| F a r g o M o o r h e a d |
L . I . F. E . C o a l i t i o n |
January 2004
"How would you explain why abortion is wrong?"
Top essays of contest sponsored by LIFE Coaltion
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| Photo by George Laoutaris |
In observation of the 31st anniversary of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Courts rulings making abortion legal in America through the landmark decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the LIFE Coalition sponsored an essay contest for students in local schools. The essays were to answer the question: "How would you explain why abortion is wrong?"
Since those rulings, making it legal to terminate a fetus's life at any time during a mother's nine months of pregnancy, over 43 million lives have been lost to abortion.
The LIFE Coalition of the Fargo-Moorhead Area commemorated the 31st anniversary of this fateful decision by holding a pro-life gathering at the Federal Court House at Roberts Street and 1st Avenue North in Fargo, January 22.
Schools invited to submit their five top essays included: Grace Lutheran School, Sullivan Middle School, Park Christian School, Shanley High School, Oak Grove Lutheran School and Collegians for Life.
Six students were selected to read their essay at the public gathering at the federal court house between 12:15-12:45 p.m.. A cash award of $25 was given to each of these students, plus "precious feet" pins were given to the top five writers chosen from each school. The top essays, among many fine essays, are below.
Why Abortion is Wrong
By Matthew Porter
January 15, 2004
One of the pressing subjects of this day is the subject of abortion. Does the mother have a choice to kill a child that she believes she cannot or does not want to take care of? I believe it is totally and unquestionably wrong. It is destroying innocent human life. The developing fetus is killed when it can at least have life when adopted by someone who has the will and time to raise a child. I believe that killing a baby that is not even born is even worse than killing a full grown person. The reason it is so bad is because the baby has it's whole life in front of it. That aborted baby could have become the next president of the United States of America, come up with a cure for cancer, or done many other significant works in his or her life.
It may be true that the baby is not even a fully developed life yet, but it would be. Imagine for a moment that you get an amazing job offer that would allow you to get five times as much money as you get now for half the working hours, but the job training would take a month to prepare. Would you just forget the offer since you're not getting great benefits from it at the present? Normal people would drop their old job and get the new job. The same is true for abortion. Would you kill the baby now when later it could give you bundles of joy and happiness, and even help you out when you are older just because the benefits are not right now?
Not only are you losing a great opportunity for yourself, you're also depriving a child of the right to life, only for personal reasons. That is what makes abortion such a selfish practice. The baby could have a joyful, happy, well lived life, but instead is met with cold death. It's not the baby's fault that it was conceived at an inconvenient time, so why lead it to this unjust death sentence? If anyone is at fault, it is the parents' fault.
Think of that baby about eight or nine years old when it is fully capable of making logical decisions. If you asked him, "Is it okay with you if I take away the rest of your life?," unless he has some serious depression, he would say, "No." What if you were aborted? You wouldn't be listening to me now.
Abortion is killing a human that cannot speak out for itself, that cannot verbally communicate that it wants life. I believe that a baby should have the right of living out life. If this murderous practice continues, our nation will fall apart like all the other great empires.
What Could Have Been
By Jessica Turner
English 12
January 15, 2004
We only get one life to live, and the choices we make with that life can deeply affect our lives and lives of others as well. There are so many ways for us to destroy our bodies and minds today. Not only do drugs and alcohol destroy our bodies one puff, or one drink at a time but they also destroy our minds as well, making us less and less likely to make wise decisions. Drugs and alcohol destroy family, relationships, and just life in general. But there is another issue out there today that can also affect many with just one decision.
Abortion not only affects the mother and child but can also affect family and friends as well. A woman who has an abortion can have a deep sense of regret and loss after the abortion is done. This feeling of pain, regret, and shame can lead to depression. When a woman is spiraling down the depression hole, she can pull away from all those around her, even those who love her deeply. Just think how hard that would be for a women feeling guilt, knowing that nothing can be done and not wanting to express her hurt and shame to those who could help. And think of her family and friends also, they want to help but do not know how or do not feel adequate to help.
Every year the abortion anniversary would come around and every year the woman would be thinking and wondering what her child would look like, how they would act, and how they would have grown up and changed through the years. The imagining would never end. When an abortion takes place, not only is a child's future taken away, but also a mother is left with the memories of an unborn child. We only have one life to live, let us make good choices.
Why is Abortion wrong?
By Cyrus Artz
Grade 11
Shanley High School
Mrs. Amanda Ellerkamp
Why is abortion wrong? There are many reasons that abortion is wrong, ranging from ethical, moral, and spiritual. Ethically, why do we have the right to choose another's death? Morally, how can we condone the wholesale slaughter of innocent human beings? Spiritually, how can we go against the words of God, and kill his children? These are all questions that point to the incorrectness of abortion.
