Follies of Abortion

Brent Weiss
B/H
English Literature 12
12 December 2007
The Follies of Abortion
When a person tries to beat a pregnant mother's womb in an effort to murder the unborn human, that person is seen as a vile person who attempted a horrible deed and should be jailed and/or executed. When a woman decides to have the unborn human surgically removed and killed, she is seen as exercising her civil rights. Where is the difference between the two scenarios, and why is the former so morally wrong? There is no difference between the two situations. Abortion is evil and much more worse than giving live birth; therefore, it should be eradicated from practice.

On a religious perspective, abortion is considered a sin in two major monotheistic religions. In Catholicism, abortion is seen as murder. Catholics, as well as other non-Catholic pro-lifers, believe that life begins at conception, thus a zygote, the name given when a sperm cell and an egg cell join together to form one new cell, is a person. According to the medical textbook, Before we are born – Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects, says “The zygote and early embryo are living human organisms” (Abortion Facts). They believe that God knows who the person being created, and knew who he/she was long before the pregnancy ever happened, regardless if it was intended or not. Evidence of this can be read from the Bible in the "Book of the Prophet Jeremiah" chapter one, verse five, "Before I [God] formed you in the womb I knew you" (God et al 876). Catholics also believe that a person should have the birth regardless of the circumstances too.

Islam shares a similar belief. Believers of Islam, known as Muslims, follow the holy book known as the Qur'an in which it is written in chapter 17 “Bani Israel,” part 15, lines 32-33, “Do not destroy your offspring for fear of poverty; it is We [Allah and His angels] Who Provide for them and for you. Surely, destroying them is a great sin.” (Allah et al 267). This can clearly be interpreted that abortion and infanticide are wrong, even for Muslims. Muslims also share similar beliefs with Catholics about God knowing each individual innately prior to birth. Muslims believe that a baby should be brought into this world regardless of the circumstances.

Judaism has a slightly different opinion on abortion compared to the other two major monotheistic religions. The religion's stance is surprisingly neither pro-choice nor pro-life. A fetus, defined by Judaism, is sub-human and a potential to life (Abortion Access: All Sides of the Issue). For a woman to get an abortion, she would need to consult with a rabbi, who would act as a judge for the individual situation (Abortion Access: All Sides of the Issue). This may seem pro-choice, but pro-choice people try to figure out if abortion is what you really want. They do not try to determine if an abortion for the situation would be sinful or not.

Since abortions are more or less immoral to three major monotheistic religions, one would think that abortion did not have a chance to become legal. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The court cases that legalized abortion were "Roe vs. Wade" and its companion, "Doe vs. Bolton." Norma McCorvey sued the State of Texas under the alias "Jane Roe" (McCorvey was the "Roe" of the court case), Norma claimed that Texas' current abortion laws were unconstitutional, thus violating the 14th Amendment which says "No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" (Abortion Facts). At that time in Texas, abortions could only be performed if giving birth could kill the mother. Because McCorvey was denied an abortion, she sued Texas because she felt her constitutional rights were being violated. On January 22nd of 1973, the US Supreme Court decided that women should be allowed the right to choose an abortion. This was later expanded by "Doe vs. Bolton" on the same day, which was initiated by Sandra Cano of Georgia, the "Doe" of the case. These two court cases allowed abortions to be performed for essentially any reason beyond the safety of the woman.

Despite the fact that the Supreme Court legalized abortion, the argument still rages on. The main argument is whether or not "unborn humans" are living human beings; if so, should they be denied the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Pro-lifers think that unborn humans should be granted the basic individual rights, whereas pro-choicers think these rights should be granted exclusively to the mother and not to the human organism inside her. However, Supreme Court Justice Stewart asked the "Roe" attorney if killing a born baby, who has constitutional rights, was the same as abortion, and the attorney answered with a "yes" (Agresti).

