By Alex Kelly, Staff Writer
This article was originally featured in our November 2020 magazine, (p.11) released 30 November 2020, which you can view here.
Abortion is indefensible from all perspectives. Scientifically and personally, (not just religiously) it is barbaric.
There are things so wicked that, even in a world filled with agony and desolation, it is virtually unfathomable that they subsist in a so-called civilized society. What is even more perplexing is that self-proclaimed “champions” of human rights fail to recognize the most basic human right that safeguards the weakest and most vulnerable members of society: the human right to life. The gruesome, genocidal, barbaric practice of abortion is such evil that persists.
For far too long members of the pro-choice mob have gone unchecked using euphemisms and false equivalencies to justify depriving life from the unborn. Subscribers of this ideology believe not only that those who detract from their worldview are ultra-conservative chauvinists, but are also Bible-thumping zealots who erroneously force their sectarian views on others. To put things unambiguously, opposing abortion is an intolerable position that has no place in our society.
The first error is assuming that anyone affiliated with the pro-life movement holds their views as a consequence of religion. This assumption leads to two questions: “Why is this presumption made?” and, “Why is it that there are so few secular members of the pro-life faction?” Abortion activists would lead you to believe that they are on the side of science and intellect, but this is anything but true. As scientific research has proliferated in the sphere of fetal development the rationalization of the brutal practice has nearly diminished entirely.
When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 much of the knowledge now known pertaining to fetal development was undiscovered. Justice Harry Blackmun speculated that “There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth.” We now know that this statement is not in accordance with objective reality.
The biological reality of life in the womb is that from the very moment of fertilization an embryo is created and life has reached the stage of inception. Open any biology textbook and this declaration will be affirmed. At the moment of fertilization, the egg is fertilized with a sperm initiating prenatal development in which it is transformed into a complete DNA code for an individual human life. The postmodernist environment that we are in today has contributed to the most basic scientific realities about the origins of human life being denied to spare the emotions of a culture that favors self-pity over stoic thought.
Science conclusively proves that human life begins at the moment
of fertilization, and no amount of gaslighting or psychological warfare will make their assertions accurate that children within the womb are nothing more than a “clump of cells”, “blob of tissue”, or any other dehumanizing euphemism they prefer.
A human heartbeat is found to be detectable as early as 16 to 21 days. In just the fifth week brain activity is detectable. All of the organs in the baby’s body are shown to fully materialize as early as week 24. It is staggering that we have not seen the impacts of these advancements in scientific research reflected in legislation thus far.
Advancements in fetal medicine have increased viability making it possible now that unborn babies can survive outside of the womb as early as 22 weeks into the pregnancy. Recent research published earlier this year by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologist in the United Kingdom has discovered that babies may be able to experience pain as early as 13 weeks.
The fact that something is legal doesn’t mean that it’s ethical. There is no greater logical fallacy than the often promulgated claim by pro-choice activists that abortion must be just by reason of it being legal. This rationale is, at best, a mistake, and at worst, an obvious attempt to gaslight in efforts to provide a facade for infanticide. This isn’t a matter of a woman exercising her right over bodily-autonomy, but instead, a red herring aimed at distracting from her “choice” resulting in the destruction of a unique human life. Deriving your morality from legality is an appalling fallacy, which becomes quite apparent when recollecting the negligence by the United States government throughout its history to safeguard members of minority groups who suffered from legal, yet abominable forms of subjugation.
As someone who grew up in a broken home and spent time in the foster care system, I take particular indignation with the contention that we must eradicate the sufferer instead of the suffering.
Justifying the practice of abortion by saying that some people will suffer so women must be granted the throne of the ultimate arbiter of worth, making godlike decisions over one’s potential is illogical. While pro-choice advocates use compassionate and noble language as justification for this prescription, they are essentially saying that if a mother has plausible optimism that the child may face hardships that this makes it ethically just to kill it. It is true that children throughout the United States today suffer from hunger and poverty. Has anyone ever heard someone make the declaration that mothers of children in broken homes who are grappling with adversity should have the ability to end the lives of their children in an attempt to suppress their ills? This proposal would be preposterous and grotesque as we know that no amount of financial or emotional hardship is sufficient rationale for putting anyone to death, particularly an innocent child.
Adoption is an amazing, life-affirming, and yes difficult process, but through it, I received the most compassionate and caring parents that any person could wish for because my biological parents gave me a chance and refused to have an abortion despite issues that they faced with drug addiction. The reasoning behind using the foster care system and financial hardships as an argument to justify the destruction of human life within the womb is the belief that there are distinct differences between human beings within and outside of the womb. But until this is proven so, the possibility of adversity can not be used as a rationale for abortion. The humanity of the unborn is the issue, and no amount of financial hardships will alter this reality.
The assertion that pro-lifers only care about children until they exit the womb is another disingenuous falsehood. Members of the pro-life community can be in opposition to abortion while simultaneously being against your preferred social welfare policies. The fundamental belief of pro-life advocates is that the state should play an active role in preventing individuals from unjustifiable stripping life from the unborn. This belief partially stemmed from Thomas Jefferson’s proclamation in the Declaration of Independence that “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government”. Reflecting this belief, pro-lifers are much more likely to adopt, donate to pregnancy centers, volunteer to provide healthcare and other services to mothers in need, and form NGOs aimed at providing help for mothers in need.
Abortion does not empower women. Women do not walk into Planned Parenthood feeling powerful, they feel powerless. The most substantial falsehood that has been promulgated to women since the Roe decision is that abortion is the only answer to satisfy men who hold power over them. Whether it be a boss who needs their labor or an emotionally abusive boyfriend who lacks personal responsibility and declares that they will leave them unless they have an abortion. Women are truly amazing and deserve the best that America has to offer.
It is time to embrace the reality that we can do better than abortion, women deserve better than abortion, and the next generation of children are dependent on our action on abortion.
Alex Kelly is a Freshman studying Public Policy and History. He is from King’s Mountain, NC.
This article is narrow-minded. You preach an exclusive binary that many on the left and right fall into: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. This debate is far more complicated. White, middle-class women will have access to abortion as long as it remains legal. After that, white, rich, and resourceful women who can afford the procedure will retain their access. If you want to conceptualize this issue as a whole, try learning about the Reproductive Justice movement. Reproductive Justice is the right to have children when an individual sees fit, the right to raise them in a safe environment and the right not to have a child. WOC will not have access to reproductive health resources nor the facilities to raise a child that white women will have. This is a fact. Feel free to research anything about redlining throughout the century, environmental racism (plenty of examples here in NC), or even maps of Planned Parenthood locations.
Your clever gaslighting statements are fallible, for example, a heartbeat is not detected in a matter of days, yet it can be detected faintly and unreliablely around 5 1/2- 6 weeks. Yet, Doctors recommend you wait a bit longer. I think your success story in the foster care system is wonderful, and I am so glad that you were able to have access to such wonderful facilities and have such amazing foster parents. However, you are among the minority of children in this system that get to tell such a story.