37 Years of Abortion

January 22nd, 2010 marked the 37th year since the United States Supreme Court decision roe vs. wade. In those 37 years, approximately 50 million children have been killed. To put that into perspective, in all the wars in American history combined, from the Revolution to the War on Terror, approximately 910,000 people have lost their lives. We lose more children to abortion each day than all the lives lost in all the tragedies on September 11, 2001 combined.

What is astounding is the sticking power of the pro-choice groupies who claim they support a "women's right to choose." This is their chosen mantra of a 37-year genocide? About 1 in 5, or 20 percent, of our nation's youth had their lives end before it even began. African Americans account for 1.3 million abortions each year (which is 37% of all abortions performed yearly, even though African Americans make up 12% of our population. Latinos, 15% of our population, account for 22% of abortions).

But don't bother pro-choicers with those statistics. A women's right to choose is clearly more valuable than a child's opportunity to live. A woman can carry on with her life, making choices every single day and pursue those dreams she desires, but a child that is aborted will never get the opportunity. Her own child.

A friend of mine told me that when she got pregnant at the age of 17, the doctor presented her with the option of having an abortion. "Just think of all that you'll miss out on," he said. "You won't get to hang out with your friends and go to parties if you have a baby to take care of." Even though she felt scared about motherhood at her age, she looked at the doctor in his eyes and calmly responded, "So you want me to kill this baby so I can go to some parties?"

Approximately 98 percent of all abortions are done out of convenience rather than health issues.

On day 18 after conception, a baby has a heartbeat.

At 6 weeks following conception, a baby's brain waves can be measured.

At 8 weeks after conception, the stomach, liver, and kidneys of the baby are functioning and fingerprints have formed.

At 9 weeks, the unborn child can feel pain.

700,000 abortions are performed each year in America after 9 weeks into the pregnancy. That is after the baby has a heartbeat, has brain activity, has a functioning stomach, liver and kidneys, and after the baby can feel pain. But still, pro-choice activists spout that the mother's right to choose whether she wants the responsibility of caring for a child is more valuable than that life itself.

Ayn Rand, the Russian-American novelist of the 1957 Atlas Shrugged once said "A man who takes it upon himself to prescribe how others should dispose of their own lives - and who seeks to condemn them by law, i.e., by force, to the drudgery of an unchosen, lifelong servitude (which, more often than not, is beyond their economic means or capacity) - such a man has no right to pose as a defender of rights. A man with so little concern or respect for the rights of the individual, cannot and will not be a champion of freedom or of capitalism."

Rand likens parenthood to lifelong servitude thrust upon an individual by force. She admits that outlawing abortion is in direct opposition to our inalienable right to life. But again, the focus is placed on the life which is seen. The life which is unseen has no right to exist nor any defender to give him an opportunity to exist.

Leonard Peikoff, an American Objectivist philosopher and former professor has said this regarding pro-life advocates: "Responsible parenthood involves decades devoted to the child's proper nurture. To sentence a woman to bear a child against her will is an unspeakable violation of her rights: her right to liberty (to the functions of her body), her right to the pursuit of happiness, and, sometimes, her right to life itself, even as a serf. Such a sentence represents the sacrifice of the actual to the potential, of a real human being to a piece of protoplasm, which has no life in the human sense of the term. It is sheer perversion of language for people who demand this sacrifice to call themselves 'right-to-lifers.'"

This idea of equating mothers to slaves is truly disturbing. Peikoff even equates motherhood to a type of death sentence in which she can no longer pursue a life of happiness or fulfillment. I don't know how or why this theory has any validity. It seems to me one way to impact this world and influence an entire generation is to give life and raise an entire generation.

These quotes, along with the mainstream beliefs of pro-choicers, are nothing more than a sly way to promote an elitist, eugenic view that only those with the most to offer (economically, educationally, or otherwise) have a right to life. Anyone unseen, with an endless amount of potential, the elderly, with an endless amount of wisdom, and the disabled, with an endless amount of purpose should not be given the same rights as Ayn, Leonard, or fill-in-the-blank.

50 million lives have been lost in this country because of abortion- so far. The "pursuit of happiness" should first and foremost protect those who have unlimited amount of happiness to pursue. If we cannot protect the lives of those unseen we can certainly not value the life that is seen.