Inventions Essay, Research Paper

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.