An Essay

I wrote the following persuasive essay as the final project in my English course that I finished earlier this year.

The Sin, Trauma, and Consequences of Abortion

Karen lifted her head from her hands and looked out the window as another tear slid down her cheek. Today was the tenth anniversary of her abortion, but the pain still hadn’t gone away. She had been so young at the time with a promising life ahead of her. When the baby was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome in-utero, she decided it would be best for everyone if she went through with an abortion. But afterward a strange grief hovered over her like a shadow and her mind filled with misgivings and questions. She could still remember the emptiness that had driven her to attempt suicide when, two days after the abortion, her boyfriend had left her. Now, years later, Karen again felt like she was on the brink of utter despair. She had just received the news that she had cancer.

Women who have abortions are often not aware of the serious implications that it could have to their physical health and mental and emotional well-being. Complications with future conceptions and pregnancies are many times more likely in such women, and it increases with each successive abortion. Some women become infertile. Those who do conceive are at a higher risk for spontaneous abortion, with or without an obvious reason. According to the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, ectopic pregnancies have increased more than 500 percent since abortion was made legal (Alcorn, 69). Placenta previa, which is most commonly due to previous trauma to the uterus, occurs seven to fifteen times more often in post-abortive women (Alcorn, 70).

Having an abortion also greatly increases a woman’s risk for other diseases and health issues, including cervical, ovarian, breast and liver cancer. The strong link between abortion and breast cancer has become more and more well-known and researched in recent years, the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer reports (AbortionBreastCancer.com). Another possible, though lesser, abortion complication is infection. This can be a result of a perforated uterus or a lack of cleanliness during the abortion, and may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease. Despite all of the physical troubles that an abortion can bring, those are not the greatest tragedy to a woman.

Besides deaths from physical complications, feelings of worthlessness and despair lead to drug abuse and suicide. Even rape victims who choose abortion say that after the pain and shock of the rape had gone away, they continued to feel anguish from their abortion (Alcorn, 81). Although abortion has been called “just a surgical procedure”, the existence of dozens of post-abortive support groups testify to the traumatic mental, emotional, and spiritual effect that abortion has on those involved. No one grieves the removal of their burst appendix. No support group exists for those who have had root canals. No one feels guilty and seeks out comfort after a hip replacement (Alcorn, 72). But abortion is different. The head nurse at an abortion clinic in Virginia reported that women came back to the clinic months and years after their abortion, which they had felt so good about at the time, with their lives completely destroyed (Alcorn, 68). In one study, over half of the women surveyed reported strong feelings of guilt, shame, and self-condemnation after their abortions (AfterAbortion.com). So what is different about abortion compared to other procedures? Why is it so devastating?

Michael Clancy, a photo-journalist who photographed an unborn child with spina bifida reach out of his mother’s womb to grasp a surgeon’s finger said afterward, “I was totally in shock for about two hours after the surgery . . . I know abortion is wrong now – it’s absolutely wrong (Alcorn, 39).” What made him change his mind is the same thing that makes many mothers decide not to abort after seeing an ultrasound of their unborn child. It’s also the same thing that makes graphic abortion pictures so disturbing and awful. That thing is that the unborn is a person, and it looks like one. Women have been told that what is inside them is just a blob of tissue, just a tumor. Many are in shock when they see real little fingers and toes on the ultrasound screen. It has been reported that with the addition of sonograms to pregnancy centers, the number of women who choose life has jumped up to eighty or ninety percent from around twenty-five percent (Alcorn, 43).

However, even if the unborn would not look like a human being to us, that would not make a difference in what it really is. Humanness does not depend on how the individual looks or acts, such as the absence of a limb or the presence of a disability. The Bible, science, common sense, and government all testify to the humanity of the unborn. In Psalms 139:13-15a it says, “For You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance . . . .” And again in Jeremiah 1:5a, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you . . . ."

In science, great advances have been made in relation to the unborn since abortion was legalized. Any true biologist will tell you that human life begins at conception. Eggs and sperm cells are not separate human beings because they contain the same DNA as the body that produced them, as is the case with any other human body part. But at conception an entirely separate and unique human being is formed, complete with its very own DNA. Thus, an unborn child cannot be part of its mother. To say this would also be to say that the mother has four arms, two brains, and, half the time, male body parts. Even non-scientists recognize when human life begins. In 2003, the Missouri General Assembly passed a bill that states that human life begins at conception (Alcorn, 27). Abortion doctors are often the first to acknowledge the humanity of an unborn child, such as the owner of Oregon’s largest abortion clinic who declared under oath that, “Of course human life begins at conception (Alcorn, 27).”

This fact that the unborn is entirely human from the moment of conception leads us to our final point: abortion is the pre-meditated murder of an innocent person. The United States even has a law under which any person who kills an unborn child, besides its mother, can be charged with homicide (Alcorn, 27). However, no distinction should be made depending on who kills the child. Murder is simply defined as “the killing of another human being”. In the Bible, God commands over and over, “you shall not murder”. He also says in 1 John 3:15 that “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” and in other places classifies murderers along with adulterers, liars, and thieves. The killing of innocent and helpless people, which is what unborn children are, is especially spoken against in God’s Word. Ezekiel 23:7b reads, “. . . do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty.”

So although many people, like Karen, think that abortion is acceptable and perhaps even necessary, it is never good. Not only does it cause physical and emotional problems for women, it also takes the life of an innocent human being and has eternal consequences for the soul. We have a responsibility to go and, in the words of Proverbs 31:8 and 9, “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.”

Works Cited

Alcorn, Randy C. Why Pro-life? Sandy, Or.: Eternal Perspective Ministries, 2004. Print.

"Coalition on Abortion Breast Cancer." AbortionBreastCancer.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Jan. 2014. Reardon, David C., Ph.D.

"Psychological Reactions Reported After Abortion." Elliot Institute, PO Box 7348, Springfield, IL 62791, 2000. Web. 4 Jan. 2014. <http://afterabortion.org/Survey2.htm>.