Opinion: Pro-Life…And Why You Should Be Too
by Matt Schuelke
In 1980, Karen Sullivan aborted her first child. She was advised by Planned Parenthood that the her fetus was no more than a mass of cells and tissue, and that terminating the pregnancy would be a painless experience. Heeding the advice, Sullivan chose to have an abortion.
According to Sullivan, “At that time, no other options, such as adoption or single parenting were explained. At the abortion center, I was not administered pain killers. When the suction aspirator was turned on, I felt like my insides were being torn from me. Three-quarters of the way through the procedure, I looked down and to my right, and there I saw the bits and pieces of my baby floating in a pool of blood. After I screamed ‘I killed my baby!’ the counselor in attendance told me to shut up. Suddenly I felt very sad and alone.”
In the months and years that followed, Sullivan experienced severe depression. She had dreams about her aborted child and contemplated suicide. Most of all, she asked herself why she mourned this loss so much. Wasn’t this just a clump of cells? In her words, “The answer was that it wasn’t just a mere blob of tissue. It was a human being. I realized it the moment I saw his dismembered limbs. I realized too late.” In the United States there have been 42 million legal abortions, and the above sorrowful tale is merely one that represents hundreds of thousands of others who have experienced similar fates.
I believe that abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger.
More than 42 million abortions have been performed legally in America, killing fetuses as well as hurting the women receiving the abortion. Abortion has been legal in the United States since 1973, and before then, was punishable as a felony. In 1967, Colorado and California legalized abortion, followed by New York and several other states. These states were the only places abortion was legal until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in Roe vs. Wade that fetuses were not legal persons in the United States, and could be destroyed at the will of the mother. The Guttmacher Institute’s research shows that, since that time, abortions have increased in number and accessibility, thus increasing the problem of pregnancy rather than resolving it. Abortion is becoming an escape route from unplanned pregnancies, and legalization is not changing this. In fact, if the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is passed, it is likely that this trend will continue, as even more restrictions and regulations on abortion would be removed.
While legal abortions have been promoted as ultra-safe procedures, this is far from the truth; there are many harmful emotional and side effects. According to a study by the University of Minnesota, teenage girls who have an abortion are 10 times more likely to attempt suicide within six months than girls who haven’t had abortions. This is true in adults as well. A study performed by the Elliott Institute showed that “twenty-eight percent of women who regret their abortions attempt suicide.” They also found that women that aborted their first pregnancy were 3.9 times more likely to engage in subsequent drug or alcohol abuse than women who had never had an abortion.
In addition to psychological harm, physical harm can result as well in those who have suffered abortions. The Washington Post documented cases where abortions resulted in infertility. This infertility is due to commonly undetectable bone fragments from the fetus that were left embedded in the uterus after the abortion. The woman will therefore remain infertile until those pieces can be removed. Such a procedure, resulting in potentially dramatic side effects occurs in abortions performed after 12 weeks gestation, which is one of the most common time frames for abortions.
During abortions, not only can there be serious maternal harm, but the fetus is destroyed without its will. The main issue in the debate over abortion is whether the fetus can be considered a human being, which can be concluded through scientific research in several ways.
1) At the moment of conception, the cells form a different DNA than the mother. Because every cell in the body has the same DNA, the presence of separate DNA indicates a separate organism. This bundle of cells must be a new person. On the 21st day after conception, the heart begins to function, followed by the brain’s activity beginning on the 44th day.
2) Fetuses can feel pain as well, as Dr. Sunny Anand testified in the Congressional hearing for the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. “The highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from 20-30 weeks gestation. During this period, the epidermis is very thin, leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface of the skin than in older neonates and adults… Thus, a fetus at 20-32 weeks gestation would experience a much more intense pain than older infants or adults.” This shows that fetuses do feel the pain of an abortion of any kind. Even animals receive pain medications during euthanasia, yet during an abortion, a fetus is killed in the same fashion often without any painkillers (though there are several states where anesthesia is an option).
3) Lastly, a fetus can be viable outside the womb at 22 weeks. When abortion was legalized through Roe vs. Wade, the time of viability was at 25 weeks. Since then, it has dropped by three weeks. With increasing medical technology, this will continue to be pushed down, and fetuses that were aborted at 19 weeks could be viable in the future. It is impossible to put a cutoff date on abortions because the date will be continually pushed forward. In my opinion, it is unjust to abort at any time during pregnancy.
Because it is unjust to abort at any time during a pregnancy, abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or if the mother’s health is in danger. In order to apply this to the whole country, a constitutional amendment is necessary. This would be stronger than state laws, which can be struck down by higher courts or national laws such as FOCA. This is what happened during Roe vs. Wade, where the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States in spite of state laws that said otherwise. A Constitutional Amendment would prevent such a situation from happening and thus provide the necessary moral exceptions, while eliminating the harm that results from the majority of abortions.
In spite of the harms that result from it, many people still support abortions. The primary supporting argument is that abortions are necessary evils. These people believe that if abortions are not legal, the thousands of women who need abortions will go turn to back alley abortions, where there is a much greater risk of injury or death. In fact, these claims are untrue. The number of women who need abortions because of rape, incest, or poor health is very low. Throughout all of the United States, only 500 reported rapes, including incestuous rapes, result in pregnancies. In these cases, 75 to 80 percent of victims chose against having an abortion. In addition, the Guttmacher Institute found that out of the 1.3 million abortions performed in the United States, only 3 percent are because the mother’s health is in danger. These situations are the exception, not the rule. Therefore, the entire policy should not rest on 3 percent of cases. Also, when abortions were legalized, the number of abortions rose, and logically, if abortions are made illegal, the reverse will occur.
As I have shown, the problem is that 42 million abortions have been performed legally in the United States. It has killed 42 million fetuses, and hurt many women receiving the abortion. This problem can be resolved by creating a Constitutional Amendment making abortions illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or if the mother’s health is in danger. Now put yourself in the position of Karen Sullivan. Your decision has caused you immeasurable pain and unbearable regret. Won’t you do something about it? Wouldn’t you want to save others from your decision?
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March 16 2009 09:21 pm | Uncategorized
October 5th, 2009 at 2:36 am
“I believe that abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger.”
A lot of pro-choicers believe that abortion should only be used in cases such as those. However to make it illegal wouldn’t be right. What’s to stop someone from lying and saying that they have been raped just to have an abortion? How can anyone prove that someone has or hasn’t been raped?