By John Riccardi, Chairman of Gettysburg College Young Americans for Freedom
Abortion is the greatest moral issue facing America. No other issue is comparable in terms of lives lost. In 2019 alone, over 800,000 babies were aborted. The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is responsible for the nation-wide scale of the abortion atrocity. The long-standing authority of the states to protect the lives of the unborn was torn from them by unfounded judicial activism. The Court’s justification of abortion under the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause has no proof in the Constitution or America’s legal tradition. Three quarters of states exercised their legitimate authority to limit abortion at the adoption of the 14th Amendment. Even the viability criteria that the Court enforced has no justification. It is not in the Constitution and the majority decision made no argument to support its implementation. In all, the Roe decision more closely resembles agenda-driven legislation than it does a judicial decision. The consequence has been 63 million lives lost to abortion.
Thankfully, the reversal in Dobbs v. Jackson has created an urgent opportunity to protect the lives of the unborn. Now is the best time to be pro-life not only because of legal developments but because of advances in science. Humanity is no longer blind to life in the womb. At the moment of conception, a new set of DNA is formed and sex is determined, creating a unique individual human. Just three weeks after conception the baby has its own heartbeat. By nine weeks, the brain and all other organs are functional, and the baby can move on its own. That is not the mother’s body, that is a new body, and the deliberate destruction of that life is murder, not just a choice.
The pro-life movement is firmly grounded in these truths. To be pro-life is to believe that human beings have inherent value – value that does not come from some ability or experience, but by the virtue of being human. It is a simple argument to follow. It is wrong to kill innocent human life. Abortion kills an innocent human life. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.
Often, the most common arguments for abortion are those which must also support the murder of other innocent groups. Eugenics is the consistent position for those who define life along grounds of the capacity for reason or intelligence. It is no surprise that nearly 100% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted in Iceland. Abortions across the globe are nearly always elective, and many of these abortions are performed simply because the baby has a disability. In some countries, babies are at significantly higher risk of being aborted just because they are a girl.
The group most victimized by abortion is women. Women often think that to have a fulfilling career and life, they need to have an abortion. This view treats women as defective in nature and in need of abortion so they may behave more like men in the workplace and in their families. Abortion can also have severe psychological implications for women, yet our society has created an environment in which motherhood and families are not valued. We need a society that is supportive of women as mothers rather than pushing them into abortions and treating them as failures for valuing their own children.
The Dobbs v. Jackson decision is an enormous victory for the defense of the Constitution and the right to life, but the struggle did not end in the Supreme Court. It is now the responsibility of every moral American to debate, persuade their peers, and create a culture that values life.
This article originally appeared on page 8 of the September 2022 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
