Imagine: during the second or third trimester of a pregnancy, a doctor, guided by an ultrasound, grabs the leg of an unborn child and delivers the baby until only the head of the child is left in the womb. Next, that same doctor takes a pair of scissors and jams them into the baby’s skull, thus making an enlarged hole where a suction catheter is injected. The child’s brain is then sucked out until the skull collapses and the deceased child is removed. This is called a "Partial-Birth Abortion," or Dilation and Extraction. This inhumane kind of abortion has been illegal for the past 10 years or so, but there are yet many forms of abortion that have been legal since 1973 and are still performed in the United States today. As college students, we should begin to speak out against abortion because it is immoral and violates the sanctity of human life, the psycho-social and physical consequences it has on the mother, and the economic effects it has on society.

Let’s look at the statistics: There have been more than 52 million abortions since 1973, there were over 1.2 million abortions in 2005, and there are over 3,300 abortions per day - 137 per hour, or about one every 30 seconds. For every 1,000 live births, there were 236 abortions in 2006. That same year, more than 95,000 second and third trimester abortions were performed. The number of children aborted each year nearly equals the number of American deaths in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars combined. And this is only the beginning.

Merriam-Webster defines life as “the ability to grow, change, etc., that separates plants and animals from things like water or rocks.” This supports the idea that an unborn baby is alive from conception because it is always growing and changing. The fact that “an unborn baby's heart begins to beat 18-21 days after fertilization” and “brain waves can be detected as early as 40 days after fertilization” helps to further prove the sanctity of human life. Abortionfacts.com states that “networks of killing centers across the globe are eliminating "unwanted, unborn" children at a staggering rate… At the end of the day, if the unborn are people (and they are), then abortion is not only comparable to past crimes against humanity but is also, by sheer volume, the greatest holocaust of all.

Your eyes saw me when I was only a fetus.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book

before one of them had taken place.

Psalm 139:16 (GOD'S WORD Translation)

Human life is not an accident - it is sacred because God made us and knew us while we were still in our mother's wombs.

Now that we can see abortion is immoral, let’s look at how an abortion has negative effects on the mother. Not only does every abortion kill an innocent human being in the womb, but it's also more dangerous to the mother than if she were to just give birth to the child, as stated on abortionfacts.com. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the morbidity and mortality rates of legal abortion are several times higher than for carrying a pregnancy to term. National Right to Life goes even further to say that, “Despite his promises, a woman’s partner often leaves after the abortion. The clinic staff is gone, and the woman has no desire to return to the place she associates with failure. Even friends who know hesitate to bring up the subject.” Because of this, the woman is often left to deal with all her negative emotions by herself. This is often leads to: “intense fear, anxiety, sense of helplessness, feeling of loss of control, emotional numbing, difficulty recalling event, guilt, pain, grief, depression, irritability, angry outbursts, aggressive behavior, sleep difficulties, sexual dysfunction flashbacks, nightmares, anniversary reactions, withdrawal from relationships, avoidance of children, pessimism regarding, drug, alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts.” Other negative effects are self-destructive acts, smoking, substance abuse, and in extreme cases, suicide. Women who undergo one or more induced abortions also carry a significantly increased risk of delivering prematurely in the future.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, Guttmacher Institute, and National Center for Health Statistics, if abortion had never been legalized in 1973, more than 17 million people would be employed, resulting in an additional $400 billion from those workers, with $11 billion contributed to Medicare and $47 million contributed to Social Security. Although it is important to reduce government spending, these added incomes would nevertheless help the country. Life News gave out the statistic that in population studies, “at least 2.1 kids per household are needed to maintain stable population. The average number of kids per household today is about 2.0 in this country, which isn’t even meeting the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain the population for future generations to come.” Researcher Dennis M. Howard, president of the pro-life group Movement for a Better America, who has been tracking the economic impact of abortion since 1995, has shown that the 50.5 million surgical abortions since 1970 have cost the United States $35 trillion dollars in lost Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

We need to speak out against abortion and stand up for the millions of innocent lives that are being taken annually. Lifenews.com shares some simple, yet very effective ways you can help in the fight against abortion. Remember, prayer is the most powerful weapon against the Devil and his attacks on believers and the world in general. Human life is sacred and worth valuing. It is the responsibility of Christ followers to be the light to the world so that the world, in turn, will see the good that we do and praise our Father in heaven. I’ll leave you with this last thought spoken by former president Ronald Reagan: “I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”