GUEST EDITORIAL

Why I am Pro-life

Posted

“Those that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” (Benjamin Franklin). This was said by one of America’s founding fathers, and reveals the values this country was founded on. America’s freedom was not free. Brave patriots died to give their posterity the right to liberty, happiness, and most importantly, life. This right to life is a gift that should never be traded in for anything else, even what seems temporarily comfortable. But abortion does just this — it gives an individual a supposed “fix” for their so-called “problem” at the cost of an innocent life. And this exchange of life for the preservation of one’s own plans is a detriment to the land of the free.
Abortion helps establish a society where no one is held responsible for his or her actions. Women are taught that they can go as far as to kill their children for the sake of their own plans, and men are taught that they do not have to care for the people they create. Therefore, “any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love one another, but to use any violence to get what they want” (St. Mother Teresa). In a country like this, dereliction runs rampant.
In this way, “abortion just leads to more abortion” (St. Mother Teresa). Pro-choice activists argue that this is freedom. But if killing a child can fall under the heading of “liberty,” what cannot? Can even the worst capital crime be considered a birthright? The purpose of freedom is to make the right decisions using one’s free will. To utilize this liberty in the form of taking another human being’s life is selfish and immoral. “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others” (Nelson Mandela). Abortion benefits no one, even though it may give the appearance of doing so.
To take an innocent life has always been seen as a crime. Why is it any different with abortion? It is because children are seen as obstacles to one’s own happiness, when in reality “the child is the greatest gift…to the family” (St. Mother Teresa). Abortion is a refusal to accept that gift. For this reason, it harms not only the child, but the parents too. Accepting a baby is the most beautiful thing that two people can do. And to create a human being and take its life away before it has a chance to make the world a better place is harmful to everyone involved. Yes, the child’s life is taken away. But more than that, two people lose their ability to care for someone other than themselves. In this way, a refusal to give birth to an unborn child is a refusal to love.
Grace Jelinek is a freshman at The Prout School, Wakefield. Her essay “Why I am Prolife” was recently awarded the first-place prize in the Rhode Island Right to Life Pro-Life Essay Contest (grades 7-9 division). Jelinek graduated from Our Lady of Mercy School, East Greenwich, in 2022 and is the recipient of the Sister Dolores White Scholarship at Prout. She runs cross country for Prout and is an altar server at Our Lady of Mercy, where she and her family are parishioners. This is the second time Jelinek has won first place in this essay contest, the last time she did so was as a seventh-grader.