Thanks for reading!
Leah
I am already out of the gate with a topic that is extremely controversial. (This won't always be the case, but as I am 3 months to my due date, I have babies on my mind.) To begin this conversation, I must say that I do believe in pregnancy prevention and not just abstinence. As a mother of almost 6 children, we have (believe it or not) prevented pregnancy from happening. I have used various forms of birth control options and strongly believe that the decision of when to have children and how many children to have should not at all be taken lightly. These life decisions should be a prayerful matter between a husband and wife.
I am firmly against abortion as a form of birth control. Abortion is termination of pregnancy and not prevention. I understand the history of abortion in America. I took a women's history class (I know that doesn't make me an expert) and my eyes were opened to the very real struggles that women at one point in our history faced. I understand that abortion was invented/created out of desperation. Women had absolutely no say in what happened in their lives or even with their own bodies. They were often victims of abuse and rape, and advances in pregnancy prevention were decades away. This is our history. I know that there are parts of the world where women are still abused and have no rights and are valued the same as a dog. But I am talking about the abortion rates in the United States of America where women vote, work, have equal rights and protections under the law, and have free access to medical care and contraception, and not just from places like Planned Parenthood. There are free, privately owned and operated medical clinics all over the country.
I grew up in an area where poverty and lack of education were common. Teen pregnancy was not out of the norm. I remember a fellow student in Junior High having her first child (at age 13) by her high school-aged boyfriend. As a Junior in highschool, I shared a class with a Senior female who by the time she was 18, was pregnant with her then-boyfriend's baby, yet bragged about her previous 3+ abortions. In the 8th grade I spent a week being indoctrinated by the State of California's "ENABL" program. Which was an acronym for "Education Now And Babies Later" which taught little about abstinence for teenagers and promoted the use of condoms and contraception. They discussed abortion as just another form (albeit a last resort) of birth control.
My own religion teaches that abortion should only be considered in cases of rape, incest, when a competent physician determines that the life of the mother is in serious jeopardy by the pregnancy, or if a competent physician determines that the baby has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. But even these exceptions (according to my religious beliefs) do not justify abortion automatically. My own logic tells me that with the advances made in medicine, and birth control, abortions should be very uncommon. A victim of rape could immediately go to the hospital and not only report her rape, but also receive help in preventing a pregnancy (implantation) from happening.
Cases of abortions due to pregnancy resulting from incest and rape are actually quite low. According to this article (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf) the percentage of abortions in the US that were a result of incest were less than .5% of all abortions (in 2004). The percentage of abortions performed after a woman was a victim of rape was 1% of all abortions (in 2004). Women who gave the reason that their health was threatened by the pregnancy and as a result aborted the pregnancy was 12% of all abortions reported in 2004 (according to the article). In the article, there is a table that compares the results of 2004 with results from 1987. The percentages were not very different. So, it might be safe to assume that these percentages have been roughly the same since 1987 or even earlier. A 2011 report from Guttmacher stated that the number of abortions from 1973-2008 numbered approximately 49.3 million abortions. According to annual CDC reports from 2009-2013, there were 5.4 million more abortions, giving us a total of 54.7 million abortions from 1973-2013. If the percentages remained the same (which I think is pretty safe to assume) of the 54.7 million abortions, only 7.3 million abortions were a result of rape, incest or health of the mother. If you divide those abortions evenly over those 40 years (1973-2013), our annual abortion rate would be 182,500 abortions/year instead of what it is now. According to my google search, the average annual abortion rate in the US is 1.21 million abortions. 4 in 10 unintended pregnancies are aborted. FOUR IN TEN!
Now, this is the reason why I thought of abortion today. I saw this video pop up on my Facebook feed. I subscribe to Upworthy.com and they had this video discussing the language used by those who promote genocide:
From Stephen Fry: "In each one of these genocidal moments...each example was preceded by language being used again and again and again to dehumanize the person that had to be killed in the political eyes of their enemies." He goes on the say, "Language is at the root of it."
Think about that. I have often wondered in the past as I felt the first kicks of my children in the womb (and as I write this now, I can feel my unborn baby girl kick) how anyone could harm or kill something so innocent and harmless. I think there is something to be said about the language we use when discussing unborn children. We use phrases like "unborn" and "fetus." We speak of what they are (a burden, a mistake, a drunken one-night-stand, a consequence, an unwanted result of passion) and forget to mention the potential these people have.
Wikipedia (which I know is not always a reliable source but this is a blog not a college paper) has a list of genocides by death toll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll. According to the lowest estimates, the 28 genocides listed, ended with approximately 23 million deaths. According to the highest estimates, they resulted in approximately 67.3 million deaths. I am likely to believe more in the higher number, but the truth is probably somewhere in between. Compare that world history with the US abortion rate for only 40 years. We as a nation have killed nearly 55 million babies and continue to kill 1.2 million each year (FOUR IN TEN unintended pregnancies!). We are wiping out the unborn, the unwanted, the enemy of the liberated, single, woman. We see these "fetuses" as the enemy. Tell me how this is not genocide? Tell me how people are okay with this? We have convinced ourselves through the language we use that this is "normal" or "fine" or "not about a baby, but about my body, and what I want for my life." How is that any different than "I don't want Jews in my neighborhood?" Where is the outrage of normal human beings? We get news coverage of people protesting abortions, but usually they are dismissed as "fundamentalist wackos" or "crazy Christians."
I read a horrible news article that spoke of a local woman who was found dead in her car. She was 9 months pregnant and the news article referred to her baby as a "fetus" and said that "it" didn't survive. I was so bothered by this! The baby, was a BABY! If his mother had not been killed, he would have lived a full life. He could have been someone's teacher, or father, or BOTH! He could have also just been one more criminal in our justice system. The point is, he could have lived! Even if he had been born 3 months earlier, he could have lived! Why refer to him as a fetus instead of a baby? I think the answer is to promote the language of pro-choice advocates and those who think they are wiser and smarter and more educated and therefore, know better than the "common" man or woman. Stop killing babies America! Also, in the words of Stephen Fry from the video I shared, lets "be careful about our language." Or at the very least "be alert to it." Something to think about.
More recent videos:
From a Pastor (not of my faith):
From The Blaze:
