Worth the Sacrifice?

By: Scott Sutter 

The right to life is the most basic of human rights. Life is dignified and noble and it is not ours to take. The exact moment in which life begins has been under debate for decades, most famously in the 1973 Supreme Court case entitled “Roe vs. Wade” which legalized abortions. Abortion has never been an argument of whether or not it is right to kill an innocent life, but rather an argument of when life truly began. While those on the pro-life side of the fence argue that life begins at conception, the “pro-choicers” combat with varying dates for the beginning of life ranging from the first heartbeat to birth. According to those who define themselves as pro-choice, it ought to be the right of the mother to make decisions about the fetus. Both arguments advance the rights of human life in their own regard. Recently, however, the pro-choice movement has begun to shift.

            Following the 2013 March For Life in Washington D.C. this past January Mary Elizabeth Williams, author for the online liberal news outlet The Salon, published an article entitled “So What if Abortion Ends Life?”. The article, which can be found here, details the author’s firm belief that life begins at conception yet firm pro-choice stance. She condemns the pro-life movement for employing such strong wording as life, after all, “Who wants to be on the side of… not life?”. She continues, arguing that the pro-choice movement must speak in stronger terms. It must recognize that the circumstances of individual pregnancies do not change the definition of the life growing in the womb. She concludes stating that she has no shadow of a doubt that a fetus is a human life, but it is a “life worth sacrificing”. 

            The notion of a life being “worth sacrificing” is potentially the most dangerous thought to have arisen from the pro-abortion camp. While at the present moment the title of “worth sacrificing” is reserved for those lives that are unborn, how long before the designation is extended to the newly born or the elderly. After all, if a child is a financial or physical burden to his mother, or if an elderly person becomes a pain for his family do they not by the logic of the pro-aborts become a “life worth sacrificing”. How long before children born with mental disabilities are “discarded” as to not cause struggle for the families? 

            Not only is acknowledging pre-natal life as expendable dangerous, it is unconstitutional. The constitution was founded upon the basic principles of life and liberty. If even the most basic right of the human person—life—is denied, what else can we decide? Will adults be denied a vote if they belong to a particular social class or have only received a certain level of education? After all, their vote is worth sacrificing as they are not educated enough to vote intelligently! I think that what is needed here is serious consideration on a universal definition of life. A legal definition of the exact beginning of life must be in place to protect life. Whether conception, birth, or anywhere in between, the beginning of life must be enshrined in the law before the dangerous concept of a “life worth sacrificing” gets out of hand.