Even though Norma McCorvey supported abortion to point of making it completely legal by all means, she later changed her stance from pro-choice to pro-life. Now, McCorvey thinks her case should be overturned, and Norma reports that she completely regrets everything she did in the seventies (Agresti). Sandro Cano also noted that her case "was based on deceit and fraud." Cano also explained that she never supported, nor wanted an abortion; it was all a scam (Agresti). Another incident like this, includes where a former abortion-clinic chain owner, Eric Harrah, changed his stance on abortion from pro-choice to pro-life when he converted to Christianity. Harrah told interviewers he felt very depressed and guilty before his transformation, and he was suffering from drug and alcohol addictions (Abortion Information you can use...)

Pro-choicers believe that abortions are a part of their civil rights. However, the constitutionality of abortion is too vague to say that it is a civil right, and the constitution does not state when life begins (Anderson). One can infer that the Founding Fathers neither put too much thought into abortion, nor were they concerned about it. Three reasons to prove this was that the Founding Fathers were all men, questions regarding abortion and abortion itself were probably not an issue during their time, and the Founding Fathers were politicians, not biologists.

Pro-choice supporters also argue that babies do not have the right to occupy a woman's womb. Babies do not choose their birth-parents, and no-one for that matter chooses their birth-parents. Ryan T. Anderson points out that "women are usually responsible for their pregnancy." There is also the philosophy that one can use contraception; therefore, not consent to pregnancy (Judith Jarvis Thomson). However, this logic ignores the nature of intercourse (Anderson). Bioethicist Patrick Lee further explains that if contraception fails, "the baby does NOT cause his or her presence in the mother's womb; rather the mother and father do." Besides that argument, fifty-four percent of women who aborted became pregnant within the same month of contraceptive use, and the other forty-six percent did NOT use contraceptives (Guttmacher Institute). According to the Guttmacher Institute, this may explain why half the pregnancies in America are unintended, therefore, the best way to avoid an unwanted pregnancy would be to practice abstinence and not fall for the fallacy of contraceptive use and safe-sex, since safe-sax clearly does not exist.

Another argument for abortion are instances of rape. Clearly, the woman is not responsible for her pregnancy; however, the baby still is not at fault, and one can put the child up for adoption. Even in the scenario of rape, a girl by the name of Kate, who was raped by a childhood friend, says that she's very happy that she gave birth to her baby boy whom Kate is raising with her boyfriend (Dear Becky... I was raped). Another reason to be against abortion would be that most (if not all) abortion clinics, Planned Parenthood, and the National Abortion Federation harbor pedophiles in one way or another (Crutcher). A group called Life Dynamics did an experiment to see who would actually report a made-up incidence where a thirteen year old girl was impregnated by a twenty-two year old man, and the girl wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret from her parents. Ninety percent of the 800 abortion clinics called did not report the incident, and they even tried to help the girl keep the ordeal a secret. What the abortion clinic operators did was illegal under federal law, and an adult having intercourse with a minor is considered statutory rape (Crutcher).

Aside from the moral argument, the science behind abortion is quite startling too. There are eight different methods to perform an induced abortion, which is defined as "any deliberate procedure that removes, or induces the expulsion of, a living or dead embryo or fetus" (Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition 4). Depending on how far along the pregnancy is determines the type of procedure.

The procedures are listed below starting with suction – aspiration (aka menstrual extraction). This is where a tube with a knife-like edge sucks out all of the contents in the womb and deports the human-like remnants of the baby to a jar, as if it were an abomination to society. Dilation and cutterage is another abortion method similar to the suction – aspiration procedure. The difference is that a loop-shaped knife, known as a curette, is used to perform the operation, and the baby is cut-up into pieces and then shoved onto a pan. The suction equipment used for the two procedures is about thirty times more powerful than a conventional vacuum cleaner (Abortion).

