Abortion Essay, Research Paper

Click Here to Visit our Sponsor

Abortion Life or Death ??? Who Chooses?

In Roman times, abortion and the destruction of unwanted children was permissible, but as out civilization has aged, it

seems that such acts were no longer acceptable by rational human beings, so that in 1948, Canada along with most

other nations in the world signed a declaration of the United Nations promising every human being the right to life. The

World Medical Association meeting in Geneve at the same time, stated that the utmost respect for human life was to be

from the moment of conception. This declaration was re-affirmed when the World Medical Association met in Oslo in

1970. Should we go backwards in our concern for the life of an individual human being? The unborn human is still a

human life and not all the wishful thinking of those advocating repeal of abortion laws, can alter this. Those of us who

would seek to protect the human who is still to small to cry aloud for it’s own protection, have been accused of having a

19th Century approach to life in the last third of the 20th Century. But who in reality is using arguments of a bygone

Century? It is an incontrovertible fact of biological science – Make no Mistake – that from the moment of conception, a

new human life has been created. Only those who allow their emotional passion to overide their knowledge, can deny it:

only those who are irrational or ignorant of science, doubt that when a human sperm fertilizes a human ovum a new

human being is created. A new human being who carries genes in its cells that make that human being uniquely different

from any and other human being and yet, undeniably a member, as we all are, of the great human family. All the fetus

needs to grow into a babe, a child, an old man, is time, nutrition and a suitable environment. It is determined at that very

moment of conception whether the baby will be a boy or a girl; which of his parents he will look like; what blood type

he will have. His whole heritage is forever fixed. Look at a human being 8 weeks after conception and you, yes every

person here who can tell the difference between a man and a women, will be able to look at the fetus and tell me

whether it is a baby boy or a girl. No, a fetus is not just another part of a women’s body like an appendix or

appendage. These appendages, these perfectly formed tiny feel belong to a 10 week developed baby, not to his or her

mother. The fetus is distinct and different and has it’s own heart beat. Do you know that the fetus’ heart started beating

just 18 days after a new life was created, beating before the mother even knew she was pregnant? By 3 months of

pregnancy the developing baby is just small enough to be help in the palm of a man’s hand but look closely at this 3

month old fetus. All his organs are formed and all his systems working. He swims, he grasps a pointer, he moves freely,

he excretes urine. If you inject a sweet solution into the water around him, he will swallaw because he likes the taste.

Inject a bitter solution and he will quit swallowing because he does not like the taste. By 16 weeks it is obvious to all,

except those who have eyes but deliberately do not see, that this is a young human being. Who chooses life or death for

this little one because abortion is the taking of a human life? This fact is undeniable; however much of the members of

the Women’s Liberation Movement, the new Feminists, Dr. Henry Morgentaler or the Canadian Medical Association

President feel about it, does not alter the fact of the matter. An incontrovertible fact that cannot change as feelings

change. If abortion is undeniably the taking of human life and yet sincere misguided people feel that it should be just a

personal matter between a women and the doctor, there seems to be 2 choices open to them. (1) That they would

believe that other acts of destruction of human beings such as infanticide and homicide should be of no concern of

society and therefore, eliminate them from the criminal code. This I cannot believe is the thinking of the majority,

although the tendency for doctors to respect the selfish desire of parents and not treat the newborn defective with a

necessary lifesaving measure, is becoming increasingly more common. (2) But for the most part the only conclusion

available to us is that those pressing for repeal of the abortion laws believe that there are different sorts of human beings

and that by some arbitrary standard, they can place different values on the lives of there human beings. Of course,

different human beings have different values to each of us as individuals: my mother means more to me than she does to

you. But the right to life of all human beings is undeniable. I do not think this is negotiable. It is easy to be concerned

with the welfare of those we know and love, while regarding everybody else as less important and somehow, less real.

