Health Center Sparks Abortion Debate: To kill or not to kill: that is the question

By Matt Griesmyer

The right to make a decision between two options is something that lies at the base root of human existence. Since childhood, we are taught to live by basic rules and make choices.  Choices that include whether or not to follow the rules, who to be friends with, and even to kill or not to kill.
Wait … to kill or not to kill?  Is that the question?  Whether tis nobler to live your own life and take the life of another than to live for two and keep a child alive?  
The choice to kill a child before it is born or to let it live is morbid and disgusts me to my very core.  When did the human race become so malevolent in its intentions?  When did temporary human happiness supplant the value of an innocent life?  
In some cases of abortion, the choice to terminate the pregnancy is due to unintended pregnancy and complications with the quality of life the mother and/or child would experience.  The parent(s) may be unfit or unprepared to care for a child.  The cost of raising a child may be something that the potential parent(s) cannot afford.  
All of the above reasons are selfish.  People who decide to abort a pregnancy for the above or related reasons are only thinking of themselves.  To say you make the choice for the baby is a joke.  If a person were asked whether he or she would have preferred to live or die as a baby, what choice would the person make?  Making the choice of whether a person lives or dies to fulfill your own image of happiness is the choice of a tyrant.  I thoroughly agree that a child is an innocent life and growing up in a troubled, problematic and even unloving household is a terrible thing, but killing a child is a deeper tragedy.
Now, not mentioned are reasons such as rape, incest and pregnancies in which the mother’s life is in danger.  These instances may or may not be legitimate reasons for abortion, and just as the circumstances surrounding them are unique, the decision on whether abortion is an option cannot be generalized.
The choice to abort a child is also made to keep people from knowing about the pregnancy.  When unintentional pregnancy occurs, immediate reaction tends to be “what will people think,” and this is understandable.  However, what the first thought should be, instead, is to slow down and think logically if you are able to raise the child yourself.  Fear of embarrassment or letting someone down is selfish, but thinking about the life of another is the act of a mature adult.  After deciding whether the child can be raised or not by a sole parent, perhaps alternative solutions to abortion can be reached.
What are the alternatives?  Adoption is one of the best alternatives to killing a child.  When a child is placed in adoptive care, it is with parents who make the choice to be parents of a child.  They are inspected and certified fit to be parents and to be responsible for another human being.  Nobody is forced into becoming an adopting family; it is a choice.  
Some arguments for the right to choose abortion even revolve around adoption.  Some say that the care that is provided is inadequate, inappropriate and an unhappy environment for a child to grow up.  
Without foster care or early forms of adoption, we wouldn’t have the teachings of Aristotle, the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the leadership of presidents Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton, the genius of Johannes Kepler and many other treasures of humanity.
The potential that exists within every human being to become a great leader, artist, poet and more, whether it manifests during the life of a human, is extinguished when the choice is made to terminate a life.  This potential exists with or without biological parents during the child’s development or when the child has to overcome a bad childhood.  
During the American Civil War, when the states of the Union fought against the states of the Confederacy, families fought over the rights of slaves.  The people who didn’t get to vote on slavery, alas, were the slaves themselves.
In Germany, during World War II, Adolf Hitler decided on the mass genocide of the Jewish people, with numerous other populations being killed as well.  The people who didn’t have a choice in “the final solution” were the people who were being killed.
Oppression of a population that cannot voice its opinion is wrong.  Killing an innocent life when it does not have a voice in deciding the future of its existence is a crime against humanity.  Children are the silent, weaponless victims in a war they cannot possibly win on their own.  Without a voice to speak on their behalf, without someone to stand up and shout “THEY WANT TO LIVE,” unborn poets, singers, dancers, leaders, geniuses and who know what else will perish in a mass holocaust so that women and men can live their lives with no strings attached.
To the pro-choice people who are reading this article, I have a simple question for you.  What would have happened if your mother and/or father decided to abort you?