Abortion: Murder or Convenience?

Abortion: Murder or Convenience?

The woman was 22 weeks pregnant when she sought the assistance of Dr. Martin Haskell, the originator of the partial-birth abortion procedure, to rid herself of her already-kicking child. Haskell performed the first stage of the partial-birth abortion. He inserted a seaweed-based substance into the woman's cervix and instructed her to return the following day. But in this case, things did not go according to plan. The woman complained of severe abdominal pain on the first night and, being far from Haskell's clinic, reported to the emergency room of her local hospital, Bethesda North, in Cincinnati. As she was being examined (she did not say she was pregnant), the baby was born - alive. Pediatricians and neonatologists came running. The baby girl weighed in at 1 pound.

The doctors decided that the child was very unlikely to survive and instructed that nothing be done. Connie Boyles, a nurse, and Shelly Lowe, a medical technician, saw the baby girl gasp for air and were stunned. Lowe, knowing that the nurses were busy caring for other patients in the emergency room, asked if she could hold the child she dubbed "Baby Hope" until she died. The request was granted. Lowe wrapped Baby Hope in a blanket and settled into a rocking chair for what she imagined would be just a few minutes. She sang to her and stroked her cheeks. "I wanted her to feel that she was wanted," Lowe explained later. "She was a perfectly formed newborn, entering the world too soon, through no choice of her own."

The baby sucked on her lower lip, opened and closed her hands, and moved a bit as Lowe held her. She also did something else - she continued to breathe on her own. After three hours, Baby Hope died in the arms of the compassionate Shelly Lowe. The state of Ohio issued her a death certificate. The cause of death was listed as "extreme pre-maturity secondary to induced abortion." Lowe was asked at a press conference what her position on abortion was. She said she had been pro-choice but was now pro-life. What changed her mind? Three hours. (http://www.gravityteen.com/pregnancy/kickin.cfm?StoryID=52)

Many people believe that a woman has control over her body, but is the "blob of tissue" inside her really part of her body? Many scientists say "no," they say that life begins at conception. Dr. Matthews-Roth of Harvard Medical School has given over 20 resources that agree with and support the fact that life begins at conception. Certainly a woman has the right to control her own body, but the unborn baby, though living inside her body for a time, is not part of her body. To say likewise would be to say every mother has four arms, two heads, four legs and in the case of a male conception - a penis and testicles. And, if it's not part of the mother's body, does she still has the right to choose what to do when while this unwanted "mistake" is in her body?

Pro-choice activists state that a woman has the choice to do what she wants with what is hers. In the words of our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, "No one has the choice to choose what is wrong." Murderers make the choice to kill and are appropriately punished for it. How so is abortion different? As previously stated, the baby is not part of a mother's body. In a nationwide poll of voters in 2001, the majority believed that abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter, while only thirty-five percent does not destroy a human life and is not manslaughter. Why do mothers who kill their babies after they are born receive jail time and mothers who have an abortion remain innocent?

What about the extremely rare and few cases of rape and incest? Although these cases are rare and very few in number, the fact that they do occur can not be avoided. But to argue that abortion should be legalized on account of these rare extremities would be like arguing that traffic law should be abolished because a sick person may need to be rushed to the hospital. To argue for the legalization of abortion, based on rape and insect, does not justify the necessity of abortions on call. Also if a rape is reported early enough, there are procedures that can help so the sperm from the aggressor doesn't fertilize the victim's eggs. These procedures don't kill anything; they simply make the walls of the egg harder, but not impossible to penetrate. The baby is as much of a victim as the mother. Some pro-choice people say that pro-lifers lack compassion, because they force a woman to carry a baby against her will, but the rapist is the one who, in fact, has forced the woman to carry the baby.

When a woman has an abortion, she risks many things. Infection and extreme bleeding are just among the many. Infertility, Breast cancer and death are also among the risks of having an abortion. An induced abortion raises a woman's chance of getting breast cancer before the age of forty- five by fifty percent. If done before the age of eighteen, it increases one hundred and fifty percent. Three hundred forty-two deaths from legal abortions where reported from 1973- 1987. The government stopped collecting these statistics in 1987, because doctors were incorrectly reporting the number of deaths from abortions. The main causes of infertility after abortion are: blocked fallopian tubes caused by pelvic infection, scar tissue caused by damage