 A
Sample Research Paper for English 1302
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Christie Reed
English 1302
Winter, 2000
Abortion: Kills Babies, Hurts Us
Each year, abortions kill millions
of babies all over the planet. All of those tiny human beings has had their
chance to grow up and make a difference in the world stolen from them.
Not only are we robbing innocent people of their lives, but we are robbing
ourselves of the improvements they might have made to change our world
for the better had these little ones been  allowed
to live. One of the many millions of aborted babies might have grown up
to discover a cure for AIDS or cancer. Another might have been a great
musician or a famous artist. We can’t know what could have been achieved
if these people had been given a chance to live, but we can strive to see
that more children in the future get the chance to show the world what
they can do. Abortion is a bad policy that hurts our society.
.
There are two different kinds
of abortion: spontaneous abortion and induced abortion. In The Abortion
Controversy, Carol Emmens explains the difference between the two.
Spontaneous abortions usually happen in the first trimester and are normally
attributed to an “abnormality in the fetus." Induced abortion, on the other
hand, is explained by Emmens as “[an abortion that] occurs when the fetus
is forced to leave the uterus and dies as a result.” This essay deals with
induced abortion.
.
There are many kinds of induced
abortion. Different methods are implemented in various stages of pregnancy.
Emmens discusses several of these processes. Suction, the most common method
of abortion, is performed in the first trimester. The woman is given local
anesthetic and remains awake while her cervix is dilated, a tube inserted,
and the fetal tissue sucked through the tube by a machine. A curette is
then used to remove any remaining clots of tissue. “Dilation and curettage”
is a method of abortion used in the twelfth to fourteenth weeks. The woman
is put to sleep, the cervix is dilated, and a scraping instrument is used
to remove the fetus. “Dilation and evacuation” is used after the twelfth
week. In this method, the doctor has the woman put to sleep, widens the
uterus opening with dilators, crushes the fetus, and removes it with forceps
(9-10). Certain medication1 is also used to terminate pregnancies.
.
The Supreme Court made abortion
legal in the United States in 1973. The Roe v. Wade decision2
determined that the constitution protected a woman’s right to choose whether
to end her pregnancy or not. Emmens explains that before this decision,
many people were having abortions illegally. The law permitted doctors
to perform abortions to save the life of the mother. Some used that ability
to cover for illegal pregnancy terminations by calling the abortions “therapeutic”
(49). Emmens notes that there was widespread dissatisfaction with the strict
abortion laws before the Roe v. Wade decision:
| Many organizations passed resolutions in favor of abortion reform.
They included the American Bar Association, the Association of University
Women, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Women’s
Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, Planned Parenthood,
the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Zero Population Growth.
(47-48) |
Despite all of the lobbying
against strict abortion laws, many people were surprised at the Supreme
Court decision (47). Along with the groups supporting the decision, there
are groups against legalized abortion. The Roman Catholic Church is one
of many groups that adopt a position against abortion. Many of these anti-abortion
groups sought unsuccessfully to overturn Roe v. Wade by the passage of
a Constitutional Amendment that declares the fetus to be a “person” (58).
.
Today, the abortion issue is
still a heated controversy that is being battled out by those in favor
of abortion, the pro-choice group, and those opposed to abortion, the pro-life
group. Pro-life organizations print up flyers and brochures arguing the
cruelty and immorality of abortion, and demonstrators picket abortion clinics.
Pro-choice groups fight for the continued legality of abortion, and do
their utmost to create the mentality that not only is abortion a safe procedure,
but it is sometimes the ethical choice in a given situation.
.
The pro- life camp tends to
take the stand that abortion is murder. Some anti-abortionists even go
so far as to compare it to the holocaust. In Abortion Opposing Viewpoints,
William Brennan notes some prominent individuals who have used this analogy:
| Congressman Henry Hyde, former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop,
and Malcolm Muggeridge are among the notables who have publicly compared
abortion to the Nazi war against the Jews. In his article, “Abortion and
the Conscience of the Nation,” President Ronald Reagan quoted a passage
from The Abortion Holocaust: Today’s Final Solution which underscores a
basic principle related to both abortion and the Nazi Holocaust: “The cultural
environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be
misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid
of value and respect. (32) |
People who take this view note similarities between the burning of
bodies during the Holocaust and the burning of the bodies of the aborted
fetuses. These people also find the aversion to the word “kill” similar.
They note that the Nazis had many phrases they used to avoid unpleasant
terms like the pro-abortion group does now. People who take this view also
find the Nazi term of “selection” eerily like the “choice” emphasized by
the pro-abortion movement. Another similarity, they argue, is the dehumanizing
of the victims in both cases. German Nazis used derogatory terms to make
their victims seem less human. It is argued that terms like “subhuman life
in utero” achieves the same result. Finally, both were defended as legal
by the people involved (33-39). .
