Abortion - Human Life is Involved Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive To

Abortion - Human Life is Involved      Ã‚  Ã‚   Divine law and natural reason exclude all right to the direct killing of an innocent man. However, if the reasons given to justify an abortion were always manifestly evil and valueless the problem would not be so dramatic. The gravity of the problem comes from the fact that in certain cases, perhaps in quite a considerable number of cases, by denying abortion one endangers important values to which it is normal to attach great value, and which may sometimes even seem to have priority. Pro-lifers do not deny these very great difficulties. It may be a serious question of health, sometimes of life or death, for the mother; it may be the burden represented by an additional child, especially if there are good reasons to fear that the child will be abnormal or retarded; it may be the importance attributed in different classes of society to considerations of honor or dishonor, of loss of social standing, and so forth. Pro-lifers say that none of these reasons can ever objective ly confer the right to dispose of another's life, even when that life is only beginning. With regard to the future unhappiness of the child, no one, not even the father or mother, can act as its substitute--even if it is still in the embryonic stage--to choose in the child's name, life or death. The child itself, when grown up, will never have the right to choose suicide; no more may his parents choose death for the child while it is not of an age to decide or itself. Life is too fundamental a value to be weighed against even very serious disadvantages.    When does human life begin? According to physicians, biologists and scientists testifying before the United States Congress:    Conception (fertilizatio... ...he Amedos. Medical A's',, 1W12/84, p. 20.    Hooker and Davenport. The Prenatal Origin of Behavior. Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1952.    Noonan, "The Experience of Pain, New Perspectives on Human Abortion." N.p.: A1etheia Books, 1981. p.213.    Reinis, Stanislaw and Jerome M. Goldman. The Development of the Brain. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publishers, 1980.    Rockwell, P.E.,M.D. Director of Anesthesiology, Leonard Hospital, Troy, NY, U.S. Supreme Court, Markle vs. Abele, 72-56, 72-730, 1972. P.11       The Silent Scream. Cleveland, OH: American Portrait Films, 1984.    Tanner, J.M. and G.R. Taylor, Time-Life Books. Growth, New York: Life Science Life, 1965. p.64.    U.S. Congress. Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981. p.7