Abortion is a Choice

Abortion is a choice, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the right one. In October of 1997 a woman was told by a hospital physician that she needed to have an abortion because her son had Choroid Plexus Cysts caused by a defect in his 18th paired chromosome. They told her he wouldn’t be normal, and that if she carried him to term; he would have severe disabilities. The doctors told her that her son would be incapable of doing anything on his own, he wouldn’t even live past the age of 3.

Fast forward to today, this child who was thought to be more of a burden than a blessing is still alive and thriving. More so, he is 22, graduated from college, in a great relationship and interviewing for one of the most prestigious companies in the United States. This is my brother, Aaron.

This New York State law guarantees that a woman can receive an abortion after 24 weeks gestation if a health care professional determines that the health or life of the mother is at risk or that the fetus is not viable. According to the Merriam Webster online Dictionary, the term “viable” can be defined as “capable of living” or “capable of growing or developing.” In many situations in which abortion is considered, the child is deemed unviable because of a deformity; therefore, health care practitioners could consider a child with autism, down syndrome, or Choroid Plexus Cysts to be unviable even if the child is capable of living. Physicians aren’t infallible; their diagnoses are not always correct, and my brother is proof of that. Thousands of children are aborted every day throughout the world because they were considered not viable. This new law permits a woman to abort her child after 24 weeks for any reason; including if the child has a physical deformity. Since when do we allow late term abortions simply because the child won’t be normal? And what does that say about our fight for equality? Imagine if one day you were sitting at home watching TV, you turned on the news and the reporter says: This just in, scientists have discovered life on Mars… How would people characterize this discovery? The life that was discovered on Mars wouldn’t be brushed over as non-life just because of its stage of development. Wouldn’t that life be considered viable because of its potential for development? We do not have the right to determine if a child is viable, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to give it the best chance to live.

This law takes performing an abortion after 24 weeks out of the criminal code, allowing a woman to get an abortion whenever and for whatever reason she wants without being held accountable by the law. These restrictions were the only thing protecting these children in the first place, and by removing them; women don’t have to deal with the consequences of having a third trimester abortion.

Currently, there are more restrictions and penalties on the disturbance of bald eagles than on having an abortion. The 1972 amendments to the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act increased civil penalties for violating provisions of the Act to felony convictions carrying a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment. With new laws passed by the governors of Virginia and New York, it is now impossible to go to jail or to be charged for any reason for having an abortion. We are choosing to protect eagles over children. As a society, we need to re-evaluate our priorities. Our government has a responsibility to protect and to govern its citizens. Instead, it has been neglecting to do its job by removing  all protections for the children.

So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen: The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.

What the governor of Virginia is explaining in this interview is known as infanticide: “The practice in some societies of killing unwanted children soon after birth” or “a person who kills an infant, especially their own child…” – intentionally neglecting to give a child medical attention after it’s born in hopes that the child would die is murder. No good doctor would allow their patient to die on their watch if there was something that they could have done to prevent their death. Infanticide is not a new concept, it has been around for centuries…

Moloch Baal was a Canaanite deity depicted as a man with the head of a bull. The cults main structure was built around child sacrifice. The individuals who followed Baal believed that they would receive blessings in return for sacrificing their newborn children, all on the altar of convenience. The Canaanites would sacrifice the life of another who could not defend themselves to gamble for the pseudo assurance of a favorable outcome. Abortion, similar to child sacrifice is the epitome of selfishness.

Written by our forefathers in 1776, the Declaration of Independence outlines every individuals basic human rights. It states: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

If all men are created equal and are born with these unalienable rights, is it our right in the quest for equality to take their rights away before they have a chance to claim them as their own? The declaration of Independence clearly states that we are born with a right to live, but the proposed born alive act wants to take that away. It is not our decision rather we allow someone to live or to die. It is our responsibility to sustain life, to cherish it and to help in any way we can to preserve it. Northam’s comments on the born alive act are morally and ethically wrong. It doesn’t matter which political party you align yourself with, allowing a child to die by standing by and doing nothing is infanticide.

It’s not enough to claim something to be true or false, there must be evidence, or the lack thereof to prove the consistency of the argument. With this in mind…Everyone knows that third trimester and after birth abortions are wrong. Within the first 6-8 weeks after conception, the child’s heart begins to beat for the first time. If we determine when someone dies by their last heart-beat, wouldn’t it be appropriate to proclaim them as alive with their first?

17 year old Markez Mcgriff was charged with double homicide on December 20, 2018 after killing a pregnant woman. If a child is not considered a child until it is born, why was Mcgriff charged with a double homicide? Furthermore, if it’s true that a fetus is only a bunch of cells, why was Mcgriff charged with the “murder of an unborn child?” Mcgriff’s sentence is proof that an unborn child is alive, otherwise he would have only been charged with murdering one person.

21 year old Amber Bowling was arrested on December 12, 2018 after killing her newborn child. The child died from blunt force trauma and Bowling was charged with first degree murder shortly after. However, according to the Born Alive Act; if a doctor was to do the same thing in a hospital, they wouldn’t be charged with murder, they wouldn’t even go to court: they would get a raise, and our tax dollars would pay for it.

