There may be no new arguments to commence when it comes to the disgusting inhumanity of abortion but that does not mean I will stop repeating the old ones until the murdering is finally deemed illegal again. I am continually shocked with the lack of opinion, ignorance, and acceptance of my peers on behalf of this silent holocaust that has drenched our country in the past 30 years. I have lived amongst students and young professionals, most of who shrug their shoulders when asked if they voted in the last election, and come up speechless on major political and social issues. With a topic so debated and central to each of our lives, it disturbs me that more people aren’t giving it the thought it well deserves

“Well, my brother’s not going to be a Dad anymore,” said a female co-worker yesterday. I froze in hopes that the following explanation wasn’t what I thought it would be. Another co-worker responded, “They took care of it?” in a non-emotional questioning tone. “Yeah, she didn’t tell him,” said the first, “but it’s for the better.” So the casual conversation went and my heart literally tightened in anger, speed to a furious beat, and crimsoned fury on my cheeks. My body language uncontrollably reflected the horror at this relaxed talk of baby killing, but I was in a professional environment inappropriate for the seething argument that would surely instigate with my disdain. I bit my tongue as I had truly wanted to say, “How can you talk about it like its nothing? Like quitting a job or breaking up with your girlfriend?” It’s for the better? This woman’s brother may have been unprepared to be a father, but his baby is now dead, her niece or nephew strewn amongst used medical equipment and dumped beneath a heap of chemical garbage. I don’t need religion to validate my stance on abortion, but what a blasphemy of God’s creation.

We have to start somewhere and this safe, warm, nourishing womb is that pinnacle place of existence. It acclimates the safety of unconditional love, introduces the tenderness of absolute faith in another that only childhood can render. It is absolutely impossible to deny the reality of what abortion is. Even hardcore pro-choice advocates can’t help but fumble with abortion’s reality, like when NARAL President Kate Michelman called it “bad” and “tragic,” in a word slip. A Planned Parenthood web site based out of Waco, Texas, presented a lengthy page describing the day of your abortion, including the ironic detail that no children are permitted. It graphically explained the insertion of a suction tube and mentioned that the abortion procedure itself takes only a convenient 10 minutes. (At least then you’ll have time to pick up your dry cleaning!) Pricing information noted that babies under 13 weeks could be aborted for $360, while those up to 15 weeks will cost the heftier sum of $550 to get rid of. Well, the early bird gets the worm you know. Sick.

Whether we want to admit it or not, abortion can be connected to each of our God-given lives. I am a happy, healthy, well-adjusted, capable human being but I was a candidate for selective death at one point in my life. At 19, unmarried with a young relationship, and broke with no aspirations beyond finding her next dead-end job, my mother’s pregnancy was not glowing. In the half light of the situation, I am certain people encouraged abortion for this less than ideal circumstance. She might have regarded this as an option for me. Hopefully not. Gratefully not. It has become generic for pro-lifers to say, your lucky your mom didn’t have an abortion. There are a lot of people out there whose chance of survival before birth was dramatically lowered unnecessarily. I don’t know the details behind my controversial days in the womb, but I’m a survivor, I beat the percentage that said I might not make it.

A small dose of perspective, rationality, and common sense is all it takes to see that abortion is, obviously and physically, the ending of a life. Our physical lives go through a series of constant phases, beginning with conception and ending with death. The fact that I have to keep saying this is sad because it’s so clear to me that I am literally perplexed by the fact that it’s actually such a hot issue. Abortion stops a beating heart. Fact. I don’t want to hear the fluffy bull about it being the right choice for some, just not for me. Excluding the debates regarding rape and incest (though I still regard abortion wrong in those cases), unplanned pregnancies are the risk one takes when engaging in sexual intercourse. Married or not, old or young, ready or not, here the baby comes. Snap out of it people, you don’t need aborted babies flashed in your faces to admit the truth of it (even though blatant truths like evidentiary photographs somehow do not affect the beliefs of many.)

Consider a member of my family who miscarried in her third month. This was a baby, the essence of humanity in the little person surrounding those newly formed organs. We were devastated to learn that this child died and mourned that loss. This was a critical stage in development, a time when many abortions take place, when an emotional choice to sacrifice life for convenience, out of fear, or in haste results in tearing down the sacredness of life. All women considering abortion should be sent to mandatory counseling, encouraged to choose life, and forced to take real time and think about their decision. How many people have laid on that table not 100% okay with their decision but still went ahead? Abortion, always wrong and immoral, should be the last option for anyone if it must be a legal option at all. Why is America, with organizations like Planned Parenthood, NOW, and NARAL, pushing it? What kind of world are we coming to when any American political leader gives a second thought to legalizing partial-birth abortions, the most disgusting excuse for a choice I’ve ever heard of?

The vast majority of citizens do not agree with partial-birth abortion, but for those that limit their objection to only those minute cases, I ask truly how they are differentiate the levels of wrongness? At what stage in development do you draw the line? Today it’s a fetus, tomorrow it’s a baby? I don’t think so. In defense of the sanctity of human life and the moral pathway of American values, I extend my sword in the battle against unnecessary infant deaths. Like many other senseless killings, I cannot label this epidemic a tragedy because tragedies occur minus the help of lawmakers, activists, and unexpectedly expectant mothers. But I will call it what it is: sad and shameful, selfish and needless, heartbreaking and essentially evil prevailing over goodness.