Another pro-life argument is
that abortion is immoral. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints also contains
an essay by Pope John Paul II in which he insists on the immorality of
abortion:
| The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent to all in its truth
if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when
we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human
being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could
be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor,
much less an unjust aggressor! He or she is weak, defenseless, even to
the point of lacking that minimal form of defense consisting in the poignant
power of a newborn baby’s cries and tears. The unborn child is totally
entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in
the womb. And yet sometimes it is precisely the mother herself who makes
the decision and asks for the child to be eliminated, and who then goes
about having it done. (18) |
People with a pro-life viewpoint feel that the killing of a defenseless
baby is morally unjustifiable. It is wrong, they feel, to take the life
of an innocent human being, especially when there is no way for that person
to defend himself. .
The pro-choice group holds that
abortion is sometimes a moral choice. In Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints,
a brief commentary about Jerry Z. Muller, an author of one of the “viewpoints,”
illustrates this widely held pro-choice view:
| Jerry Z. Muller argues that abortion can be a moral choice when the
fetus has a birth defect or when the pregnancy is unwanted. Children who
are born out of wedlock to women who are not prepared to raise a child
are more likely to be unable to function in society and to become violent
or criminals, Muller asserts. When abortion is an available option, he
maintains, most children who are born will be healthy and wanted. (23) |
People with this view feel that it is better to abort deformed babies.
.Some even go so far as to say it is, in some
cases, cruel not to abort them (24). In a similar paragraph from the same
book, Kathleen Quinn asserts that “it is not the decision to abort but
the decision to have a child that is treated with insufficient gravity
in our society” (25). Many pro-choice people feel the same way.
.
Another pro-abortion argument
is that a fetus is not a person. An annonymous author cited in Abortion:
Opposing Viewpoints, who calls him or herself "Revolutionary Worker,"
expounds upon this point:
| A pregnancy is a nine-month process during which a fertilized egg grows,
develops, and goes through a series of transformations before it can finally
become a baby—a new human being—at the time of its birth. BEFORE birth,
it is a developing mass of tissue integrally connected to the woman’s vital
biological processes. It is part of that woman with no separate social
existence. It has the potential to become human. But it is not yet a separate
social being that should have separate social rights. For that [sic] it
must have entered society as a separate entity. That is, it must have been
born. |
Those for abortion use this argument to refute the view that abortion
is murder. If a fetus isn’t a human being, but is merely a mass of tissue
attached to the mother’s body, then abortion can’t possibly be murder.
Furthermore, if a woman no longer wants this tissue, she should have the
right to get rid of it, because it is her body. This brings us to another
pro-choice position.
.
Women should have the right
to do what they want to do to their bodies. "Revolutionary Worker" used
this premise when she writes:
| A woman who is forced to bear children against her will is assaulted
and degraded in body and spirit. On the other hand, a woman who can control
her own reproduction and decide whether and when to have children will
be stronger, more independent, and better able to deal with the world at
large, outside the confines of the family. She will be better able to lift
her head, better able to dream and visualize the way the world COULD BE.
And she will be better able to realize these dreams. Stronger women make
stronger fighters, for themselves, for their children, for all the women,
men and children everywhere who have known conditions of oppression. (56) |
"Revolutionary Worker" argues that the right to choose makes stronger
women who are better able to function in society. Today’s pro-abortion
women want to have the right to do what they wish with their bodies. They
don’t want to be told whether to bear children or not. They want to have
the choice not to give birth. .
Emotionally, physically, and
socially, abortion hurts our society. It hurts the people who receive them,
the aborted babies, and the rest of society.
.
Abortion is not the moral choice,
even in the case of deformed or unwanted babies. There are many adoption
agencies available to place babies from unwanted pregnancies in families
that DO want them. A single parent childhood does not guarantee that the
child will become a criminal. It is every person’s choice whether to commit
a crime or not. People with two parents choose to disobey the law also.
A single mother can still teach her child the difference between right
and wrong. “Sometimes it is feared that the child to be born would live
in such conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take place,”
writes Pope John Paul II. “Nevertheless, these reasons do not justify the
deliberate killing of an innocent human being.” How can the killing of
an innocent person who cannot even try to defend himself ever be morally
justified? How do you reconcile the murder of a baby by the person it needs
protection from the most?
.
A fetus is more than just a
mass of tissue. Pope John Paul II discusses the humanity of a fetus:
The "Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s Declaration on Procured
Abortion" proclaims, “From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life
is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather
the life of a new human being with it’s own growth. It would never be made
human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and . .
. modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has been demonstrated
that from the first instant there is established the program of what this
living being will be: a person, this individual person with his characteristic
aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization the adventure
of human life begins, and each of its capacities requires time—a rather
lengthy time to find its place and to be in a position to act.”
