Abortion Rebuttal Issue - Essay Example

The women themselves usually wish to bring their baby to full term.  Other powerful influences in her life such as her husband/boyfriends, parents, and friends are generally the forces that exact pressure on her to terminate the pregnancy.  It’s the abortion that, in many cases, is unwanted by the woman, not the baby.  Most often, the father of the child, not wishing to accept responsibility, may beg or even threaten a woman until she agrees to the abortion.  “In 95 percent of all cases, the male partner played a central role in the decision” (Zimmerman, 1977).  This and other studies have illustrated clearly that most women decide against their conscience. 

A myth espoused as fact is that the aborted fetus is no more than a cluster of cells, a bit of tissue unable to even feel pain.  A developing embryo has a unique set of fingerprints as well as different genetic patterns than its mother.  It is a human being unto itself.  If one defines death as the stoppage of a heartbeat and murder as the forceful and intentional stopping of a heart then abortion is surely murder.  If the existence of a heartbeat legally defined life, then almost all abortions would be illegal as the heart is formed by the 18th day in the womb.  A British medical journal reported that when a pin is stuck into an eight-week-old fetus, it opens its mouth in a crying motion and pulls its hand away.  By week five, eyes, legs, and hands begin to develop.  “By week six, brain waves are detectable, mouth and lips are present and fingernails are beginning to form.  By the eighth week, the baby can begin to hear.  Every organ is in place, bones begin to replace cartilage, and fingerprints begin to form” (National Right to Life Foundation, n.d.). 

That too is a false premise.  Ninety-seven percent of women who have had abortions describe intense pain experienced during the procedure despite the use of local anesthetics.  (Bulanger, Melzak & Lauzon, 1989).  

The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were written by men who believed in God, men who thought prayer was important, that life was sacred, and that many of our current-day controversial practices, such as homosexuality and abortion, were biblically and morally reprehensible.  According to John Adams, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (Beach 1988).  Today, however, popular culture has forgotten that our nation was founded, in large part, on Christian principles, and that the Constitution was written for a “moral and religious people.”  We are, of course, free to practice our own religious beliefs, but our present society has become obsessed with the idea of tolerance.  Everything is to be tolerated – except Christianity.