Long Island Coalition for Life, Inc.
Oratory Contest
Pro-Life Speech on Abortion
by Michael Morgan
2009
Sixteen
Supreme Court Justice John Marshall once said, "The power to create implies a power to preserve." Reproducing is one power endowed to humans by God, which allows society to continue on and withstand the erosion of time. A practice that seeks to disrupt the creation of life is abortion. In the United States alone, nearly one and a half millions lives are erased from history each year because of abortion. So, if abortion is so wrong, then why do people go through with it? Some people claim they are not ready, that they are too young, or that they are simply incapable of caring for a child. According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly 93% of all abortions occur for these reasons. Yet, if someone is old enough to have intimate relations, they should be old enough to realize the risks of promiscuity and premarital sex: pregnancy. People need to become aware of the devastating aspects of abortion and safer alternatives such as putting children up for adoption, or remaining abstinent.
Since abortion has been declared legal, over fifty million abortions have been conducted in United States alone. That's around 1.37 million abortions a year, 3,700 abortions per day, 154 abortions an hour, or sixteen abortions every six minutes. Yes, it's tragic to know that through the course of this speech 16 children, and I say children because they are as much human beings as you or I, are denied the right to life. And the Guttmacher institute has also uncovered that of these fifty million abortions, approximately 1% were actually performed for women who have been raped and 6% were because the women or child faced potential health risks from the birth. The remaining 93% falls mainly on social reasons such as the baby being problematic or unwanted. This percentage does not hold enough reasoning to support why the child's life should be thrown away.
People must also accept the consequences of throwing away their chastity at an early age. Yes, there are young women under the age of fifteen who become pregnant and become susceptible to some of the health risks surrounding early pregnancies, but the Guttmacher institute has uncovered that they only count for 1.2% of abortions. Not to mention if an older woman becomes pregnant with an illegitimate child because of unprotected sex, the man and woman should take responsibility for their actions and follow through with the pregnancy. Even using a condom does not ensure that a woman is free from the risks that surround unprotected sex. Remaining abstinent is the only true way to guarantee that a person will not get pregnant. By remaining abstinent, the need for abortion will drop tremendously.
There are, however, certain circumstances where keeping a child is just not possible. But there are alternatives such as putting the child up for adoption. The National Council for Adoption has reported that "babies, regardless of medical problems . . . generally do not wait long for families." This is supported by the Council's claim of one to two million couples who are willing to adopt children. Their statistics have also shown that in recent years nearly half of the adoptions were older children and children with disabilities. Yet, despite these facts, George Neumayr, the author of The New Eugenics, has found that 80% of the babies who are prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. Eugenics is a kind of philosophy where people believe in ridding the world of certain genes that are deemed unfit for society. Who are we to judge who is fit to live and who is not fit to live? We don't have that right. People need to be exposed to the alternative to abortion, which is adoption. With such a high adoption rate for any children with or without disabilities clearly any child will not wait long to find a loving home.
There are those who may argue abortion is important for rape victims who feel violated and do not want to keep the child. But statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute show that this only accounts for 1% of abortions. Clearly people abuse this "right" to such an extent that it should be viewed as an abomination on our legal system. There are even some who justify abortion with that fact that the unborn child is not a living being. But, Professor Matthews-Roth of Harvard University Medical School has stated that "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive . . . it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." So, if the Bill of rights was designed to protect human life and even prevent unusual punishment, then how come living beings are legally being killed, with little to no justification for why? The case of Roe v. Wade established the precedent through judicial review that the right to abort was justifiable through the Constitution, claiming that fetuses have yet to be considered human beings. A solution to this would be to add an amendment to the constitution that would stamp out the ruling set forth through Roe v. Wade and completely illegalize abortion. Yes, there were, are and unfortunately still will be rape cases, but why should the other 1,485,000 babies, on a yearly basis, be denied the right to live? Even the babies who were the product of rape have done nothing wrong, but are merely being punished for a crime they did not commit.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government." And it's sad to know that today holds a different perspective. Though abortions have remained legal for more that three decades, it's not too late to save lives. Many organizations have been established to save babies from being aborted and help expectant mothers carry through with their pregnancy so that the newborn will be given the right we all take for granted, the right to life. Some of these organizations, such as the National Right to Life, have made progress in lobbying legislation that will help to secure more rights for the yet-to-be-born. With your support we can also push other legislation through Congress, which will curb the amount of abortions to lower rates, so that the 93% of abortions that occur because the woman is not ready, or does not want to have a child, will eventually becomes 0%, so that the sixteen children who have died through this speech can be the last. Unfortunately, there are attempts being made to offset the progress of the pro-life movement. A new abortion agenda is being designed to make it even easier for people to have abortions. But, we still have a chance to petition and protest the new waves of eugenics and Pro-Abortion that seems to be taking the Capital by storm. For they fail to realize that all life is precious and everyone has the right to experience it. It is not for us to decide which lives are valuable and which ones are not. It is our duty as human beings to defend and preserve all life, especially when that life cannot defend itself.
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