By Akin Awofolaju Ph.D.,CLE.,CSP
Many women in the entire world have abortions. Women believe there are many reasons to abort such as fear of having or raising a child, rape, or not having enough money. But whatever the situation, there is never an acceptable reason to get an abortion. Some important reasons why women should not abort have to do with human values, religious values, and values of conscience.
The first reason why women should not have an abortion is related to basic human values. Women need to think about their unborn babies who are not responsible for this situation. These unborn babies should have the privilege to live and grow into a normal person. Women need to be more humanitarian and less egoistic with these babies. On the other hand, the baby doesn't know how or why he is here. It is not necessary to kill a life; there are many other solutions to resolve this problem short of abortion.
The second reason why women should not abort has to do with religious values. In almost all religions, a woman is not permitted to have an abortion. If they do, their religions will punish them. In some religions, for example, a woman cannot take communion after having an abortion, and before taking communion again, she must do many things as a form of penitence. In whatever religion, abortion is punished and for this reason, women should not abort.
Finally, the third and most important reason why women should not abort is the related to her conscience. When a woman has an abortion, she will always think about the baby she might have had. She will always think about the future that could have happened with her baby which will always remind her that she killed it. Because she has had an abortion, she will never have a good life, and her conscience will remind her of what she had done. Because a woman who has an abortion can't forget about what she has done, these thoughts will always be with her, and the results can be calamitous.
There are many reasons why women should not have an abortion. The truth is that women need to think about the consequences that can occur before having sexual relations. I think that the effects of an abortion can be very sad for everyone involved, both for the woman who has the abortion and for the family who lives with her.
It has been stated that approximately ten to fifteen percent of all married couples in the United States and Canada are infertile, while an additional ten percent have fewer children than they desire. As in the case of various Old Testament characters, childlessness can become a burden to individuals or couples today. In the past there was little to be done to cure or correct infertility. Now, however, with the modern advances of medical technology, these people have various options to choose from in order to have children to call their own. These options include artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, embryo transplant, and surrogate mothering. There are, however, moral and ethical implications involved in these procedures that make them unsuitable.
After nearly 30 years, abortion has had a phenomenal impact on society. "Decriminalized" abortion has liberated women, advocates argue. But are they really better off because of the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision? And how has abortion affected the lives of men? Actually, unrestricted abortion has cheapened human life, thus affecting all aspects of American society.
Impact on Women
Advocates claimed abortion would bring women "freedom" and "empowerment." Sadly, the opposite has occurred. Instead of freeing women from male exploitation, abortion has made them more vulnerable—playing into the hands of men who seek sex without marriage.
Columnist Jeff Jacoby discusses abortion's impact on male-female relationships: It has corrupted romance and sexuality. In the ancient times before Roe, the price of an unwanted pregnancy could be terrifyingly high. That gave unmarried women a powerful incentive to be careful—to reserve themselves for men whom they knew to be worthy. Sometimes worthiness could be proven only by walking down a church aisle; if not that, it often required at least courtship, love and commitment.
But after Roe, an unwanted pregnancy became little more than a nuisance. To undo it, you had only to see an abortionist. So why be careful? Why hold back? There was no longer a need to wait for that aisle walk—or even for commitment. … For men who wanted sex without strings, without having to make promises, without having to go through the rituals of romance, Roe was a godsend. And if she has a baby? Hey, that's her problem. She could have gotten an abortion.
In the past, fear and respect have motivated people to make responsible sexual choices. But since Roe divided sex from reproduction, people stopped being responsible for the consequences of their actions. Exercising so-called "equality," women began engaging in sex with little discretion. When women inevitably became pregnant, abortionists were waiting.
Impact on Men
While abortion has degraded women, it has also negatively influenced men. Some laugh at the idea of men being "victims" of abortion. But counselor and author Steve Arterburn understands the psychological conflict and its ramifications. He pressured his girlfriend into having an abortion after getting her pregnant during his first year of college.
"I had selfishly destroyed a human life because I didn't want to be inconvenienced," he explained. "I'm one of the thousands of abortion fathers who have also gone through this ordeal. In my case, it resulted in 80 ulcers eating at my stomach, intestines and colon. The pain was excruciating and made worse by the knowledge that it was a result of my secret sin." Just as abortion demands that women violate their natural inclination to nurture, it forces men to reject their role as provider and protector. The new life should motivate the man to embrace new levels of responsibility. Instead, he acts against his instincts, destroying what he should most vehemently defend—his own child.
Indeed, if a man would ask his girlfriend to commit this act of violence against a child, what's to keep him from inflicting violence on her? A glaring example is a case in which a Washington, D.C., man was charged with assaulting his girlfriend. The man admitted that he beat her outside the abortion clinic when she changed her mind about going through with the procedure. Another instance occurred when a man hired three assailants to beat his girlfriend for the purpose of killing her unborn child. The attack occurred one day before the woman was expected to deliver.
The increasing rates of domestic violence since Roe further illustrate this point:
· Approximately 1.9 million women are physically assaulted annually in the United States, a conservative estimate based on reporting. Experts estimate the actual incidence of partner violence is closer to 4 million annually.
· Women annually reported about 500,000 rapes or sexual assaults. Friends or acquaintances of the victims committed more than half of these crimes.
· In 1972, there were 60,000 [reported] child-abuse incidents. Four years later, the number passed the half million mark. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, slightly fewer than 1 million children were victims of substantiated or indicated child abuse and neglect in 1997.
Abortion and Crime
Today, 52 percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25. Although two-thirds are unmarried, more than half are already mothers. Moreover, 47 percent have already had at least one abortion. These women soon learn that abortion hurts, rather than helps, them.
