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Every woman should make decisions about her own body. Every woman should have a choice of what goes into her body. Once a child is conceived, her child also has a body. The child is a separate body with his or her own gender, hair color, heartbeat, blood type, face, and brain apart from their mother. There are now two patients, not just one.
Whether the child is attached to their mother by an umbilical cord or by holding her hand, it is a biological fact that a child is fully human and alive from their first cell of unique and separate human DNA that is different from the child's mother. The child's DNA is not just a 'blue print' for the child, the DNA is the child. The double helix of DNA is described by scientists to be 'like knitting', which is interesting since the Psalmist wrote thousands of years ago that God "knit' us together in our mother's womb. Every cell in the child's body will have the same DNA found in their very first cell.
A child's heart begins to beat at 21 days from conception which is about the same time most women discover they are pregnant. When a woman is pregnant, she is a mother. When a mother is pregnant, she is pregnant with a child. A child can feel pain by 7 weeks from conception. During pregnancy, a child can feel joy and pain in the womb. As early as seven weeks from conception, a child will move away from touch to his or her face. A preborn child sleeps and dreams and interacts with outside noises and the emotions of their mother.
Both men and women should have control over their own body and consent to anything involving their body. We are not animals and can have self-control who we allow to produce a child with us.
Since more than half of all abortions are performed on expectant mothers who were using birth control the month they got pregnant, it stands to reason that the choice in bodily autonomy comes in the choice in activity that produces a child, before the body of another human being is created.
As in all things in life, we cannot always choose the consequence, but we can control our behavior that prevents the consequence. If the man or woman does not wish to participate in creating or carrying a child in pregnancy, they can choose not to engage in activities that could create a child. Traditionally, getting married is the point at which an adult is ready to have children and engages in activities that can create children. Only in marriage does one's body belong to someone else, and it is out of choice to do so.
No one should force anyone to 'carry a pregnancy'. That is already decided in the choice of the man and woman to create the pregnancy. The natural consequence of creating a child is to carry and give birth to the child, at which point, parents can choose to raise their child or choose a more suitable couple to raise their child.
It's not that complicated. We know where babies come from. And we know what actions to avoid to prevent creating a baby. We can let our brain make the decisions for us based on what we want the outcome to be. Everyone has a choice to make. No one should take that choice away. We choose where, when, and with whom to engage in activities that could potentially create a child. It is a crime to take that choice away from someone. It should also be a crime to take away the choice of a child who only wants to live like the rest of us.
For more information on the relationship between sex, marriage, contraception, and abortion here's a great video by Lila Rose of Life Action "The Truth About Sex".
Faye Barnhart is a life-affirming specialist, women's advocate, and Co-Proponent of the Colorado Life Initiative. She raised her children as a single parent and is now married with an adopted special needs son and enjoys each of her grandchildren, including a grandbaby who needed life-saving surgery at birth. She accepted Christ as her personal Savior and Lord as a small child.
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