Abortion: Pro-Life Essay, Research Paper
Pro-Life
Killing an innocent child is one of the worst crimes that a woman could ever commit. That is why I take a stand in this essay for pro-life. This essay will cover four areas about abortion: history, medicine, law, and the Bible. The history gives insight to how people and other cultures have felt about the issue of abortion. Medicine deals with the biological evidence of the topic. Law shows how the Supreme Court deals with the topic. Finally, I will discuss the biblical viewpoint of abortion.
The practice of abortion has happened throughout history. Abortions were not very prevalent in ancient times but infanticide was much more common. Infanticide is the killing of a baby outside the womb after delivery. This was more common because abortions were not safe for the mother of the unborn child. Heaven forbid, if anything happens to the person who is murdering another human being. Abortion and infanticide are both the murder of an infant. Typical methods that were usually avoided were either poisoning the mother so the child would die and the mother would live. Alternatively, often the husband would beat the woman?s stomach, killing the baby and causing her either to miscarry or to have a stillborn baby. All of these instances are the killing of a child and are all extremely grotesque.
The bible is clearly against abortion as it is demonstrated here in a passage from the Holy Bible:
?For thou dist form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother?s womb?Thine eyes have beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them? (Theology of Abortion).
This passage makes it evident that the Catholic churches condemn the practice of abortion. They feel that the child has already come before God and that God knows the child, by killing the child you are killing one of God?s people. I am Catholic and I follow my church in its beliefs against abortion. Many other churches prohibit the practice after a specific developmental stage is reached. The stage is called quickening. Quickening was originally defined as being when the baby was formed in the womb. Its definition was later changed to the point at which movements are first felt. Under common law abortion after quickening was considered manslaughter. However, with new technology scientists now realize that quickening is a false science and that the baby can still feel pain. The infant experiences pain during an abortion and this can be shown through brain waves of the unborn and the quickening heartbeat showing the infant is stressed.
As time goes on, abortion technology has grown. When the abortion technology grew, so did the frequency because now it was safer for the mother. In 1857 the American Medical Association (AMA) did a report to investigate criminal abortion. The study pointed out there was a widespread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime?a belief even among mothers themselves that the fetus is not alive till after the period of quickening. The AMA believed that the fetus was alive from the point of conception. I also strongly believe that this is true. When the two haploid cells come together (i.e., sperm and egg) there are chemical reactions and cell division instantaneously. This shows that there is a life being formed from the minute the two haploid cells come together. Nevertheless, in 1970 the AMA left their standpoint on abortion because they believed there was a social change toward abortion. So basically they changed for society to legalize murder. What if everyone believed smoking was good for you? Would the AMA change their mind and say there are no harmful side effects of smoking? I think not, then why did they do that for abortion? Then in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled the legalization of abortion through the trial of Roe vs. Wade.
This Roe vs. Wade decision was a terrible misstep for our country. Jane Roe argued that the laws prohibiting abortion at any time before birth were infringing on a woman?s constitutional right to abort should be between a woman and her doctor, but the court limited it to within the first tri-mester of pregnancy. The court decided that after the point of viability the fetus would have meaningful life.(Supreme Court Decision) The courts can now make decisions on when life is meaningful? Will the start to eliminate people who they don?t think have meaningful life? Nowhere in the court decision did the court try to define meaningful life. So where is the line drawn? There have been many other cases that have come off of Roe vs. Wade, for example, Planned Parenthood vs. Danforth (1976). The Supreme Court ruled that the woman?s doctor is the sole judge of viability (Supreme Court Decision). The courts have taken back some of the original rulings form Roe vs. Wade. This is good because Roe vs. Wade was too easy on the issue of abortion.
“…Those of us born before Roe v Wade forget that every child born since 1973 knows that he or she could have been exterminated in his mother’s womb with society’s blessing. In other words, every American child knows that society considered him or her completely expendable. Anyone who believes that this does not cast life in a different light is, in my opinion, denying reality…” Watts, page 4.
No one can actually define when life begins because you have to first determine the word life. A majority of experts decided life began at the point of conception. They cannot produce one single person who would testify that life begins at any other point other than conception. This tells me that they all on some level believe that abortion is the taking of a life. And the taking of a life is defined as murder. They also had to decide if the fetus is a being in its own. It obviously is. It has a different genetic make up from the mother. The fetus can be transferred to another host and still develop into the exact person it would have been before. This proves a fetus is its own being and not the mother?s. The brain waves of the unborn child are active and so is the heart, which is the makeup of a person and this defines life.
The frequency of abortion has had a tremendous leap in the past few decades alone. In 1973, there were about 700,000 abortions. I now compare this to the approximate number of 1,300,00 abortions that happened in 1995 (Abortion Surveillance). The only reason there is such a giant leap is that now it is safe for mothers, no one thinks about the other human life that is about to die.
There are many alternatives to abortion. One of these alternatives is adoption. A mother would like to at least have some happiness in her decision to give up her child. This would come from adoption. If she terminated the life of the child, she would always remember the day she became a murder. Abortions also can cause severe psychological problems for the mothers of the unborn children (Abortion: Ohio Right to Life). By choosing adoption, it is a win, win, win situation; winning for the mother, the child, and the new parents. I believe so strongly in adoption and against abortion, that I plan on adopting children in the future.
Abortion is wrong and should be considered murder. I do not believe that anyone has the right to take the life of someone else for any reason; especially simply because it isn?t convenient for the mother to have the child. I think of abortion as the saddest, most disgusting thing that someone could do to another human being and it should not happen.
Work Cited
Watts, JC. ?Chairman Watts? Remarks on the House Floor in Support of His Resolution
Affirming Congress? Opposition to All Forms of Racism and Bigotry.? 20 May 2000. * www.jcwatts. com/communicationcenter/speeches/2000/nra.asp* (October 19, 2000)
?Abortion Surveillance?-United States, 1992, May 17, 1996, Vol. 45/No. SS-3 Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sheler, Jeffrey L. ?The theology of abortion?.. 9 March 1992. U.S. News & World Report
?Supreme Court of the United States Roe vs. Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County?.. 22 January 1973. memebers.aol.com/ht a/abtrbng/410us113.htm (October 19, 2000)
?Abortion?.. Ohio Right to Life. * www.ohiolife.org/abortion/index.asp*;
(October 19, 2000)