Most people would rather have heard of the death of thousands in the Honduras flooding disaster than of a serious

accident involving a close friends or favourite relatives. That is why some are less disturbed by the slaughter of

thousands of unborn children than by the personal problems of a pregnant women across the street. To rationalize this

double standard, they pretend to themselves that the unborn child is a less valuable human life because it has no active

social relationships and can therefore, be disposed of by others who have an arbitrary standard of their own for the

value of a human life. I agree that the fetus has not developed it’s full potential as a human being: but neither have any of

us. Nor will any of us have reached that point: that point of perfect humaness, when we die. Because some of us may

be less far along the path than others, does not give them the right to kill us. But those in favour of abortion, assume that

they have that right, the standard being arbitrary. To say that a 10 week fetus has less value that a baby, means also that

one must consider a baby of less value than a child, a young adult of less value than an old man. Surely one cannot

believe this and still be civilized and human. A society that does not protect its individual members is on the lowest scale

of civilized society. One of the measures of a more highly civilized society, is its attitude towards its weaker members. If

the poor, the sick, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the helpless are not protected, the society is not as advanced as in a

society where they are protected. The more mature the society is, the more there is respect for the dignity and rights of

all human beings. The function of the laws of the society, is to protect and provide for all members so that no individual

or group of individuals can be victimized by another individual group. Every member of Canadian society has a vital

stake in what value system is adopted towards its weak, aged, cripple, it’s helpless intra-uterine members; a vital stake

in who chooses life or death. As some of you may know, in 1969, the abortion laws were changed in Canada, so that it

became legal for a doctor to perform an abortion if a committee of 3 other doctors in an eccredited hospital deemed

that continuation of the pregnancy constituted a severe threat to the life and health, mental or physical of the women.

Threat to health was not defined and so it is variously interpreted to mean very real medical disease to anything that

interferes with even social or economic well being, so that any unwanted or unplanned pregnancy thus qualifies. What

really is the truth about the lasting effect of an unwanted pregnancy on the psyche of a womem? Of course there is a

difference of opinion among psychiatrists, but if unbiased, prospective studies are examined certain facts become

obvious. (1) The health of women who are mentally ill before they become pregnant, is not improved by an abortion. In

fact in 1970 an official statement of the World Health Organization said, “Serious mental disorders arise more often in

women previous mental problems. Thus the very women for whom legal abortion is considered justified on psychiatric

grounds, are the ones who have the highest risk of post-abortion psychiatric disorders. (2) Most women who are

mentally healthy before unwanted pregnancy, despite a temporary emotional upset during the early weeks for the

pregnancy, are mentally healthy after the pregnancy whether they were aborted or carried through to term. Do we

accept killing a human being because of a temporary, emotional upset? All obstetricians and gynaecologists know of

many cases where the mother, be her single or married, has spoken of abortion early in the pregnancy and later on, has

confessed her gratitude to those who have not performed the abortion. On the other hand, we have all seen women

what have been troubled, consumed with guilt and development significant psychiatric problems following and because

of abortion. I quote Ft. John L. Grady, Medical Examiner for Florida State Attorney’s Office, “I believe it can be stated

with certainty that abortion causes more deep-seated guilt, depression and mental illness than it ever cures”. We used to

hear a lot about the risk of suicide among those who threatened such action if their request for abortion was refused.

How real is that risk – it is not – in fact, the suicide rate among pregnant women be they happy of unhappy about the

pregnancy, is 1/4 of the rate among non-pregnant women in child-bearing years. An accurate 10 year study was done

in England on unwed mothers who requested abortions and were refused. It was found that the suicide rate of this

group was less than that average population. In Minnesota in a 15 year period, there were only 14 maternal suicides. 11

occurred after delivery. None were illegitimately pregnant. All were psychotic. In contrast, among the first 8 deaths of

women aborted under the liberal law in the United Kingdon, 2 were from suicide directly following the abortion. Are

there any medical indications for abortion?? Is it valid for a doctor to co-operate in the choice for abortion? The late

