Earlier this May, we learned that the U.S. Supreme Court plans to overturn the landmark case Roe v. Wade. If it is overturned, states would have the power to implement heavy restrictions or bans on abortion [1]. I believe that denying anyone in any state access to safe, legal abortion is incredibly harmful. Not only does denying abortion access ignore the pressures that cause people to seek abortions in the first place, but it grants fetuses rights that even people do not have, forces people to seek dangerous means of terminating pregnancies, and is proven to hurt the well-being of people who are denied abortions. 

There are many reasons why people may decide to get an abortion. These decisions tend to be very personal and complex and typically involve several reasons, with some common ones being financial instability, unreadiness, a need to focus on other children, and interference with educational or career plans [2]. Furthermore, our nation exacerbates the problems that give rise to these reasons through many shortcomings. On a federal level, the U.S. does not require employers to grant parents paid maternity or paternity leave, which is especially abysmal in comparison to other countries such as Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan, and more, which give parents over a year of paid leave [3]. Quality child care and health care are also costly and inaccessible to many American families [4,5], not to mention that we are nearing a cost-of-living crisis [6] and are in the midst of a baby formula shortage. Banning abortions does not address these pressing issues that make pregnancy and parenthood undesirable for many individuals.  

Abortion access is vital for bodily autonomy. In her video titled “Doctor Explains Roe vs Wade - What Overturning Means for Health & Autonomy in Pregnancy,” board-certified OB/GYN and mom to four Dr. Danielle Jones states, “You cannot give a right to a fetus that no other human has, which is the right to use someone else’s body without express and ongoing consent.” She uses this hypothetical example: if her kid was dying and she could save them by giving a blood donation, she could not be forced to donate blood - even if her kid died as a result of her refusal. Furthermore, Dr. Jones explains how pregnancy is not “health-neutral,” as pregnancy presents an array of health risks, which she details in her video. Simply put, any person who is able to get pregnant is more safe when they are not pregnant. She also points out that people who get desired abortions generally lead better lives than they would have if they did not get an abortion. People who are denied a desired abortion are proven to be more likely to experience socio-economic hardships and bankruptcy, have food insecurity, be evicted, face domestic violence, and raise a child alone. A large portion of those who seek abortions are already parents, as well, and termination results in better outcomes for their existing children. (To learn more about these findings, I recommend looking at The Turnaway Study.) Lastly, Dr. Jones points out that the question of when life begins is not a political issue or a medical issue, but rather a personal philosophical matter, and we cannot force our own philosophical beliefs upon others [7]. 

Abortion access that is safe and legal is an important aspect of health care. Due to the various reasons people may have for seeking abortions, abortions will occur regardless of whether they are legal and safe. Illegal abortions can be very dangerous - even life-threatening. From 1972 to 1974, the years neighboring the Supreme Court’s nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that illegal abortion procedures in the U.S. drastically decreased from about 130,000 to 17,000 and deaths associated with them decreased from 39 to five. By banning abortions, we put the lives of those who can get pregnant at risk. Abortion access is also a social justice issue. The same study found that “women who died as a result of illegal abortions typically were black, were more than 12 weeks pregnant and had self-induced in their own community” [8]. Moreover, Americans, compared to Scandinavians, are six times more likely to die during the maternal period. Not only does the U.S. have the worst maternal mortality rate of any developed country, but African-Americans, low-income individuals, and those living in rural areas have even higher maternal mortality rates [9]. And, African-Americans as well as other marginalized groups face more barriers to reproductive health care. So, minorities will be more severely impacted by bans on abortion access. (To learn more about this dynamic, I encourage you to look at this link.) By allowing states to ban abortion, existing health care disparities will deepen, as the rich and privileged will have more resources to seek out and travel for safe abortions.

Even those with planned and wanted pregnancies need abortions in some cases. Medical conditions can arise in which a pregnancy becomes dangerous for the mother, for example: the development of a twin pregnancy with one normal fetus and one hydatidiform mole. Parents may also resort to abortion if their fetus is diagnosed with a serious condition with a poor or fatal prognosis such as anencephaly, in which babies die either during childbirth or soon after birth if carried to term. These situations are usually extremely difficult and emotional and full of grieving [10]. People may also turn to abortions in other traumatic situations, such as those involving rape, incest, abuse, and/or minors.  

