"Abortion Kills Children": Truth or Deception?
by Robert Staddon

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   They stood erect, lined up along each side of the highway, grimly
facing the oncoming traffic. Some were old enough to remember a myriad of
such protests in the past twenty-eight years. Others were quite young and
innocently smiled at each passing vehicle. Each held a sign which made their
cause blatantly clear to all who passed by: "Abortion Kills Children."
Perhaps they did not realize the full implications of what they were
claiming. Were they implying a women had no right to privacy? Were they
saying a fetus was a real person and not just a potential person? Were they
claiming that the Supreme Court was wrong? The incensed response of some who
drove by made clear that this is one of the most controversial issues of our
day. Does abortion kill children?
   In 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe vs. Wade that the
government had no business interfering with a woman’s right to choose if she
should have an abortion. They cited the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,
which allegedly guaranteed her right to privacy. Consequently, it was
asserted that a women should have a right to control her own body. Abortions
were made legal because no one had any business interfering with what a
woman chose to do with her body. This decision was personal. Intruding on
people’s private problems was not the Government’s responsibility. While
forcefully declaring a women’s rights, however, the court breezed over the
important issue of whether or not a fetus is actually a person.
   There is no dispute that before conception there is no person. There
is no dispute that after birth there is a person. There is no dispute that
during the intervening period of nine months there is something living in
the mother’s womb. Is it a person or only a potential person?
Scientifically, we have a problem. Although we can measure the development
from a cell to a baby, we cannot prove when it becomes a person because that
is beyond science. Some claim that it is a human being from the moment of
conception. To others it becomes a human being at the point of viability,
when it can survive outside the womb. Still others state that it is still
only a potential human being until the moment of birth. Considering it
logically, however, we find that location is the only real difference
between a baby in the womb and a baby in the world. What distinctions are
there between a baby not yet born and a baby born prematurely which would
allow one to be killed and the other left alive? What makes someone a
person?
   Studying our nation’s history, we find that this is not the first
time that the personhood of human beings has been debated. Scientists in the
1800's attempted to prove that Negroes were physiologically inferior. In
addition, the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision concluded that
although they may have been human biologically, a slave was not a legal
person because he was not a citizen. Thus, he could not be protected by the
Fifth Amendment: "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law." In their ruling they stated, "... a
negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves.
. . were not intended to be included under the word 'citizens' in the
Constitution, and can, therefore, claim none of the rights and privileges
which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United
States." This brings to light a striking parallel between the logic used to
defend slavery and that used to defend abortion. Clearly, they thought a
black man only became a legal person when he was set free. Now, an unborn
baby only becomes a person at birth. A slave owner supposedly had a right to
do what he wanted with his own property and a woman now supposedly has a
right to do what she wants with her own body. As in our day, people imagined
that the personhood of a human being should depend on public opinion. So
much for equality. It took the American Civil War and the passage of the
Fourteenth Amendment to finally restore African-American’s their unalienable
rights. "If we don’t learn from history, we are bound to repeat it."
   As we learn from our nation’s history, the Supreme Court can be
wrong. A woman’s right to privacy exists only if the fetus is not a real
person. If indeed an unborn child really is a human being, the government
must protect his life. The Court cannot confer the so-called "right to
abort" on one class of people (pregnant women) by depriving another class
(children in the womb) of a more fundamental right. Our nation has declared
in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with
an inalienable right to life, which is protected under the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. Legally, the right to life must supersede the right
to privacy. As Abraham Lincoln so simply put it, "No one has the right to
choose to do what is wrong." Thus, the abortion dispute hinges on one single
issue: is the unborn a person or only a potential person? The dictionary
defines a person as a human being. So the question is this, when does a
human being become a human being? The answer is simple: A living thing is
itself and not something else, and it remains itself as long as it exists.
"A human being becomes a human being when it becomes a being. The fact is,
when a thing is something it never becomes something else. The development
that we see in our life from a single cell into maturity is dictated by the
kind of being we happen to be. It can develop into twins or triplets. It can
attach itself in a way that it ends up killing the child. But what it cannot
do is to become something other than what it is, and that is the point. It
is a human being. From the time this separate being comes into existence it
is a human being and it is a human being throughout." From an embryo, to a
baby, to a child, to an adult, to a senior citizen the only thing that
changes is what it looks like. Perhaps the pro-choice movement is right and
the uproar since 1973 has all been over nothing. If, however, they are
wrong, the unprecedented killing of innocent children known as abortion is
the most horrible holocaust our nation has ever experienced.

Copyright © 2002 by the author
Latest update: 2002-JAN-8
Author: Don Staddon

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