Why I Am Pro Life

I’ve heard the arguments. Women should be allowed to be in control of their bodies. There’s too many people on the planet. There’s the chance the child will be mistreated. It’s not a child until it’s breathing air to sustain life independently.

None of those are really valid. Women are allowed to be in control of their bodies – they’re allowed to say NO to having intercourse without being ready for the child that results. They’re allowed to choose who they do and don’t take the steps to intimacy with. They are allowed to choose many things but when a child is conceived that child has no choice in the matter. So many women don’t even see that for what it is – killing a child. To them it’s a “thing” or a “creature” that is growing uninvited within them.

According to the Center for Disease Control in 1993 1.3% of abortions were done after 22 weeks. That’s roughly 20,000 children that were killed because it was inconvenient. Many claim it was an accident but statistics show in 1973 20% of abortions were repeat and by 1995 45% of all abortions were repeats. Nearly half showed disregard for multiple lives. Statistically 63% are white, 33% black and 4% other race.

The stereotypical idea that it’s a poor black woman who accidentally got pregnant holds less water then. Statistically it’s more likely to be a white woman who’s had a previous abortion. A life is a life, no matter what color and there are people who desperately want a child who cannot have one on their own.

What is more unfair the chance of mistreatment or the chance that the child will have a home. Maybe he’ll grow up to make music that inspires others or even be president. There are thousands of stories of women who could have had abortions but chose to have the baby and give the child to someone who wanted one. No matter the circumstances this gives a chance to a child and the possibility of having good come from a bad situation. The biggest unfairness and injustice is killing those who can’t speak for themselves.

Many women have been rushed to abortion and not told about the results. The real results. The emptiness with the finality and reality of killing a child sets in. The many who think of that child every year and far too late wonder what might have been if the child had been allowed to live. The hearing a child cry and realizing that if they’d had their baby he’d be about the same size.

There’s always cases pointed out of women pregnant due to rape or incest and unfortunately that happens. Normally not repeatedly (remember those statistics!) but even in those horrific situations rape is not the fault of the child. The child doesn’t deserve condemnation and death for something they had nothing to do with. Killing the child continues the violence of rape.

Women choose their partners, their doctors, their religion, job and husband. The idea that women don’t have a say in their life is just flat out wrong. They have a say in most cases all the way up to conception of the child at which point they then want the say so in killing an unborn child who didn’t ask to be conceived and didn’t have any choice in the matter.

Small children aren’t less important than adults, and unborn children aren’t less important than those outside the womb. Does a 5 year old have less rights than a 15 year old because they’re less developed? Does a teen have fewer rights than an adult because they aren’t as advanced? Of course not. So therefore why should an unborn child be able to be killed because – well they’re not developed like one who is born. What difference does location make?

The fact is during the first three weeks cells form an embryo, with layers that form skin, bones and tissue. Genitals form and liver, kidneys and spinal cord are developed, the arms and legs can move and the child is about three inches long. This is the first trimester only! This is the time developing before you know you’re pregnant – before the missed period. At the end of the first trimester the child has fingers, toes eyes, ears, mouth and nose. How can anyone look at such an ultrasound and say that this is just a “thing” when it’s a fast developing human being?

In the second trimester the child is growing in size, has hair, bone and a fully developing heart. At week 20 the baby moves around and responds to stimulus. This is a very real, very developed child and yet 20,000 of these real children were killed without another thought.

Floods in China displace 20,000 people and it’s world news. An earthquake in Iran kills 20,000 people and it’s world news. A heat wave in Italy kills 20,000 people and it’s world news. Radon gas kills 20,000 people in 2008 and it’s cause for concern because it’s preventable so a month is set aside for telling people how to avoid dying from radon.

Yet 20,000 children who could not speak for themselves are killed when it is another preventable death and the public yawns.

The indication is too many people use killing children as a means of birth control. The one 100% positive way to not get pregnant is to not have sex. I know…that brings the whines “but women have the right to do that too!” Sure they do. And there are things that prevent pregnancy which are not foolproof, but reduce the chances of conception. However, with that choice comes the responsibility to accept the outcome, including the pregnancy should that happen.

The rights and responsibilities are linked in everything we do. We have the right to operate an automobile and a responsibility to make sure we have insurance and operate it in a manner that it is safe and doesn’t injure or kill someone. We have the right to speak our minds and the responsibility to use that to not damage someone else with malicious gossip.

