The world today cannot just look at abortion as a medical procedure. There is a lot more meaning to it than that. The decision to have an abortion has greater consequences than simply ending a pregnancy. There is another human life that needs to be looked after. As Mother Teresa said “The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between” (Brainy Quote). The public opinion on abortions changed from “safe, legal and rare,” coined by Bill Clinton in the ’90s to the more mainstream abortions are a good thing. New laws are created constantly to expand abortion all the way up to and in some cases after birth. Since the Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade in 1973 there have been over 61 million unborn babies killed in the United States (procon.org). This is mass infanticide. Society today has left a lot of people to believe that ending a pregnancy should be their right. Whether the pregnancy was unintentional or not it is still a human life, and it should not need to be killed as a form of contraception.
The majority of the world agrees that killing a person is wrong no matter the side they stand on abortions. The main discrepancy lies when does human life begin? Many religious people believe it is at conception. There are laws say it is when the fetus is viable or the first heartbeat. Many activists say when it is conscious or not until birth. However, this question should not be answered by activists, politicians, or judges. It needs to be answered from an unbiased scientific approach. It is important to understand the development of a child in the womb to come to a conclusion on this question. After conception in the fertilized egg travels along the fallopian tube to the uterus and starts to multiply. Human beings have an astonishingly fast development rate. According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, “The cardiovascular system is the first major system to function. At about 22 days after conception, the child’s heart begins to circulate his own blood, unique to that of his mother’s, and his heartbeat can be detected on ultrasound… at just six weeks, the child’s eyes and eyelids, nose, mouth, and tongue have formed. Electrical brain activity can be detected at six or seven weeks, and by the end of the eighth week, the child, now known scientifically as a “fetus,” has developed all of his organs and bodily structures… by ten weeks after conception, the child can make bodily movements” (Condic). By week twenty-three the baby is almost fully formed and is considered viable outside the womb. As the final weeks of pregnancy approaches, the baby continues to develop and grow until labor. At what point is it considered life, a human life?
The fact that human life starts at conception is can be proven by a strongly supported scientific approach. Merriam-Webster defines the word organism as “an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of parts or organs more or less separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being” (Merriam-Webster). When the sperm and egg come together, something new is formed. Twenty-three chromosomes from the mother and twenty-three chromosomes from the father create a new DNA sequence completely different from the parents. Now is this a new human organism or just a human cell. This is what determines if it has the same inalienable rights as a human being or if it is a clump of tissue cells. They are both alive, however, organisms are living beings. Human life from the zygote and onward show much more behaviors of a human being, an organism, than a clump of cells. This organism is always producing more complicated tissues and organs that are interdependent like any other high-level organism would. These organs and tissues that are produced by the developing organism do not create an embryo. Instead, it is the embryo. It continuously produces more and more structures that help in its own development to a more advanced life form. This multifaceted behavior is what defines a human organism. Not a single regular human cell such as a stomach cell can produce the same amount of coordination that is needed to create a human being. To say that human life, “begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications)” (Condic). It is also completely unbiased from any political, religious or moral point of view of human life.
The argument that abortion is about women’s rights has been taking away the true meaning of the problem. It has overshadowed and corrupted the real issue at hand. Legislators are pushing bills that are outlandish and outright cruel to support the pro-choice movement. Recently, there have been a plethora of third-trimester bills being made. New York has passed a new law that now allows abortion after the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy when the woman’s physical or mental health is endangered. The bill replaced the law that already permitted abortion if the woman’s life was endangered. The important part of this new law is that the term health is never defined, so it is up to the women and practitioner to decide whether any health issues up until birth warrant an abortion. In a state where there already is more abortions than live births: “285,127 induced abortions occurred in the state between 2012 and 2014. The average number of live births for the same three years was 237,499” (O’Kane). This number is only going to grow. Similar to New York, Virginia tried to pass a bill that would allow abortions up until the point of birth do impairment of her mental or physical health. Kathy Tran the writer of this bill, was asked if her bill would allow a mother to ask for an abortion if she was dilating and she responded, “yes, my bill would allow that”. The governor of Virginia came out in defense of this bill and spoke on a radio show. He responded to a question on how an abortion would take place during delivery “the infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if this is what the mother and the family desired”. To let a fully developed human baby die on a hospital bed simply because the mother or the family did not want it is horrific. The Born Alive Act failed in Congress for the second time. This bill simply says, “if an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws” (US 116th Congress). Is it that unreasonable to ask that physicians are required to provide the necessary care to babies that are outside the womb? These are only three examples of what direction this world is going towards.