Why do we have the right to choose the time of death for another human being? If a woman can choose death for another human being for reason of convenience, why can't I just run over the person crossing the street instead of slowing down? Slowing down is an inconvenience, so why should I have to do it? This mentality of convenience and personal wants having precedence has truly led us down a "slippery slope", leading to things that we couldn't have even considered at the beginning, but now have come about because of the wide scale acceptance of abortion. We would not have euthanasia, infanticide, and even higher rates of child abuse if abortion had not been legalized. Abortion can be linked too much degradation in our society and could very easily bring us to more.
Abortion is morally wrong, because you are ending a human life, something that has been considered wrong since Adam and Eve. Supposedly, the debate is out for the pro-abortionists that the "fetus" is not a person, but to Laci Peterson and me an unborn baby Is human and worthy of protection and care. We are willing to compromise our values and our future for nothing more than personal convenience.
More than 96 percent of Americans believe in some sort of higher being, and a large majority of those believe in a Christian God. The other two large faith communities, Jews and Muslims, also consider abortion to be wrong, but numerous adherents to all of these faiths still consider abortion to be right. This is directly against the words of their Gods. The Bible, Torah, and Koran all speak of the value of human life, and warn against the waste of it. How can we as a society, who call ourselves religious, support something that goes against that?
Abortion is wrong. For any reason you can think of: fetal development, fetal pain, or the killing of our future. Whatever drives our fight against it is a valid argument, and one that we should share and spread. No matter the odds, we must fight against the evil that abortion truly is.
How would you explain why abortion is wrong?
By Grant Gunhus
January 15, 2004
Abortion Paper
The practice of abortion in today's world has become unbelievably routine. Not only is abortion a way to ignore the consequences of your actions, it also goes directly against what God says in His Word. Abortion is murder, which is definitely sin.
One excuse that people use to justify abortion is that the baby i nside them is not a human being because he or she hasn't been born yet. Jeremiah 1:5 proves that this is not true; it says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." The moment God forms each baby (at conception) is the moment that he or she becomes a human being.
There is also scientific evidence that babies are human beings at conception. --At conception, the baby-is totally distinguishable from -all other living organisms and has human characteristics. The baby, although very very small, has everything that an adult has; it just needs time to grow and develop. Babies also have all 26 chromosomes that a grown adult has and, obviously, will only develop into a fully mature human being (not some other organism).
It has been over 30 years since the Roe v. Wade court decision legalized abortion, and there have been many millions of humans killed by abortion since then. In 2002 alone, there were over. 86 1,000 abortions, which is actually consider to be a very low number.
Another amazing statistic is that sixty percent of the abortions in 2002 were performed on 18- and 19-year-olds. This shows that the vast majority of abortions are the result of a lack of self-control and responsibility.
The practice of abortion is something that I think our nation needs to reconsider and, hopefully, eliminate. Sure, some people would complain that making abortion illegal is infringing on our freedom as Americans, but killing other human beings is not a right we have.
How would you explain why abortion is wrong?
By Derek Rieckens
NFSU Collegians for Life
Pregnancy is inevitably a life-altering experience, and no woman should have to face it alone. A woman deserves the full support of her partner, her family, and her community. It is when support in one of these areas is lacking that the challenges of pregnancy and parenthood become overwhelming. It is then that an avenue of quick disposal begins to look like an acceptable substitution for facing difficulty. The society that allows, condones, and promotes abortion is one that has failed women.
Helping a mother takes ample resources of time, money, and devotion, but the benefits of promoting motherhood do not stop at the mother and her child. Rather, the love of motherhood bears copious fruit for all of society: charity, kindness, goodness, generosity, peace, joy.
By comparison, the fruits of abortion are sorrow, doubt, sadness, dejection', regret. Motherhood deserves better treatment than that. The abortion mentality devalues motherhood, that uniquely feminine institution. The true feminists are those who leap swiftly and urgently to the defense of motherhood, but there are many who lead the charge in the opposite direction, treating fertility as a dysfunction, and pregnancy as an anomalous mishap.
Rather than addressing a woman's real needs, abortion ignores those needs and proposes that the unborn child is the problem, and the solution is elimination. This would be akin to purchasing a new car, and then, when it runs out of gas, taking it to the scrap yard instead of filling the tank. We do not tolerate this kind of wastefulness with machines; why should we with human beings?
Scientific observations of the womb open our eyes and leave no doubt of the humanity of the unborn. Possessing a unique and complete version of the human genome from the time of conception, the new life is biologically functional in all respects, and is genetically distinct from either parent. Within days, independent organ systems are discernable. Thus, the unborn is both human and alive.
We sometimes hear the argument that a fetus is to an adult human what an acorn is to an oak tree. It is no crime to destroy an acorn and prevent it from becoming a tree, so where is the harm in preventing a fetus from being born? The problem with this comparison is a matter of natural law. Human beings have a unique, inherent dignity, which gives us control of our actions and makes us the individuals that we are. Oak trees do not possess this dignity, and it is therefore acceptable for a person to cut down such trees. It is not permissible, however, for a person to violate another person's dignity by killing him or her. And since the child in the womb is unquestionably a human life from conception, it unquestionably possesses this very same dignity. For this reason, we can no more justifiably end the life of one who is unborn than we can the life of a grown adult.
