Long Island Coalition for Life, Inc.
Oratory Contest
Pro-Life Speech on Abortion
by Emmett Collins
2009
Abortion: The Right to Choose or the Right to Live
We are a nation built on freedom.
Freedom of speech,
Freedom of religion,
Freedom of assembly.
We are free to choose where to live,
And what career to pursue.
We, as Americans, hold our freedoms dear.
But what about a woman's freedom to choose
whether or not to terminate a pregnancy?
Should this also be protected by the law?
This is one of the foremost issues of our time,
and what I would like to address today.
It has been 36 years since the Supreme Court
handed down its landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
Since that time, 48 million legal abortions
have been performed in the United States.
According to government statistics,
20 percent of all human conceptions end in abortion.
In addition, there is newly proposed legislation
called the Freedom of Choice Act (or FOCA),
According to the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
FOCA would have a major impact on our society.
It could deny hospitals and doctors
the right to refuse to perform abortions
based on their own moral beliefs.
It is ironic that Planned Parenthood defends the choice of abortion,
but then wants to deny doctors the choice of following
their moral convictions.
FOCA would also remove a ban on partial birth abortions.
An ABC News poll found that 63% of Americans are against
partial birth abortion.
Just think about partial birth abortion for a minute.
You can be 8 months pregnant and have an abortion,
and just go on with your life
as if nothing had happened.
However, if you were to wait one month more,
and give birth naturally to a live baby at nine months,
and then kill the baby,
you would be arrested and jailed for homicide,
and held in public scorn.
How can 30 days make such a difference?
In addition, FOCA would reverse laws in 35 states
that require parental consent for a minor having an abortion.
Just consider this for a moment:
Most school districts require written permission from parents
before they can dispense medication to a student.
This means that if your daughter has a headache in school,
the school nurse cannot even give her one Tylenol pill
without your written permission.
But now it would be possible for your daughter
to have an abortion
without you even being aware of it..
What is the role of our elected officials in this?
It has become popular for many Catholic politicians
to deal with the issue of abortion by stating:
"I am personally opposed to abortion,
but I will defend a woman's constitutional right to choose".
It's become a cliché for them to state this.
On what other issue would a politician say this?
Would a politician say, for example,
I am against the KKK burning crosses on people's lawns,
but I defend their right to do so?
No, they would publicly deplore such actions.
Just this month, President Obama nominated
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius
for Secretary of Health and Human Services, a Cabinet position.
She describes herself as a "practicing Catholic",
yet she vetoed a bill against late-term abortions in Kansas.
She accepts campaign contributions from Dr. George Tiller,
the Kansas physician known for his "expertise" in performing 3rd trimester abortions, whose clinic even goes so far as to offer the mother a lock of hair and a footprint as a memory of her unborn child.
Governor Sebelius is certainly not alone in her statements.
Many politicians, such as Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry take this position,
yet still call themselves practicing Catholics.
How can we change the culture in our society?
It has to start with the bottom up,
by talking to people and educating them on this issue.
If elected officials felt that their constituents were against abortion,
they would worry about re-election.
They might pass laws and appoint judges
to protect the rights of the unborn.
The Pro-Life Movement is a growing movement.
The annual Right-to-Life March is held each year in Washington DC.
I was lucky enough to attend this year's event with my high school.
It was estimated that more than 250,000 people were there.
For myself, personally, when I saw the endless lines of people marching,
so many, many thousands of people,
it really struck me how strong this movement is becoming.
Of course, there is another side to this issue.
It's not all statistics and facts.
There's the human side, the emotional side.
On a personal note, I can see the effects of choice in my own family.
My cousin Danny is a Down syndrome child.
He is two years younger than I am, almost to the day.
As I am about to turn 17, he will turn 15.
Yes, he is different from all the other cousins.
Yes, he doesn't talk like us or act like us or even look like us.
His face is different and his speech is often hard to decipher.
His actions are often impulsive.
He won't go to college, he won't work on Wall Street.
But he runs with the rest of us when we have Easter egg hunts,
He excels at sports, playing hockey and lacrosse in a special league.
He is constantly laughing.
In a way, he is enjoying life more than the rest of us.
Although I have never asked her, I wonder if my aunt thought
about the possibility of terminating her pregnancy?
It might have crossed her mind.
She was only four months pregnant
when she found out that her baby had Down syndrome.
She must have worried about it.
But now, fifteen years later, it's impossible to imagine life without him.
And it's not just a baby that isn't born; it's a whole life not lived.
To grow from childhood to adulthood,
and enjoy all the momentous occasions of life --
but also the small things, like the smell of the air on a crisp autumn day,
or the sound of rain on the roof.
To listen to a beautiful piece of music,
or to jump into a cool swimming pool on a hot summer's day.
The unborn person will never get to experience these small pleasures.
One minute of choice, and it's so final.
One minute of choice leads to a lifetime that will not be lived.
In conclusion, I as stated in my opening remarks,
we are a nation built on freedoms.
Many people have gone to war and died to protect those freedoms.
And yet all the people who died in all the wars our country has ever fought in,
from the Revolutionary War all the way up to the war in Iraq today,
does not equal the lives lost to abortion.
It all comes down to this:
It's so easy to say that a woman has a right to choose.
After all, it's her body.
However, the baby has a right to live,
And the baby's right to live outweighs the woman's right to choose.
[Back to Oratory index]
[Back to Main Page]