I'm a father of a beautiful and intelligent six year old boy. The day he was born was the happiest day of my life. The hospital room was full of doctors and nurses, myself, my then-wife and two of her close friends. His eyes were closed and he didn't make a sound for what seemed like forever. The doctors put him on the table to be weighed and as I stared at the scale that said 9lbs 6oz I noticed his little head turn back towards me and his big brown eyes opened. He had the most precious look on his face and he looked right at me. At that very moment my eyes began to well up with tears, my heart stopped beating and my breath left me. I helped make this miracle and here he is looking back at me as if to say "Thank you". He's been the biggest joy in my life ever since. Nobody has taught me more about myself and life than this little boy.
I couldn't imagine the world without him. I couldn't imagine my life without him. And frankly, I don't want to. I can understand why women wouldn't have a problem aborting a baby they've never seen. Simply because they've never seen it. It is a way to cope, a way to validate an abortion if a woman never sees the child whose life she is about to end. You won’t miss what you never knew you had. The thinking is that if you don't see it, it doesn't exist.
The problem is, it does exist. Inside a pregnant woman is a life, a child that wants to be born and deserves the right to be. From the first time that I felt my son kick and push his elbows into his mother's ribs to get comfortable, I knew there was a person inside there. Even though I couldn't see him, he was my son. I could see a personality coming through in him, even inside her womb.
Many people argue that the real debate about abortion is when life truly begins. However, that really shouldn't be much of a debate. Certainly there is life growing and moving inside a woman's body during pregnancy, how could anybody really dispute that. If you've ever felt that kick, you know. Life begins at conception. This is not just my opinion, but that of many medical professionals as well. According to Fritz Baumgartner, a cardiothoracic surgeon, "There is no more pivotal moment in the subsequent growth and development of a human being than when 23 chromosomes of the father join with 23 chromosomes of the mother to form a unique, 46-chromosomed individual, with a gender, who had previously simply not existed." (2)
On the other hand, there are those who would argue. Francis Kaplan, the emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Tours disagrees with an embryo as life. "The vital function it [embryo] needs to be a living being are those of its mother. It is thanks to the mother’s digestive function that it receives the digested food it needs and it would not get this food if it had not been digested by her ; it is thanks to the glycogenic function of the mother’s liver that it gets the glucose it needs ; it is thanks to the mother’s respiratory function that the red corpuscles of its blood contain the oxygen it needs ; it is thanks to the mother’s excretory function that it excretes the waste that would otherwise poison it" (2). However the definition of life doesn't include whether or not a living being has to be autonomous from its life support. In fact, parasites are considered forms of life and yet they require a host to feed off and sustain their life because life cannot be sustained by the parasite alone.
By the conventional scientific definition, life requires seven things: 1) Homeostasis, 2) Organization, 3) Metabolism, 4) Growth, 5) Adaptation, 6) Response to stimuli and 7) Reproduction. And in fact, a human embryo, actually possesses all of the characteristics that define life. One may argue that since an embryo doesn't have the ability to reproduce, then it therefore cannot be considered a life. Children before puberty do not have the ability to reproduce either. That doesn't make them any less human or alive than any adult, neither should it negate the life of a zygote, embryo or fetus.
The fact is, the only people who debate whether or not an embryo is life are those who try to justify abortion by doing so. To claim that an embryo is not life will give validation to the abortion rights claims of a woman and justify it in a doctor's mind. "The vocation of medicine and the vocation of motherhood are both profoundly sacred and should teach us that human life is of immense value. Abortion hijacks the vocations of motherhood and medicine and distorts them into something unrecognizable. Abortion takes ordinary pregnant mothers and makes them accomplices in – literally – murder" (2). It is a testament to how far we've pushed ourselves from true morals and principles when we are willing to merely shrug your shoulders at the thought of killing a human being simply out of convenience. Yes this is a holocaust on the unborn children. Since the Roe V. Wade decision there have been at least 30 million abortions in the United States. That number is at least five times more people killed in the Abortion Holocaust than in the Jewish Holocaust. That doesn't include illegal abortions performed and abortions across the globe. And if you think it's a stretch to call it a holocaust, I sincerely encourage you to investigate Margaret Sanger, the founder of planned parenthood. I encourage you to go as far as the rabbit hole takes you, through her views on eugenics and controlling the reproduction of “genetically inferior peoples”, the same social philosophy coincidentally adopted by Hitler in his Holocaust against the Jews.
As for me, I will forever be grateful that my son was given life. I will be forever changed by his presence, he is a part of me and helps make me who I am. But I guess the same is true for those who carry out abortions, their lack of caring for the sanctity and intrinsic value of human life speaks volumes about who they are.
This is a partial birth abortion. The description of the process follows, thanks to Dr. J.C. Willke (3):
1) The abortionist will put traction on the two legs and deliver the hips and body into the air.The baby's body hangs up at the shoulders with both arms internally pinned along side the head.
2) Now he must reach up with his finger and engage one of the arms, flexing the elbow and shoulder as he sweeps this arm down and out into the air, delivering the shoulder. He tugs on the child a bit more so that the entire body is delivered, leaving only the head, which is now through the cervix and lying in the birth canal.
3) He then turns the child's body so that the nose is facing the mother's tailbone. Now the abortionist, with two fingers, retracts the vaginal ring at the base of the skull, and then plunges a scissors into the neck at the base of the skull. This injures or severs the spinal cord and results in instant decerebrate rigidity, that is, a spastic arching of the back and spastic extension of all four extremities.
4) He then spreads the blades of the scissors and threads a large bore catheter between them and up into the skull. Attaching this to a powerful suction, he sucks out the brains. This kills the baby and with one more gentle pull, he delivers the head.
REFERENCES:
(1) Kaplan, Francis. Trnsltd by Isabelle Metral. "The Embryo Is Not a Potential Living Being" (English title), "L’embryon n’est pas un être vivant en puissance" (French Title), l'Humanite 20 Mar 2008. 25 Apr 2009. http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?article637.
(2) Baumgartner, Fritz, M.D. "When Does Life Begin?." Pro Life. 12 Apr 2005. Pro Life America. 25 Apr 2009. http://www.prolife.com/life_begins.html.
(2) Baumgartner, Fritz, M.D. "When Does Life Begin?." Pro Life. 12 Apr 2005. Pro Life America. 25 Apr 2009. http://www.prolife.com/life_begins.html.
(3) Willke, J.C., M.D. "Partail-Birth Abortion -- Killing the Baby During Delivery." LifeIssues.org. Life Issues Institute. 26 Apr 2009 .
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