Dr. Guttmacher, one of the world leaders of the pro-abortion movement, has stated: “Almost any women can be

brought through pregnancy alive unless she suffers from cancer or leukemia, in which case abortion is unlikely to

prolong her life much less save it.” As an opponent to abortion, I will readily agree, as will all those who are against

abortion, that pregnancy resulting from rape or incest is a tragedy. Rape is a detestable crime, but no sane reasoning

can place the slightest blame on the unborn child it might produce. Incest is, if that is possible, even worse, but for

centuries, traditional Jewish law has clearly stated, that if a father sins against his daughter (incest) that does not justify a

second crime – the abortion of the product of that sin. The act of rape or incest is the major emotional physical trauma

to the young girl or women. Should we compound the psychic scar already inflicted on the mother by her having the

guilt of destroying a living being which was at least half her own? Throughout history, pregnant women who for one

crime or another were sentenced to death, were given a stay of execution until after the delivery of the child: it being the

contention of courts that one could not punish the innocent child for the crime of the mother. Can we punish it for a

crime against the mother? If rape occurred the victim should immediately report the incident. If this is done, early

reporting of the crime will provide greater opportunity for apprehension and conviction of the rapist, for treatment of

venereal disease and prevention of pregnancy. Let is give our children good sex education; and let us get tough on

pornography, clean up the newstands, literature and “Adult Movies” and television programmes which encourage crime,

abusive drugs and make mockery of morality and good behaviour and therefore, contribute to rape. By some peculiar

trick of adult logic, proponents of abortion talk about fetal indications for act. Whatever abortion may do for the

mother, it so very obviously cannot be therapeutic for the fetus. Death is hardly a constructive therapy. As Dr. Hellegers

of John Hopkins Hospital says, “While it is easy to feel that abortion is being performed for the sake of the fetus,

honesty requires us to recognize that we perform it for adults”. There is no evidence to indicate that an infant with

congenital or birth defect would rather not be born since he cannot be consulted. This evidence might exist if suicides

were common among people with congenital handicaps. However, to the contrary, these seem to value life, since the

incidence of suicide is less than that of the general population. Can we choose death for another while life is all we

ourselves know? Methods are being developed to diagnose certain defects in the infants of mothers at risk before the

infant is born. The fluid around the fetus can be sampled and tested in a very complicated fashion. If we kill infants with

confidential defects before they are born, why not after birth, why not any human being we declare defective? It is no

surprise of course for many of us to learn that in hospitals across North American Continent such decisions affecting the

newborn and the very elderly or those with incurable disease, are being made. What is a defect, what is a congenital

defect? Hitler considered being 1/4 Jewish was a congenital defect incompatible with the right to life. Perhaps you have

all heard this story : One doctor saying to another doctor, “About the termination of a pregnancy, I want your opinion.

The father was syphilitic (venereal disease). The mother tuberculous (small lumps on skin). Of the four children born,

the first was blind, the second died, the third was deaf and dumb, the fourth also tuberculous. What would you have

done?” “I would have ended the pregnancy”. “Then you would have murdered Beethoven”. Not content with the

Abortion Act of 1969 which allows 40,000 unborn children to be killed legally in our country in 1973, many noisy and

emotional people are campaigning for abortion on request. They are aided by a crusading, misguided press and media

which continues to utter as fact, the fiction of fertile imaginative minds. We have been told by the media that the majority

of Canadians wish to have abortion legalized but the latest census taken by the Toronto Star in March of 1989 reports

that 35% of those polled thought that abortion was already easy to obtain, 26% thought it too hard, 19% about right

and 21% had no opinion. Men more then women thought it too hard. Even if the majority did want it, this does not

make it right. Centuries ago, most Americans thought slavery was right. The elected leaders of this country must have

the wisdom and integrity for what is right, not for what might be politically opportune. One of the uttered justifications

for abortion on demand is that every women should have the mastership of her own body, but should she? To quote

Dr. Edwin Connow, “Should she have the right for what is really judicial execution of new life – not a cat, not a chicken

but a human being – not only potential but actual”. In a society one is not totally free to do what one will with one’s own

body (we don’t have the right to get drunk or high on drugs and drive down Young Street.) The great concern has been

shown for the innocent victims of highjacking but what is abortion but this? The highjacking without reprieve, of an

innocent passenger out of his mother’s womb. Should we really leave the right to hijack as a personal decision only?