According to the Center for American Progress (CAP), which describes itself as an independent and nonpartisan policy institute, making abortion less necessary rather than less accessible is the only “humane, effective, and just” approach. Bans on abortion only ban safe and legal abortions - tens of thousands of people around the world die or face serious injuries due to unsafe abortions each year. A significant portion of abortions occur in unintended pregnancies. By reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, we can reduce the number of abortions. To do so, CAP suggests that we commit to these: “1) comprehensive sexuality education that includes medically accurate information about abstinence and contraception; 2) insurance coverage of and public funding for family planning services; 3) greater access to emergency contraception (which prevents pregnancy and does not cause abortion); and 4) programs that curb domestic violence and sexual abuse.” On the reduction of abortions resorted to by those without the resources to raise a child, CAP states this: “By providing low-income and young women with genuine education and career opportunities, health care, child care, housing, services for disabled children, and other basic supports, many would have the resources they need to fulfill the serious obligations that parenting brings.” 

I also resonate with this powerful statement made by CAP: 

“Moderation for its own sake and political compromise that sacrifices women’s well-being will not achieve the common goal of reducing abortion in this country. What is needed is leadership and commitment to a vision of society in which all women have the information and means necessary to prevent unintended pregnancies, to carry healthy pregnancies to term, to raise their children with safety, stability, and dignity, and, yes, to have safe abortions when necessary to lead healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives.” [11]

On another note, I find it very concerning that many politicians who are advocating for bans on abortion under the guise of being “pro-life” are simultaneously supporting initiatives that harm countless lives. I believe my concerns are better articulated by “Kids Only Matter When They’re Not Born Yet” - a short song by Emerson Brophy.

We must take better care of the people here, already born. We must strive to understand the plights of those different from us. Abortion is a complex matter, and abortion bans are not among the methods available to ethically reduce the number of abortions while preserving the health and well-being of people who can carry children. Ultimately, individuals deserve the right to make the choice that is best for them. 

Note: In this article, I did not cover the idea of adoption serving as an alternative to parenting. This is also a very complex matter, and, for an overview of various perspectives, I recommend looking at the article “Why So Many Women Choose Abortion Over Adoption” by the Atlantic. 

Works Cited

1. Hernandez, Joe. “Here's What Could Happen If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned.” NPR, 3 May 2022, www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096094942/roe-wade-overturned-what-happens-next. 

2. Stacey, Dawn. “Why Do People Have Abortions?” Verywell Health, Dotdash Media, 20 Dec. 2021, www.verywellhealth.com/reasons-for-abortion-906589. 

3. Livingston, Gretchen, and Deja Thomas. “Among 41 Countries, Only U.S. Lacks Paid Parental Leave.” Pew Research Center, 7 Aug. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/16/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/. 

4. Kamenetz, Anya, and Mansee Khurana. “1 In 3 Working Families Is Struggling to Find the Child Care They Desperately Need.” NPR, 19 Oct. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047019536/families-are-struggling-to-find-the-child-care-they-desperately-need. 

5. Robin Osborn et al., "In New Survey of 11 Countries, U.S. Adults Still Struggle with Access to and Affordability of Health Care," Health Affairs, Nov. 16, 2016, www.doi.org/10.26099/g7s0-3h12

6. Whiting, Kate. “Cost of Living: This Chart Shows How the Price of Products Has Risen in the US.” World Economic Forum, 25 May 2022, www.weforum.org/agenda/ 2022/05/cost-of-living-price-rises/. 

7. Jones, Danielle. “Doctor Explains Roe vs Wade - What Overturning Means for Health & Autonomy in Pregnancy.” YouTube, Mama Doctor Jones, 16 May 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHrxSUgLvvA

8. “Abortion before and after Legalization.” Guttmacher Institute, 27 Nov. 2018, www.guttmacher.org/perspectives50/abortion-and-after-legalization. 

9. Martin, Nina, and Renee Montagne. “The Last Person You'd Expect to Die in Childbirth.” NPR, 12 May 2017, www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger. 

10. Danielsson, Krissi. “Termination of a Desired Pregnancy for Medical Reasons.” Verywell Family, Dotdash Media, 17 Jan. 2020, www.verywellfamily.com/termination-of -a-desired-pregnancy-for-medical-reasons-2371777. 

11. Arons, Jessica, and Shira Saperstein. “The Right Way to Reduce Abortion.” Center for American Progress, 20 Jan. 2006, www.americanprogress.org/article/the-right-way-to-reduce-abortion/#:~:text=Unintended%20pregnancy%20could%20be%20reduced,3)%20greater%20access%20to%20emergency.

A study was conducted in Tennessee regarding the effects of kids going into Pre-K at a young age. It was found that kids who attended Pre-K had worse test scores than those who didn’t by sixth grade. There were 3,000 kids involved in the study. The point was to recognize how the teaching affected the children. A learning environment for young children should consist of activities that encourage enrichment and play. Feeding them information that their brains aren’t even supposed to understand yet causes the children stress with the overabundance of information. It was found that students who attended Pre-K were more likely to miss class than those who didn’t. The ratio was a 97.1% attendance for those who attended Pre-K to 97.5% attendance for those who didn’t.

