All life is sacred; we do not pick and choose
This is the opinion of Bailey Link, CSB first-year and Ava Blonigen, CSB first-year
In 2021 alone, it was found that there were 625,978 abortions documented in the United States (Pew Research Center). Consider how these lives could have contributed to our world.
St. Teresa of Calcutta once said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” So when the Students for Life club is confronted on campus about not “screaming from the rooftops about levels of infant deaths in Gaza,” it is not because we do not care about the lives being lost in the Middle East. We find these events horrific, but we have not addressed the Middle East happenings because our focus is drawing attention to the issue that is closer to our home and our community.
Americans often fail to realize that the largest genocide in human history is the abortion genocide happening around us every day. In 1990 alone, there were 1.6 million abortions in the U.S. (Pew Research Center). Thousands of voiceless, innocent children are having their life taken away because their right to life is someone else’s “choice.” The National Library of Medicine conducted a survey that found 96% of biologists (5,337 out of 5,577) from academic institutions around the world affirmed that life begins at fertilization.
A baby in the womb develops a heartbeat at just the fourth week of gestation and can start to feel pain during the 24th week of gestation (National Library of Medicine). In Minnesota, there are no restrictions on abortion. A full-term 40-week-old baby can be aborted. The Students for Life club recognizes that this is nothing less than horrific. A fully developed infant with a heartbeat, arms, legs, nerves and breathing lungs can be brutally cut up, removed piece-by-piece from their mother’s womb and thrown away labeled as medical waste. This is not OK. This is something that people need to be made aware of, including students on our campus.
When the CSB+SJU Students for Life club decided to table in Gorecki Fireside, it was our way of screaming from the rooftops to stop murdering children.
We will continue to fight to protect the most innocent members of our community, our state and our country. One can value both human life in America and in the Middle East without attacking the message of the CSB+SJU Students for Life club. All life is sacred, and we cannot pick and choose whose lives are more important.
A common misconception of the pro-life movement is that we only care about babies in the womb when we care about life at all stages.
We put forth much of our effort and energy toward advocating for the unborn because they have no one else to advocate for them. They are the most voiceless, the most innocent members of our society.
However, one small example of how the Students for Life club will support life outside the womb is by making blankets on April 30 to donate to mothers and babies. What many people fail to understand is that a human life has the utmost dignity from conception until natural death. How can we begin to recognize the dignity of all human life if we do not start with the beginning?