Those campaigning for further liberalization of the abortion law, hope to make abortion available and safe for all who

wish it during a pregnancy. Qualifications have been placed on the abortion on demand routine by other groups, for

example, a time limit for the duration of pregnancy or clause that the operation be performed in an accredited hospital.

Before exploring the reality of so-called safe abortion, let me tell you a little method of procuring an abortion. Before 13

weeks of pregnancy, the neck of the womb is dilated – a comparatively easy procedure in someone who has already

had a child – much more difficult if childbirth has not occurred. The products of conception in many hospitals are

removed but a suction apparatus – considered safe and better that the curettal scraping method. After 13 weeks

pregnancy, the fetus is too big to be removed in this was and either a dangerous method of injection a solution into the

womb is carried out, this salting out method results in the mother going into what is really a miniature labour and after a

period of time, expelling a very dead often skinned baby. In some hospitals because of the danger of this procedure to

the mother, an operation like a miniature Caesarean section called a hysterotomy has to be performed. There area also

many other methods. Let us now look if we can, at consequences of such license to kill an individual too small to cry for

it’s own protection. Abortion by suction curettage is not just as simple as a pelvic examination performed in a doctor’s

office as Dr. Morgentaler and the television programe W5 who were doing a great disservice to young women in

Canada would have us believe. In Canada as reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (the Statistics from

Statistics Canada), the complication rate and this being for immediate complications of early abortion is 4.5%.

According to the Wyn report with statistics from 12 counties, women who have a previous induced abortion have their

ability to bear children in the future permanently impaired. There is a 5-10% increase in infertility. The chances of these

women having a pregnancy in the tube increases up to 4 times. Premature delivery increases up to 50% and when one

realizes that prematurity is the commonest cause for infants being mentally or physically defective, having cerebral palsy

or other difficulties, then one realizes that those doctors doing abortions in great numbers south of the border or across

the water, even in Canada may not be doing the women and her family a service. They will tell you that abortion has

almost no complications. What most of them will not tell you, is that once the abortion is done they may refuse to see

the women again and that she must take her post-abortal problems elsewhere. Those seeking repeal of the present

abortion law will rapidly point out that nevertheless, it is safer to have a legal abortion than illegal abortions, safer for the

women that is. This I don not dispute, but here is the real rub. Liberalized abortion laws do not eliminate illegal, back

street abortions and in some cases, the overall number of illegal abortions actually rise, usually stays stagnant, and rarely

falls. There are still people who would rather try it themselves or go somewhere they will be completely anonymous.

Another factor enters the total number of people seeking abortion, legal or illegal rises. The overall pregnancy rate

rockets and people become careless with contraception and a women can have 3 or 4 abortions during the time of one

full term pregnancy. Are doctors really being kind to the girl to allow her to choose life or death for her unborn child? In

aborting a 16 year old this year with so-called informed consent, we may be preventing her from having even 1 or 2

children 10 years later when happily married. No, repealing the abortion law does not make it possible for every

women to safely eliminate, what is for her, an unwanted pregnancy. Would limiting abortions to accredited hospitals

make it safer? Yes, safer for the women, not for the fetus and it would jeopardize the continued well being of all of the

members of the community with the gross misuse of the medical manpower, hospital facilities and money. With almost

