Black is a fourth-year economics student
By Lauren Black
Under the current American judicial system, it’s very easy
to get away with murder.
I’m not talking about homicide; I’m talking about
abortion. The only difference is that in homicide the victim can
count on prosecutors to hold the criminal accountable. In the case
of abortion, rather than pressing charges, prosecutors help protect
the right of parents to kill their children and the doctors who
play the role of executioner.
I shuddered after reading the Daily Bruin editorial,
“Abortion rights must be upheld in future,” (Viewpoint,
Jan. 28) in which children are insensitively referred to as
“fetuses” in order to take away their human identity.
The editorial states: “Coming up with a compromise on what
types of abortion are legal and under what circumstances, is more
likely to produce decisions that consider both sides fairly.”
But there are more than two sides ““ what about the baby? The
child is always heartlessly ignored for the sake of securing
someone’s constitutional rights.
Yet, hypocritically, Americans, and especially liberals, often
consider infanticide committed in countries such as China ““
where female babies were killed ““ a horror. Why the double
standard, aren’t both “unwanted” pregnancies? Why
it is politically correct to kill babies in one country and condemn
it in another is beyond the reach of my logic.
There is one possibility; it makes me sick to consider it, but
it might just be true: abortion is convenient. You went to a party,
got drunk, had sex, and now you’re pregnant. It’s OK,
though, you have an option: kill the baby legally with abortion.
After all, as a woman, you have the “right to choose,”
no one will blame you ““ in fact, they’ll congratulate
you, they’ll march to protect your right to choose,
they’ll contribute thousands of dollars to politicians
willing to let you murder the baby. And once the baby gets pronged
out and thrown into the incinerator, you can certainly forget about
it, it’s in the past.
What if the baby had been you? Doesn’t seem to be so easy
to answer now, does it?
Roe v. Wade must be thrown out of the law books at any cost, and
I hope President Bush has the guts to appoint justices who will do
it.
Admittedly, there are some instances in which abortion can,
under very close scrutiny, be allowed.This is in the case of rape
or incest.
Outside of this, there is no reasonable justification for
committing murder. If I had to “compromise” as the
editorial said, I guess I’d rather do that than have no
supervision over abortion at all. A good “compromise”
would be to let a court decide when abortions (outside of rape and
incest) are merited. This way, a judge can consider all three
sides: the mother, the father and especially the baby. This allows
the judge to decide whether the parents recklessly became pregnant,
and if true, order them to support the child. It’s the only
way the baby will ever have a fair chance to survive the
insensitivity of their cold-blooded parents.
Although I justify my opposition to abortion with mainly
religious reasons, one can be a perfect atheist and still realize
abortion means killing.
There is no debate over the question, “What is
life?” as the editorial says. If you leave the woman alone,
will the fetus develop into a child? Of course, life isn’t
some spontaneous occurrence that takes place when you reach the
third trimester. That’s why we grow ““ that’s why
an adult is more developed than a child. It’s a process, not
a sudden occurrence!
Many believe that in desperation, girls will try to perform
abortions themselves, hurting themselves in the process.
That doesn’t have to be an option. Complete sex education
should be given to all teenagers, and they should be taught that
other options exist, namely adoption. If someone doesn’t want
to take care of their child, the least they could do is to let
someone else raise it for them. With adoption, the baby has the
prospect of a better life, where he or she is not an
inconvenience.
Maybe it’s time to carry the war on terrorism to smaller
scale terrorism ““ one in which a doctor slaughters a baby
under the consent of a woman following a radical ideology which
tells her she has a “choice” as to whether the baby
lives or not.
If you insist on a woman’s “right to choose,”
at least extend this right to women still in the womb.