If you were to conduct a survey asking Americans about what they value most, you would receive an overwhelming response favoring the freedom of choice. After all, it is a fundamental right we’ve known since birth. Every American is taught we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s unpack this endeared value as we talk about the freedom of choice in abortion, the freedom to choose life, and the dark reality of Human Trafficking.
The Freedom of Choice in Abortion
Freedom of choice is defined as an individual’s opportunity and autonomy to perform a chosen action without facing constraint by external parties. In more simplistic terms, one’s access to their own free will.
Planned Parenthood claims that a woman’s reproductive rights, specifically the rights a woman has to abort her preborn baby, are essential for a woman to be able to fully embrace her human rights.
As it stands right now, these rights are determined by legislation within each individual state, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Some states have made abortion illegal, or have put strict guidelines in place to limit the loss of life while other states have loosened laws regarding abortions.
Dr. Kenneth Cauthen, a professor at Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Bexley Hall/Grazer Theological Seminary, wrote an article titled “The Legitimacy and Limits of Freedom of Choice”. In this article, Cauthen shared the following:
“Freedom of choice should be allowed when the consequences are limited to those making the decision or have trivial, or beneficial or non objectionable effects on others. The state should limit freedom of choice when the exercise of that choice will cause significant, irreparable or unnecessary harm to another person or persons.”
In other words, individuals should have access to operate within their freedom of choice as long as their choice does not bring harm to another. The unrestricted freedom of choice in regard to abortion has caused both irreparable and unnecessary harm. Over 63 million preborn babies have been slaughtered due to this said “freedom.”
The Freedom to Choose Life
The freedom of choice is linked to enhanced psychological well-being due to an individual’s ability to exercise personal control. However, there are countless contradictions regarding choice that Planned Parenthood leaves out when bombarding audiences with the pro-choice agenda.
Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life Morality
The term pro-choice is defined as the belief that every woman should be endowed with the right to her own life and body. Those with a pro-choice stance believes that when a woman is denied the right to abort the baby within her womb, that she is being denied autonomy over her body.
The pro-life stance does not negate women’s rights; however, it extends those rights with the belief that all human life is created equal regardless of size, level of development, education, and degree of dependency—including the human life growing within the woman’s body
The harsh reality that is casually ignored by the pro-choice movement is that the desire to uphold a woman’s rights to the far extent of abortion, is in fact, the denial of the baby’s rights as his or her life is being snuffed out.
The Real Cost of Pro-Choice
Further untold realities brought forth in the aftermath of abortion is the irreparable and unnecessary harm that impacts every person in relation to the aborted baby, including the father, grandparents and the mother.
While thought to be the furthest removed from the abortion, the grandparents of aborted children are impacted by the loss of life. They’ve reported emotions ranging from hurt and betrayal to feelings of guilt and shame. They have also shared that their relationship with their children have been strained and sometimes severed because of feelings of grief over the loss of their aborted grandchild.
The Silent Victims
Also constrained from their ability to operate freely within their “freedom of choice” are the fathers of aborted babies.
“My story is best started by saying that I’m the father of five, but only got to raise three of them. The first two, I didn’t do anything wrong to not raise them. I didn’t have a chance because they were aborted,” a father shared in a campaign. “It was later in the evenings, as I would go to bed, that I would begin to cry. Even though it’s been decades since the first two were lost, obviously there’s still an emotional place that comes up. I continued in a lifestyle of medicating with alcohol and marijuana and continued to push the pain I felt away.”
There are over 55 million fathers impacted by the loss of a child to abortion. The choiceless aftermath of abortion has left these fathers feeling helpless, guilt-ridden, and lost in grief for the death of their child. It has also placed them at higher risk for a number of emotional difficulties, increased anxiety, and substance abuse and addiction.
Mothers who have chosen abortion are not without impact. Despite operating within their “freedom of choice,” freedom is rarely free from lasting physical and emotional trauma. Mothers who have chosen abortion, be it a medical abortion or a surgical abortion, face many risks. These risks include hemorrhaging, excruciating abdominal pain and uncontrollable nausea, life-threatening infections, abortion-related deaths, grief and the emotional and psychological trauma of having aborted their child.
The Dark Reality of Human Trafficking
Not only is there a great deal of contradiction within the operation of the term “freedom of choice,” there are millions of women in the United States who are not free to operate within their own free will, nor do they have the freedom to choose life.
These women are entangled in Human Trafficking, an extremely profitable and ominously illicit business practice that goes hand-in-hand with the abortion industry.
Worldwide, there’s an estimated 28 million people who are victims of sex and labor trafficking. These people, known as modern-day slaves, bring in a profit of $33.9 billion a year to their traffickers.
The U.S. Law defines human trafficking as the use of force, fraud or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor against their will. Statistics show that the human trafficking operation places more people in slavery today than at any point in known history.
The Interconnection: Abortion, Life, and Human Trafficking
How does this scandalous business trade relate to abortion and the freedom of choice?
The ugly truth is that girls and women who are forced into sex trafficking are abused multiple times a day, sometimes upwards of 12 hours per day, increasing the likelihood of pregnancy. The girls and women who become pregnant while entangled in human trafficking are forced into aborting their children so they can continue to bring in a profit for their traffickers.
According to a study, 73.8 percent of women who get an abortion reported their decision to abort came about because of pressure from others. Another study, reported that women involved in sex trafficking reported having at least three or four abortions, all of which were forced.
Vednita Carter, a survivor of sexual exploitation and the founder of a shelter for trafficked women, shared a story of a survivor she served in her shelter:
“I got pregnant six times and had six abortions during this time. I had severe scar tissue from these abortions, because there was no follow up care. In a couple of cases, I had bad infections—so bad that I eventually had to have a hysterectomy.”
Conclusion
These statistics and stories are clear indicators that freedom of choice is simply a well-dressed term designed to cover the true picture, which would portray nothing less than scandal, profit, pain and grief.
While it is true, Americans do list freedom of choice as one of their top values, it does leave a broad opening to question if this perceived “freedom of choice” is actually freedom or slavery wrapped up in a veil of freedom in order to justify scandal and increase illicit profits.
PreBorn! wants to know your thoughts on the Freedom of Choice in Abortion, Life, and the Dark Reality of Human Trafficking. Leave your comment below to share your perspective.
