We often hear of abortion being branded as a religious issue, but it is actually secular in nature. Are rape and genocide religious issues because churches also happen to oppose them? Nope. Do atheists need belief in God to oppose murder? Of course not! One requires no religious argument to also oppose killing unborn children.
Biology tells us it is at the moment of conception when an entirely new, unique individual is created – not at some arbitrary point during pregnancy or after childbirth. Conception is thus when human life begins.
We confer personhood and human rights on individuals because our ability to intellectually reason, have morality and control our instinctual desires are human acts and define our species. Those in the pro-choice camp maintain since an unborn child can do none of these, they are not humans and do not deserve personhood status.
Can newly-born infants perform these “human acts”? Nope. A newborn has no more capacity to perform a human act than cattle, yet we don’t deny infants are humans. It’s newborns’ ability to develop and perform human acts in the future which causes us to grant them personhood status now. Unborn babies are no different.
As for all this “pro-choice” nomenclature, the “choice” was made when the individuals chose to have sex. Intercourse may result in pregnancy, and individuals need to accept responsibility for their actions. Just as a child has a claim against his or her parents to be provided for until adulthood, so does the unborn have a claim to their mother’s womb until childbirth.
Granted, victims of rape never made the choice to have sex. Yet, accord to abortiontv.com, 96 percent of abortions are “elective” and have absolutely nothing to do with rape or danger to the mother’s life. Johnston’s Archive of Abortion Statistics notes this figure may be as high as 99 percent. Such elective abortions are unjustifiable and should never be allowed. The most basic, fundamental human right of all – the right to life – trumps all other rights. Without life, we have nothing.
If a rape victim or any other woman ever feels like she needs an abortion, the very people who are supposed to help her have failed. This isn’t about hating women, but about loving all life, both born and unborn. We need to give all pregnant women the resources, moral support and love needed to succeed.
I encourage those who are pro-choice to meet with a woman who survived a botched abortion. Look her straight in the eye and tell her she had no human rights as an unborn child. Tell her had the abortionist not screwed up, she’d be dead, and it was in society’s best interest to have her killed. Tell her she should have been discarded in the trash after the abortion pill starved her to death, or a saline solution burnt her body, or her limbs were violently torn apart and sucked out. It’s no coincidence abortion survivors are pro-life.
Abortion should never be the answer.
Justin Kramer ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in nuclear engineering.
