Abortion: the Dismal Tomb of Fetus

Recently, the headline news of a raped ten-year-old Mexico girl gave birth to a boy baby shocked the world and again aroused the debate on abortion. Abortion has long been a controversial issue, especially to women. It is not only a personal decision but also a family’s care or even a society’s concern. Pro-choicers, who support abortion, claim that abortion is the right to choose, which means the mother can decide if she wants to keep the baby in her womb or not. On the other hand, pro-lifers state that abortion is the right to life (anti-abortion). That is, they think that once the embryo implantation happens, growing fetus in the uterus starts to have the right to live as a normal human being. Both the pros and cons parties have their own positions on this issue and provide strong evidences to support their arguments. What on earth is the right thing to do? As for me, I think abortion should be banned, for it not only causes social problems but it also does harm to the mother and baby.

One of the social problems caused is reckless abortion. Originally, abortion legalization is proposed for mothers and babies who are under detrimental health condition. However, statistics show that only 10 percentage of pregnant women stop pregnancy due to valid reasons; the other 89 percent of mothers-to-be abort because of failed contraception, extramarital pregnancy or other financial condition. The 2010 data of abortion in Taiwan show us an appalling result: 160 thousand neonates were born while 500 thousand embryos were aborted. In Taiwan, there is a trend called “September Abortion Tide”, which usually happens on teenage students who have girlfriends/boyfriends and are curious about sex. Without safe sex, they have sexual relationships during summer vacation (which is in July and August), and it results in that the girl has been pregnant for several weeks when the school opens (which is in September). According to the news report, 80 percent of unwed teenagers choose to have an abortion under the counter because they are afraid of being discovered or blamed by teachers and parents. Hence, teenage students become the main customers of the abortion black market. They illegally buy RU486 (one kind of abortion pill) or find an unlicensed doctor to abort the child, which is risky and may have negative impacts on those teenage mothers. Besides, many students have an abortion not only once. They think that they can simply solve all the problems through abortion, and this kind of notion causes the vicious circle of wanton abortion and overabundant sex. So, it is clear the results of abortion legalization only lead us to a worse situation.

Principally, abortion is a kind of invasive surgery which can do great harm to both mother and child. As for the mother, there are two aspects of injury: one is the physical hurt and the other is the mental trauma. Physically, the mother’s body will confront several uncertain factors, such as metrorrhagia, pelvis injury, miscarriage and infecundity, during and after abortion surgery. In addition, research reports in American Journal of Public Health demonstrate that woman who had an abortion for one time will increase 30% of the possibility of breast cancer and who had been aborted for more than twice will heighten the possibility of breast cancer to 160 percent. Psychologically, the mother will feel guilty of killing the baby, which will result in having bad dreams, suffering from insomnia, increasing the risks of melancholia, or even committing suicide. There are other symptoms, such as hypertension, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and sexual dysfunction, will also cause mental grief to the mothers. A study in Finland showed that women who had an abortion in the past year were six times as likely to commit suicide as women who gave birth in the past year. They were even twice as likely to commit suicide as women who miscarried in the last year. A five-year study in Canada also discovered that 25% of women who had an abortion would visit psychiatrists after eight weeks (in average) of the abortion was conducted. In Taiwan, we believe in the mores of praying infant spirit, which will deepen the guilt and fear of the mothers who have once aborted a pregnancy. They will feel that the spirits of babies keep wandering around them and feel conscience-stricken all the time. As the illustrations above, do you think a mother can feel no pain in body and feel no qualm in mind after a termination?

As for children, abortion is the bloodthirsty killer. Do you know the process of abortion? The doctor will use a pincer to tear the fetus into pieces in order to pull out the corpse without a hitch. Or, if the baby has grown too big, doctor will induce labor. If the baby is still alive, the doctor will then inject toxins into the baby. That is to say, the babies die of extreme pain of dismemberment and poison. Many pro-choicers think that an embryo or fetus could not have any thought or sense because it is still a round mass of flesh-colored tissue. However, in 1984, the American President, Mr. Ronald Reagan, appealed to the society that people should face squarely to the long and unendurable pain that the fetuses suffered during the abortion surgery. Many gynecologists and neurology doctors also provide study results to prove that what Reagan stated is correct. From the electrocardiogram, doctors saw that the fetus will resist the sense of pain when the abortion surgery was proceeding. Anesthesiologist Dr. Sullivan indicates that an 8-13 weeks fetus will react to burning and severe strike from both physiological and neural aspects. Gynecologist Dr. William Matviuw also points out that the skin of a 9 weeks embryo can sense the feeling of pain and its nerve fibers will respond to the electric current. From these studies, we can know that such an early phase of life can perceive those distressed feelings. How can we mercilessly disregard those fragile little lives, and worse still, put them to death?

Nevertheless, a question may be raised by pro-choicers: what about those women who are raped and are accidentally pregnant? Why should they bear the suffering of nurturing the rapist’s child? I have to confess I cannot comprehend the physical and mental sufferings of a raped woman. Yet, think about this question: doesn’t the doings of aborting the baby result in adding insult to injury? The mother has suffered from the atrocities of the rapist; she is a victim indeed. Then again, she has to go through the invasive treatment of abortion. Here the abortion can be regarded as another kind of rape—the rape of medical treatment. If rape can be an excuse to abort a baby, then it will make sense that the woman should also be able to kill the rapist. To replace one tyranny with another will only spark off endless suffering. So, it seems that not every problem can be easily solved through abortion. Lonnie Difranco, a 25-year-old American woman who lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, wrote a story about her family member, “A family member of mine was brutally gang raped and ended up getting pregnant. I don't know how she found the strength to go on with the pregnancy, but she did. And now, some 30 years later, no one could imagine life without her sweet daughter. It is easy to say you would terminate the pregnancy if rape was involved, but when you see the resulting product of the rape as a human, the table turns a bit.” Just like what she has written, we shouldn’t view the baby as a bastard, but a go-it-alone individual. Rape seems to be a valid reason for abortion. But, not all women will resent the child or will be reminded of the incident every time when she looks into her child’s eyes. Because, looking at it in another aspect, a baby could end up being the silver lining of a traumatic experience.

In summary, I hold the perspective of abortion is the “right to life”. According to Article 6.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” No one has the right to terminate another’s life; even the immature fetuses who still cannot speak for themselves have their right to live. Likewise, it is inhumane for a mother to take away her baby’s life. Abortion can not only hurt the mother’s body and mind but also lead to the destruction of the baby. Whether abortion is a mother’s right to choose or the baby’s right to life is hard to define. But for this polemical question, I stand as a pro-lifer.