Abort Essay, Research Paper
Abortion is the ending of pregnancy before birth and is morally wrong. An abortion
results in the death of an embryo or a foetus. Abortion destroys the lives of helpless,
innocent children and illegal in many countries. By aborting these unborn infants,
humans are hurting themselves; they are not allowing themselves to meet these new
identities and unique personalities. Abortion is very simply wrong. Everyone is raised
knowing the difference between right and wrong. Murder is wrong, so why is not
abortion? People argue that it is not murder if the child is unborn. Abortion is murder
since the foetus being destroyed is living, breathing and moving. Why is it that if an
infant is destroyed a month before the birth, there is no problem, but if killed a month
after birth, this is inhumane murder?
It is morally and strategically foolish, because we lose the middle when we talk about
reproductive rights without reference to a larger moral and spiritual dimension, and we
are unwilling to use language like transgression and redemption, or right and wrong.
-Wolf p54
The main purpose abortions are immoral is how they are so viciously done. Everyday,
innocent, harmless foetuses that could soon be laughing children are being brutally
destroyed. One form of abortion is to cut the foetus into pieces with serrated forceps
before being removed, piece by piece from the uterus by suction with a vacuum
aspirator. Another form consists of bringing the foetus feet first into the birth canal,
puncturing its skull with a sharp instrument and sucking out the brain tissue. The body
parts, such as the head, are given letters, rather than refer to the parts as what they
are. In my opinion this is for the doctors who cannot face the reality of what they are
doing. The remains of the foetus or embryo, as the case may be, are put into
everyday, plastic buckets and then sent to a dumpster where these precious bones
and limbs are disposed. However, how and when an abortion takes place are matters of
little importance to pro- abortionists and other defenders. Even former abortion
practitioners from varying backgrounds and religions have a new view on abortion.
These changes of heart were caused by psychological, religious and scientific reasons.
One doctor, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, performed 60,000 abortions and supervised 10,000,
before scientific evidence and the use of an ultrasound, convinced him he was
promoting and participating what he now calls “the most atrocious holocaust in the
history of the United States.” Other doctors refuse to perform legal abortions, saying
they should save lives rather than destroy them.
Many argue is it the women’s or the foetus’ rights and values that are being trampled
on? “Pro-choice movements sometimes fall back on an abortion rhetoric that seems to
dehumanize and trivialize the death of a foetus as a way to humanize and make
important the reproductive rights of women.” (Wolf p54) “Women can treat an
unwanted foetus as a violation of her civil rights and is therefor justified tin using force
to expel it” (McMillan pA12) The decision is not up to the mother because she is not
God. Only God, the ultimate creator has the right to choose who may live and who shall
die. Humans do not have the right or the power to control the quality of life and to
avoid suffering. “The issue of abortion is not just life, but how life is created and the
extent to which human intention and control the process, both before and after birth.
All humans inventions and interventions may give us a world to regret.” (Clark p3) With
abortion, we humans give ourselves dominion over a large part of God’s plans and our
destiny.
Abortion becomes especially evil when the bond between mother and child is broken
and it is being used as an alternative birth control when humans cannot control their
irresponsible sexual hungers. If beings are responsible enough to be sexually active,
they should also be responsible enough to accept consequences, and if that means
becoming pregnant and creating a life, then that life should have the opportunity to
live. There should be a bond or relationship between a mother and child, whether born
or unborn.
Mothers and her children form a bond unlike any other felling of love; when a child is
aborted, before given the right to grow in the bond, does the mother feel the
connection with her child or is it just uterine material. Abortion is never about just
abortion. It is about questions like whether the society at large, or individual pieces of
it, regards the fact of women’s fertility as burden or gift, and how they treat it, and
what are the incentives ad disincentives they provide? How the rearing of children is
regarded – benefit or burden, or sometimes a balance of those, and who is responsible
for that? And then one of the deepest things, at the core of what abortion is about, is
what is our understanding of freedom? Is freedom something like will: the ability to
choose something in anyway you choose, freedom without regard to truth, to what
some would call natural law? Freedom without regard to the common good?”
-Alvare p54
Many women do feel this bond and also fe
Several women have confided in one author, Naomi Wolf. They have come to her in
grief. One woman shared that each year she lights a candle for the foetus that she
aborted, and that she feels like there is no room within the organized reproductive
rights institutions or within mainstream feminism to articulate that grief and make it
meaningful.
