The Right To Life

The Right to Life

The right to life is the most basic and important right that we have. In the past two hundred years, over one million Americans have died for their country. Monuments have been built and speeches have been delivered, honoring these American heroes. America is now engaged in a war where there are no heroes, no monuments or tributes - only victims. Our society has declared war on its most helpless members - our unborn children. Since that war was declared on January 22, 1973, there have been over 35 million deaths.

Abortion is one of the most controversial and important subjects of this generation. Much has changed in 25 years. Back then the central question that was argued was whether or not this was a human life. This argument has basically been answered. Yes, ultrasound and medical technology have gone a long way toward helping us. The other major argument - that this is only a religious issue - still surfaces and is still thrown at us, but now with much less force. As medical developments have proven the humanity of the unborn, parallel developments have shown this to be a human rights, a civil rights issue to more and more people.

Other arguments have fallen by the wayside. "Remember these are unwanted pregnancies that will grow to be unwanted and battered children." That argument is essentially dead as, after 25 years, we now have, not a decrease in battered children, but an explosion of battered children and child abuse. Abortion clearly has not solved this problem.

As for the argument that unwanted children are more prone to become criminals - better to abort them before that happens; are we not innocent until it is proven we have committed the crime? I guess not, as long as you are in the womb according this argument. Those unwanted children who have become criminals, while sad, certainly are not sentenced to death that easily and they still have the possibility of changing their lives. Allowing abortion because of the mere possibility of becoming a criminal would seem to mean it is permissible to use the death penalty for a lot more than just murder if taken to its logical and frightening conclusions. Abortion for this reason just takes us off the hook for showing love and concern to these unwanted children, but that would be more time consuming and difficult and not always successful and, quite frankly, just not as convenient for us.

Assume that the practice of drinking milk was widely considered immoral and that the evilness of drinking milk was obvious to everyone, including children. What is the best way for a minority of milk drinkers to get their behavior accepted by the majority? The milk drinkers know that they cannot convince enough people to accept their position by direct argument alone. The only way to get immoral behavior accepted would be to change the definition of commonly understood words. For example, they might refer to milk as flavored water and to drink flavored water is not immoral. The pro-abortion activists have imposed this same semantic game. They have changed the meaning of the word life. They say that an unborn baby is not alive. It is only a mass of tissue like a tumor. Every child in America knows that this is not true. They have changed the meaning of murder and killing. They say performing an abortion is not the same as killing a child. They refer to the unborn child as a fetus. Fetus is a perfectly good Latin word for "fruitful" or "bringing forth". However, it sounds inhuman to our ears. They even changed the name of their movement from pro-abortion to pro-choice. It is widely believed in this country that individuals should be free to make their own choices. The name pro-choice gives the evil abortion movement an aura of American liberty and apple pie.

Another argument, which is often cited as a justification for abortion, is one's economic concerns. Many women who are poor get pregnant and are the first to get an abortion. It seems that the struggles of modern life create an obstacle for those women in which a child becomes a burden. Is this what our society has come to? It seems like more and more women are redirected towards abortion as a solution to their problems. Human life now comes with a price tag; it is no longer regarded as sacred but is seen as a disposable entity when "the going gets tough". Society no longer values life and is willing to, or demanding that women, especially poor or African American women control the number of babies they have or the government will control it for them.

Critics take the other stance and claim that economics is one of the most important reasons we should keep abortion legal. Legal abortions provide an avenue for underprivileged women who cannot support another child in