Being American and Whole Life

What does it mean to be American? Since we are such a diverse country, this can be a difficult question to answer. Some would say that we are all so different from each other that it is impossible to find any communality between us. We have African-Americans, Whites, liberals, conservatives, Baptists, Buddhists, and everything in between. But even with all these divisions and/or differences we still have one thing that we share: our American values. Specifically, the ones stated in the Declaration of Independence. In the second paragraph it states that all men are created equal with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The universal acceptance of this truth is truly what unites us with one another.

In the course of our national history, however, this revolutionary statement has often been ignored. Women, for example, for the longest time had very few if any rights in this country. African-Americans were denied their basic rights when they were shackled by slavery. When slavery was finally abolished, African Americans were still treated as second-class citizens.

Eventually these groups, among others, were given their rights back when people realized that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be extended to all people. Today, all Americans believe that these rights apply to everyone no matter who they are, where they came from, or what they look like.

So what about the unborn? Why are they still denied these basic rights? Are they not human?

Pro-choicers will say that a fetus is just a cluster of unorganized cells. This is a lie. A fetus’s heartbeat can be detected in just a few weeks after conception. It can suck its thumb. A mother can feel her baby kicking inside her womb. It has human DNA and is clearly alive. It has to be human and therefore deserves to have its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enforced.

But some would say that a pregnancy can inconvenience a mother. She may not be ready to have a baby and feels that she does not have the resources to support it. The women’s life would be negatively affected by the child. The baby’s life gets in the way of her pursuit of happiness. In order to preserve the woman’s rights, they argue, she must be able to choose whether or not to have the baby.

The problem with this argument is that it misunderstands what Thomas Jefferson wrote. They interpret it as saying that you are guaranteed happiness, no matter what your choices. What it really means is that you are allowed the freedom to make your own choices, presumably the ones geared toward your ultimate happiness. It does not guarantee that you are happy, only that you are allowed to choose the life that you want to live. If you make good choices, you reap the benefits, if you make bad choices, you accept the consequences.

Unfortunately, a lot of people make bad decisions, like get pregnant when they are not ready. The fact is they have already chosen how to live by choosing to be sexually active. That was their decision and they must face the consequences, good or bad, of what they have done. Thus, the prolife agenda does not violate their rights.

The other thing that pro-choicers will say is that a woman should be able to abort her baby because it’s her body and she has the right to control it. They will say this especially in the case of rape or incest.

I’ve already discussed how a baby is human. It is a unique individual. It is a separate entity from its mother. The fetus just happens to live in her womb for nine months. Since it is clearly not part of her body, she has no right to get rid of it. It does not matter whether she made the chose to get pregnant or not. It is still not her decision to make.

Both of the pro-choice arguments I have mentioned have one thing in common: they ignore the rights of the child. It has the right to life; it has the right to be born.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This short phrase has defined everything we Americans believe in when it comes to human rights. Eventually, I hope these rights will be extended to everyone, including the unborn. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, millions and millions of children have been legally slaughtered. This is the greatest human rights battle in not only our history, but the worlds. We must fight for everyone’s rights, for as Mother Theresa once said,” It is a great poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

Mariana Barillas is a freelance writer.