The study also followed the students into their high school years. They noticed that kids who attended Pre-K were more likely to develop mental health problems while those who didn’t attend Pre-K were slightly more stable. In 2016, Tennessee passed a Pre-K Quality Act to improve the classroom experience and strengthen young minds in a healthy way. Joe Biden is trying to push a law where you must send your kids to Pre-K. There is debate about whether making an investment for something like that would be worth it. There are several articles about this issue listed below if you care to know more!

https://www.vox.com/22992259/pre-k-tennessee-study 

https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/press-release/what-does-research-really-say-about-preschool-effectiveness 

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/10/1079406041/researcher-says-rethink-prek-preschool-prekindergarten 

https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/preschool-dosage-and-instructional-alignment/

“The idea that people who are racially defined as white are entitled to displace other people, to enslave other people, to colonize other people and literally replace them has been a bedrock of modern racism,” Crystal Fleming, a sociologist at Stony Brook University, told ABC News. Fleming also said that replacement theory has its roots in the French nationalist movement of the 1900s. Regardless of its origin, the idea of replacement theory systematically targets different races and regresses society.

The principles of replacement theory have, without a doubt, been used to target minorities in the past. Many white supremacist groups have believed for a long time that whites would become extinct due to the massive influx of immigrants to the United States. This massive influx of immigrants has led to increased fears. Some politicians have even used these fears to garner support. In addition, these same fears have led to attacks, such as the catastrophic Buffalo shooting. Replacement theory has also been used as a justification for racism throughout recorded history. 

How do we fix this problem within our society? Well, the answer isn’t simple. First of all, we as Americans need to gain a better understanding of culture. We also need to understand that racism can affect all races, not just minorities. Ideas, such as Affirmative action, make the racial problems within our society worse. We need to come together as Americans and deal with our issues. In addition, the borders need to be secured in order to quell fears surrounding illegal immigration. Legal immigration and seeking asylum are perfectly acceptable, but a nation isn’t a national without sustainable borders. All in all, the ideas of replacement theory and racism in general are controllable if we come together as Americans to have the hard conversations.

Over the past few months, I have come to notice an alarming and, quite frankly, dangerous development within American media and culture. Although the media has long held its biases and selectively mangled the truth to fit its own selected narrative, they recently have embarked on a campaign to blast opposition as “conspiracy theorists” with dangerous ideas that shouldn’t be engaged with. What’s particularly dangerous is that much of what they blast as a conspiracy very soon after is proven to be entirely true. I came to ask myself, what is the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth? Simply put, about six months.

After the election of 2020, Donald Trump began a campaign to ensure that every legal vote was counted, and the illegal ones were not. CNN, among many other news sources, dismissed him. They wrote, “President Donald Trump staged a corrosive and potentially dangerous attempt at undermining the US election on Thursday, baselessly claiming the presidency was being stolen from underneath him as vote counts showed his path to victory disappearing.” What President Trump was asking for, a true and accurate tally of the votes, was entirely reasonable, yet he and anyone who supported him became known as “unAmerican” and later “conspiracy theorists”. We now know that those “conspiracy theorists” may have been right all along. The best example comes from a peer-reviewed analysis provided to RealClear Politics that found at least 255,000 and upwards of 368,000 excess votes for Joe Biden over the six swing states that ultimately determined the election. Biden’s margin of victory in these states was 313,253 well within the possibility of fraud (New Peer-Reviewed Research Finds Evidence of 2020 Voter Fraud | RealClearPolitics).

For much of Donald Trump's presidency, he claimed that his campaign had been spied on by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton. For a long time, even right-wing media blasted that accusation as a wild conspiracy. If what he was saying was true, Hillary Clinton certainly should have been looking at serious jail time for a scandal perhaps bigger than Watergate itself. Like most “conspiracy theories” these accusations proved true. CNN reported the story claiming that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) had fined both Hillary Clinton and the DNC for not properly disclosing the use of their money to fund a spying campaign aimed to create a dossier on their opposing political candidate (Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC fined by FEC over Trump-Russia dossier research - CNNPolitics). Unfortunately, this major story has not captivated audiences and dominated the news cycle on many mainstream platforms as it should. It is a sad day in America that a major political candidate will be given only a slap on the wrist for heinous political crimes against their opponent.