Abortion should not only be about woman’s rights. The talk over the years has become so much more about women’s rights than the real issue at hand. Abortion affects both men and women. More than half of the babies aborted are women, so calling it only a women’s rights issue is immature. Abortion should be an issue viewed by everybody because it’s not a gender issue its a humanitarian issue. Abortion is killing human life and gender should come in the way of saying that it is wrong. To argue that one needs to be a woman to have a say on this issue is like saying only children should be able to take a position on child labor laws. Abortion affects so many people more than the mother. Sometimes there is a father involved in which he does not have a say in the outcome of the abortion. Most importantly it is the child, and the child does not have a voice to defend itself. There is a separate living being that needs the mother to grow but it is not the mother’s property. Though, the baby may be in her body it does not need to make it her choice.
There are many ways to prevent unplanned pregnancy, and if an unplanned pregnancy arises there are other options rather than abortion. The first and obvious one is abstinence it is technically the only way to guarantee that one hundred percent that one will never get pregnant. Though this is a heavily unpopular method, the purpose of sex in a biological sense is the reproduce, and if one is not ready or wanting to have a child then they should not engage in it. People engaging in sexual intercourse should agree to carry the responsibilities of the possibilities. The second option is to use birth controls such as condoms. Though condoms are not a guarantee to not getting pregnant they do provide a very high chance of success. Even if people use a condom they should still be assuming the risk of what could happen. In 2008, “51% of women having abortions used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant” (AGI). Condoms are very cheap and should be used at a much higher rate. Though it might not be the best option at the moment it should not warrant using abortion as a form of contraception. If a woman does happen to become pregnant there are two main options. Option one is to carry the baby to term and become a mother. This might feel like the end of the world for some, but it is a reality. It takes a man and a woman to make a child, so this should not be a job done by one person. Having an unwanted pregnancy could cause drastic unwanted changes in people’s lives but it is better than the alternative. Economic reasons should not be a reason for abortion either. People engaging in sexual activity need to assume the risk of what can happen. That life has infinite value and should not be killed out of convenience. The other option is giving the baby up for adoption. The adoption industry is really suffering from abortion, “the percentage of infants given up for adoption in the United States declined from 9% of those born before 1973 to 0.5% of those born in 2014. Around 2.6 million Americans are seeking to adopt children” (procong.org). It is very logical to see that there is a large gap in the adoption agency that could be filled and innocent lives could be saved. It is a win, win if the result unwanted pregnancy ends with a family getting something that they have always wanted and human life is preserved.
Abortions should not be the go-to option for contraception anymore. Society is moving toward a world where devaluing the unborn baby’s life is common. Years from now people will look back and think where the mistakes were made to allow this problem to grow out of control. Politicians and activists need to put away their own opinion and only look at the science and that science proves that human life starts at conception. Human development is so unique and beautiful. To say that all an embryo or fetus is just a clump of tissue cells is an unscientific, ignorant statement. Laws are constantly being passed that are showing a clear trend towards permitting later and later abortions, yet public opinion is not changing that way. The majority of United States citizens do not want to see abortions legalized under all circumstances. Pew Research Center determined that only, “37% say it should be illegal in all or most cases” (Pew Research Center). However, the laws are changing in that way. The problem of abortion is being clouded by the women’s rights movement which creates unnecessary problems. These two issues are entirely different, one can advocate for better women’s rights while also caring about the life inside the womb. Abortions cannot be as common as they are, people need to start assuming the risk that comes along with sexual intercourse. It is never the baby’s fault that it was made, so the baby should not have to bear the consequence of the parent’s problem which in this case is death. Humans should always be looking out for one another and when there is a section of humans, the unborn, who cannot advocate for themselves, it should be the rest of the world needs to advocate for them.
Works Cited
Condic, Maureen. “A Scientific View of When Life Begins.” Charlotte Lozier Institute, 11 June 2014, lozierinstitute.org/a-scientific-view-of-when-life-begins/.
“Mother Teresa Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore,
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/mother_teresa_158101.
O’Kane, Caitlin. “New York Passes Law Allowing Abortions at Any Time If Mother’s
Health Is at Risk.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 24 Jan. 2019,
www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-passes- abortion-bill-late-term-if-mothers-hea
lth-is-at-risk-today-2019-01-23/.
“Organism.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/organism.
“Public Opinion on Abortion.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project,
Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 15 Oct. 2018,
www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/.
Sasse, and Ben. “Text – S.311 – 116th Congress (2019-2020): Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.” Congress.gov, 25 Feb. 2019, www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/311/text.
“Should Abortion Be Legal?” ProConorg Headlines, 11 Mar. 2019, abortion.procon.org/.
“Stages Of Pregnancy & Fetal Development.” Cleveland Clinic, 9 Aug. 2014,
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7247-fetal-development-stages-of-growth.