Since 1973, abortion has been legal in America, ruled as such in Roe v. Wade. Since 1973, abortion has been extremely controversial in America. Leading crusaders of the pro-abortion movement at the time claimed that the procedure would not be anything more than what it was when it was performed illegally and dangerously: a way out for those unable financially, emotionally, or otherwise to have the child. (Many of these one-time proponents of abortion rights have come to their senses and changed their opinions of this heinous act, even going so far as to admit to lies created to influence the atmosphere around legalizing abortion1 .) Truth be told, abortion rates skyrocketed; through 2000, 39 million abortions had been legally performed in America2 . This is not the result of an increase in poverty, forcing more women to give up their children because they could not support them; abortion has become an appalling form of birth control. Abortion is wrong, both as birth control and as a financial decision, and needs to halted.

Besides the obvious moral questions abortion poses to many, it leads to questions of legality as well. First is a matter of Constitutionality. In the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers declared “ ... that all men are created equal ... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that amongst these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment echoes this, stating that “ . . . nor shall any State deprive any person of Life, Liberty, or Property without due process of the law . . . .” Furthermore, the Fourth Amendment guarantees “The Right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .”

While perhaps making a Fourth Amendment-based argument that the womb is the home of the fetus, and therefore a sanctuary where the fetus should remain safe, or even that the fetus should be left secure in its person (a point with which I agree, but find too debatable to use to my advantage) is a stretch, the Fourteenth Amendment seems to be a fairly solid defense of the unborn child. Currently, even the science community is divided over whether life begins at conception, at some point during the pregnancy, or at birth. Especially because of this, there is no possible way that the government can arbitrarily set a point at which life begins. That being as such, the government cannot begin to guarantee rights at any arbitrary point. Constitutional rights and protections are not guaranteed only to citizens, but to all. If unborn fetuses cannot be ruled out as living, they cannot be denied this precious, Constitutional Right to Life.

Secondly comes a matter of double standards; this seems to go against the Fight for “Equality” espoused by the Feminist movement so involved in the press for legalized abortion. It is rather obvious that it takes both a male and a female to reproduce; in those cases involving a female and a random male’s sperm, the desire to have an abortion doesn’t usually tend to come into play. Although the man is required for a child to be conceived, he is apparently not important enough in all but 8 states to have a say in whether or not the child is carried to term. ,p>While this alone is disturbing, it is nowhere near the most egregious part of this situation. If the mother of the child decides to have the baby, the father then becomes financially responsible for it. An absentee father is expected to pay child support, and failing to do so can hurt him immensely. So apparently, the man responsible for a child’s conception is only allowed to have a role in decisions regarding the child if the mother keeps the child. Despite being responsible for the child’s existence, he has no right to say that this child, which is his child, the continuation of his line, should live. I see no equality in that.

The Constitution is often used to defend a woman’s right to kill. Based on various guarantees in the Bill of Rights, certain rights, called penumbras, have been created by the Judiciary. Amongst these rights is the Right to Privacy. In itself, this Right might very well be the most important one we have, perhaps following only the Right to Free Speech in eminence. This is "The Right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the Right most valued by civilized men. . .,” wrote Justice Louis Brandeis in his dissenting opinion in Olmstead v. United States (1928). Those who use this Right as a defense of the Constitutionality of abortion claim that what a woman does with her body is her right; Justice William Brennan, one year prior to Roe v. Wade, expressed this in Eisenstadt v. Baird.

If the Right to Privacy were as the pro-abortion movement claims, then a man might very well kill someone and claim that, because he did it in the privacy of his own home, he was within his Constitutionally-protected bounds. What he would fail to realize, then, is that Constitutional rights are not absolute. These rights can only be exercised to the extent that they do not infringe on the rights of others. Similarly, a woman’s Right to Privacy cannot be extended to the point of aborting her child; in doing this, she infringes on the Constitutionally-protected Right to Life of the child.

Additionally, a government that would cite this Right in upholding abortion rights would be hypocritical in doing so. Smoking marijuana in the privacy of one’s own home would seem to be a perfectly legal thing to do under this penumbra, so long as the smoker did nothing as a result of the drug that would infringe on the rights of others. Yet this is not the case; marijuana, like other drugs, remains illegal. Marijuana doesn’t kill. Abortion does. Abortion is much more likely to adversely affect others than marijuana will. Yet abortion remains defended by the Right to Privacy, whereas marijuana is prohibited. The government even goes so far as to link marijuana, without any proof, with terrorists, never mentioning that the abortion it keeps legal is a terror plaguing America.

Abortion needs to be halted in America. Unfortunately, I realize this is a daunting task and may never fully occur. However, there are means by which to significantly decrease the number of abortions performed in this country. First, the government needs to stop funding to any organization related to abortion and to any group that uses the money to help pay for abortions. Secondly, partial-birth abortions need to be made illegal. Any woman who carries on this long with the child must have had some desire to keep it. There is no reason to allow her to scar herself emotionally forever; there is no justifying taking life away from the child when it is so near to the outside world. Surely by then it is living.

Finally, it probably wouldn’t hurt if this country were to socialize health care, so long as it did it so that both patients and doctors come out winning. While my Catholicism leaves me somewhat leery of birth control, the common sense in me tells me that to try to end birth control is a ridiculous idea. Furthermore, the libertarian streak (yes, I realize I just proposed the socialistic idea of universal health care) in me says that people have the right to do what they want in the privacy of their bedroom; by including birth control in the universalized health care plan, the government will give these people the ability to make their choices with a better chance of abortion never being necessary. If by chance, as it is sometimes prone to do, the birth control fails, pregnancy is a consequence with which the two engaging in intercourse must deal.

Abortion should end; while it may never be completely eradicated from America, it can be cut back immensely. Doing such a thing would be completely in line with the Constitution, and would be the moral choice for America. As a social libertarian, it is not my wish to impose my personal morals on anyone; being anti-abortion is not merely a personal moral. Being anti-abortion is being a lover of freedom and of the Constitution. As an American, that’s what I am, and that’s why I say abortion needs to be ended. I have offered reasons why, and even how. Now it’s time for the freedom-loving masses to realize what I say is true and it is time for them to act.