Eleventh-grade winner, archdiocese’s pro-life essay contest – 2018

When Roe v Wade was passed in 1973, many people presumably thought they were more free because of it. However, this is simply not the case. Abortion makes our country less free because it denies babies their right to life, allows doctors and mothers to commit harmful actions without legal consequences, and it goes against the true meaning of freedom.

With the immorality of abortion legalized, many innocent children have been and will be killed just because they exist. The most fundamental human right is the right to life. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life” (CCC 2270). This right springs from man’s creation in God’s image and likeness. Ending a child’s life because he is an inconvenience denies him of a future and prevents him from being able to fulfill his vocation. No one can take away this right to life and replace it with permission to murder.

Now that women can legally receive abortions, it allows both the women and the doctors performing the procedure to commit egregious actions without legal repercussions. Last year, a teenage girl made headlines in Omaha when she gave birth prematurely and then threw her child out of the window (Nitcher, 2017). This was rightly called murder, but if she had gone into Planned Parenthood the day before and received an abortion she would have faced no charges, even though both instances would have resulted with the death of her baby.

This “right” to abortion also goes against the true meaning of freedom. As Pope St. John Paul II once said in a homily, “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Abortion goes against true freedom because it gives women the imagined right to kill. It makes them less free because it gives them the ability to do that which they ought not to do.

As shown above, Roe v Wade makes our country less free because it disrespects man’s creation in the image and likeness of God, allows wide-spread murder, and goes against authentic freedom.