The Abortion Debate

The issue of abortion is one that has torn apart our country for decades now without any hope of being resolved. On one side there are the "pro-choice" supporters advocating a "woman's right to choose." On the other side there are the "pro-life" backers crying, "Abortion is murder!"

The driving force that steers the thinking on pro-choice is the mentality that a woman has the right to do with her body which she pleases, and no one can tell her that it is wrong if it only affects her. They have bolstered their arguments with what they call, "Constitutional rights" and have even had the Supreme Court back them up with the Rowe vs Wade decision. The rights and happiness of the individual are big planks in the pro-abortion platform.

The pro-lifers hold to the position that it is not only affecting her, but an actual life living inside of her. Contrariwise, pro-choice advocates claim that the baby is actually not a baby yet, rather a "fetus," an object that has not yet taken on a life of it's own. In the Rowe vs Wade statement by Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, the baby is deemed "not capable of meaningful life" and that he or she is not a person "in the whole sense." This clearly states the side of the pro-choice argument that the baby is only a part of the mother, and therefore has no rights, for it is not a person "in the whole sense."

Pro-lifers view this as mere semantics. In response, they have turned towards science to prove their point and have collected a large amount of facts to add firepower to it. Indeed, scientific evidence has been produced that proves that a baby inside a mother's womb has a heartbeat, moves, squints at light, smiles, frowns, swallows, and even feels pain. Startling sonograms have even shown a baby crying out in agony as an abortion is being performed inside of the mother's womb. The pro-life side also attempts to use the disgusting realities of the methods used to kill the babies to stir public outrage and horror at the brutal techniques and deter woman from having them performed.

The terrible acts of rape and incest are far more sobering reasons why abortion supporters insist on the practice's existence. If a woman is forced against her will, and then becomes pregnant as a result, they declare that she should not be forced again to give birth to the baby. Alternatives such as adoption have been disregarded for again: it is the right of the woman to decide what she is to do with her body. This is called, "the right to privacy" and it is a foundational cornerstone on which this country was built. Our Constitution states it and the abortionists proclaim it most emphatically as if the British were breaking down their doors as in 1776. How dare someone tell someone that they do not have the right to do to their body what the wish? Everyone is entitled by the Declaration of Independence to: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It has proved to be a very convincing argument.

The pro-lifer's answer to that can be best explained by Jesse Jackson, one of their former champions. This was what he had to say on the right to privacy, taken from the National Right to Life News of January 1977:

"There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. . . that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned. . . The Constitution called us (African-Americans) three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by called us, (the 'n' word). It was part of the dehumanization process. . . These advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. . . Fetus sounds less human and therefore can be justified. . .

"What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth."