Imagine a child living in his mother’s womb where all is calm and sheltered.  He can’t wait to be born, see his mother for the first time, to have first dates, first jobs, and other pleasures that come with life.  Now imagine this same baby disturbed from his ‘safe’ nest, because of abortion instruments that will eventually take away his chance to live.  Every year 1.5 million babies die due to abortion all over the world.  Why?  Because too many people are jumping into bed with someone without thinking.  What people don’t understand is that having a sexual relationship comes with consequences.  People who decide to have this kind of relationship should take responsibility for whatever happens.

Some might ask,  “What about those situations when babies are conceived because of rape or incest? “  Only 1% of abortions are attributed to rape and incest.  Justifying abortion with those situations is unfair because 99% of the time the baby is aborted simply for his parent’s inability to face up to consequences.

People are rarely informed about the process of abortion before the choice is made.  How does abortion work?  With the most basic procedure, the abortionist will use a suction tip to ultimately tear the child apart.  As the suction tip comes in contact with the amniotic fluid, the protective sack, the child becomes obviously agitated.  The tip will then systematically tear away his arms and legs.  During this whole time, the baby will try to move away from the instrument in a pathetic attempt to get away.  Eventually, only his head and other pieces of his body will remain in the mother’s uterus.  The abortionist will then try to grasp the free-floating head, crush it, and remove the remains of the child.  This child, living and actually moving only moments ago, will now be thrown away.

Some believe that if an ‘unwanted’ child is carried to terms, he will only grow up to feel neglected or unloved.  But there are thousands of childless couples who will give these ‘unwanted’ babies the love and care they need.  There are other options for the parents and one of the most obvious ones is adoption.  All children should be given the chance to be loved by a wanting parent rather than be mutilated and thrown away in pails like trash.

Others say that it is the mother’s choice to have whatever is done to their bodies. “It’s the women who will go through the pain of labor,” argue 10-th grader Jenny Oganesav, “it should be their choice whether to have an abortion or not.”

No matter how painful labor might be, having an abortion might cause more permanent physical damage to the mother’s body.  Ninety percent of abortions are done in a clinic setting where doctors have minimal training and the their main objective is the money.  A disturbing number of females acquire infection after abortion that affects their reproductive organs and can sometimes cause deaths.  Even more women become emotionally disturbed from guilty feelings.  There are reasons why someone should get an abortion.  But isn’t physical and emotional trauma for the mother and violently removing the chance for a child to live enough for a person to not get that abortion?  Even in the worst situations there are other options for the mother.

Imagine a pregnant woman, scared and alone.  The father left her, and her parents refuse to support her and the baby.  Should she have an abortion?

If you answered yes, the world might have just lost the next Einstein.

-- Marnette Federis

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Arguments against abortion boil down to six specific topics. The first five deal with the properties of the zygote-embryo-fetus. The last deals with the morality of the act.
Of course, an embryo’s alive and human. It’s a biological apparatus that transforms nutrients into energy that is vital for many processes.

Pro-life activists use this fact to support their cause. “Life begins at conception,” they claim. And they would be right. The development of a human life begins when a fertilized cell, called a zygote, is formed. It is a potential person.

However, fulfilling the basic requirements of life does not give the zygote full human rights. A Paramecium is just as living as a zygote, but we would never defend its human rights.
Webster’s Dictionary defines a person as “being an individual or existing as an indivisible whole; existing as a distinct entity.” Pro-life supporters claim that each new fertilized zygote is already a new person because its DNA is uniquely different from anyone else’s. In other words, if you’re human, you must be a person.

The defining mark between something that is genetically human and something that is not is “consciousness.” This self-awareness, this sentient consciousness, is what separates us from every other animal life form on the planet.

Obviously, the zygote-embryo-fetus is not independent. It is entirely dependent on its mother’s nutrients for its continued existence. Throughout development, the zygote-embryo-fetus and the mother’s body are symbiotically linked, existing in the same physical space and sharing the same risks.

As to whether it has human rights, yes and no. A potential person must always be given full human rights unless its existence interferes with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of an already existing human. Thus, a gestating fetus has no rights before birth and full rights after birth.

If a fetus comes to term and is born, it is because the mother chooses to forgo her own rights and her own bodily security in order to allow that future person to develop inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbearing, then she has the full right to terminate the pregnancy.

Lastly, abortion is not murder. It’s not murder if it’s not an independent person. One might argue, then, that it’s not murder to end the life of any child before it reaches consciousness, but we don’t know how long after birth personhood arrives for each new child. So it’s completely logical to use their independence as the dividing line for when full rights are given to a new human being.

This, however, doesn’t stop religious fanatics from dumping their judgments and their anger on top of women who choose to exercise the right to control their bodies. It’s the ultimate irony that people who claim to represent a loving God resort to scare tactics and fear to support their mistaken beliefs.

It’s even worse when you consider that most women who have an abortion have just made the most difficult decision of their life. No one thinks abortion is a wonderful thing. No one tries to get pregnant just so they can terminate it. Even though it’s not murder, it still eliminates a potential person, a potential daughter, a potential son. It’s hard enough as it is. Women certainly don’t need others telling them it’s a murder.

It’s not. On the contrary, abortion is an absolutely moral choice for any woman wishing to control her body.

-- Michael A. Fierro