Protecting The Unborn: The Pro-life Position Against Abortion

The Pro-Life argument is portrayed as a moral debate, however it’s largely a philosophical one pertaining to the beginning of life.

For many years science told us that the beginning of life is at conception, however, in modern times the line is starting to blur significantly. The four main issues of the Pro-Choice argument are:

1. They claim so heavily that they are all about choice but they never give choices to the defenseless human inside the mother.
2. Any line you draw to signify life besides conception can be applied to modern day adults, thus the line is unreasonable.
3. Their largest defense of their access to abortion is based on less than 2% of data.
4. They believe that putting the child up for adoption is an injustice to that child.

So in this essay I will argue that the Pro-Life argument is most in line with American values and law.

The baby is never given a choice. The reason this is such a problem philosophically is that the mother’s choice instantly determines the baby’s life and future. When the mother decides to take away the future of that living child, her decision is unquestioned. However, later on when the baby is born and placed in her arms, if she then killed it she would be arrested for murder. The dilemma there is, Pro-Choice supporters are saying the location of that baby’s body determines if the murder is legal or not, which is absurd conceptually. Basically, it is legal to kill a baby because it is trapped in the womb, however, as soon as a single body part comes out of the mother, it is considered a human with full rights and is then illegal to kill. Overall, the baby’s life should not be determined by its physical location (womb or in arms). Life and law should apply to all persons, even those who can’t speak.

Secondly, when a group of scientists claim that a certain trait is the definition of life, they immediately endanger a population of adults who share those traits. For example, some scientists claim that a heartbeat defines life. Thus, any baby less than 3 weeks old, or without a heartbeat, is not living- thus, it is okay to kill that baby. The problem with that is that there is a significant population of adults who don’t have a real heartbeat and live off of a pacemaker, an artificial heart machine. Under Pro-Choice logic then, someone should be able to murder those people because they are not considered alive. It is easy to see that that logic is ridiculous.

Another example commonly cited as the start of life is brain activity. Thus, any baby less than 5 weeks old, or without brain activity, is not living. Thus, it is okay to kill that baby. The problem with that is that there is a significant population of adults who don’t have much brain activity at all, for example anyone in a deep coma. Under Pro-Choice logic then, someone should be able to murder those people because they are not considered alive. Again, this is absurd.

Lastly, many scientists believe that sentience marks the beginning of life, thus a baby can’t be considered alive until it is born. Someone who is sentient will have the ability to receive internal sensation and information from their environment, and then interpret this as an emotion. Again, there is a large amount of times where humans are not sentient, and under Pro-Choice logic someone should be able to murder them. An example of this is when we are asleep. We are not sentient or aware of our surroundings or develop emotions based on those surroundings because we are sleeping and our brain is resting. Thus, can people legally murder any person who is sleeping? Obviously, that is laughable. The only time a baby goes through something that no adult is currently experiencing is during conception. Humans are only conceived ONCE! That is why conception is and should be considered the start of life. Thus, killing that baby at any point after is and should be murder.

Third and perhaps one of the largest mistakes of the Pro-Choice supporters is that they use under 2% of data to justify the legality of the other 98% of abortions. When defending the Pro-Choice argument, many bring up rape and incest as prime reasons to keep it legal, however, that is a drastic misjudgment considering the data. It’s estimated that more than 55 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since 1973, based on accumulative data from the two primary sources of U.S. abortion statistics — U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute.

“Actual percentage of U.S. abortions in “hard cases” are estimated as follows: in cases of rape, 0.3%; in cases of incest, 0.03%; in cases of risk to maternal life, 0.1%; in cases of risk to maternal health, 0.8%; and in cases of fetal health issues, 0.5%. About 98.3% of abortions in the United States are elective, including socio-economic reasons or for birth control.” – Dr. William Robert Johnston.

Clearly, you can see there are other motives that cause most abortions in the United States. A large majority (over 98%) of them are because the mother doesn’t want the child. Thus, using rape and incest to keep the other 98% of murders legal is preposterous and unfair statistically.

Values and Law

Lastly, if people choose to have unprotected sex, they should expect pregnancy to follow. Regardless, even if they do use protection, a condom for example, and it breaks during sex, they can simply go purchase a Plan-B pill and use it so that abortion doesn’t have to happen later on. Sperm can live inside the vagina for about 5-7 days. If you take Plan-B within 72 hours of having unprotected sex, it can reduce the risk of pregnancy by up to 89%. If you take Plan B One-Step within 24 hours, it is about 95% effective. Abortion shouldn’t have to occur with these birth control tools openly available. Abortion should not be a form of birth control.

The Pro-Choice community specifically in America love to explain that giving kids up for adoption is a large injustice to the kids. In fact, America has one of the best systems in the world due to our transfer to the Foster Care system. Since the 1950s, more children have lived in foster homes than in orphanages in the United States, and by the 1960s, foster care became a government-funded program. Since then, U.S. orphanages have vanished entirely. Now America has modern boarding schools, residential treatment centers and group homes, though foster care remains the most common form of support for children who are waiting for adoption or reunification with their families. In addition, adoption agencies such as American Adoptions help pregnant mothers find homes for their newborn babies and infants without them ever entering the foster care system. These modern foster care and adoption options help all types of families and children who need support, not only orphans, or children who have lost their parents. In fact, most of the children in foster care have at least one living biological parent.

Final Thoughts

Many Pro-Choice thinkers like to assume that having an abortion is much better than a “life of suffering” in the foster care system. In fact, many successful people have come out of Foster Care such as John Lennon, Steve Jobs, Marilyn Monroe, Eddie Murphy, Malcolm X, Willie Nelson, etc. The American Foster Care system allows children a chance at greatness and a happy life, abortion is the theft of that chance. So as seen from the essay, the Pro-Life argument is far more logical and in line with the law of the United States. Clearly access to abortion is being grossly overused and needs some limitation, if not total prevention.