In 1973 the United States Supreme court made an arbitrary ...



1.

Lorraine Bonifanti

Mr. King

12th Grade Sociology

January 11, 2001

Abortion

In 1973 the United States Supreme Court made an arbitrary decision to make abortion legal. Roe vs. Wade was not founded on legal precedent, medical evidence or Biblical principles.

Abortion is responsible for the deaths of 4400 children every day. [i] The most recent statistics calculate that one and a half million children die each year because of abortion. [ii] The US Constitution protects the right to life. The right to privacy is irrelevant because it disregards the fact that the baby is a separate entity from the mother. As to whether a fetus is a person or a non-person, there is more medical evidence to prove that it is alive than there is to disprove it. The Supreme Court is not entitled to label anyone a non-person regardless. The Bible says that murder is wrong and that every life is precious to God. These three arguments will be further expounded upon in the pages following.

Legal

On January 22nd 1973, in the case of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in all fifty states. [iii] Though once considered illegal, abortion slowly became accepted in Asia and Europe then rapidly spread to other countries including the United States. [iv] The decision to legalize abortion in America came about when the

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court ruled that the state is able to decide whether a woman was able to receive an abortion. The case of Roe vs. Wade brought up the issue of viability. The fetus is considered viable when it is able to function on its own. [v] All doctors determine viability differently so therefore this argument is irrelative. Even a newborn is unable to live very long without the aid of its mother. [vi] The law is very lenient and vague as to when a fetus is considered a child. Sandra Day O’ Conner who is currently a Supreme Court Justice, is quoted as saying,

The difficulty with this analysis is clear: potential life is no less potential in the first weeks of pregnancy than it is at viability or afterwards…The choice of viability as the point at which the state’s interest in potential life becomes compelling is no less arbitrary than choosing any point before viability or any point afterward. Accordingly, I believe that the state’s interest in protecting potential human life exists throughout the pregnancy.[vii]

One of the main functions of the law is to protect the rights of the individual. [viii] The Fourteenth Amendment states that no one can be deprived of “life, liberty or property.” [ix] Many pro-choice supporters use the right to privacy as their principle argument. The US Constitution does not hold privacy above human life. [x] In the same way the law restricts the individual’s right to choose if their choice harms an innocent person. [xi] For example, if a murderer decides to kill someone in the privacy of his own home should he not be condemned? The law should limit man’s rights to choose. The law is a guide to protect man from his own bad choices. In 1857 the Dred Scott case declared that slaves were not regarded as legal persons. [xii] The US later abolished this law giving African Americans citizenship. Abraham Lincoln who was against slavery

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I should like to know of taking this old Declaration of Independence which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it, where will it stop. If one man says, it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean another man? [xiii]

The law contradicts itself by convicting murderers of double homicide if they kill pregnant women. The US Congress delayed the capital punishment of a pregnant woman in 1974 until after her baby was born. [xiv] How can the fetus be considered a person in one case and not the other? A Professor at Harvard University Medical School, holds to the belief that

It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data. [xv]

The court has given permission to doctors who are members of the American Medical Association to starve children with defects. [xvi] This was the fate of a child named Baby Doe in the 1980s who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. [xvii] This is a blatant act of infanticide and revokes the right to live from children.

In a recent ruling the US Supreme Court, though finding no “constitutional right” to euthanasia, still permits the state to decide if they will accept assisted suicide. [xviii] This further excuses the killing off of a group of people. First children now senior citizens are considered expendable by law.

Many pro-choice activists argue that if abortions were made illegal women would seek them anyway. [xix] These activists ignore the fact that drugs are illegal yet they still

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are rampant in our society. Making something legal does not make it right.

There are many different types of legal abortions. Among the most gruesome are saline solution abortions, and partial birth abortions. In the former, the mother’s womb is injected with a saline solution. [xx] This slowly burns the baby’s skin and is

ingested into their systems. [xxi] Labor is induced and if the child is still not dead after two hours of burning, it is either left to die, or suffocated by the doctor. [xxii] Partial birth abortion is performed on babies five months or older. [xxiii] This procedure takes three days and involves stabbing the baby at the base of the skull, inserting a vacuum to suck out its brains allowing the skull to collapse. [xxiv] In both cases the dead body is thrown in a trashcan like a piece of garbage. These are such heinous acts that it is amazing that the law does not view abortion as murder.

The opinion [Roe v. Wade] fails even to consider what I would suppose to be the most compelling interest of the state in prohibiting abortion: the interest in maintaining that respect for the paramount sanctity of human life which has

always been at the center of Western Civilization. [xxv]

Archibald Cox

The United States government has never condoned murder. There is no legal precedent that gives one person the right to kill another. Making abortion legal made murder acceptable. The Supreme Court used their personal opinions instead of previous law in making this decision. They went against the precedent that abortion was illegal and determined for themselves that fetuses are not people. This issue was not voted for by the people or state legislators. [xxvi] By giving women the right to choose abortion, the law now infringes upon the child’s rights.

