“My Body, My Choice”
Abortion is a conflict of rights issue between the fetus’ right to life and the woman’s right to bodily autonomy. When our rights come into conflict with another person’s rights, one has to win over the other. There are plenty of laws in place that restrict a person’s bodily autonomy: you must wear seatbelts in a car, we can’t consume alcohol in certain locations, we can’t stand up when our plane is taking off. If you were to use “My Body, My Choice” to justify breaking those laws, you wouldn’t be taken seriously. We generally agree that people have the right to refuse the use of their own body to someone else who wants to use it, but pregnancy is different. In 99% of unplanned pregnancies, both parties willingly engaged in the very action they knew might result in the creation of an inherently needy child. Bodily autonomy is an extremely important right, but it doesn’t give someone the right to kill another person – especially a person they put in that situation as a direct result of the action they willingly consented to. Even if they didn’t willingly engage in the action, a person still does not have the right to kill an innocent human being.
“We need abortion for cases of rape.”
Rape is a horrific crime, and the rapist should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Women who are survivors of rape need care, support, healing, and community. Abortion can never undo the violence that has been committed. Instead, abortion subjects the woman and her child to yet another form of violence. Under current law, rapists aren’t allowed to be sentenced to the death penalty. Putting the child to death gives more rights to the rapist than the child conceived from his crime. Our value as humans does not come from the circumstances of our conception. No one should be devalued for the crimes of their biological father.
“Women will die from illegal, unsafe abortions.”
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League and a key driver of legalized abortion, admitted to fabricating the myth of the back-alley crisis. “When we spoke of the [mass statistics], it was always 5,000 to 10,000 [women dying to self-induced abortion] a year,” Nathanson wrote. He later estimated that the actual number of maternal deaths was around 500. Legal or not, abortions are never safe. According to University of Michigan Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Elizabeth Shadigian, one in 10 women experiences immediate complications (20% of which are life threatening) following an abortion. Complications include
infection, hemorrhage, pulmonary or amniotic fluid embolism, injury to the reproductive organs and other internal organs, hospitalization, possible hysterectomy, future premature birth, placenta previa, and even death. According to research from the
British Journal of Psychiatry, post-abortive women face an 81% increased risk of mental health problems. Even after factoring in numerous demographic considerations, post-abortive women were found to be significantly more likely to face depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and abuse of drugs and/or alcohol. When the goal of a procedure is to
intentionally end a person’s life, it is impossible for it to be safe. Since abortions have been legalized, it has taken more than
63 million lives in the United States alone. Outlawing abortion cannot possibly do more harm than it already has done.
“Stop forcing your religion on women.”
You don’t have to be religious to recognize that life begins at conception. According to a 2018 academic study by University of Chicago researcher Dr. Steven Jacobs, 95% of biologists (including supermajorities of scientists who self-identify as “pro-choice” or “liberal”) affirm that life begins at fertilization. Our existence is a result of conception, and conception always results in a baby. At the moment of fertilization, a single, unique, unrepeatable, living human being is created. How do we know it’s living? The embryo is constantly growing as cell division takes place, and it’s processing nutrition; neither of these biological processes happen when something is nonliving. How do we know it’s human? A preborn child has a human genome – twenty-three pairs of distinctly human chromosomes composed of uniquely human DNA. A living creature cannot transform into a different species. A simple change in location from the womb into the outside world cannot turn a nonhuman creature into a human being.
Even if you deny science, our society claims to recognize the inherent value of a person’s life. You see this manifest when we fight racism, sexism, or any other form of discrimination. If all life is
not valuable, who gets to decide who deserves to live or die? Dehumanization has historically led to violence. Regardless of what religion we practice, we should be protecting the lives of the innocent and defenseless.
“Abortion is my constitutional right.”
The Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973. The 7 men forming the majority claimed a “constitutional right to privacy” includes a woman’s ability to end the life of her child through all 9 months of pregnancy. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the Roe v. Wade opinion but admitted: “If prenatal personhood is established, the case for abortion collapses. For the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the 14th amendment.”
What is the 14th amendment?“No state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”This poses the question: Are preborn children persons within the original public meaning of the 14th amendment?
What is the definition of ‘person’ according to the 14th amendment?Webster’s dictionary in 1864 said a person was: A living human being, a man, woman, or child, or an individual of the human race. Children in the womb are human; therefore, they’re people.
What is the proper understanding of the amendment?If preborn children are human (which science tells us they are) then they are also people who demand complete protection under the Constitution. As Justice Hugo later put it, “The history of the amendment proves that the people were told that its purpose was to protect weak and helpless human beings.”
“Women will be prosecuted for miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies.”Many examples given by pro-abortion activists of women going to jail after a miscarriage involve illegal drug use by the mother which is considered child abuse. The law is not targeting innocent mothers experiencing a tragic loss of life. Abortion is the direct and
intentional murder of a child through tearing the limbs off of, crushing the skulls of, and poisoning a living child to death. This is what we’re trying to stop. The truth is – legally and morally – treatment for a miscarriage, pre viable separation when a mother’s life is in immediate danger, and ectopic pregnancies are
not abortions and have never and
will never be treated in such a way by the law.
