Alan, women are not being forced to give birth. When a woman has consensual sex, she and the man involved are also accepting all the potential consequences of those actions, which includes pregnancy. With choice comes responsibility. It is that way with every choice we make. Once the choice to have sex results in the beginning of another human being, that human being has the right to life as well.
The Right to Life was the first right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. It is reaffirmed explicitly in the 14th amendment to the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said, “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” Good government’s primary focus is to protect human life. We should help women – not simply eliminate beginning human beings via abortion.
Verlyncia, regarding “unwanted children”, being unwanted should not cost a human being – the unborn – their life. Although the mother may not want to raise the child, every year there are an estimated 2 million couples waiting to adopt newborns – 36 couples to every newborn available.
Sandy, you have yet to explain why the free will choice to have sex that results in pregnancy should be exempt from the societal norm of responsibility for our actions. Please address this issue. It is a fundamental construct of society.
Also, the woman has the choice of adoption. She is NOT obligated to raise the child. Experts estimate that there are 1-2 million couples waiting to adopt each year.
Bertalert, regarding forcing a woman to give birth, please remember that less than 1.5 % of abortions are due to rape/incest. So, with choice comes responsibility. It is that way with every choice we make. Once the choice to have sex results in the beginning of another human being, that human being has the right to life as well. This is not only a religious view this a civil rights issue.
The Right to Life was the first right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. It is reaffirmed explicitly in the 14th amendment to the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said, “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” Good government’s primary focus is to protect human life. We should help the women as well as the unborn baby.
Regarding the child being “unwanted”, many of us were “unwanted” when we were first conceived. There would be A LOT less of us around if people were all eliminated based upon our mother’s first reaction.
Alan, your stated peak date of c. 1976 is incorrect. Actually, the abortion rate reached its peak in 1981 at 29.3. It reached its lowest rate in 2017 at 13.5. After three decades of decline, the abortion rate ticked up slightly in 2020 to 14.4. There is some speculation that the increase was at least partially due to the uncertainty resulting from Covid.
Although your numbers were incorrect, you are correct that younger generations since Roe continue to walk away from abortion. The humanity of the unborn is increasingly obvious. Ultrasound photos are now often the baby’s first photo, passed around joyously among family members.
Why do you say, “thankfully they didn’t” when referring to the declining abortion rate? Is it because inherently you too recognize that the beginning human life has value? Abortion is not simply akin to removing a mole.
A human is a human. The position of valuing one human life over another is the very basis of oppression throughout the world. Every human life has intrinsic value. When we start to put people in categories, we are all eventually put at risk.
Norman, laws are a reflection of society’s values. Our nation was founded on the fundamental Right to Life. It is the first right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and reiterated in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Furthermore, building consensus regarding the value of each human life and passing laws accordingly is the very model of American governance – as far from fascism as you can get.
Regarding building that societal consensus, there is already consensus among biologists that each human life begins at conception. In a landmark study in 2019 Steve Jacobs “emailed surveys to professors in the biology departments of over 1,000 institutions around the world.” The results showed that the vast majority of biologists believe that life begins at conception. Jacobs wrote, “I found that 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization…” That is a huge, cross-cultural sample of experts in the field, namely biologists. Biology is the scientific study of life.
Jed, a beginning human being is “irreplaceable and valuable” simply because of its CORE identity. We as a society value human life – at least we say we do. You continue to avoid the scientific evidence provided that there is almost universal consensus among biologists that each UNIQUE human life begins at conception.
Your argument is utilitarian and based on the subjective, shifting criteria of how much a person is “loved”. You state that as long as someone is “loved” and there is sufficient investment of “emotion, energy and finance” then that “loved” person is “contributing significantly”.
Valuing a person’s life based on whether or not they are “loved” at any particular point in time is dangerous. You finish with the false assumption that the unborn are “unwanted” and therefore subject to elimination.
Even under your dangerous criteria that a human life is only valuable if it is loved and wanted, you make a false assumption that the unborn humans subject to abortion are unloved and will remain unloved. Many women who choose abortion come to regret that decision and later want the child once they are past the time of crisis.
Also, it is estimated that there are 1-2 million couples waiting to adopt each year.
Austin, you continue to ignore the scientific evidence regarding fetal pain and sentience cited from the American College of Pediatrics publication, the research by Steve Jacobs that found 96% of biologists world-wide affirm that each human life begins at conception, and the specific Biblical scriptures illuminating personhood and value prior to birth. You only continue with insults and your own opinion.
Here is one more point of actual research that we ask you to respond to if you can do so with an actual cited response from research. You claim to be supporting women but in fact you are doing the opposite. We suggest you read, “Women Who Suffered Emotionally from Abortion: A Qualitative Synthesis of Their Experiences“. This article is published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 22 Number 4 Winter 2017.
This was a large nation-wide study of 987 respondents who had sought post-abortive care. Here are some of the astounding facts which speak to the coercion and emotional pain often involved in abortion decisions:
“58.3% of the women reported aborting to make others happy, 73.8% disagreed that their decision to abort was entirely free from even subtle pressure from others to abort, 28.4% aborted out of fear of losing their partner if they did not abort…”.
Women and unborn children deserve better than abortion. They deserve support.