly definitive due to a serious lack of studies, despite abortion's legalization nearly forty years ago.

I could go on, but at this point, I am reaching 750+ words and could probably find enough material to give this series another two or three articles.  As such, I will move on from this and hope to present a new topic next week.  I hope that "On Choosing Life" was informative and thought-provoking.

On Choosing Life, Pt. III

This is part three of a series on abortion.  You can read Part I here and Part II here.

Late-Term/Partial Birth Abortions

While this is fairly uncommon, there are people who defend abortion up until the moment of natural birth.  Thus, it is worth mentioning.  At this late stage in pregnancy, killing the child inside of the womb (whether by saline injection or chopping it into tiny pieces) is impractical.  As such, late-term abortions usually require slightly different methods.  Right now, I refer to the "intact dilation and extraction" method. After artificially inducing labor, the baby is partially delivered, but not fully so as not to "technically" qualify as childbirth (thus, avoiding charges of infanticide).  The brain is them suctioned out of the base of the baby's skull, causing it to collapse and you have a freshly dead infant.  There are of course, other methods, but this one seems the most heinous.

However, even more important than the method used is the child being killed.  As I explained in the previous piece, abortion is not justified because each child is a human being and thus has intrinsic worth.  Often, this worth strikes people at this late stage, when the child is also now also physically recognizable as a human being.

It's hard to justify any medical procedure that requires the dismemberment or lobotomizing of developed children all in the name of "choice," "health" or "freedom," all things violently robbed from the dead child.

Medical Necessity Abortions

One might wonder why I would consider abortions performed out of medical necessity in this piece.  After all, there's no way I could oppose this sort of thing without being some sort of horrible person.  You would be right.  However, I also do not consider these procedures abortions, even if they technically fall under the definition.

It all boils down to intentions.  For what I consider abortion, the primary intention is the ending of a pregnancy, whether because of personal or economic reasons.  Health can be a concern, but is not the chief concern.

Medical abortions on the other hand, have a primary thrust of health, such as the pregnancy threatening the health of either mother or child or both.  Considering the child is being kept long enough to determine this, it suggests that the child is wanted.  Often, the news that the pregnancy needs to be ended brings extremely difficult decision-making, but not because the child is unwanted.  It is for this reason that I do not believe that medical reasons qualify as abortions, as these would happen with or without legally allowing them.

Rape and Incest Exceptions

(I'm just going to refer to this as the "rape exception" from here on.  I'm not really quite sure why incest gets tacked on.  Barring consensual relationships, incestuous sex is usually rape.)

With this topic, this piece enters some tricky ground.  I hear liberals constantly browbeat conservatives, claiming we have no heart when we do not believe in exceptions for rape.  Suddenly, we are all woman-hating Todd Akins who want the woman to suffer more from her rape by bearing the child it has created.

In the past, I used to be very unsure of where to stand on these grounds.  On the one hand, I believed that abortion was murder and, on the other, I most certainly did not want to hurt women who were violated in the most heinous of crimes.  However, I recently read an article that really cleared things up for me, planting me firmly on the side against "rape exceptions."

If abortion is killing innocent life, then the child is dying for the rapist's actions.  The child neither committed the rape nor asked to be conceived by a rapist.  In many ways, that child is a victim too, as that stigma will be attached to it, whether the child ever finds out or not.  Someone will know the child was conceived through a gross violation of something most people hold sacred.  However, in killing the child that results from rape, it punishes the child for the rapist's actions.  The child, in essence, receives punishment for that which is earned by and should be meted out to the rapist.

And when that child is allowed to live, maybe, just maybe, he or she may grow up to become greater than the legacy that created him or her.  Perhaps that child may one day grow up, not as a reminder of the crime inflicted on the victim, but as an example that even the greatest injustices can give rise to even greater hope.  That, I believe, is why the child should be allowed to live.

I will (hopefully) wrap up this series later this week, addressing various topics and concerns that have come up as I thought up the past three articles.

On Choosing Life, Pt. II

This article is part two in a series.  You can read part I here.

Last week, I posted about abortion and how, in essence, I think it is wrong.  I contextualized it in a way that I hope has some meaning to anyone reading it.  This week, I want to be a little more specific than I was last week.

For the attentive, you might have noticed that I said I was perfectly fine with the "extreme" Republican platform, even though it doesn't give any exception regarding rape and incest.  Congratulations, you have discovered my position on abortion.  There is no time, no place and no circumstance in which it is acceptable to me.

For the more liberally-minded among you, you are probably wondering, "No rape exception?  What is he, insane?"  For the more conservatively-minded, you might be thinking, "You'll never convince anyone to become pro-life if you aren't willing to give a little."

To me, however, innocent, unborn life deserves our utmost, unwavering support. 

In order to explain this further, I'm going to list off the various "forms" or "types" of abortion and give my argument for why I oppose each.

First and Second Trimester Abortions

These abortions are likely what people think of first when the topic comes up, being the most common.  Generally, I hear these abortions justified by several arguments, which I touched on briefly in the last article.  One argument is the viability of the fetus/baby.  In other words, because it is too small and cannot survive on its own, aborting is justified.  Others claim (in an argument tied into viability) that because the baby cannot feel pain or lacks a detectable heartbeat, aborting it is, again, justified.  The most prevalent argument is the "choice" argument itself, where abortion proponents argue that a woman can choose to do what she wishes with her own body.

The first two arguments tie into a much bigger question: when does life begin?  Put differently, when does the fetus become a baby?  Personally, I believe that the fetus is always a baby, from conception forward.  I believe this for three reasons.

Think about it: Once upon a time, we were all tiny aliens like this.

One: The fetus is made of living tissue; at no point is it inert or dead.  That makes it alive.  Viability is irrelevant when it is accepted as alive.  It is dependent, yes, but dependency does not justify killing the innocent.

Two: On conception, the fetus has a fully replicable human genome.  Otherwise, the fetus/baby would never be able to develop further.  Again, this is evidence that it is alive.  It does not stop being human merely because it is microscopic.  We were all at this stage once.  Would you, my reader, say that your life has so little value that you should be exterminated?  You meet both of those criteria for now, just as you did then.

Three: From a perspective of faith, there is a particular verse which is vitally important to understanding the importance and value of life.  In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells Jeremiah "'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations' (emphasis mine)."  This verse tells me all I need to know.  First, I know there is a life beyond the physical, that we have immortal souls.  Not only that, but this verse also tells us that God has a plan for our lives, whether we choose to follow it or not.

When you have faith, there is undeniable confirmation that our lives hold importance long before the day we are conceived and, thus, ending those lives on a whim is unacceptable not only to humans but to God Himself.

This list, while it does address the life of the unborn child, does not address the final argument I mentioned: "choice."  I believe that arguing "choice" is the last refuge of the abortion proponent who has failed to convince the opponent of the baby's lack of person-hood and right to live.  Instead of appealing to the head, this argument appeals to the heart.  It claims that abortion is a woman's right, that she has the right to do what she wishes with her own body and that curtailing said rights will set back the women's movement forty years.

This is, however, purely emotional blackmail.  It attempts to guilt the abortion opponent by making him or her think solely of the mother-to-be and not the helpless human being developing inside of her.  The baby is not her own body; dependent though it may be, it is still a separate being with every right to live as the rest of us do.  Abortion ultimately is a punishment to the unborn purely for existing.

Next week, I will address the rest of my list, including late-term abortions and the "rape exception."