Nyla Chase
February 9, 2013
Period 6
“If It’s Growing…It’s Alive”

Abortion is defined as the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. Other words similar to termination include execution, slaughter, and killing. Whichever way you spin it abortion is and will always be murder. Currently in the United States, abortion is legal and prominent around the world. This act is slaughtering innocent babies and harming, if not killing the women who take part in it. I truly believe if people understood more about what really occurs during an abortion, there would be a drastic change to the number of women who go through with it. Abortion is a form of legalized murder, directly goes against our Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, as well as imposes serious danger to the health and well being of women. Fetal heartbeat develops just 18 days after conception. If you are pronounced dead when your heart stops beating, why are you not pronounced alive when your heart starts beating? This is a troubling question that many of us choose to ignore. The fact of the matter is a fetus is a living being and abortion is just a legalized form of murder for women who feel they are unready for responsibility and unable to support a child. The reasoning for abortion is usually based off of a selfish decision by the mother only thinking of herself and her future instead of the helpless baby inside of her. One of the biggest pro-abortion arguments deals with women who choose to abort their children due to rape or incest. Rape is a heinous and violent assault on a woman. It violates her physically and emotionally. Advocates for abortion argue that having a child from rape or incest makes it harder for a mother and father to give the same kind of love. People have forgotten the option of adoption as oppose to murdering an innocent and defenseless child for a crime it did not commit. It is the rapist, or in cases of incest the family member who should be punished, not the unborn child. According to the National Right to Life Committee, Every single day, this silent horror kills more Americans than were killed on 9/11. Worldwide, there is an abortion every twenty- two seconds, 155 abortions every hour, and 1.37 million abortions every single year. We all began as a fetus and our mothers gave us life at the moment of conception. Murder is the taking away of life, so what does that make abortion? Legal. As American’s we value the laws and guidelines set down by the Founding Fathers’ of this country. Yet, we break a fundamental right nearly 3,700 times a day. The Declaration of Independence states that “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Allowing abortion is a direct contradiction to the Founding Fathers’ intentions for absolute right to life in this country. Some would argue that a fetus is not a human being because it can not survive outside the womb without medical aid, and therefore is not entitled to Life, Libery, and the pursuit of Happiness. The deeper question that must be asked is what defines humanity? An abortionist would say a human is a thinking, breathing, and independent homosapien. The problem with such a definition is it leaves out those who are clearly human. A person in a coma does not think and requires breathing aid. Does that mean he/she could be legally killed because he/she is of an inconvenience? That would come across as absurd and inhumane, yet abortion is viewed by many as a normal part of our culture. A human being is formed at the moment of conception which means they are in fact entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ProAbortion.com states that “A fetus is not a human being. Abortion is terminating a pregnancy, not a baby. Personhood at conception is not a proven biological fact. Personhood begins at birth.” A fetus differs from sperm or