We now all know that the infamous “laptop from Hell” belongs to the president’s son, Hunter Biden. On that laptop is incriminating evidence of sex crimes, illegal business practices, rampant drug abuse, and many other felonies laid out in Miranda Devine’s book, Laptop From Hell. Maybe the worst piece of evidence on the laptop is a now-infamous email between Hunter Biden and Tony Bobulinski promising ten percent of the money to be set aside for the “big guy” - presumably then vice president Joe Biden. All of this has now been confirmed and entered into the United States House of Representatives record by FL Rep. Matt Gaetz (R). Major media sources spent a grand total of 25 minutes on this story for a period of 18 months, and by ignoring it removed it from public discourse during a consequential election. The Hill reports that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN could now all face grand jury indictments for their role in covering up this story. (Biden’s ‘absolute’ defense of Hunter leaves media and Justice Department in a muddle | The Hill) Unfortunately, until recently, suggesting this story was considered “unsubstantiated” by the New York Times and “Russian Disinformation” by both CNN and Politico (New York Times quietly deletes claim Hunter Biden laptop story was 'unsubstantiated' (yahoo.com), Hunter Biden laptop: FBI says it has 'nothing to add' to Ratcliffe's claim on Russian disinformation - CNNPolitics, Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say - POLITICO). Major media sources spent a grand total of 25 minutes on this story for a period of 18 months. Russian Disinformation seems to have become a term that more accurately means facts that Democrats and the media are unwilling to accept as the truth.

Amongst other dangerous examples, the media has shown their clear disdain for the truth and obligation to promote their accepted narrative. We do not have an honest press in the United States anymore. An honest media critiques opposition, it doesn’t silence its opponents and brand them as fringe conspiracy theorists. I have learned that it is true, the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth really is only a few months.

About two and a half centuries ago, our nation was founded with the guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. In recent times it has become increasingly clear that you can not secure liberty and pursue happiness without the promise of life. At the moment of conception, an unborn baby has already formed a unique set of DNA that will never again be recreated. This DNA contains the roadmaps for life, including the baby's appearance and aspects of their personality. After about 6 weeks of development, the baby has developed a heartbeat. Soon after, it has formed toes and fingers and then begins to feel pain. 

Over the past few decades, states and politicians have debated when it is acceptable to slaughter this unique human being under the guise of woman’s rights. A draft of a Supreme Court decision was recently leaked to the public. If ultimately agreed to (as seems likely), this decision would upend the disastrous precedent established in Roe vs. Wade and reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. In this article, I wish to outline two arguments to protect the sacred sanctity of human life.

Firstly, the news surrounding the leaked supreme court decision has revealed just how uneducated many on the left really are. Protestors and rioters have taken to the streets advocating for the legalized infanticide of our most vulnerable citizens, the unborn. Many of these protestors fail to understand that even if the supreme court ultimately supports this decision, the abortion decision would simply be rightfully given back to the states. This decision would not federally criminalize abortions, and they would still likely be widely available. The 10th amendment of the United States Constitution provides that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are the state's jurisdictions. Applied simply to the issue of abortion, pro-abortion advocates would need to prove that the text of the Constitution explicitly grants jurisdiction on the issue of abortion to the federal government. This is simply not the case. It, therefore, makes sense that jurisdiction is returned to the states.

Secondly, I wish to make an appeal to your consciousness. The United States has historically denied the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and espoused by the Declaration to different groups of people, at times denying their existence as human beings. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, black Americans were denied the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under the obviously evil pretense that they were less human or not human at all. In Nazi Germany, Jews and other minority groups were persecuted under many of the same false pretenses. Although the subject of oppression has changed over the years, the argument has remained the same. We have argued at times that people ought to be denied rights for the convenience of others, and much in the same way, Americans now make that argument on the issue of abortion. Let me be clear when a being has an entirely separate set of DNA, it is no longer an extension of your body. The “my body, my choice” argument is perhaps the most dangerous argument made in the United States since slave owners claimed they had choices regarding the well being of their slaves and has enabled the murder of millions of children.

I write this article as a member of a generation that has unfortunately been widely lost to abortion. More black babies are aborted than born in New York today, and I have to wonder what those babies would have brought to the world (Let’s Talk About the Black Abortion Rate - WSJ). Perhaps they would have been leading doctors finding cures to rare diseases, perhaps powerful leaders who fought for the rights of others, or perhaps they would have been family men and women who passed down their legacy to generations to come. Unfortunately, we will never know how they would have changed the world because of the legalized slaughter of my generation. Please, pray for women in these tough situations, and help them understand God’s plan for themselves and their children and the incredible potential of their unborn children. Together we can pray for and fight for the end of what I hope will be remembered as the darkest period in American history.