“All humans have the same right to live compared to other humans; whether rich, poor,
majority or minority this being deserves the same chance we were all given.” (Clark p3)
The Vatican teaches that all humans have a right to life, from the moment of
conception until the natural ordained moment of death. According to the Catholic
church, a person is living when as young as an embryo, which refers to an organism at
its early stage of development, through the foetus stage, which is from the end of the
eighth week until birth and when considered a baby, until the last second of life before
death. It is also selfish to abort an unborn child. This aborted child could have been
destined to create world peace, make the invention of the century, find a cure foe
AIDS or other diseases or maybe have children of his or her own and continue our
human race.
Pro-choice defenders feel that the Roman Catholic Church’s opinion leaves no room for
human reason as it instead tries to unrealistically legislate an uncompromising pro-life
policy. There is no excuse for having an abortion. Pro-choice followers recommend
abortion if the child is a result of rape, a painful reminder, may be born defected or the
female is too young and not ready to raise a child of her own and be a parent. If these
are the cases, adoption agencies are found nationwide and willingly accept unwanted
children giving them the opportunity to live with another family.
There are many different viewpoints on abortion in the United States of America. Where
most Americans do not feel that abortion is necessarily ‘good,’ they do believe it is a
‘right.’ Others have similar opinions. They embrace contradictory opinions and consider
abortion a form of murder and yet still feel it should be legal for the truly desperate.
However, most Americans think abortions are morally troubling. A recent study by
George Hunt shows that neither age nor gender appears to have any effect on people’s
current views on abortions.
Today, teenagers are getting mixed messages from parents, peers, and media. This is
the reason for the increased birth rate. Abortion is being used as a method of birth
control in this case which shows in a study in The Lancet magazine that 24.1% of
teenagers aged seventeen through nineteen have undergone induced abortion.
As the world grows with the new times we must look at these such important issues
that will dramatically effect us soon enough in the future. Sixty million abortions are
done yearly, and that number only increases as more and more countries legalize this
brutal destroying of innocent children who could be successful world leaders.
“What does it mean to choose life? Who chooses life? Where should the focus be on
choosing life?” (Wilson p54) To choose life not only means to speak out against
unnecessary death of humans but also to take care of one’s self, support the good
mannerisms of all and to see good in all. The only being who has a say of life is God
Almighty himself. However, we all have the opportunity and power to choose to live.
The focus on choosing life should be on being happy. A complete life is a fulfilling and
very satisfying life. It is up to us only to decide and teach others of these brutal acts
done daily out of the laziness, irresponsibility, and ignorance of humans in attempt to
escape from real life. Human life can not run forever and eventually, they will learn that
destroying the innocent is wrong. “Pro- life movement will win, because when you hold
up a picture of a six month old foetus being stabbed in the neck and all you say is
‘choice, choice, choice’ you are going to loose.” (Wolf p54)
WORKS CITED
Alvare, Helen, Wilson, Marle, Wolf, Naomi. “Abortion: Whose Values? Whose Rights?”
Tikkun January-February 1997: pp54-60
Clark, Thomas. “Thou Shalt Not Play God” The Humanist July-August 1995: p3
Hunt, George W.. “Of Many Things” America 31 January 1998: p2
Lavelle, Marianne. “When Abortion Comes Late In Pregnancy, Though Rare, Most
Aren’t For Medical Reasons” U.S. News and World Reports 19 January 1998: p31-32
Lefevere, Patricia. “Ex-abortion Providers; Conversation Tales” National Catholic
Reporter 16 January 1998: p6
Merril, Ted. “Abortion; Extreme Views Ignore Reality” Medical Economics 15 July 1996:
p33
McMillan, Jeff. “Focusing On a Woman’s Right To Self Defense” The Chronicle of Higher
Education. 6 December 1996: pA12
“No Easy Quick Fix Solutions To Abortion Issues” National Catholic Reporter 8
November 1996: p20
“Reproductive Tract Infections and Abortion Among Adolescent Girls In Rural Nigeria”
The Lancet 4 February 1995: p300
Thomas, Judy. “Pro-life Turns Deadly” Newsweek 26 January 1998: p64
Wallace, Bruce. “When One Fetus Lives and One Dies” Maclean’s 19 August 1996: