Civilizations are judged in the long run, not in their accumulation of wealth or attainment of security, but almost entirely with how the powerful have treated the powerless. Whether power resides within authoritarian, political or military structures, economic systems, academic and knowledge-based systems or bloodlines, the question remains – “How did those who had power treat those in their society who did not?” Stated another way, the question comes to us in this form – “How did those most secure treat those most vulnerable?”
Natural versus Unnatural Disasters
As 2005 dawns, the world is still numb from the cataclysmic tsunamis that swept across the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. When nature lashes out with such frightening fury, we label it a natural disaster – something that can neither be controlled nor prevented. As of this writing, the death toll stands at nearly 175,000 and will almost certainly top 200,000. Tragically, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that over 70,000 of the dead are children.
In some places where the disaster struck, nearly all of the children were killed. Those few who were not remain the most vulnerable to disease from contaminated food and water sources as a consequence of the tsunamis. It is quite likely in those areas that an entire generation has been lost. It would appear that nature itself is predisposed to seeking out the weak and vulnerable for its victims.
Following the natural disaster in South Asia, an unnatural disaster struck. We are now hearing from international relief agencies that some of the children orphaned by the tsunamis have been victimized by predacious pedophiles that see this tragedy as their opportunity to enslave these vulnerable and powerless children in sexual bondage. Even the most casual observer must conclude that these children are in desperate need of protection from nature and adults alike – protection from both natural and unnatural destructive forces.
Abortion: A National Disaster
As horrifying as the number of victims in South Asia are, they pale in comparison to the number of induced abortions (therapeutic, eugenic and elective) in the United States annually since 1973. Since the Roe v. Wade decision on January 22, 1973, (Supreme Court of the United States 1973, 113, 163-4) induced abortions in the United States have risen from an estimated 775,000 in that year to a high of 1.6 million in 1990 (NRLC 2005). The most recent year for which reliable statistics exist is 2003 where the number of abortions performed in the United States was approximately 1.3 million (NRLC 2005). The conservative estimate for the total number of abortions performed from 1973 until 1997 stands at 30,388,699 (Koonin et al. 2000). This is the government’s own estimate from the Center for Disease Control, the agency responsible for collecting the data on induced abortion. The National Right to Life Committee estimates the current total of abortions performed in the United States since 1973 at over 44 million (NRLC 2005). Regardless of which statistic one chooses to believe, the numbers are staggering. While the tsunamis of 2004 wiped out a generation in a number of villages and towns in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, the United States has obliterated between 30 and 44 million of its most vulnerable and powerless people – the multiple generations of unborn Americans lost to the prejudice that has raged against them since 1973.
Abortion: An Unnatural Disaster
Perhaps the most difficult argument to make in the 21st Century is one based in moral principle. The consequences of moral relativism are impacting us in ways we could never have imagined a mere thirty years ago. However, if we are to regain our moral compasses we must be willing to state in unequivocal terms that certain human acts are always morally wrong and can never be justified. We must also realize that freedom without restraint is unprincipled chaos and freedom without moral responsibility is licentiousness. This is why the evil of abortion must be viewed for what it is – immoral violence against mothers and their families, murder of innocent children and a national tragedy.
The Inherent Prejudice of Abortion
To understand why this modern American tragedy ought to be viewed specifically as prejudice against the unborn, one must first consider one of the founding principles on which this nation was built – the right to life. On July 4, 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence appended their signatures to the document that laid out the grievances of the colonies against King George III of Great Britain. The paradox of this document is that the fifty-six signers, by affixing their signatures to the Declaration of Independence, were in effect signing their own death warrants. The founding principle of the right to life can be summed in this one line, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In order to firmly establish the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, these men were willing to die. Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships resulting from the Revolutionary War. These men, who had everything to lose, stand in stark contrast to those who promote abortion to their own great gain. After all, abortion in the United States is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Abortion: A Woman’s Right to Choose?
The reasons given to justify induced abortions are numerous. The most common umbrella argument is that the woman’s right to choose (nowhere guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution) trumps the unborn child’s right to life. However, the denial of one person’s right to life based on another’s choice is always morally wrong and inherently prejudicial. When the victim is a person without power and particularly vulnerable the wrong is multiplied. It has been said that when life is held in higher regard than liberty, one is sure to lose both. But when freedom of choice (happiness by another name) becomes the motivation for exercising one’s liberty to end the life of another, no citizen is guaranteed life – the less powerful one is, the less the guarantee of life.
