In 2017, approximately 862,320 abortions were performed. 862,320 innocent children were murdered. Although the number of abortions has been lower in recent years, there are still thousands of babies killed annually. People try to mask the fact that they’re blatantly committing murder by saying that unborn babies aren’t really people. They say that it’s the mother’s choice to do with her body as she so desires.
If someone had a five-year-old daughter, and they didn’t have enough money to raise her anymore, or simply didn’t want to, would they be justified in killing her? The answer would be no- and even pro-choice people would answer negatively. The idea of killing a fellow human being, an innocent child, feels wrong to us. And yet, people feel perfectly fine killing babies. Why is this? Why would someone be against killing a five-year-old child, but not a child who hasn’t been born yet? The answer to this is the fact/value split. A mental divide between facts and values, the fact/value split is the premise for many things in today’s society, including abortion. In the case of abortion, people are separating the term ‘homo sapiens’ and the term ‘person.’ They don’t see unborn babies as people because they lack the ability to think rationally or take care of themselves. They simply seem them as homo sapiens, which makes the murder of them justifiable in their eyes. In other words, unborn babies lack the criteria needed in order to qualify as a human. But if there’s suddenly a criteria to meet in order to be human, then who decides that criteria? Who decides whether or not someone qualifies as a human? Whether or not someone is a human is not up to us decide. We are flawed and sinful. We make mistakes. Only God has the authority to decide whether or not we have value. God made us all in His image, even those of us who have not entered this world yet. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
In the end, we are all made in God’s image, and nothing can change that. Both old and young were created in the image of God, and we don’t have the right to end the life of any innocent person.
Marie Birkmann – 9th Grade