Editorial: Abortion: An Issue Still Debated

With our new administration comes new policies and we have been inundated with so many policies, it is hard to keep up. As discussed before, the Freedom of Choice Act is one of those policies. This bill is the 110th of the United States Congress which “declares that it is the policy of the United States that every women has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child; terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability or terminate a pregnancy after viability when necessary to protect her life or her health”.

Upon further investigation of this bill it was made known that it prohibits a federal, state, or local government entity from denying or interfering with a women’s right to exercise such choices. I think many citizens would agree that the federal, state or local government should have no say in what women do with their babies. This has long been a battle fought in court but the whole situation should not even be discussed in a government office. This debate should be kept privately between those involved. It has gone on far enough and should be kept out of Congress.

Just recently something interesting happened. It was brought to my attention last week that there had been a mailing campaign going on. It was the snail mail kind of campaign which encouraged people to send red envelopes. It was started by one unknown person who had a desire to affect the abortion debate and it caught on to become an internet phenomenon. The Red Envelope Project resulted in thousands of envelopes heading to the White House over these past few weeks to protest President Obama’s pro-abortion policies.

On the back of each red envelope sent it said: “This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.”

I really liked that last sentence: Responsibility begins with conception. There are many opinions given in books and in the media telling us that life does not begin at conception. It is hard for me to believe this. As a fertilized egg develops into an embryo, the end result is the same: a child is born. The end result also being that if you abort an already fertilized egg, the child is not allowed to be born. It’s that simple. We should promote life not death.

It is sad that a country with such great developments and scientific discovery still has to argue whether to bring children into the world. We should all be pro-life unless the pregnancy would threaten the life of the mother. This is an issue that goes on in debate. Maybe one day we will all catch the vision of a better world where we don’t kill our own babies.