Under the umbrella of choice is the argument that an unborn child who will be unloved or unwanted after the birth may be terminated during the pregnancy. The question is, “unwanted by whom?” While children over six to eight years of age may be difficult to place for adoption, the demand to adopt infants remains strong. So great is the demand in fact, that many potential adoptive parents are leaving the United States and going to Eastern Europe and Asia to adopt infants – over 21,600 foreign born children were adopted in 2003 alone (Bureau of Consular Affairs 2005). While there are many reasons for this state of affairs, the demand for infants to adopt remains high in this country. So the question really is not whether or not a child is wanted, but rather whether or not the biological parents want to be parents to the human being that they have procreated.
The Prejudice of Choice
What makes the ‘unwanted child’ argument for abortion so morally reprehensible is that it is the most substantive instantiation of prejudice since slavery. A human life is terminated because another human (whose first concern ought to be for the child) determines that the child, because he is unwanted by the prospective birth parents, is doomed to a life worse than death. The ‘unwanted child’ argument also does not pass the ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ test most of us learn in grade school, if not sooner. Further, to make such a projection of the value of another’s life is by definition prejudicial.
Try following this line of reasoning – a man and woman engage in intimate sexual relations resulting in pregnancy. These same two people, who did not foresee pregnancy as a logical consequence of their behavior (or thought it worth the risk), are now gifted with the prescience necessary to project the worth and value of the life of an “inconvenient” unborn child over the course of that human being’s lifetime. Then, possessing this foresight which heretofore has been conspicuously absent, these people decide that child would be better off dead. What?! This illogical conclusion is sheer lunacy.
Are There Morally Permissible Exceptions?
Some in the ‘Pro Choice’ camp would argue that for those who do not choose to have sex and pregnancy results from rape or incest, an exception must surely be made to our objections to the ‘unwanted child’ argument for abortion. But this too is a hollow argument. First, it cannot be assumed that a woman who becomes pregnant as the result of a rape or incest will not want the child. Second, the ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ principle applies here as well – murdering an unborn child to alleviate the suffering of a rape or incest victim is never morally right. Third, an abortion is almost certainly likely to compound the trauma of the rape or incest, perpetrating another act of violence upon someone who has already suffered an indescribable wrong. As Feinburg and Feinburg have noted, “it is never right to do evil to achieve good” (Feinburg and Feinburg 2003, 77).
The Unintended Consequences of Choice
To say that we have an imperfect and incomplete understanding of the ongoing trauma experienced by women who have opted for abortion is an understatement. Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade decision said in a press release dated 18 January 2005, "With each child aborted, there is another tragedy: the harm to the mother. I've worked in abortion facilities, and I've seen firsthand the horrific nature of abortion and its devastation to women and girls"(Hudson and Newman 2005, 1-3). While we know in quantifiable terms the number of humans sacrificed on the altar of choice, we have no comprehension of the depth of trauma suffered by millions of women victimized by their own choice.
So What?
Early in my academic career, one wizened professor taught me the value of asking myself whether recently acquired knowledge or skills were of any lasting benefit – the “so what?” question. Now that we’ve accumulated thirty-two years of experience in the efficient and legalized practice of exterminating unborn children for the sake of choice, perhaps it is time we asked “so what?” What has this experience done to us, as well as for us, as a nation? How have we benefited from this experience? How has this decision impacted other decisions impacting the lives of those who can not protect themselves?
These considerations aside, America will be judged not only for the lost generations of children it has murdered, but for the example it has set for the other nations of the world. Blessed with security and resources unparalleled in world history, we have chosen to squander these blessings in the pursuit of our own happiness, our own convenience and our own self-absorption.
WORKS CITED
Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State. 2005. "IMMIGRANT VISAS ISSUEDTO ORPHANS COMING TO THE U. S." Online. U. S. Department of State. Cited 18 January 2005. Available from <http://travel.state.gov/family/ adoption/stats/stats_451.html>.
Feinburg, John S. and Paul D. Feinburg. 2003. Ethics for a Brave New World. Wheaton: Crossways.
Hudson, Giles and Anne Newman. 2005. Roe Goes Back to Supreme Court: McCorvey Appeals to Overturn Grave Injustice. Washington, D.C.: The Justice Foundation. Operation Outcry.
Koonin, Lisa M., Lilo T. Strauss, Camaryn E. Chrisman and Wilda Y. Parker. 2000. "Abortion Surveillance, 1997." Online. Center for Disease Control. Cited 7 January 2005. Available from <http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/ mmwrhtml/ss4911a1.htm>.
National Right to Life Committee. "Abortion in the United States: Statistics and Trends." Online. National Right to Life Committee. Cited 5 January 2005. Available from <http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortionstats. html>.
Supreme Court of the United States. 1973. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S.
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