Along with that women have a right to be sexually active no matter who does or doesn’t approve, but with that comes the responsibility to support the life that may result for nine months until he or she can be born and if “unwanted” by the birth mother, go to a family who wants a child more than life itself.

There are women who lose a child that is too young to exist outside her body. It is a devastating experience that can result in depression and seeing so many who toss children and the chance at life aside is a cruelty that goes on for years.

If someone was to take an animal and pull their body apart there would be calls for severe action. Yet suction curettage, abortion done up to 14 weeks, does just this. It sounds nice and clean but involves inserting a tube into the uterus and pulling the fetus apart, sometimes using a loop shaped knife to get all the parts out of the uterus.

From 13-24 weeks the child is too large and won’t fit in the tube, so the cervix is dilated and the child is removed with forceps, crushing the skull to ease in removal. While graphic, remember this is a fully formed human being. There is at 20 weeks eyes, nose, heartbeat, fingers, sensitivity that allows feeling. There’s feet and movement. What we wouldn’t allow done to a kitten we allow done to a human being under the banner of free choice.

Further beyond 20 weeks to full term there’s partial birth abortion, which is deceptive sounding as if it’s birth then why is it not illegal to kill the child? This doesn’t prevent labor, it starts it. The difference is during labor instead of allowing the child to be born and giving a family a much wanted child the ultrasound is used to locate and with forceps grab the baby’s legs and pull the baby breach birth to the head. Rather than pull the baby out scissors are inserted into the base of the skull and suction removes the brain, when the skull collapses and the baby is removed. A wasted life.

A study in the UK showed that many children born at 24 weeks survive to leave the hospital…showing further that in 2006 there were about 1300 live births before 26 weeks. 952 of these babies survived to e admitted to neonatal intensive care. Further a professor at University College London Hospital stated 98% of the babies aborted were healthy and would have likely gone full term.

A child delivered at just over 20 weeks was just 1 pound 2 ounces, survived and is now 2 years old, born developmentally no real ears yet and eyes fused but a full human being. Is it then ok that this child be stomped on and killed because one woman didn’t want him?

The CDC showed in 2005 there were 820,151 legal induced abortions in the USA. At 45% that’s just over 369,000 that were not the first children killed. In another perspective that’s as many children as residents of Oklahoma City Oklahoma and as many killed as Kansas City Kansas.

What if a young woman in Hawaii had chosen abortion instead of giving birth to a mixed race child that grew to be the president of the United States? What if a young woman in Tennessee had chosen abortion rather than having a baby and giving him up such as country music entertainer Rodney Atkins? Country entertainers Michelle Wright and Jeff Bates were both adopted as babies. Don’t argue that abortion is the easy answer to deal with the problem and that those children aren’t worth saving. Don’t argue that you can’t put a face to anyone who was the product of adverse conditions but whom those in charge chose life over killing. For any mistakes made life is always an option.

People argue that it’s better the child be killed than left to be homeless or abandoned. So it’s better to be killed than face anything less than a guarantee? None of us have a guarantee. No one is guaranteed there won’t be homelessness or other issues befall us. Does that mean we’d rather be dead?

Put into that line of thought we should never get married because we might get divorced. We should never drive because we might get in an accident. We should never eat because we might choke on food. Just how far does this go? Of course the other thing is those are decisions we make for ourselves. It’s another to for no reason other than convenience kill someone else.

Someone has a terminally ill dog that has needs they can’t provide so they want to euthanize the dog and people rise up in horror. But a healthy child with the world in front of them they want to kill because of what might happen. This is a child who has done no wrong, who may be perfectly healthy and yet it’s ok to kill just for the sake of convenience. Yet people who do this 10 weeks after birthing are called murderers, while those 10 weeks prior to the due date is ‘oh just a mistake’?

Like they didn’t realize the mistake of the possibility of pregnancy at the time intercourse was done?! Prevention couldn’t have been done at that time rather than allowing conception, allowing the fetus to grow into a child then killing him or her because it’s inconvenient? What right do we have to dictate what someone’s life might or might not be? What kind of a crystal ball do we have that tells us anything for certain? There might be hardships.

And he might grow up to be president. He might change the world with music. He might do many things. And that is why I am pro life.