.
John Paul II adds the question
posed in Donum Vitae: “How could a human individual not be a human
person?”(20). The fertilized egg contains all of the genetic information
for the person it is to become, right down to hair and eye color. The little
heart of the fetus starts beating at four weeks. The nervous system begins
to develop around six weeks. The brain is well developed by the end of
the thirty-second week (Emmens 3-4). How can the fetus possibly be anything
but human?
.
The argument that a woman should
be able to do what she wants to do to her body might have been a valid
claim, if that was what abortion involved. In reality, however, the woman
is acting not only on her body by having an abortion, but also on another
human being—her child. No one can successfully argue that a woman should
be able to do whatever she wants to do with a child that has already been
born. An abortion is not the right to choose what you do with your own
body; it is the right to choose what you do with your child’s body.
.
Abortion may contribute to the
spread of sexually transmitted diseases by promoting irresponsible behavior.
By taking away a major consequence for the sexual behavior of people, especially
teens, abortion places a lower sense of importance on abstinence before
marriage or the use of safety measures. In Abortion Opposing Viewpoints,
Mother Teresa comments on this lack of consequences. “By abortion,” she
insists, “the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility
for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put
other women into the same trouble” (50). I would argue that the same holds
true for sexually transmitted diseases. If the father is not required to
take responsibility for his actions, not only is he likely to cause other
women to become pregnant, he is also more likely to increase the spread
of sexually transmitted diseases to more and more women. People, especially
teens, need to be taught that there are consequences for their actions.
.
Abortion has been linked to
a greater risk of breast cancer. In Abortion Opposing Viewpoints,
Joel Brind cites many studies from around the world that link an increase
in breast cancer to abortion:
| The first study (in 1957) to show a significant association between
induced abortion and breast cancer (relative risk = 2.6) was performed
and published in Japan, and subsequent reports with similar results were
also published overseas. Another large age-matched Japanese study (1982)
showed risk to rise steadily with the number of induced abortions (RR =
2.5 for one abortion up to 4.9 for four or more). American studies showing
significant risk increases among women on the West Coast (1981; RR = 2.4
for abortion terminating a first pregnancy) and on the East Coast (the
1989 Howe study) were published in England. (158) |
| The first trimester of a normal pregnancy is marked by a surge of hormones
from the mother’s ovaries, including progesterone, to maintain the pregnancy,
and estrogen, which makes the breasts grow. Most known breast-cancer risk
factors act via some form of overexposure to estrogen. Normally, the high
estrogen levels of early pregnancy are counterbalanced by other hormones
late in the pregnancy, which differentiate the breasts into milk-producing
organs, thus rendering them permanently less susceptible to cancer. However,
if the pregnancy is artificially terminated, the growth-stimulating effects
of the estrogen surge help primitive and/or abnormal cells to grow into
potential cancers. (158-159) |
.
Abortion causes emotional trauma
to mothers. In Abortion Opposing Viewpoints, Madelein Gray reveals
her feelings of depression after obtaining an abortion:
| I fall into a period of despair. I stop seeing friends. I have told
none of them what I have done and now feel that I live in a different Universe
from those good mothers. I have a few really bad nights where I consider,
with enough vividness to frighten me, the idea of jumping off a bridge
into the river. When I am not in despair, I feel nothing. The easy eradication
of an incipient person makes my own life, as well as my children’s seem
fragile and meaningless. (168) |
.
Abortion ideals are not consistent
with fetal homicide laws. One of the Court TV Casefiles contains an account
of the case of Ohio v. Alfieri. Tracie Alfieri was the first person
charged with homicide under Ohio’s new fetal-homicide law. Alfieri, 23,
was accused of causing the car accident that injured a pregnant woman and
killed her six-moth-old fetus. Under Ohio’s current fetal homicide law,
which was passed in the fall of 1996, it is a crime to kill a viable fetus,
and a person can be charged with homicide for terminating a pregnancy at
any stage. (This law does not apply to abortions). Alfieri was charged
with aggravated vehicular assault. If convicted under the fetal homicide
law, Alfieri faced five years in prison.
.
Another case was documented
in the Sun-Sentinel.com web site in an article called "Fetal Homicide Proposal
is Withdrawn” Linda Kleindienst writes, “In South Carolina, a 27-year-old
woman pleaded guilty in December to voluntary manslaughter. She was charged
with killing her fetus because she smoked crack cocaine.” According to
these cases, our society seems to be saying that you are not really killing
a baby if you are a doctor and use special machinery to suck it out of
the womb, but you are killing a baby if you hit the mother your car and
cause her to have a miscarriage. It is apparently all right for a mother
to take medication given to her by a doctor to abort her baby, but it is
manslaughter or murder if a woman uses cocaine or alcohol5 to
kill her fetus. This is contradictory. Both are the killing of an unborn
baby. Is that wrong or not?
