The dignity of human life

Many articles on abortion focus on philosophical issues. Today, however, I would like to consider something different: abortion's cultural consequences — its historical significance for our nation and its psychological impact upon women in particular.

Today, most young people want to make the world a better place. We are rightly concerned for the thousands left destitute in Hurricane Katrina's wake, the countless victims of genocide in Darfur and the weak and helpless wherever we find them. Yet we inhabit a society in which our stated values stand in stark opposition to some of our actions.

This has happened before. In the years preceding the Civil War, we professed that "all men are created equal." Yet as a society, we tolerated the continuation of a crime so flagrantly opposed to human dignity that in retrospect it seems morally absurd. But slavery's proponents argued that it was constitutional, legal, sanctioned by the Supreme Court and a matter of private property and personal choice. Its opponents, often religious, were accused of attempting to impose their moral views on the nation. Sound familiar? Tragically, we again find our actions colliding with our ideals. We must once more acknowledge our national hypocrisy: we have deprived another class of humans the rights due to all.

In the ash heap of American history, I believe abortion will occupy a horrific, yet recognizable position. Just as future students of American history will be appalled at a nation that managed to enslave millions, they will likewise be dismayed at our willingness to kill over 47 million of our own children between 1973 and 2006. Just as the legacy of slavery still lingers in the painful racial divisions which afflict our society, we will be haunted by the thought of those innocent millions who might have lived, might have been loved and learned to love in return, but instead fell victim to the deadly indifference of a society supposedly committed to equality and justice.

More than its historical significance however, let us consider abortion's profound effect upon women. A child in the womb is naturally hidden from the world. His or her silent pain is not visible and can be overlooked (unless you have seen the immensely powerful movie "The Silent Scream" by ex-abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson). Yet it is impossible to disregard the understandable pain of many mothers who abort their child.

Humans have developed over millions of years the physical capacity to nurture and care for their young. Naturally, there is an intense and intimate physical connection between mother and developing child. Is it not only plausible but likely that serious trauma would afflict a woman whose bodily processes are focused on protecting and nurturing her child, until he or she is violently and unnaturally torn away? Does it not make sense that abortion might deeply scar a woman's psyche? Abortion always ends a life, and often severely wounds another, as the women from such groups as Silent No More confirm. Women deserve better.

But as we maintain the dignity of the child in the womb, we cannot ignore the genuine suffering women can face during pregnancy. Abortion is harmful to women and lethal to children, but the pro-life solution is attentive to both, calling for and providing counseling and adoption services for distressed mothers along with the protection of their unborn children. The dilemma between respecting the child or the mother is false. The pro-life solution answers with a resounding yes to both mother and child.

For many, abortion seems like a reasonable response to an unplanned pregnancy. But reflect on the obvious. Any position which permits the killing of fellow humans seconds before they are born (as in partial birth abortion), sanctions the deaths of 47 million innocent children since 1973, and subjects an entire generation of women to the unspeakable physical and emotional scars of abortion cannot be called "reasonable" by any sound standard of rationality.

Human dignity must be respected if our country is to live up to its own ideals. Our culture, and each of us individually, must some day address the spectacular injustice and misery abortion has wrought upon our nation's women and children, just as we now face the national shame of slavery and racial discrimination. We must again painfully recognize the obvious and respect our true American values — the foremost of which is the dignity of every human life at any stage. Tom Haine is the president of Princeton Pro-Life, which is sponsoring Princeton University Respect Life Week this week. He is a sophomore from Alton, Ill., and can be reached at thaine@princeton.edu.