31,739 abortions performed in Ontario in 1989, the cost to OHIP is about 9 million dollars. Yet to do as has been

done in the U.S.A and the United Kingdom – namely to make legal, abortions is to turn so-called ‘backstreet butchers’

into legal operators. Patients now go into the office through the front door instead of the rear. I have heard it said that is

abortions became available on request, many less children would be born and we could use the pleasant delivery suites

and postnatal beds for abortions. As I have pointed out, however, before today, liberalization of abortion does not

reduce the birth rate. There would be little increase in available facilities or indeed doctor’s time. By the very nature of

the operation and because the longer pregnancy lasts, the more difficult it is, patients for abortions are admitted as

urgent cases or emergencies so that all other members of the community must wait longer for their hospital bed or the

surgery they need. Who will pay for there abortions? With medicare, of course, it is you and I. I know one full tern pregnancy costs most

than an abortion, but not much more. And it does not cost more than 3 abortions and that is what happens when the climate or choice for

life or death of the unborn child changes. Let us use this money for constructive purposes, not destructive. It has been suggested that

abortions on request would enable the poor to secure abortion as easily as the rich but regrettably, it has been shown that

abortion-minded physicians in great demand will respond to the age-old commercial rules, as has already happened in the States and in

Britain. Abortion on demand a women’s right to choose not to continue an unplanned pregnancy would prevent there being unwanted

children in this country, so we are told. This is the final and desperate emotional plea of people anxious, at whatever price, to escape the

responsibility for their actions. Nobody here or in Canada, wants there to be unwanted children in this city, and in this country, and also in

this world. There is nothing more pitiable or heat rending that an unwanted fetus becoming an unwanted babe or an unwanted babe

becoming an unwanted child, or an unwanted child becoming an embittered adult. But few would think it right to kill or have killed an

unwanted baby to prevent it from becoming an unwanted child. Then how can they think it right to kill an unwanted fetus, even more

defenceless than a newborn babe just because it may grow into an unwanted child. Once a women has conceived, she already is a

parent, be it willing or otherwise. The only way she ceases it be a parents is by a natural death or an act of killing. Killing in any form is

not the solution to so-called unwanted human beings at any age. Hitler thought this was right. Canadians surely do not. It is a permissive

and frightened society that does not develop the expertise to control population, civil disorder, crime, poverty, even its own sexuality but

yet would mount an uncontrolled, repeat uncontrolled, destructive attack on the defenceless, very beginnings of life. Let us marshall all our

resources financial, educational, those of social agencies, but above all, of human concern and passion for our fellow humans. Let us by all

means, make available to all, knowledge of conception and methods of contraception. Let us offer ourselves as loving humans to those

already in this country who are unwanted by their natural parents. And incidentally, I am sure I don not need acquaint you with some of

the facts about so-called unwanted children. The Children’s Aid Societies in Toronto and in fact in every major city across our country

have many more potential parents anxious and willing to adopt infants and young children than they have such children available for

adoption. Let us marshall our technology and humanity in the service of the unfortunate. And in conclusion, I would like to read to you a

letter which a member of Birthright received. Dear Birthright: I heard about your work in Birthright and think you can help us. We’re in

our late 20’s and have been married 7 years. After 3 years of waiting, we became the happy adoptive parents of a precious baby girl last

fall. This is how you can help us. Please tell every unwed mother who places her baby for adoption how much we love her. We think

each of those girls are the most generous, charitable, kind devoted and loving mothers on this earth. We know she must have carried her

child out of love or in this day and age should have found some way to have an abortion. We can never thank her enough for the 9

months of time and energy she spent for us. Maybe if she knows that we think she’s the most loving person in this world we will never know, it will help us both. As

Jenny grows older, we are telling her she has two sets of parents. We’ll tell her how she came to be our child this way. Her first mommy didn’t have a home or a

daddy to help love and care for her. She loved her so much that she just couldn’t let her daughter grow up without love of two parents and all the things that make a

happy home. We’ll tell Jenny that her 1st mommy thinks of her often and wonders how she is. She will always love her baby. Maybe our thoughts will someday

reach Jenny’s 1st mommy. What she did was an act of faith in mankind, hope for her daughter’s future and love toward us. We think the strength of her love enabled

her to place her precious baby with us. We have faith that as Jenny grows up learning she was placed out of love and not abandoned by her 1st mommy, both Jenny

and she will be at peace. Thank you.