.
Perhaps one of the most important
reasons abortion is so bad and hurtful, is that it lowers society’s perception
of the value of life. “It would be inconvenient to have this baby. It would
change the plans I have, so I’ll have an abortion,” reason those who hold
to the abortion mentality. What happens if we allow that mentality to spread
to the elderly, handicapped, or terminally ill? Our society’s perception
of the value of life will continue to decrease. Will we ever so devalue
life that we will be able to choose to terminate the life of someone placed
in our care because it would alter our plans and lives to take care of
them? We are already moving down that road. Will society deteriorate to
the place that it is acceptable to end the life of a spouse or child paralyzed
or deformed in an accident? It may, if we allow it to continue on its present
course. That Nazi mentality would be dangerous and tragic for our society.
.
An anonymous excerpt from the
March 11, 1993 issue of the Democrat Gazette found in Abortion:
Opposing Viewpoints sums up the damage abortion does to our society:
| The test of a civilized society, it seems to us, is how it treats the
most vulnerable—the old and sick, the young and ignorant, the poor and
disabled, the homeless and despised, the dispossessed and imprisoned. The
least among us. Once upon a time there would have been no hesitation to
include in such a category life in the womb. Now there is a “serious” question
about whether it is human life at all. (What else could it be—an aardvark?)
Once there was a folk metaphor for security—“as safe as a child in its
mother’s womb.” At the rate of 1.6 million abortions a year in America
circa 1993, surely few would make any such assumption now. Abortion is
wrong. If abortion is not wrong, then nothing is. (19) |
Notes
1RU-468, or the morning-after pill, is a medicinal abortificient (Emmens
11).
.
2Abortion the Clash of Absolutes by Laurence H. Tribe discusses the
Roe v. Wade decision in more depth.
.
3Brind continues on to cite other tests:
Similar findings from France (1984; RR = 1.2 for one abortion, 1.6
for two or more), Denmark (1988; RR = 3.9 for abortion terminating a first
pregnancy), and the former Soviet Union (1978; RR = 1.7 for any abortion)
also popped up in European journals. In addition to the 10 epidemiological
studies cited thus far, another 12 case-control studies have appeared in
the peer-reviewed medical literature. Four (two in the United States and
one each in France and Italy) showed no overall trend of increased risk
(RR = 0.9 to 1.1); three (one in America and two in Japan) showed risk
elevations that did not achieve statistical significance (RR = 1.2, 1.5,
and 1.5, respectively); and four recent studies showed significant risk
elevations, two in American women (RR = 1.23 and 3.1), one in Greek women
(RR = 1.51), and one in Dutch women (RR = 1.9). In fact, the only case-control
study showing a negative association between induced abortion and breast
cancer was a 1979 Yugoslavian study which was atypical in other ways as
well. For example, it showed no evidence of the universally recognized
protective effect of having children. . . . (158)
Newsweek also released a study in the October 21, 1996 issue entitled
“Is Abortion a Factor?” by Geoffrey Cowley and Mary Hager.
.
4Brind carefully notes, “Spontaneous abortions, or miscarriages, .
. . were not associated with increased risk [for breast cancer].” (156).
He explains why spontaneous abortions do not cause a greater risk of breast
cancer:
As more than twenty years of research has shown, most first-trimester
spontaneous abortions are characterized by subnormal secretion of ovarian
hormones, including estrogen, whether because of inadequate stimulation
by an abnormal fetus, or because of inadequate response by abnormal ovaries.
Clearly, the failure to distinguish between spontaneous and induced abortion
is a fatal weakness in any study. (159)
Brind was very careful to note the differences between the two kinds
of abortion.
.
5Sun-Sentinel.com also printed a case involving alcohol in the March
20, 1998 article. Kleindienst writes, "In Wisconsin, a woman has been charged
with attempted murder for trying to kill her fetus by drinking too much
alcohol."
Works Cited
Abortion Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1997.
.
Emmens, Carol. The Abortion Controversy. New York: Julian Messner,
1987.
.
Cowley, Geoffrey, and Mary Hager. "Is Abortion a Factor?" Newsweek.
21 Oct. 1996.
.
Kleindienst, Linda. “Fetal Homicide Proposal is Withdrawn.” Sun-Sentinel.com
20 Mar. 1998.
<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,4000000000018823,00.htm>.
.
“Ohio v. Alfieri.” Court TV Library May 1997 <http://www.courttv.com/casefiles/
verdicts/alfieri.html>
.
Tribe, Laurence H. Abortion the Clash of Absolutes. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 1990.
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