“Abortion is okay as long as it’s before they’re viable outside the womb.”The official “age of viability” is currently set at 24 weeks (even though babies have survived outside the womb earlier than that – the current record is 21 weeks and 5 days). So what changes between 24 weeks and 23 weeks and 6 days? Once the clock strikes midnight, does the fetus suddenly become a baby? No matter what time you point to during the 9 months of pregnancy, the child will always be a living human being. Arbitrarily drawing a line at a specific age a person needs to reach in order to secure their right to life is dangerous, inconsistent, and unreasonable.
“It’s better to have an abortion if the child will have a disability.”There are those who have come to believe that conditions such as Down syndrome are not compatible with life. This comes from a belief that people with disabilities are weak. This fear has no place in a world that stands for basic human rights. Instead of ending the lives of people who are different from us, let’s celebrate their lives and their right to live up to their own unique, full potential. 67% of babies with Down syndrome are aborted in the United States – making this the most deadly form of discrimination. Let’s embrace moms and dads who are choosing life for their babies who may be born with disabilities, and let’s band together to focus on improving those lives – not preventing them.
“Thousands of kids are going to end up in a broken foster care system.”This is false. There are an estimated 2 million couples waiting to adopt – which means there are 36 waiting families for every one child who is placed for adoption. If we outlawed abortion, most children would find a loving family. Very few kids would go into the foster care system. But even if that wasn’t the case, we should never kill a person because they might have a difficult life. Life offers no guarantees, but
abortion offers no chances.“Pro-lifers only care about children until they’re born.”There are more than 2,700 Pregnancy Resource Centers across America. That’s more than 3x the number of abortion facilities. Only 17% of Pregnancy Resource Centers receive federal or state funding – which means that 83% of Pregnancy Resource Centers depend on their pro-life communities and generous donors to establish and sustain them in order to serve families in need. Pregnancy Resource Centers often offer
FREE pregnancy testing, STI testing, ultrasounds, counseling, adoption aid, financial aid, diapers, formula, maternity and baby clothes, housing support, parenting classes, and much more – all while abortion facilities profit from killing the innocent babies of distressed mothers. We care about life before
and after birth.
To find a Pregnancy Resource Center near you, visit lifelinks.io/centers“I’m personally pro-life, but I would never restrict anyone else from having an abortion.”People who claim to be “personally pro-life” in an effort to be empathetic towards other views are perpetuating a culture that devalues life. If you are “personally pro-life” because you know abortion kills a child, you should be against every abortion. You would never say: “I’m personally opposed to child abuse, but I can’t take away another person’s right to abuse children.” It is impossible to be just “personally pro-life.” Either the fetus is not a human person and has no moral significance, or they are an innocent human being, and nothing could ever justify intentionally ending their life. We either believe in the right to life of all humans, or we don’t.
“The abortion pill is safe.”
Mifepristone (the first abortion pill) not only intends to kill a baby every time it's used, but is a dangerous drug to be distributing to women and girls with no safeguards like in-person doctor visits and prior sonograms. This pill has no effect on ectopic pregnancies which puts them at greater risk for serious and life-threatening complications. Without a doctor visit, the gestational age can be badly miscalculated leading to further complications. This drug is linked to over 4,000 serious complications; however, under the Obama administration, the FDA stopped requiring non-fatal complications to be reported so the actual numbers are certainly much higher. Women and girls are being lied to about the safety of this drug.
“Pro-Lifers are just Forced-Birthers.”
Women should never be forced to become pregnant. When a woman is already pregnant, however, she is pregnant with a unique, unrepeatable, living, human being who has already come into existence from the moment of fertilization. The pro-life movement aims to protect innocent human life by fighting for the rights of the preborn and supporting women through their pregnancies. We are pro-life and not pro-forced-birth because we’re saying that killing another innocent person is not the solution to our problems. Our society is full of laws that “force” you NOT to do things that harm others. Saying “you can’t kill” is not the same as forcing you to do something.
“Later abortions are mostly for medical emergencies.”
Abortionists themselves will tell you that late-term abortions are not even mostly for medical reasons. A study by two pro-choice researchers in 2013 found that there was no significant difference between the reasons people were having abortions early or late in pregnancy. Then in 2022, one of those researchers was published again saying, “The circumstances that lead to someone needing a 3rd-trimester abortion are not exceptional.” Some reasons listed for later abortions include not having the resources to get an abortion earlier like money, time, or transportation. Some women had a change in circumstance like a dispute with the father or a loss in financial stability. Some women didn’t know they were pregnant sooner due to a form of contraception or health condition that masks pregnancy symptoms. According to the Arizona Department of Health Services’ 2021 abortion reporting, 91% of late-term abortions were for non-medical reasons. If you look at all the annual reports available, that number comes out to about 80%. The idea that late-term abortions are only done for medical emergencies is a myth.