Another procedure uses drugs known as Ru-486, methotrexate, and prostaglandin. The mother takes the drugs orally like any other pill. Ru-486 starves the baby to death by preventing him/her from receiving nutrients from the mother's body, and the methotrexate poisons the unborn human. Both of this procedures would be considered inhumane to do to any born human. The woman uses either one of the two drugs with another drug called prostaglandin. Prostaglandin causes labor which expels the shriveled-up corpse of a baby from the woman's womb, and from there the baby is disposed of through conventional methods like a piece of trash. Dilation and evacuation is another procedure for late-pregnancy abortions. In D&E, a pliers-like tool with teeth is used to dismember and remove the baby one limb at a time, tearing it to shreds while the baby is still alive. After that, the baby is reassembled to make sure all of the bones have been removed so an infection doesn't occur within the mother. Saline amniocentesis (aka salt poisoning) is a procedure where a needle is inserted into the mother's womb through her abdomen which injects a heavily concentrated salt solution. The salt kills the baby, and the mother gives birth to its corpse within a day or two. This method is rarely used nowadays because it is too hazardous to the mother. Brain suction (aka partial-birth abortion) is another type of abortion a woman can get. In this method, the doctor grabs the feet of the baby, and pulls the baby's body out of the womb, except its head. Then, scissors are rammed up into the base of the child's skull, and a suction machine sucks out the brain, thus terminating the baby (Abortion). The child is clearly alive during this procedure since he/she is still moving, so this is no different than a gruesome murder that one would read out of a science fiction book. Twenty-three states have passed laws against partial-birth abortions (Abortion).

The resulting corpse of all of these methods look like a baby, however, the baby looks very gaunt and skeletal-like, similar to what a dead Holocaust victim looked like. There is one other type of abortion known as a miscarriage. This is when the female's body naturally expels the zygote, because the cells messed up with developing. A miscarriage normally happens within hours after conception, and the woman probably didn't even have the chance to realize that she was pregnant (Abortion Information you can use...) Naturally, there are no arguments regarding miscarriages since it's a natural biological function which no-one can help.

Abortions are not cheap either. Depending where the woman lives and how far along the woman's pregnancy is, an abortion can range from $350-$3,000 (Women's Med-Center). Depending on the woman’s insurance, this may not be covered by the company, and most of the people who get abortions are poor and under-educated (Abortion Information you can use...) This is bad because the people getting abortions could send themselves into bankruptcy.

There are physical side effects that may accompany an abortion, including death. Other side effects include sterility, complications with future births, more miscarriages, and infection. Human anatomy and physiology teacher, Ann Milligan, points out that the uterus, immune system, and blood could be negatively effected by an abortion. Teenage girls are especially at risk because they're bodies have not stopped growing and forming yet. Psychological affects also accompany abortions. These can include Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS), depression, suicide, suicidal thoughts, regret, and frequent visual replays (Abortion Information you can use...) PAS can be characterized by a combination of all of the mentioned symptoms, with contemplations of what the mother could be doing with her child, sadness at seeing someone else with their child, and random periods of weeping (Abortion Information you can use...) In an interview with a local high-school teacher, Ann Milligan said, "these affects vary from very damaging to no affect, depending on the person and the situation." The affects don't only apply to the mother, they can also apply to the other children the mother may have. In fact, 60% of women who abort have multiple children, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Since the children notice that their mom became "unpregnant," and that they were allowed to live by her graciousness; they go through something similar to what Holocaust survivors went through in regards to why they survived, but others didn't survive (Abortion Information you can use...) The men responsible for the pregnancy can also be affected, and they go through their own Post Abortion Syndrome. They contemplate what they could be doing with their child, feel part of their manhood has dissipated, feel depressed, etc (Abortion Information you can use...) Not much research has been done on men and children in regards to abortions, because the main focus has been on women and abortions. Most of the above affects do not show up until years after the abortion occurred (usually between five to ten years) (Abortion Information you can use...) The only immediate affect is relief. Again, teens who get abortion are heavily affected by abortion and its side-effects because they are lacking maturity(Abortion). Jon E. Dougherty says that humans are growing constantly and are really never complete in a growing sense; therefore, teens are too young to be given the option to "choose."

In Conclusion, abortion is unarguably destructive. Abortion should be abolished, and there is enough information to support this opinion. Even though the issue of unwanted pregnancies will always remain, there is always another option such as adoption. Adoption is a perfectly acceptable and moral method for relieving the burden of raising a child. Why should one support abortion when it is clearly a folly idea, especially since there is a more ethical alternative?

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