Abortion is definitely not the way to solve the problem

WHAT is abortion? It is the killing of unborn children.

Those who argue for abortion say the unborn are not really humans. They appear human, but they are not. They are partial human or subhuman, so the same laws need not apply to them.

It’s this “reasoning” that has been used throughout history: The six million Jews slaughtered by Nazi Germany were not humans; the black African-Americans lynched by Southern whites were not humans; and the blobs of dividing cells in the womb that 4D ultrasounds can now show responding to sounds and sucking their thumbs are not humans to those who choose to suck out their lives.

Choosing to “solve” baby dumping by legalising abortion, as advocated by Dr S. P. Choong in the letter “Way to solve baby dumping” (The Star, Aug 8), is like sweeping the dirt under the carpet.

Look, you no longer see the horrific images of dead babies in the news. They are conveniently exterminated in the medical facilities and no one needs to see them.

A foetus is a living person from the moment of conception. However he or she came to be conceived, each child is unique, precious and not an accidental creation.

We definitely need to address the issue of baby dumping, but abortion is not the solution even if, as Dr Choong says, “the international medical community has now accepted the fact that providing safe abortions is essential in protecting the health and rights of women.”

The “rationale” for abortion can range from “it solves baby dumping” and “it is not a crime before the quickening (when the foetus starts to move at between 16 and 25 weeks into pregnancy)” to “it is done to protect the life of the mother; done because of perceived stress to the mother if born” and the prevailing slogan “it is a woman’s right to choose”.

Let us look at the United States where abortion is mainly legal to different extents in most states. Some allow abortion till detection of foetal heartbeat, some only for cases of rape or incest, and some till 24 weeks (six months).

The governor of New York signed the Reproductive Health Act on Jan 22, 2019, which now legalises abortion in that state throughout all nine months of pregnancy, even up to dilation.

And what if an abortion results in the birth of a live infant? Not all states in the US have laws that protect the infants born in botched abortions.

In other words, those babies that made it through the birth canal alive can be conveniently neglected till they die, with no prosecution made against the perpetrators.

It is not “political and religious sensitivities” that keep Malaysia from legalising abortion. It is sanity. A murder by any other name is still a murder.

EMMELINE TAN

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