The Real Issue is Life, not Rights!

► What type of world is it when women accept that if they don't have the legal right to kill their offspring, they will somehow be forced to go mutilate themselves?

► What kind of world is it when women become so desperate not to be pregnant that they would hurt themselves? It sounds to me, like a world where women are still being controlled by men - where they have the wonderful choice to abort or be stuck in difficult situations.

► Rather than demanding better situations, we settle for the right to abort our children.

     What a wonderful "choice" ! 

                           C. Gargaro 12/16/99

► We could show you the gruesome images, they are true and real ...

► We could give you the case for life, why abortion is really murder ...

But these truths are rooted in rigid moral lines, necessary lines, but hard lines.

Instead, we wish to present the case against abortion as described by a 12 year old girl from Toronto, Lia Mills.  She makes an incredible speech about abortion for which she was disqualified from her school speaking competition. Fortunately, after a storm of protest, she was recognized for this outstanding piece of writing and was reinstated as the official winner. Please take the time to consider what Lia has to say, it will affect your heart as it has so many others.

The Speech From Lia

The Text From Lia;

What if I told you that right now someone was choosing if you were going to live or die. What if I told you that this choice wasn't based on what you could or couldn't do, what you have done in the past or what you would do in the future. And what if I told you that you could do nothing about it.

Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation. Someone is choosing without even knowing them or whether they are going live or die. That someone is their mother. And that choice is abortion.

Everyday one hundred and fifteen thousand children are dying through abortion. A hundred and fifteen thousand. That means that five thousand children would die every hour. All those lives gone. All that potential gone. And all that hope in the future gone.

Now I know that some of you might be thinking, "Oh it is not really killing. After all, he isn't still child. Right?" Why do we think that just because babies can't talk or do what we do it is not a human being yet. The word fetus comes from the Latin word meaning young one or young child. Some babies are born after only five months. Is this baby not human? We would never say that. Yet abortions are performed on a five or four month old fetus all the time. And we only call them humans if they are wanted. No, fetuses are exactly what we kill. He knows them all by name.

Some people say that since abortion is legal now, it doesn't matter. It's not our business. But it actually is unjust. It needs to be over. And it has to be our business. And this particular law is the [...]. In 1997 over one million abortions took place just in the U.S. And just last year over forty-two million abortions happened worldwide. I'd say that [...].

I know that some people say that the mother has the right to abort. After all, her life is traumatically impacted by having a baby. But I ask you to think about the child's right. Someone never gave it to them. No matter what rights the mother has, it doesn't mean we deny the rights of the fetus. Don't give up mother's choice. The mother may have had a choice not to have unprotected sex in the first place. We must remember that with our rights and our choices come responsibility and we cannot take someone else's rights away to avoid our responsibility.

At this point, I imagine the aged question arises. What if the mother didn't choose to have sex. Maybe she has a right. But let us look at the facts in the U.S. as an example. Only one percent of all abortions performed in the country are in the hard cases categories. This includes rape, incest, and the life of the mother is being in danger. One percent. That hardly justifies the disturbing volume of abortions that hounds these days.

And who says that abortion is an easy way out? I don't think people understand the effects of abortion on a woman. I won't have time to list all the negative after effects, but here are a few examples of the physical effects. Seventeen percent of women who had abortion face complications in their subsequent pregnancies. Some may not even be able give birth at all. There are also a greater risk of developing breast cancer if they had an abortion.

But perhaps the worst effects are emotional ones. Woman who had abortions tend to have mood disorders substantial enough for them to harm themselves. In addition, a woman who had an abortion are five times more likely to have problems with drugs and alcohol. Almost one-third of all women who had abortions are dissatisfied with their decision. It certainly is not the cure that people are thinking. A better story I will quote from a family website about a [...] girl back in the bush. She writes:

I had abortion at the age of seventeen. And it was the worst thing that I ever did. I will never recommend it to anyone because it comes back to haunt you. By the time I'm having children, I lost them. Something happened in my cervix.– Shermont.

Hers is just one of the many heart-wrenching stories that nobody tells these days. And the same ones are the ones that we need to hear about.

Thank you for taking time to think about the issue of abortion, to think about the unborn, and to think about the effects of abortion on the mother. If you want to walk away with anything after this speech, walk away with the words of a poet. You know him the [elephant] that risked his life to save that [vest cat]. Remember him and his famous quote:

Even though you can't see them or achieve them all, a person is a person no matter what.

Thank you.