The abortion debate in society is a controversial one that often hits high emotional peaks. Advocates for abortion emphasize the choice of the woman and point to the right of individuals to decide the fates of their own bodies. Opponents of abortion point to the life of the child within the womb and emphasize that because we all have a right to our own lives, the child should not be held accountable for a mother’s choices.
The position in opposition of abortion is the right one, because life is important. Every human being has a right to exist and live their life freely. Because of this, they should be able to decide what is done with their bodies, regardless of whether they’re a male or female. It’s for this reason however, an unborn baby has a right to exist as well.
The mistake many make in describing what being prolife is is in describing it as being only about abortion. It is not.
All life is indeed precious and for this reason, we should seek to protect it at all levels. Governments like China’s do not respect life, as long shown by forced abortions of families who dared have more children than the government allowed. Terrorist organizations like ISIS do not respect life, as shown by their continuous murders of innocent people and cruel methods of execution.
Respect for life opposes torching pilots, throwing suspected homosexuals from rooftops, or killing unborn children because they weren’t the firstborn.
Here in America, being prolife means opposing the death penalty, because no one should have a right to take the life of another. When government is allowed to execute an individual if a certain bar is reached, the existence of a bar for measurement is thus created and can be lowered with time.
Could we ever reach a point where it’s acceptable to execute individuals for petty crimes or even political ones?
It’s not an unreasonable concern to have, given the strained existence of due process in post-9/11 America. American citizens such as Jose Padilla have had due process violated. Padilla was detained in a military brig and held without charge for years all because the President had deemed him an “enemy combatant.”
If we can deny rights to an individual based on the unchecked decision of a single human being, who’s to say that the death penalty won’t get this out-of-control?
It’s already gotten to a point where life can be lost in undeclared conflicts because of the decision of one man. The framers of the Constitution took a prolife position when they refused to allow war declaration powers rest with one individual. Before Americans could be sent into combat to lose their lives, elected legislative representatives in Congress would have to thoroughly debate the proposed conflict and then take a position either for or against.
Now politics has conquered the rulemaking process and war can be waged by one man with the silent consent of Congress. The United States has entered in a number of conflicts in violation of the Constitution in recent decades. American soldiers have died without a congressional declaration of war for a conflict that had no direct American interests threatened.
How is this prolife?
In order to truly be prolife and support the right of all human beings to exist, we must not stop at abortion. The right to live certainly begins within the womb, but it doesn’t cease at birth. Until we meet our natural end, we have a right to be apart of this world with the freedom to be who we are, so long as it does not injure or threaten another.
The death penalty and interventionist foreign policy, like abortion itself, are not consistent with the prolife philosophy.
