Almost every third baby conceived in the US is killed by abortion. That is approximately 1,700,000 legal murders of innocent blood every year. 1,700,000 children robbed of their childhood, robbed of their opportunity to make a difference in this world.
The fight to end the legalization of abortion began in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nation wide. Pro-life vs. pro-choice. The right of the child vs. the right of the mother.
Yet the debate over the morality of abortion is a moral question that has taken the political world by storm. It has become a heated topic of discussion during political campaigns and one of the traditional defining differences between the conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.
I believe strongly that abortion is murder. Regardless of the situation and circumstance, every child conceived should have the right to enter this world. We as women are merely the vessels God has chosen for his children to enter this world. The right of a woman to choose to become a mother should come after the baby is born, not before. Whether by a mistake or even rape, unwanted pregnancy should in no way be a justification for murder.
Yet the political aspect of this issue is much more complicated. The legalization of abortion allows for hospitals, doctors offices and private clinics to perform the procedure. If outlawed, women seeking the procedure will still find places willing to perform it, underground and without safety regulations protecting the women.
In a New York Times article, Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare, Elisabeth Rosenthal reports on a compilation of global studies that determined “abortion rates are similar in counties where it is legal and those where it is not.” Unfortunately this shows that outlawing the procedure is not necessarily the answer to this problem. The studies also concluded that where abortion is legal it is performed with less harm to the women having the procedure.
Maybe we shouldn’t be making this such a political issue. Maybe we won’t conquer this problem through Supreme Court decisions or candidate stances.
Pregnancy is an extremely intricately complex emotional issue. It changes lives forever. I cannot understand the responsibility that comes with pregnancy, and therefore I feel very inadequate to tell a impregnated women what to do. But I can understand the value of a life, and I believe the women’s life is just as valuable as the child’s life.
What we need is a shift in focus. A shift from focusing on the fight for making abortion illegal to supporting and encouraging pregnant women as the valuable life they are and the valuable life they have growing inside. We need to focus on the fight for the life of the women and the life of the child will be protected. Through love and care, sympathy and forgiveness, emotional encouragement and financial support, we can help to make other options just as easy and worthy an option as abortion and with much less damaging consequences.
2 comments:
Wow. Home run Ms. Nelson. You have such a legitimate argument at the end of your blog. We should be SUPPORTING women and ENCOURAGING them to value the life of the child inside of them. Nice job.
Very well put Crissa. Thank you for your crisp and refreshing perspective. It continues to boggle my mind how human rights activists can still support abortion. As a moderate feminist, I do support a woman's choice to make well educated decisions for herself- however killing a child is not one of them.
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