Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Abortion is Harmful

Abortion is harmful in every instance.  Whether it is legal or in an early stage of the pregnancy, it harms the women in physical, mental, and spiritual ways, and it does not help restore rape victims back to their former way of life, and it also kills helpless unborn babies. In many instances, people state that there are logical reasons to have an abortion, but all the reasons that are given, including that they are too poor to have another child can easily be countered with options that do not produce death. For example a poor woman that is pregnant can easily give her child up for adoption, which would mean giving different couple the chance to enjoy and love the life that she has created. A woman without the means to support a family should also have thought twice then before taking part in the activity that is specifically designed to produce children. An abortion disregards a gift that was given to a man and a woman.

The first reason abortion should be illegal is that it harms women. Leslie Carbone says in her essay “Abortion Harms Women,” that studies have shown that women who have an abortion are three times more likely to commit suicide than the general population of America and six times more likely to commit suicide than women who have given birth to babies (165). In most cases, women admit that they think about their unborn child daily and grieve on every birthday that might have been if they had not killed their child, and when they see other women with children they are reminded of their children would have been if they had not taken the life of their baby. (Carbone 165)  Abortion also harms women physically. Many mothers have become infertile, very sick, or even died from the abortion surgery.  There is also a new found link between abortion and breast cancer. When carrying a baby a mother has hormones that are released in her body so that she can produce milk and a short time before she gives birth these hormones fully develop and mature so that her body can take care of the child. However when a woman then has an abortion, these hormones do not reach their last “maturing” stage and therefore can be very dangerous to the woman and increase her chance of breast cancer or even initiate breast cancer (Carbone 166). Some say since abortion clinics are now legal, abortions are safer. However, all it has done is allow doctors who performed illegal unsafe abortions in the past, the ability to perform legal unsafe abortions.

One prevalent argument for abortion is that if a female is raped she should be allowed to have an abortion. One of the most horrible things that the pro-abortion advocates have achieved is in convincing people that the babies of rape victims are unwanted and somehow disgusting because of the origin of their conception. People are often deceived into thinking that an abortion will erase the memory of being raped or that a baby will be a daily reminder of a horrible event in the victims’ lives.  William Norman Grigg reports in his essay “Rape Does Not Justify Abortion,” that studies have shown, however, that the women who have had an abortion after being raped have even more psychological problems, some of which they never recover from because of the traumatic experiences of both rape and abortion (136). Is it better to choose an abortion over adoption? No. Even though a girl may still have to carry a baby for nine months a human life is still the one natural and good thing that comes from rape. Aborting a baby that was conceived by rape simply perverts the unnatural situation even further. Rape is a terrible thing, but a baby is still a gift no matter what the circumstances.

The last and most important problem with abortion is that it kills people. When a sperm meets an egg the immediate result is fertilization. Neither a sperm nor an egg is considered a living organism, because they cannot sustain life and they do not grow. However the moment the sperm comes in contact egg to fertilize it, the embryo is a living organism, because a fertilized egg is a living growing organism (Gargaro 37).  Abortion is genocide. Every time a woman has an abortion she is murdering her baby, her own flesh and blood. People say that a baby in the womb is just a part of the mother and not a separate being, however even inside the womb a baby has its own blood type. If the mother’s blood mixes with the baby’s blood, the baby dies. How then can we say that a baby is not a human being? It is often said that abortion is not genocide because genocide is a “hate crime,” and abortion clinics do not dislike babies--they just have the mother’s best interests in mind. However according to Gregg Cunningham in his essay “Abortion is Genocid,e” the fact that abortion clinics do not dislike babies does not seem to be the case with clinics of South Dakota and Minnesota which have published the newspaper ad: “BABIES ARE LOUD, SMELLY, AND EXPENSIVE, UNLESS YOU WANT ONE. 1-800-230-PLAN”(57).  This is obviously a degrading statement about babies. In some states contradictorily, if a pregnant mother is killed in a car crash, the person who initiated the crash is charged with two deaths, but these states also declare that babies are not people. If a woman doesn’t want her baby then a woman that is pregnant can easily give her child up for adoption, which would mean giving different couple the chance to enjoy and love the person that she has created.

Abortion is unnatural and harmful to both women and babies. The American culture has come to undervalue life. If abortion is allowed to go on like this, it will make a gateway that might make other disgusting crimes seem less sinister, acceptable, or even encouraged. As explained above, babies are humans from the moment of conception, and to take the life of a human is wrong and repulsive. The line is too fine to say when a collection of cells is actually a baby or not; therefore, a baby is a human from the moment of conception. The abortion clinics also do not inform women about the consequences or effects of having an abortion which often causes great regret in a woman’s life. The abortion clinics also wrongly convince rape victims that their children will be a horrible reminder rather than a beautiful little baby that was created under unfortunate circumstances. In all, women need to be warned before they are undervalued or harmed by the severe effects of abortion.


Works Cited

Carbone, Leslie. “Abortion Harms Women.” Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Mary E. Williams.
San Diego: Greenhaven press, Inc., 2002. 164-168. Print

Cuningham, Gregg. “Abortion is a Form of Genocide.” Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Mary E.
Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven press, Inc., 2002. 54-57. Print

Gargaro C. Carolyn. “Abortion Violates Human Rights.”  Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Mary E.
Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven press, Inc., 2002. 36-44. Print

Grigg, William Norman. “Rape Does Not Justify Abortion.” Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Mary E.
Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven press, Inc., 2002. 135-141. Print

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