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Medical

To say that a fetus is not a person is inconsistent with medical evidence. It is a separate human being with its own genetic code from birth. [xxvii] Even at two weeks the baby’s heart begins to beat and it makes its own blood. [xxviii] At six weeks the baby develops fingers. [xxix] At six and a half weeks the baby starts to move. [xxx] The mother does not feel this movement until several weeks later. [xxxi] The first sign of movement is called quickening. Just because the mother does not feel the baby inside of her from the moment of conception, does not mean it is not alive until she does. Ronald Reagan wrote of the confusion of whether the fetus is alive: “If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.” [xxxii] The fetus has all the characteristics of a human being days into the pregnancy.

Despite the notion that abortion can improve the health of the mother, it has been proven that there are more negative consequences as a result of abortion than positive. Women who receive abortions often have problems emotionally as well as physically. The acute pain of an abortion has been compared to cancer pain. [xxxiii] Many women develop sleep disorders, depression, nightmares, and guilt disorders. [xxxiv] The suicide rate is higher among women who have had abortions. [xxxv] The list of physical complications following an abortion are numerous. The ability to have children in the future is drastically reduced, and the risk of contracting Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and breast cancer, along with other medical problems is increased. [xxxvi] The risk of these

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problems increases with each abortion the mother has. [xxxvii] Partial birth abortion also is detrimental to a woman’s health as well as other types of abortion:

Contrary to what abortion activists would have us believe, partial birth abortion is never medically indicated to protect a woman’s health or future fertility. In fact, the opposite is

true. The procedure can pose a significant and immediate threat to both the pregnant woman’s health and fertility. [xxxviii]

Other than a heart transplant, saline solution abortions have one of the highest fatality rates for the mother. [xxxix] The saline can poison the mother causing her untimely death. [xl] More women have died from abortion in the United States since abortion has been legalized. [xli] It is estimated that 750,000 women die from abortions each year. [xlii] The numbers would increase except for the fact that many deaths are not accurately reported. [xliii] Though abortion was the cause of death, the doctor either covers it up, or is unaware that it was a result of an abortion. [xliv] The mother puts herself at a greater health risk by having an abortion, instead of delivering her child at the appropriate time.

Unborn babies are treated for sickness while in the womb. [xlv] This confirms that they are patients and should be saved at any cost. The medical profession has gone to great lengths to save premature babies. The only difference between the aborted baby and the premature baby is that one is still inside its mother. All doctors pledge to, “maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception until death.” [xlvi] Yet abortion doctors fail to follow this creed, generally for a profit.

The notion that the baby feels no pain during abortion is erroneous. The baby experiences unbearable pain especially in partial birth abortion because it has not developed the part of their brain that reduces pain. [xlvii] The “morning after pill” RU-486,

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starves and suffocates the baby inside the uterus. [xlviii] The fetus is not just a blob of tissue that does not feel any part of the painful abortion.

Most abortions are performed for convenience. Ninety three percent of all abortions are conducted because of social or birth control reasons. [xlix] A small percentage of abortions (less than 7%), are done to reduce the threat to the health of the mother, or because of rape or incest. [l] If a victim of rape is taken to the hospital within hours of the rape, the sperm is prevented from reaching the egg and producing an embryo. This procedure does not harm the fetus if it has already been fertilized. Medical reports reveal that all patients who are medically treated after rape never get pregnant. [li] The child of rape like the mother is an innocent victim. Though it may be difficult psychologically as well as physically for the mother to carry the child of a rapist, she would suffer more if she adds abortion to the already traumatic situation.

There is enough medical evidence to prove that the fetus is not just disposable tissue. It has its complete DNA from the time it is born. The mother of an aborted child often develops emotional and/or physical ailments. If doctors care for the fetus while still in the womb how can they justify that it is a non-person. It is their responsibility to

protect the lives of their patients. Would they commit the same acts on a delivered

baby? Finally, how can the fetus only be made of tissue if it is able to feel, react and suffer from the painful deeds being performed on it?

Moral

In addition to the medical consequences of having an abortion, there are moral and Biblical reasons why abortion is wrong.

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Some of the reasons given for having an abortion are the lack of finances, reducing the risk of a handicap, birth control and child abuse. Beethoven was not only in a family with many siblings, he was poor. [lii] What if his mother had aborted him? Doctors are often wrong in their diagnosis. They may think the child will be handicap, but in all actuality the baby is perfectly healthy. Besides, who is to say a handicapped child will be a burden, and unhappy? This way of thinking leads to eliminating all handicapped people in order to create a perfect race of human beings. Since abortion has been legalized, child abuse has actually increased. [liii] Planned pregnancies have a higher rate of child abuse than those that are “unwanted.” [liv] This proves that the belief that abortion prevents child abuse is a fallacy.

