You may say it's your body and you can do what you want with it. I say, a baby is not part of your body. A baby has it's own DNA and even it's own blood. Some babies even have different blood types. Your arm, leg, and body parts all have your blood and dna. A baby has a seperate personality from it's mother. If you have a choice in what happens to your body, doesn't your unborn child have a right to life?
Just 18 days after conception, the baby's heart begins to beat. At six weeks, brain waves can be measured. At eight weeks the vital organs are functioning and fingerprints have formed. At nine weeks, the unborn baby is able to feel pain. Over 700,000 abortions each year are performed after this point in the pregnancy. By the beginning of the second month, the unborn child, small as it is, has begun to look distinctly human, though the mother may not even be aware that she is pregnant! By the time the baby is eleven weeks old, he or she breaths (fluid), swallows, digests, sleeps, dreams, wakes, tastes, hears, and feels pain. Babies born prematurely can survive outside the womb as young as 20-25 weeks old. Yet, all that is necessary to make the baby a grown human being is already there from the moment of conception. All it needs is time to mature.
What does God say?
God said to the prophet Jeremiah, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Jeremiah 1:5 KJV God knew this man before he was born. As he was forming in his mother's womb God gave him his personality, talents, and temperament. If his mother had gotten an abortion, the "fetal tissue" she aborted would have been a real person named Jeremiah; a mighty prophet of God and the gift of God's voice to the nations, though she would never have known.
The Lord hath called me from the womb: from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. Isaiah 49:1 KJV
Did not he that made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb? Job 31:15 KJV
For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. Psalm 139:13-14 KJV
The above verses are only a sampling of the many Biblical references we find to life inside the mother's womb. From them, it is clear that life begins when God creates it, not at some later point in time when it has grown to look like a newborn. God does not judge things according to their stage of development the way humans tend to. According to the above passages, even the tiniest embryo is the subject of His love and care. God sees each of our lives in the realm of our total existence, whether we are yet unborn, a young woman in the prime of her life, or an old man on his deathbed. He is patient with all of us, longing to bring each one of us into His maturity.
God is no respecter of persons. If He knew Jeremiah in the womb, He knew you too. Do you believe that God lovingly fashioned you and loves you dearly? Do you believe that He has had a plan for your life from the beginning of time? A plan that none other can fulfill in quite the same way you can? That you came to this earth "trailing clouds of glory?" Or do you believe in your heart that you were a mere "accident" and that God has no personal concern for you or your life? Is it easier to believe that you are just a highly evolved animal? An animal (especially an undeveloped one) may certainly be easier to dispose of. It seems somehow even "natural," as the laws of nature lend themselves to the survival of the strong and the equipped. Yet it seems doubtful that even an animal would come up with a way to deliberately kill it's unborn offspring.
Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. Lamentations 4:3
General Abortion Stats
When Women Have Abortions in Weeks
# of Abortions per 1,000 Women Aged 15-44 per year
- Total abortions in the U.S. from 1973-2002 -- 44,010,378 (Based on Alan Guttmacher Institute statistics from 1997 of 1.33 million abortions, projected for 2002. AGI estimates a possible 3% under-reporting rate, which is factored into the total.)
- For every 1,000 live births there are 314 abortions.
- There are more than 144,000 second- and third-trimester abortions each year.
- There are over 3,700 abortions per day, 155 per hour, 1 every 24 seconds.
- 48% of pregnancies among American woman are unintended; half of these are terminated by abortion.
- Approximately 1.33 million abortions are performed in the U.S. each year.
- An estimated 46 million abortions occur worldwide each year.
