Mei An Douros

Mr. Millar

Gov/Econ

November 1, 2018

Informed Citizen Paper (Draft 1)

Abortion is the procedure to end a pregnancy. Getting an abortion is a very personal decision for

any women to consider. If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, she has the choice to abort the

developing embryo or fetus by a procedure that empties the uterus (womb) of the embryo/fetus.

In 1973, abortion became legal in all 50 states when Roe vs. Wade was decided by the Supreme

Court. The National Right to Life Foundation reports that since that year, there has been more

than 57 million abortions in the U.S. There were over 1,058,000 abortions in 2011 alone. That is

nearly 2,900 abortions per day, 120 per hour, 1 every 30 seconds. After reading the evidence for

and against abortion, I have concluded that life begins at conception and that abortion is the

killing of a developing human child.

One of the main arguments for people who support the right to abortion is that a woman should

be able to choose what to do with her body and whether to carry a baby to term. On the surface,

this is a sympathetic argument, because in America, we cherish our personal freedoms. NARAL,

Pro choice America makes this statement of their core values. “As progressives, we stand united

in the belief that a woman’s autonomy over her own body is not a secondary issue or a “social

issue”, but rather a human right and a necessity in order to attain and preserve economic security
in her life.” Randy Alcorn from LifeSiteNews.com uses an interesting illustration when he tells

his listeners that he is pro choice, and that he believes men should able to rape women whenever

they feel like it. He explains that no one should tell men what to with their bodies. Then he asks

the shocked audience what is wrong with his argument. His listeners quickly make the

distinction between our personal freedom and lawful limits to our actions that cause harm to

other people. Mr. Alcorn points out that many of our laws have to do with limiting the freedom

of our bodies when that freedom hurts or harms others. That’s why our laws limit us - we can’t

steal, we can’t vandalize, we can’t beat people up without consequences. We are free to choose

activities that don’t cause suffering to others, but we have agreed as a society to limit those

choices that do.

NARAL, Pro choice America, website states the following: “Everyone should be able to decide

if, when, how, and with whom they start or grow a family.” This sounds like a nice idea, and

choice can be a part of starting a family. Every woman has a choice about whether to have sex or

use birth control. Some women get raped and pregnant, but those are special circumstances and

not part of the discussion about whether abortion should be legal for all or whether it is right.

Pregnancy is, most of the time, the result of previous choices made. In an article on

LifeSiteNews, a woman is quoted as saying, “After a woman is pregnant, she cannot choose

whether or not she wishes to become a mother. She already is, and since the child is already

present in her womb, all that is left to her to decide is whether she will deliver her baby dead or

alive.” After the baby is born, a woman still has choices about who will raise the baby.
Another of the main arguments about abortion has to do with whether the fetus is a separate

human being, or part of the mother’s body. Some people argue that the baby in a mother’s womb

is like an arm or a leg, an extension of the woman’s body. Just as it should be her private

decision as to whether to cut off her own arm or leg, so she should be able to privately decide

whether to abort the baby in her uterus. The problem with this argument is that a baby has a

different genetic code than the woman he or she is growing in. Every cell of the baby’s body has

DNA that is different than the DNA in every cell of the woman. If a Chinese fetus was implanted

in a Swedish mother, the baby would still come out Chinese. It is our DNA that uniquely

determines who we are. It is not the body in which we developed. So when a woman kills the

fetus growing in her, she is not removing a part of herself. She is removing an autonomous being

that is a different person than her.

The National Right to Life Commission website explains fetal development, starting with Day 1

when all human chromosomes are present at the moment of fertilization and a unique human life

begins. On Day 22, the child’s heart begins to beat with his/her own blood, often a different

blood type than the mother’s. Between weeks five and seven, before many women even know

they are pregnant, eyes, legs, hands, brainwaves, mouth, lips, and fingers are all developing, and

by week 8 every organ is in place and bones and fingerprints begin to form. On the Planned

Parenthood website, the baby is called a ball of cells until the 6th week, when it is called an

embryo. On pro choice sites, the words, “baby”, or “child” are never used, only “ball of cells”,

“embryo”, “fetus” or “pregnancy”.

Many years ago, when doctors and parents couldn’t see what was growing inside a mother’s

body, it might have made sense to think of a “ball of cells”, but with modern technology, there is

no question that a separate human being is developing, and developing quickly. A woman’s

freedom to kill a child, because she doesn’t like the consequences of the choices that led to the

child’s conception, doesn’t square with our laws that protect an innocent person from harm done

by another person. Just because a developing human cannot speak, doesn’t mean that he or she

should not be protected.

I will stand up for the rights of the unborn.

https://www.nrlc.org/site/factsheets/

https://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/statement-of-principles/

https://prochoice.org/think-youre-pregnant/im-pregnant-what-are-my-options/

https://www.lifesitenews.com/resources/abortion/pro-life-101-the-ultimate-guide-to-why-ab

ortion-is-wrong-and-how-to-fight-for-life/part-4-a-woman-has-a-right-to-choose-to-control-

her-own-body

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/pregnancy-month-by-month/what-h

appens-second-month-pregnancy