Abortion Debate Essay, Research Paper

In Roman times, abortion and the destruction of unwanted children was

permissible. As our 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 Geneva 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 too 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 override 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.

The entire fetus needs to grow into a baby, a child, and an old man, are 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 eight 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. Who will

pay for there abortions? With Medicare, of course, it is you and I. I know one

full pregnancy costs most than an abortion, but not much more. And it does not

cost more than three abortions 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 baby or an

unwanted baby 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 defenseless than a newborn

baby 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 parent 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 defenseless, very

beginnings of life. Let us marshal 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 do 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 marshal our technology and humanity in the

service of the unfortunate.