Like many people, I share the feeling that the people who recently protested on campus about abortion were offensive. That kind of in-your-face persuasion is not the way to go about defending one’s position.
I do believe, however, that the basis for their argument is correct. Despite the acknowledgement that I’m probably not going to convert anyone and will probably tick some people off, I’d like to logically and rationally explain why.
First, whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, you cannot refute the fact that abortion is a hideous procedure. Many people have seen signs, ads or documents showing the gruesome results of abortion. Unless you like seeing that kind of stuff, you have to admit it is grotesque.
Now, if you have never seen the results of an abortion or have never read personal accounts of them, I suggest going out and educating yourself about what the process involves before basing your opinion on the mere “protection of rights” argument, which brings me to my second point.
If you research both sides of the argument with openness and rationale, you can find that every single argument presented by pro-choicers is based on powerful rhetoric but not statistics or provable facts. If you don’t believe me, pick an argument and research it. The overwhelming majority of them are based either upon misinformation or the emotional appeal of a few isolated cases.
The majority of pro-lifers are not radical conservatives hell-bent on stripping women of their rights. Pro-lifers are rational people – liberal and conservative – who simply argue the location of a being should not determine the legality of killing it. And pro-lifers working to make abortion illegal do not have some conspiracy to take away your rights; they are simply arguing on behalf of the unborn who cannot defend themselves.
Most pro-choicers base their argument on the defense of a woman’s right to choose. If abortions were illegal there would be astronomical fatalities among mothers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade – a minute number in comparison to what many people believe.
According to a 1960 American Journal of Health article, 84 percent to 87 percent of all illegal abortions in 1958 were “performed by licensed physicians in good standing,” and 90 percent of all illegal abortions were “presently done by physicians,” not back-alley butchers using coat hangers.
These facts might be old, but they give accurate information from a period when abortion was illegal. In fact, Norma McCorvey, “Roe” in Roe v. Wade, is pro-life, and admits, “I think abortion is wrong. I think what I did with Roe versus Wade was wrong and I just have to take a pro-life position on (abortion),” (“World News Tonight,” Aug. 5, 1995).
Now I am certainly not against women (or men) having the freedom to make choices about their lives. But the fetus inside a woman has a life of its own, and although it is in her body, it is still a living, developing human being. Just because that being doesn’t have a name and isn’t breathing the same air we are, people have avoided acknowledging it is a life.
The problem pro-choicers have with terms like “life,” or “child” or “baby” is that they personify this organism, this supposed ball of tissue. If this being is in the shape of a human and is the result of human sexual reproduction, chances are it is not anything other than a human life. Humans do not exist as non-human entities becoming human in some later point in life. It is an inescapable fact that the fetus, at any stage of development, is a human fetus. However you describe it, it is a unique human being, of which – in all of time – there will never be another.
If your main argument is, “It’s a woman’s body and she can do what she wants,” I agree. She can do what she wants to her body, but not to the life inside of it. Just for a minute, look past your ideology and just think about what actually takes place during an abortion.
Those pictures held by the protesters a few weeks ago were not made up, they were examples of the truth. You can scream and yell until you’re blue in the face that a woman has complete control over her body, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that abortion is killing a human life.
If you take anything away from this small bit of reflection, let it be this: Abortion, in and of itself, is a horrible procedure. In fact, it’s enough to make you throw up, and closing your eyes and ears isn’t going to pull you from the reality of it.
Pro-lifers are not anti-women’s rights, they are simply anti-death. If there are two sides to this argument and one is pro-life, the other has to be pro-death. Calling the stance pro-choice only masks the fact that it advocates choosing death over life. Not one’s own life or death, but a child’s.
Regardless of the language you opt to use, abortion causes the death of a human being. If you favor abortion you opt for death, and if you promote abortion you are promoting death. Moral and personal issues aside, the legality of abortion doesn’t change the fact that it is intentional killing. Nor does the refusal to use any words other than pro-choice to defend it change the fundamental facts.
The only option left for pro-choicers is to admit to this and come clean on it: the fetus is a “de-valued” human being with no legal rights and no worth.
