It is a matter of principle and ethics

Lucas Blackwood

Pittsburgh Standard

If we as a people were to eliminate religion, social ideologies, and traditions, we as a people would find principles and those ethics that come to shape particular ideologies and traditions would come to be accepted in a general sense among a people. Murder is generally thought of in a civilized people to be an act that is detrimental to a person and a people as a whole. It destroys a family, creates chaos in society, and inspires fear and doubt that comes to overshadow people. Life and its hope is a fragile thing. We do not know what hope or disappointment that the day shall come to offer to us as an individual and as a people.

In a society, no choice and its consequence come to affect the individual alone- they come to impact a people and their community as a whole.

Murder is generally defined in many societies as a deliberate act of violence, which comes to terminate an innocent life, which itself has committed neither offense nor a crime. To narrow the parameters to create an arena of discussion so as to avoid broad and sweeping arguments, I add that the taking of innocent life occurs outside the natural laws of nature, the balance which is maintained within the circle of life, and the natural order by which the universe comes to function.

The issue that I wish to address is the act of abortion. I do not wish to discuss religious nor social ideology; rather I wish to consider the act in itself. The woman’s body that carries this life inside her is not to be considered either, for again it is the act, rather than the place where life comes to inhabit and find safety, which I desire to consider.

I mentioned that murder is a deliberate act of violence that terminates an innocent life that has committed neither offense nor crime. I ask one simple question. "Is it worse to take a knife to a one year old child than to a two year old child, and will not that one year old child, through the natural course of life, become a two year old child?" Are they both in the act of forcibly terminating their lives considered hideous acts and murder? Then why should not abortion equally be considered such an atrocity? It terminates the life of child, for that fetus would otherwise come to be a one year old child and grow into adulthood, offering a people hope and terror as does every human being who comes to live life and partake in a people and a society.

The act itself comes to cheapen the value of life. Man in his art of war cheapens it enough, killing each other over religion, land and political views. Rush Limbaugh in his entire radio career made one valid statement, "You can’t have 2.5 billion abortions in a year and not cheapen the value of life."

The child is not the disease; it is the consequence of two individuals who had sex. That child committed no crime other than being born. I have heard many a woman say that it is my body. Yes, I agree; however that child, which will grow up into a human being is a person in its own right and has its right to live.

One woman argued that it cannot live outside my body and it needs me to live, thus suggesting that it, not being able to sustain itself, is not to be considered a valid life and therefore it is not a human being. Well, if that is the argument, then take a one-month-old baby, put it on the living room floor, and ignore it for a month or two. It will die because it cannot self-sustain itself. Thus, is it not a human life?

Let us bring this to the home fort. On September 11, 2001, America had a wake up call. We were outraged at the loss of innocent lives taken that day in a single act of terrorism; and yet we as a people can justify and rationalize the termination of innocence in a woman’s body because it is not yet quite noticeable.

If a mother and father neglect their child, or commits horrible acts upon him or her, we are appalled by them and their actions (or the lack of…) and question how any man or woman could treat a child in such a manner. Yet in abortion we argue that it is not a life, it is the woman’s body and the woman’s right, and it does not have a soul, and so on.

I find abortion, in my personal understanding, to be acceptable in two situations: in cases of rape and the mother’s life being endangered. I can argue rape to be a case in which abortion can be disputed, for two wrongs do not make a right, and to visit an act of violence upon an innocent child is equally wrong; and yet knowing and yet not knowing I can understand the trauma that a woman must come to endure, knowing that actor of violence left a reminder behind.

I talked enough to my friend to begin to understand the reasoning, and yet there is something within me that tells me that one act of violence does not deserve another, especially when the only crime, should it be considered to be as such, is being born.

There is no easy answer to the problem at hand and there is no one good or bad situation to endorse the act of abortion, but I think the warning lies within the words of Lincoln, "The habit of disposing of innocent human lives for conveniences’ sake makes men unfit to govern themselves."

We cannot begin to take for granted our children, whether they would be stirring in a woman’s womb or planting their seeds of footprints, for it is in them that hope and terror come to be born and possibilities that are not yet known to us.

I cannot begin to imagine what it means to have a life stirring within my body, what it means to carry a child and to give birth. In truth it terrifies me that I as a man am able to spark the beginning of a life; and it astounds me that a woman is able to harbor such a wonderful gift that can so swiftly come to burden her with trial and tribulations that no man, no matter how inventive his imagination may be, can ever begin to imagine. Yet when I look to a child, and all that wonder of innocence that he or she comes to offer us, I cannot imagine so swift an action that comes to inflict injustice upon a child whose only crime is to stir with an existence. I think not of the body, the condition into which the child comes to be born, but I think of the child and that which he or she comes to offer. It is in the promise of innocence that hope comes to be promised; it is in the act of abortion that such a promise comes to forsaken, and in such acts, whether it would be war or abortion we come to damn ourselves and our children, for we rob ourselves of hope and its promise.

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