Abortion

            In Roman times, abortion and the destruction of unwanted children was permissible, but as our civilization has aged, it seems that such acts were no longer acceptable by rational human beings, so that in 1948, most nations in the world signed a declaration of the United Nations promising every human being the right to life (Josefson 702). Abortion is an act of murder, who says that it is fair for that decision to be made by an expecting mother? Can we choose death for another while life is all we ourselves know?.
             Some are less disturbed by the slaughter of thousands of unborn children than by the personal problems of a pregnant woman across the street. To rationalize this double standard, they pretend to themselves that the unborn child is a less valuable human life because it has no active social relationships and can therefore, be disposed of by others who have an arbitrary standard of their own for the value of a human life. To say that a 10-week fetus has less value that a baby means also that one must consider a baby of less value than a child, a young adult of less value than an old man. The function of the laws of a society is to protect and provide for all members so that another individual group can victimize no individual or group of individuals (Begley 48). As an opponent to abortion, I will readily agree, as will all those who are against abortion, that pregnancy resulting from rape or incest is a tragedy. Rape is a detestable crime, but no sane reasoning can place the slightest blame on the unborn child it might produce. Incest is, if that is possible, even worse, but for centuries traditional Jewish law has clearly stated, that if a father sins against his daughter (incest) that does not justify a second crime - the abortion of the product of that sin.
             The act of rape or incest is the major emotional physical trauma to the young girl or women. Should we compound the psychic scar already inflicted on the mother by her having the guilt of destroying a living being which was at least half her own? In 1970 an official statement of the World Health Organization said, "Serious mental disorders arise more often in women previous mental .