The Supreme Court not only went against man’s law, they went against the doctrine our country was founded on: the Bible.

Our country’s laws are based on the Bible. The United States Constitution is not unlike the Ten Commandments. Both state, in different words, “Do not murder.” (Exodus 20:13) [lv] Both demand harsh punishment of someone who murders a pregnant woman:

If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life. (Exodus 21:22-23)

In Genesis 9:6 God commands: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” [lvi] The Supreme Court

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neglected to include the Bible in their decision. If they had they would have recognized that abortion is immoral and wrong.

The Bible says we are to show respect for life. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” [lvii] If man is created in the image of God, than every human being, born and unborn is special. There are more reports of young parents killing their newborns since abortion has become legal. [lviii] In 1981 a mother threw her premature baby from a window to its death, and was not punished because in a month it could have been aborted. [lix] Pro-lifers were denied the right to bury aborted children because they were considered “not human.” [lx] Yet animals are given the right to be buried and even have their own cemeteries. [lxi] This shows that animals have more rights than babies. As a society the United States has lost its respect for life.

In terms of when a fetus is considered human, the Bible clearly indicates that people are in existence before birth. In Psalm 139:13 David writes, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” [lxii] Psalm 51:5 says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” [lxiii]In Jeremiah 1:5 God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” [lxiv] God had a plan for Jeremiah before he was born. He has a plan for his children. Abortion takes God’s children out of this world without their consent.

There are many verses that tell Christians to stand up for the innocent: “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

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Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hands of the wicked.” [lxv] (Psalm 82:3-4) Aborted babies are unable to fight for themselves. Therefore it is the job

of Christians and the law to protect these children.

We cannot play God. If it is His will that these babies are conceived, it is His desire that they be born. The Holocaust came about because Hitler decided he wanted a group of people, the Jews, to be annihilated. [lxvi] Everyone opposed this because it was morally wrong. Killing children to avoid inconvenient circumstances is not considered morally wrong or else it would be forbidden.

The majority of abortions are chosen by women who are not married. The Bible says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable.” [lxvii] (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4) In 1 Corinthians 6:18, Paul writes, “ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” [lxviii] If people followed God’s laws to begin with, abortion would not be an option. God gives us consequences for our sins. When the law tries to get rid of the consequences for a sin, the country will inevitably fall.

Due to the lack of moral guidance, the Supreme Court went against God’s laws allowing women to remove their consequences. It is never Biblically right to have an abortion. It is up to God who lives and dies. God holds human life with high regard. In His Word He reveals people are alive at conception. When abortion was legalized human life was depreciated and the United States Supreme Court took the law in their own hands and out of God’s.

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The decision made by the Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade was wrong Biblically, medically, and lawfully. The baby is a separate person from its mother. It has all of its chromosomes and DNA needed for life. The mother does not have the right to take the life of her child. Her rights interfere with the baby’s life. The law protects the right to live for all US citizens. It does not favor one life above another. Abortion is not only painful to the baby, but to the mother. The mother can suffer emotionally, physically, and psychologically. It is the doctor’s job to save the life of his patients. If babies are treated for sicknesses in the womb, and nursed when they are premature, they are patients inside the mother. If every handicapped child is prevented from living, and senior citizens are allowed to commit suicide, the US will revert back to the Holocaust. It is in God’s hands who lives and dies. If man begins to choose who is allowed to live, it will only result in chaos.

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End Notes

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[i] Randy Alcorn, ProLife Answers to Pro Choice Arguments (USA: Multnomah Books, 1992)27.

[ii] RC Sproul, Abortion:A Rational look at an Emotional Issue (Colorado: Navpress, 1990) 110.

[iii] Dr. and Mrs. JC Willke, Abortion: Questions & Answers (Ohio: Hayes Publishing Company Inc, 1985) 20.

[iv] Laurence H. Tribe, Abortion the Clash of Absolutes (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990) 68.

[v] Sproul 63.

[vi] Willke 24.

[vii] Sproul 63.

[viii] Sproul 20.

[ix] Sproul 46.

[x] Alcorn 88.

[xi] Alcorn 82.

[xii] Alcorn 103.

[xiii] Ronald Regan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984) 28-29.

[xiv] Alcorn 46.

[xv] Alcorn 41.

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[xvi] Ralph Mahoney, “The American Medical Association’s Approved Methods for Murder,” World Map Digest January/February 1990: 7.

[xvii] Norman L. Geislerd, “Wretched Refuse?,” 1988: 17.

[xviii] David Bunnell, “Supreme Court Finds No ‘Constitutional Right’ to Euthanasia,” LifeLines 4 August 1997, sec. 1: 1.

[xix] Alcorn 120.

[xx] Mahoney 4.

[xxi] Mahoney 4.

[xxii] Mahoney 4.

[xxiii] “Partial Abortion: A Chink in the Pro Abortion Armor.” Concerned Women for America 3 April 2000. 16 Dec. 2000 ................
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