Sydna Massé, who founded Ramah International, a post-abortion ministry, also works with Prison Fellowship. The connection between these ministries makes sense. The emotional impact of abortion often drives women to destructive, sometimes criminal, behavior. For example, in one Michigan prison ministry, 77 of the 100 women were post-abortive.
Moreover, Colorado is pressed for room for its growing female prison population. Since 1989, the number of women entering the state prison has risen 200 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections. Furthermore, the women's national prison population has nearly doubled since 1990—from 39,054 to 75,241—
according to 1998 statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. Among minors, the female juvenile crime arrest rate increased nearly 42 percent between 1990 and 1997.
If only one-third of those who have been aborted were available to start work on their 18th birthday, the demise of Social Security would be put off for decades. By the time the baby boom begins to retire in 2010, there would have been an additional 10 million workers ready to shoulder the burden of paying for Social Security.
Law-school professor John Donohue and economist Steven Levitt released a controversial—and, some say, even discriminatory—study in 1999. In short, they claim that legalized abortion has reduced the crime rate. They base this assumption on the opinion that "unwanted" children are more likely to commit crimes, and abortion prevents "unwanted" children from being born. They used overall decreased crime rates and increased abortion rates to support their assumption.
If Donohue's and Levitt's theory were true, then those born after 1973 would be less likely to commit crime. However, the opposite is true. The majority of delinquency cases involve teens aged 15 to 17. Youth born between 1973 and 1979, the period during which abortion increased most dramatically, reached ages 15 to 17 during 1988 to 1996. Delinquency cases increased significantly from 1988 and the following years. Furthermore, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics, the murder rate among 14- to 17-year-olds in 1993 was 3.6 times that of children born between 1966 and 1970. Lastly, girl gangs have grown significantly in recent years. According to a Chicago Crime Commission report, between 16,000 and 20,000 female gang members and associates reside in the Chicago area alone. Seeing the value of life disrespected in their generation negatively skews the outlook of youth.
Far-Reaching Effects
Initially, abortion-on-demand cheapened the life of the unborn child, but the downslide did not stop there. Roe v. Wade placed America on the edge of a slippery slope. And one does not have to be an expert to see how far we've fallen since 1973.
For some, abortion has become simply a form of birth control. Theresa Flores is not sure how many abortions she has had—she thinks nine. After her first abortion around the age of 15, she continued having unprotected sex with her boyfriend. Over the next few years, the abortions continued. "I basically used abortion as a form of birth control," she admitted.
In 1973, Dr. Francis Shaeffer predicted that abortion would be the first step in a downward spiral:
Of all the subjects relating to the erosion of the sanctity of human life, abortion is the keystone. It is the first and crucial issue that has been overwhelming in changing attitudes toward the value of life in general … Since life is being destroyed before birth, why not tamper with it on the other end? Will a society which has assumed the right to kill infants in the womb … have difficulty in assuming the right to kill other human beings?
By the time the peak of the baby boom reaches retirement age, the number of abortions since Roe v. Wade will equal the number of births in the baby boom.
One only needs to look at recent headlines to see how Schaeffer's prediction has come true: From the advancement of the "Right to Die" movement to Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, who openly advocates infanticide up to 28 days after birth. "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person," Singer argued in his 1979 book Practical Ethics. "Sometimes it is not wrong at all."
Today, if their child is born with a congenital defect, parents in some states can sue their doctor for "wrongful birth" if he does not recommend abortion. For example, in New Jersey, Deborah Campano and her now ex-husband Michael Imbergamo won a suit against Dr. James Delahunty, to the tune of $1.85 million. Campano said she would have aborted her son Michael if she knew he had Down syndrome.
"What we're dealing with here is the promotion of eugenics as a birth policy whereby doctors are sued for not weeding out the 'unfit,'" said Clark Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life.
While 27 states allow "wrongful-birth" suits, in 1999, three other states ruled them invalid. In Taylor v. Kurapati, the Michigan Court of Appeals stated that recovery in wrongful-birth suits depends on the "unseemly spectacle" of parents disparaging their children's worth in court, and awarding damages would contradict the presumptive value of every human life. The National Down Syndrome Congress filed a brief in the Georgia case stating that the parents' claim for damages "presupposes that the life of a child with Down syndrome is less valuable than no life at all."
Now, the mentality that life does not inherently have value has reached into the lives of other vulnerable members of our society. As health care costs rise, the elderly have become targets. They find themselves pressured to accept euthanasia so they will not be too much of a "burden" on society.
Abandoned Generation
"[T]here is another group of children who have been overlooked in the [abortion] debate … the children now 10 or 15 or even 20 years old who have had it drummed into them by TV, radio and magazines," writes Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for President Reagan and author of What I Saw at the Revolution and The Case Against Hillary. "Is it too much to see a connection between the abortion culture in which these young people came of age and the moral dullness they are accused of displaying?"
This disrespect for life has had a profound effect on teens: Melissa Drexler was a teenager who managed to hide her pregnancy to full term. She gave birth in a toilet stall and then allegedly choked or suffocated her 6-lb., 6-oz. son. Minutes later, she returned to the floor of her high school formal dance in Aberdeen Township, New Jersey, where she ate salad and danced with her boyfriend.
The epidemic of baby abandonment, or "dumping," is growing. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the number of babies found abandoned in public places increased from 65 to 105 between 1991 and 1998. Of those, eight were found dead in 1991, and 33 were found dead in 1998. Further, the number of children abandoned at hospitals grew from 22,000 in 1991 to more than 31,000 in 1998. During this same time period, teenage pregnancies and abortions were both dropping. Maureen Hogan, president of Adopt America, blames the pervasive "just-get-rid-of-it mentality."
Save a life today !!!! It is your sole responsibility
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