'Blessed are you among women ... Blessed is the fruit of your womb' were the words of the aged mother, Elizabeth, to the young mother, Mary. The Almighty voices the same message to every woman who is called to Motherhood. Those who recognize this voice of God are blessed with Motherhood in the labour room. While the ones who choose to ignore this voice deny this blessing at the abortion table.
Every year around five and a half million unborn children are murdered in their mother's womb. That means, 1,41,096 unborn lives are lost daily at the abortion table, 5879 killed every hour, 98 children are denied the chance to live every minute. In short, three unborn babies are killed every two seconds in the world!
In India, seven lakh children are lost to abortion every year. In God's own country, Kerala, which prides itself of high literacy, religious and cultural values, the number of silent lives executed through abortion in a year is over 25,000. The unofficial number of infanticides carried out in hospitals where abortion is not approved or carried through other traditional methods is almost double of the above official figures.
Ignorance and denial of the fact that it is an actual person growing in a mother's womb makes abortion a breeze for many. We do not realise that the moment a sperm and ovum combine to form the first cell, the gender, colour, and body structure of a baby is determined. After six or seven days, the embryo, known as the zygote, moves through the Fallopian tubes and attaches itself to the wall of the mother's uterus. Within a month, the foetus's heart begins to beat. All this happens even before a mother realises that there is life in her womb, that a baby's heart is beating inside her! The foetus, the future citizen, attains full growth in 40 weeks and is born into this world.
Studies by organizations such as the ‘Geneva Conference on Human Rights’, ‘World Conference of Doctors’ and ‘UNICEF’ affirms that life begins at the moment of fertilization. Various medical studies also show that a new genetic code is formed at the very instant of conception.
Research in the field of medicine has demonstrated centuries ago that babies think and react during the period of pregnancy. During some experiments, doctors were fascinated to see on their monitors, a 20-week-old foetus approaching the left wall of the uterus when a radio was held to the same side of a mother's womb. As the radio shifted to the right side of the womb, the baby also shifted to the same side, all the while listening to the music that was being played. Another similar experiment was conducted by inserting a needle into the amniotic fluid of the uterus with a special device. On being slightly poked with the needle, the baby pulled its hand away in pain. This was repeated a couple of times. Each and every time, the baby felt pain and pulled its hand back in response. After a short while, as soon as it saw the needle coming in, the baby hid on the opposite side of the uterus for fear of being harmed again. Don’t these experiments prove that in the name of abortion, we are killing human beings just like us, a person who is capable of enjoying and thinking like us?
There can be no justification for abortion whatsoever. People resort to this atrocious crime citing petty excuses. For some the excuse is minor discomforts during pregnancy, for some societal shame, and for others preservation of one’s physical features. All the while they are denying the basic right of an individual to ever live in this diverse world.
The basic purpose of any law is to bring justice to individuals and society, to urge them to do good and not evil. Every law should be unquestionably based on moral values. Regrettably, this is not the case most of the time. The pro-abortion laws enacted in some countries under different names and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, passed in India in 1971, are examples of such spurious moves. While they claim to protect the rights of a mother, they violate the very fundamental right of a baby to live.
Around 2.23 crore abortions were performed legally in India from the time MTP Act came into effect on April 1, 1972, to March 31, 2012, a period of 40 years. Will a country ever legalise murders because they are on the rise? Wouldn’t it enforce strict laws to stop these killing? Shouldn’t we be asking the same questions when it comes to making laws regarding abortion.
Coming up tomorrow... Authorised murders through the MTP Act of 1971 and its amendments