I have always loved kids, even when I myself was a kid. My mom has a picture of me as a two year-old feeding a bottle to my younger brother while I drank out of my own bottle. I am normally easy going, reserved, introverted. Yet I become very bold and animated when I see children suffering, especially at the hands of adults. I transform. People say, “Kevin, I never imagined you acting that way.”
Speaking up for kids is worth it.
That personality trait of mine is why my wife and I want to be foster parents, and why we love babysitting. That is also why I ardently speak AGAINST the heinous act of abortion. In my opinion, it is nothing short of child abuse and murder.
I present the arguments infavor of abortion that I have heard and counteract it with my own arguments:
Women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies. Well, there are actually a lot of laws that restrict people's freedom as to what to do with their bodies: for example, ingesting alcohol then driving a car. The law restricts what you can do as far as that goes (i.e. it prohibits it) because it causes harm to other people.
And think of this, if a woman has complete liberty over her body, why is prostitution illegal? It's because nobody lives in a vacuum. If a woman decides to engage in that practice, there are other people involved. The law has decided that the woman and others involved would be negatively impacted. Why can't that same logic be applied to abortion?
Further, I ask, why does the mother have the right to decide what to do with her body but the child doesn't have the right to decide what to do with ITS body? The child is connected to the mother, formed from the mother, yet it has a body of its own. Why doesn't it count as a human being with rights?
This leads to my next rebuttal:
The fetus doesn't count as a human being. I hate this argument, because if people agree that the baby isn't even human, then they rationalize that killing it makes it justifiable and less heart wrenching; in other words, that would mean abortion isn't murder. This argument blatantly ignores the fact that a fetus is essentially a developing child. It feels. It lives. It is a life. How can you see a fetus and not marvel at the human child sprouting? That's the truth, and no euphemistic label can change that.
There are humane abortion procedures. Another reason I hate the argument that the fetus isn't human is that it justifies this argument: it makes people believe that abortion can be humane. They reason that if the fetus isn't human, then it doesn't feel, and you don't have to feel guilty for performing an abortion.
Don't kid yourselves: the child (yes, the fetus is a child) feels, much earlier in the pregnancy than you think. Why do you think they shift themselves in the womb? Why do they kick? Stop rationalizing: there's no such thing as a humane abortion.
Even if there was an abortion procedure where the fetus felt nothing, and died quickly and painlessly, it doesn't change how cruel it is. A murder where the victim doesn't feel a thing is still a murder.
We're preventing the child from having a bad life. You don't know that.There are countless instances of people born into all sorts of less-than-ideal circumstances who overcome and succeed. Should we commit genocide against anyone whose future isn't bright? Who lives in challenging circumstances? Why should a child be killed on the assumption that his or her life will be awful?
Life is sweet, and children certainly don't deserve to be deprived of it.
If the parents (or mother, if the father chooses not to be involved) can't afford a child, they should have the option of aborting the pregnancy. Ok, then with that same logic, it would be justifiable for every parent who goes bankrupt to line up their kids and shoot them in the head. Then would you continue to say, "Parents have a right to choose what to do with their own flesh and blood, so I'll look the other way"?
If poverty meant you couldn't have kids, why are there lots of big families in poor countries? It's partially due to lack of contraception, but it's also because such families realize that they can make things work. No matter how big the family is.
Abortion is not the answer.
And do you think that abortion is cheap?
People are going to do it anyway. They might as well legitimize it so that professionals can do it right. This is a huge fallacy. That argument alone is never a good enough reason to not outlaw something.
For example, let's apply this same logic to murder. Murder is illegal, but people do it anyway. Making murder illegal means it more challenging to commit the murder, which makes the murder uglier instead of quick and clean if it were legal. If you can't stand someone, who am I to get in your way? No one should make you deal with that person. Murder being illegal means those who do it have no legitimate recourses. Therefore they have to resort to dirty, sketchy, back alley methods if they want to do it.
Based on the foregoing logic, murders could be performed more efficiently and humanely if we gave professionals the license to do it without intervention from the law. Why does no one make these arguments in favor of legalizing murder? Because we all agree that murder is wrong and that making it difficult is the point of making it illegal!
Just because people will do something anyway doesn't mean it's permissible.
Those mothers have no other option. So putting up the baby for adoption or raising the child on your own isn't an option? There are thousands childless couples who yearn for the opportunity of raising a baby.
In fact, one adoption agency, LDS family services, which my wife and I were hoping to adopt through, no longer provides adoption services. Why? Because a puny number of children are being placed for adoption. Perhaps more mothers are keeping their babies, but it's hard not to believe that abortions are largely to blame for the paltry availability of children to adopt. That's devastating to my wife and me. We WANT kids and too many biological parents are too selfish to provide people like us with that opportunity.
People should be able to have sex without being forced to give birth to a child they don't want. It disgusts me that people want to have abortion based on this argument. I loathe the thought that abortion is another contraceptive. They angrily demand the ability to have all the sex they want, no consequences, no commitment. People who argue in favor of abortion for those reasons are real monsters.
I hate the idea that children should die so adults can have unrestricted sex.
What about the teenage girls that go too far with their boyfriends? I understand that a teenage couple, thinking with their hormones, can get carried away without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions. That happens. They deserve compassion. Most of the time such people don't deserve harsh labels that they often receive. Raising the baby probably would be disastrous for the parents (or just the mother, if the father chooses not to be involved), although even then there are exceptions.
Adoption can literally and figuratively be a life-saver in that circumstance.
But what if the mother doesn't want to go through a pregnancy? Well, do you think abortion is a piece of cake? Do you think killing an unborn child is like a day at the spa? One cannot expect to be pregnant yet have their life completely unaffected by pregnancy.
But what if the mother's life is in danger? Or the pregnancy is a result of rape? I think abortion is justifiable in a handful of rare circumstances: for example, rape, or when the mother's life is in danger. I met a doctor that says that it's rare that a mother and child's life can't be saved, but it happens once in a blue moon. And it's horrible to me to think a woman should be forced to accept a pregnancy thrust upon her by a vile and criminal act. This doesn't necessarily mean that the abortion wouldn't be heart-wrenching for the mother, so she should ponder the decision carefully.
I think it's interesting, though, how I hardly ever hear people use that argument. It seems that more often the people in favor of abortion default to the rhetoric of "A woman has a right to decide what to do with her body." Or "She shouldn't have to have the baby if she doesn't want to."
And again, I ask, why does the mother get to have that choice but not the baby? That baby is a human being unto itself. It has rights, too. The fact that it is innocent and incapable of speaking for itself makes the act of depriving it of its life that much more appalling.
But you can't restrict women like that. Well, the tough truth is that being a mother means sacrificing freedoms and suffering inconveniences. Anyone who has ever raised a child can corroborate that. Pro-life people aren't inconveniencing you. Being a mother is.
I know my comments may be offensive to some, and I accept that. I would rather have people be offended so that more children can live. And like I said, I've always loved kids and am very bold and outspoken when defending them.
