A Big Message from a Small Mouth

As I sat down at my desk this morning and pulled up the Yahoo! webpage, I noticed a featured article entitled "Florida Baby as Small as Pen Goes Home." What? A pen? As in a writing utensil? As I read on, I discovered that this baby was born at 21 weeks and 6 days into pregnancy. In essence, we're talking about a fetus that is only 153 days old. Amillia, the baby, was under 10 ounces at birth.

This miraculous story begs the question of the ethical nature of abortion. According to religioustolerance.org, about 140,000 abortions occur each year during the second trimester of pregnancy. Many pro-choice advocates would argue that a developing baby inside of the women during the second trimester is a "fetus." The terminology of "fetus" versus "baby" or "child" has less to do with the semantical nature of things, but rather more to do with demeaning the developing pre-natal life form to a possession of the mother. If the baby, or fetus, is a belonging to the mother, she then can decide how to deal with it. If she chooses not to keep the fetus, that sounds awfully better than to not keep a baby.

But my question is this. How can a baby that is 21 weeks and 6 days into it's life be a baby on the outside of the womb and a fetus on the inside? It's the same living being, just in a different location. If this baby is capable of surviving outside of the womb, how can anyone possibly justify the cruelty that is abortion.

According to a website that I found, ldi.org, second trimester abortions are done through a process referred to as Dilation and Evacuation. It's name is pretty self-evident in how the procedure is carried oftlineout. First, the mother must be dilated to the extent that the doctor can insert the equivalent to medical "pliers" into the uterus and pluck pieces of the unborn fetus out of the mother until it is fully extracted. I find it interesting that we have political debates about torturing enemies over seas by such techniques as water-boarding and the ethical nature of how we treat P.O.W.s. Yet, we completely justify the grotesque murder of innocent unborn children.

This leads me to my next question. Who does abortion benefit? In order to allow such a horrid act to occur, it must be beneficial to someone. The answer is simple. Without abortion, women are not liberated to have the inconsequential sex lives that men have. A man can sleep with whomever, whenever and at best be resorted to the responsibility of a child support check each month. The responsibility of the mother, however, is far greater. A mother's life is permanently changed with a countless number of sacrifices to be made in the future. The only way that women can have free sex the way that men can is to eliminate the factor that differs between the sexes--childbearing. Has our society moved to the point of complete and total self-centeredness where women shed their right and ability to give birth in effort to have inconsequential sex? Sadly, yes.

So, Baby Amillia will be home before the end of February with her loving parents that have waited so long. Maybe Amillia will be the smallest pioneer and advocate for a good hard look at what Roe v. Wade did to our country over 34 years ago. Nearly 50 million America babies have been denied the right to life. Nearly 50 million American voices will never be heard. And nearly 50 million American people have been refused the right to change the world. But I guess that's okay. Because 50 million women can now have sex at their leisure. Whew, that makes me feel better.

Amillia, I wish you the best of luck in your life. To Amillia's family, I pray that your future with your child will be blessed with every opportunity that life has to offer. Thank you for proving to the world that life will inevitably find a way.