Young people should join the abortion debate
Your reaction to last Monday’s indictment on criminal charges of David Daleiden, head of the Center for Medical Progress, by a Texas grand jury, will almost certainly be determined by whether you identify as pro-choice or pro-life. Daleiden is accused with “tampering with government records” and “buying human organs,” while the Planned Parenthood affiliate on trial has been cleared of charges. Pro-choice advocates have been pleased, if a little surprised, by the ruling. Pro-life supporters, on the other hand, are up in arms, protesting that the ruling is ludicrously biased and political. They point out the inconsistency of an individual being charged with buying human organs when his intentions were in fact the complete opposite, while the organization that was willing to sell to him is not accused of selling human organs. Once again the abortion debate has been thrust onto the national stage.
The videos filmed by Daleiden and his associates have been highly controversial, with proponents pointing out that they show evidence of misconduct and a contemptuous attitude toward human life and detractors claiming that the videos have been edited too substantially to be used as evidence against the abortion provider. Whether you believe CMP’s statement that the only footage removed was for bathroom breaks and waiting times or the analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood that claimed the videos contained purposefully deceptive edits, inaccurately transcribed conversations and missing footage, keep in mind that the same report admitted that there is no evidence that the anti-abortion group included fabricated dialogue. It is clear in watching the videos that they show an organization steeped in greed and callousness toward human life.
As the debates over abortion, fueled in part by these videos, rage in America between legislatures aiming to restrict abortion and federal courts trying to uphold the Supreme Court’s momentous 1973 decision, the public has drifted further left on the issue. Surprisingly, however, young adults have not moved left on abortion as much as would be expected. The number of people aged 18 to 34 years that define themselves as pro-choice is currently 53 percent, a slightly higher rate than the general population at 50 percent. This level of support is modest compared to same-sex marriage, which 78 percent of people under 30 are in favor of. Clearly abortion has failed to capture the imagination of young people, whose attitude toward it can best be described as indifferent. National studies indicate that people under 30 are more ignorant of Roe v. Wade than any other demographic — with only 44 percent knowing that the case dealt with abortion. And they are more likely than any other age group to say abortion is “not that important” compared to other issues, at 53 percent.
This leaves an opening for the pro-life cause to reach young people with their message of the dignity of all human life. Since 1973, advances in medical technology have made stronger the pro-life position that a fetus is a human life and the pro-choice stance, that it is a mere clump of cells that should not be given any weight, less tenable. Mothers today can see detailed ultrasounds of their fetus, watch her move, and hear her heartbeat, establishing a personal connection with what, because of its obvious potential, can rightly be considered a human being.
And of course, if the fetus is a human being, she is, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Denying the first and most fundamental of these so-called unalienable rights to a group of people would be widely considered unjust and immoral. Indeed, polling indicates that while the divide between those labeling themselves pro-choice versus pro-life is 50 percent to 44 percent respectively, those who believe abortion is morally wrong number 49 percent of the U.S. population compared to only 15 percent who view it as morally acceptable. The remaining 36 percent is divided between those who say it isn’t a moral issue, who say that it depends, and who don’t know.
Part of the appeal of the pro-choice viewpoint is that it is an easier viewpoint to hold than the pro-life one. After all, as evidenced by the fact that only 15 percent of Americans hold that abortion is morally acceptable, being pro-choice does not mean you have to believe in abortion’s goodness, just that other people have the right to decide whether it is good or not. On the other hand, to be pro-life, one must be convinced of a moral absolute that applies to all people whether they acknowledge it or not, a position that in our morally subjectivist culture is becoming more difficult to hold unless founded in religious belief.
In our individualistic age, we have become afraid to be perceived as limiting the choices of others or trying to impose our morals on them. But let us consider the facts. From the moment of conception, a fetus is a new organism distinct from its parents with its own DNA code, a unique genetic arrangement coding for a human being different from every person to exist before or after. This minuscule “blob” will, if nature is left to take its course, grow into a baby, then a child, then an adult. Pro-choice advocates cannot indicate a specific time when the group of rapidly specializing embryonic cells becomes a human life because there is no such point. The only milestones of fetal development not artificially imposed are conception and birth. This knowledge should lead us to embrace either the life-begins-at-conception narrative of the pro-lifers or join the radical pro-choicers numbering a mere 14 percent of the population who support a woman’s right to an abortion even in the final trimester, in which babies born prematurely almost always survive. If, like me, you follow the evidence to the conclusion that life begins at conception, then you will develop the moral fortitude to reply to someone accusing you of denying women the right to choose what they do with their own body: “With regards to abortion, yes. I would deny them the right to make a choice that takes a human life.”
Every person reading this, but especially college students, owes it to themselves to examine this incredibly significant matter and come to a reasoned conclusion about it. I encourage those who investigate abortion and come to the opinion that I hold to reject apathy on the issue and contact local pro-life groups.