These stories are important to illustrate the inconsistencies of the abortion argument. Our society thrives on consistency. We have to go to school every day, teachers have to teach every day, adults have to go to work every day. So why is consistency important? Because it’s crucial to making progress, doing better work and achieving success in any aspect of life. The opposite is contradiction. Arguments that contradict themselves lose their value. Evaluating the issue of late term and after birth abortions, those who support them claim a child is not a child until it is born; yet Mcgriff was charged with murdering an unborn child. This is contradiction at its finest. Specifically, late term and after birth abortion by all measures of science, is inconsistent and contradictory. So far, I have discussed New York and Virginia’s current and future plans for late term and after birth abortions. Now let us address how our society came to this place of moral contradiction.

It is because we have become course and hardened to the world and individuals around us. Our immediate satisfaction and gratification always comes first. We are by nature selfish human beings. Because of the severity of our selfishness, we disregard everything and anything that which stands in the way of our happiness. We have come to devalue the things which should be precious, we have corrupted the way we view everything around us through our blatant disregard for life. Gregory H. Stanton is a research professor in Genocide Studies and the president of Genocide Watch. He describes genocide as something that develops in eight stages, the third of which is dehumanization. Dehumanization is “when one group denies the humanity of another group by equating them with animals, vermin, insects or diseases.” (Systematic Dehumanization)

Abortion today is the enslavement of African Americans, the murdering of millions of Jews in the Holocaust, the slaughter of the Rwandan Tutsis and the Australian Aborigines in the past. The reason so many individuals are offended when we compare abortion to historical atrocities is the same reason so many white Americans were scandalized when Martin Luther King Jr. compared the abuse of black Americans to the Holocaust. It’s so easy to denunciate injustice when it is far away, but it is much harder to do so when we are a part of the problem.

Those who support abortion are infuriated at these comparisons because their argument is structured on claims that human embryos and fetuses are not actually people. This is the argument that is always brought up to justify “crimes against humanity” as the author of Systematic Dehumanization explains it. This argument is the same rationalization that fueled Hitler’s abuse of the Jews and America’s scandalous three fifths compromise, which reckoned African Americans as only 3/5 of a person.

Today: “The word “fetus” has become a term of derision used by those who want to de-emphasize the humanity of unborn children.” By denying their humanity, we are ultimately denying our own humanity. By regarding them as a clump of cells, we are proclaiming that we don’t care about equality, and the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In our society, we have been given the right to choose. We decide what we eat, where we live and who our friends are… Many of you aren’t wrong when you say that “it’s your body, it’s your choice…” We are always given a choice, which also comes with a responsibility and consequences. For this same reason, when talking about late term and after birth abortions, we are faced with 5 choices, of which only 4 are solutions.

Contraceptives: The second choice we are given is to use contraceptives and being aware of the chance that they don’t work. The actual efficacy of most forms of birth control are only 82% affective while the perfect efficacy which you see on the side of the box is 99.9% effective Half of all pregnancies are unplanned, and 43% of those unplanned pregnancies end in abortion. If we can reduce the amount of unplanned pregnancies, then the amount of abortions will drop significantly as well.

The third choice we are presented with is motherhood: It may not be the time a woman is expecting but becoming a mother might be the best option for someone who wants to have a child in the near future.

The fourth and reasonable solution is adoption. If a woman is not ready to be a mother and can’t handle the responsibility of a child, adoption could be the best option for both the mother and the child. Unlike abortion which comes with medical risks to the mother and the termination of the child, adoption is by far a safer solution. Furthermore, adoption helps other families who cannot have children on their own – a study completed shows that 10 out of every 100 women in the US will never be able to have their own children. That is 6.1 million families who want kids but will never be able to. If you think about it, you could potentially give a couple a chance at having a family.

Abortion is the fifth and final choice. We have been given the right to choose to have an abortion but for all of the reasons previously stated, it is not a good solution for anyone. Why not give an otherwise childless couple the opportunity to have a family instead? You could make a difficult situation have a positive impact in the lives of those around you.

Cause: As a society, we have hardened our hearts to the needs of those around us. Within the last century, our priorities have drastically shifted from doing everything in our power to sustain human life to making it a choice to end it. Abortion isn’t a legal problem, it’s a morality problem.

Audience Response: As a society, if we continue down this path, it will ultimately lead to our own destruction. Our actions today will have consequences in the future. By allowing a woman who is in labor to have an abortion, we are jeopardizing generations to come, and they will hold us accountable for every decision we make. We must ask ourselves to what extent are we willing to go before we stand up for what is right. Furthermore, is this a landslide that leads to other horrific atrocities such as euthanasia or the genocide of the disabled? Finally, who is going to hold you in contempt when you are no longer valuable in their eyes? If we do not compare atrocities past to atrocities present the phrase never again loses all meaning. In order to grow we must first recognize that there is a problem, then, and only then will we be able to address it. I want to encourage all of you today to think about where you stand on the issue of abortion, and realize that you have a bigger impact than you may think. As you go throughout the rest of your life, you are going to be faced with many decisions; some will be easy and others will be difficult. But when it comes to abortion; make the right choice and choose life. Thank you!

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