Simply put, the act of abortion disgusts me. It is unfathomable to me how, out of pure inconvenience, humans can destroy the rights and legal protections this country provides to the most innocent. As Ben Shapiro said, “that’s a human being … You just decided its rights are less important than your right to your own convenience.”
When one makes the choice to participate in consensual, unprotected sex, he/she becomes subject to the consequences of that act. Pro-life critics often ask how social conservatives can advocate for small government while also advocating for national laws banning abortion. This argument also considers pro-lifers policing a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her body, including when she chooses to start her family; that is not small government. And, to be honest, it’s a valid argument. It is not reflective of small government for Christian conservatives to wish for an outlawing of abortion and defunding of Planned Parenthood.
However, in the interest of fighting for the rights of the unborn as justified by my Judeo-Christian beliefs, it must be acceptable to abandon conservatism on this issue. Continuingly, there’s also the argument against Christian Conservatives that they have mitigated abortion to purely a woman’s issue. This theory considers abortion as merely an issue for the pregnant woman rather than the unborn child. This thinking disregards the child’s right to life. If you think that it only affects the woman when an abortionist shoves a tube into the womb and suctions out the “pregnancy tissue,” per Planned Parenthood (PP), from the womb, or uses forceps to dismember an unborn child until the baby remains are small enough to be sucked into a vacuum, piece by piece, then you have questionable morals.
The latter, referred to as an intact D&E abortion, usually occurs in the second trimester. During a partial birth abortion, as the baby is still alive, doctors stab scissors into the base of the skull, open a small hole into the baby’s head and insert a vacuum tube through the opening to suck the brain and the rest of the body into the tube, ending the life that had barely started. This shows that the processes of abortion are not only about women. I agree a woman has the right to decide what is best for her body, not the body of her unborn child.
Additionally, there exists the pro-choice talking point questioning the importance of a fetus compared to a person; this is done by relating an acorn to a tree. Despite their stages of development, both are oak. As such, both the unborn and the fully-grown adult are still human. If the unborn child, unaffected by an abortionist, will grow naturally into a fully grown person, will not the acorn develop into a beautiful oak tree? The same right to life should be afforded to all humans, regardless of their development physically.
George W. Bush once said the only time abortion is justified is in the case of rape, incest or life of the mother, all valid points. Per JohnstonArchive.net, incest accounts for .03 percent of abortions, rape for three percent and maternal health about .8 percent. According to the same study, “About 98.3 [percent] of abortions in the United States are elective, including socio-economic reasons or for birth control.”
Continuing with the theme of statistics, many pro-choicers and PP supporters often provide the statistic that “abortions account for only about 3 [percent] of services Planned Parenthood provides.” This is a misleading representation of how many abortions happen behind the doors of PP. To hide the amount of abortions, PP divides number of abortions by the total number of services they provide. The word service, as defined by Planned Parenthood, is a “discrete clinical action.” To Planned Parenthood, all services carry the same weight. If a woman walks into PP to pick up a pregnancy test, spending approximately five minutes in PP, her service is counted the same as a woman who went to the same clinic for an abortion. Divide the 323,999 abortions performed by PP last year by 9.4 million services and it totals to three percent.
Suppose the same woman goes to PP solely for an abortion. In her time there she may receive a pregnancy test, an abortion, an STI test and possibly contraceptives. According to PP, abortion accounts for a quarter of the services from the clinic, despite the fact she walked through the doors for an abortion and an abortion only. These numbers are unreliable and ultimately misleading.
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Abortion – why it’s about more than just you
Mark Hinds, Contributor
April 17, 2017
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