The unborn are truly our future, and their mothers need all the help they can get. Abortion did not help in 1973, and it does not help today. Help begins when we recognize the real needs of women, joyfully give mothers all the support they deserve, and celebrate the beauty of the gift of life.
Abortion: The End of a Human's Potential
By Anna Astrup
Abortion Essay
Mrs. Nesius
January 16,2004
A gift has been given to me and I have come to appreciate it more as I have matured. I received this gift from a woman I did not even know. To this day, I do not know her name, what she looks like, or even why she decided to give me this gift. The gift she gave me was life outside of her womb and for this gift I am eternally grateful. You see, I am an adopted child. However, I have not understood why today's society has not allowed for the unborn to appreciate this gift fife like I have. It hurts me to think that today's society says unborn children are not really humans. The unborn baby is a human and ending a human life, in any form, is murder.
Last year in my "Understanding the Times" class, I learned four main reasons the pro-choice are in support of abortion: size, level of knowledge, environment, and dependency. However, I disagree with their reasons and have four arguments that support giving the gift of life to an unborn baby. All four of my arguments can prove babies are humans and the process of abortion is wrong because it is murder.
Size is the first concept of pro-choice people that is refutable. Supporters of abortion explain the size of a baby is not like that of a normal human like you or me. Therefore, a two-year-old would not be human because he or she is shorter than a sixteen-year-old. But that simply is not true. An unborn baby and a two-year-old are both still developing and are both human beings.
Another argument that pro-choice people believe is that the unborn are not at the same level in their knowledge. I would challenge those who believe this to consider the following- A kindergartener does not have the same level of knowledge as that of a senior in high school. 'Me pro-choice argument is, therefore, saying the kindergartener is not human because of his or her level of knowledge. It is evident this is also not true. Both the kindergartener and the unborn child are still in the process of developing his or her knowledge.
Pro-choice people say the environment of an unborn also makes him or her not human. I would again have to disagree. Consider a child in an incubator. Does it not provide the same environment of a mother's womb? According to the people for abortion, a baby in in incubator would not be a human. Is it acceptable to end that life as well?
Dependency is just one more concept pro-choice people feel supports that the unborn are not humans. All would agree that an unborn child is dependent on its mother for life. Some people, however, are dependent upon their dialysis, oxygen, and respirators for ongoing life. Does their dependency on those things make them less human? Absolutely not. Therefore, an unborn child's dependency on its mother should be treated no differently.
The fact is that any unborn is a human. They should not be considered different from you or me. Abortion is deliberately ending an innocent and defenseless human being's life and this is murder. It continues to puzzle me as to why our country cannot put these simple facts together and see that abortion is wrong. When confronted with the issue of abortion, I am also reminded of my birth mother, and I wonder why she chose to give me life. In my perspective, I feel she made the tight decision or else I would not exist today. Words win never express how my heart feels to have been given this precious gift of life. Along with her gift of life, she gave me the chance to be someone, to have dreams, to have a good education, to have the chance to make a difference in this world. Everyone deserves the chance to make a difference in this world; but it is abortion that ends these possibilities.
Abortion
By Rebekah Caton
January 14, 2004
English II
My parents could barely afford to feed themselves and my two sisters. They were trying to get my dad through his PhD and their budget was stretched so tight that any major strain would have been a disaster. They could not afford, and were not planning on having, another child.
In December of 1986, they discovered my mom was pregnant. She could have looked at their budget, at their already hectic lives, and the two beautiful daughters she already had, and legally ended my life before I was old enough to understand the concept of death. But this never even crossed her mind. Once she found out I existed, even if that existence had only been a few weeks-she loved me. She knew I was a person, small but complete.
I am so thankful that my parents did not end my life before I even had a chance to breathe on my own. As I look back on the past sixteen years, I wonder about all of the people that never had a chance to take that first breath. They would have been my peers and friends. One could have discovered a cure for cancer, another been a musical genius, and all of them American citizens with the right to life. Now they are simply nameless statistics. Even their bodies have been mutilated and thrown away, leaving no trace except on the hearts of childless mothers.
Abortion is scarring our society. It
has left thousands of mothers heartbroken, bitter, and wishing to take back their actions,
it has deprived America of millions of wonderful citizens, it has taken away a person's
most basic right-the right to live-and
put in place the right to choose another human being's death, and it has told our society
that whatever we want-no matter the effects it may have on other people-is what we should
do. Abortion tells us we do not have to accept the consequences of our actions.
America cannot let this continue. We must, as a nation and as individuals, fight for the lives of those who cannot fight for themselves. If we just sit back and let this happen, we, too, will be guilty.