Ashley Pierce is a political science freshman and Mustang Daily conservative columnist.
The other day my liberal friend posted another liberal Facebook post. He wrote: “What if the cure for cancer is trapped inside the mind of someone who can’t afford an education?” Well, then they can take out a loan like the rest of us or get a job to save up for an education, I thought, but let it go.
Later, my boyfriend commented on the same post, “What if the cure was trapped in the mind of an unborn baby?” That hadn’t even crossed my mind and it made me all the more frustrated with the abortion debate.
Conservatives are portrayed as evil by the left and the media for being pro-life: We want to take away womens’ rights to their own bodies, we’re pushing religious beliefs on others, we’re encouraging the government to invade people’s privacy, etc.
But there is a time and place for government to intervene in personal lives, and that is when a crime takes place or someone is harmed (I can sense all the eye rolls I’m causing already). Conservatives, and even some liberals, believe life begins at conception and abortion is harming the life of the unborn baby.
The typical argument I hear from pro-choice advocates is that “a woman can do what she wants. It’s her body.” What constitutes one body? DNA. Every person on this planet has their own unique DNA code. None are the same. That’s why on all those fancy crime shows, if the murderer leaves a strand of hair, skin fragment or nail fragment, their unique DNA code is found and they go to jail.
A women’s baby, on the other hand, does not have the same DNA. It’s an entirely different code. Yes, the baby is in the woman’s body, but it is not a part of it like her arm or leg. It is a separate entity and a separate life. Yet Roe v. Wade still stands and abortion is still seen as a woman’s right.
MSNBC reported Friday that what could become one of the “strictest” abortion laws in the country is being voted on in Arkansas. The law would ban abortions on women more than 12 weeks pregnant if a fetal heartbeat could be found.
That would be our country’s strictest abortion law? That’s it? That’s three whole months into pregnancy. At three months, the baby’s ears are formed and their eyelids are developed, their fingers have been in existence for a couple of weeks and fingernails have begun to grow. The baby can suck its thumb and even get the hiccups, but it’s not really alive yet, right? We can still get rid of it, surely.
The thing I find so silly about my friend’s Facebook post is his obvious concern for the poor and their future. How sad, he thinks, that a poor student can’t afford college (even though there are options for him or her). He pictures all the potential wasted because the government won’t pay for them to go to school. Meanwhile, he is completely fine with the government paying for an innocent unborn baby losing his or her life before birth. Apparently, they lack all potential.
There is a loss of responsibility in today’s society. If you have sex (an act that is meant to cause pregnancy) and you get pregnant, you can just get rid of it. In reality, if you are choosing to engage in that activity, then you are choosing to risk getting pregnant. Even with birth control, they all say 99.9 percent effective, so there’s still that known risk.
This generation thinks if something bad happens because of their actions, they can just wave it away. A human life cannot be waved away — actions have consequences. If someone can’t take care of the baby, then adoption should be an option.
As for women who have the horrible misfortune of being raped, my heart goes out to them as I could not even imagine the amount of pain and suffering they endure, and heaven forbid a pregnancy follows. While I do not think two wrongs make a right, I don’t know where I stand on this issue. With cases of rape, states should be able to decide on their own if it’s legal.
I sympathize with those who get pregnant in their teens, in poverty and in any unwelcome circumstance — and I certainly don’t think that people who have abortions are evil people. Innocent blood, however, shouldn’t be shed for their mistakes.
It’s selfish. Abortion is, in essence, an act of selfishness.