Mississippi State University was visited by the Consuming Fire Fellowship radical religious group last Friday, seeking to engage in an argument with any student or faculty member who would listen.
As they picketed their signs across the Drill Field, the group preached a message that was anti-gay, regressive in its understanding of the roles of women and anti-abortion. I was given the opportunity to personally interact with several members of the church, specifically on the issue of abortion.
While the Consuming Fire Fellowship spoke in an inflammatory and unproductive way, I confess to agreeing with their overarching message and am unashamedly pro-life.
I hope to separate the level-headed, pro-life proponent from the radical fringe on display and make an intelligent case, as opposed to an emotional one as to why abortion is wrong.
Regardless of what some politicians may euphemize it to be, abortion is the legally sanctioned killing of an unborn child, proven not through a political or religious argument, but by an argument that is fundamentally scientific and biologically correct.
Only two stances on the abortion issue are logically consistent when addressing when the procedure can take place. The two beliefs are abortion is always murder or abortion is legal until the baby is born. These are two views that can endure all the arguments from both sides and still remain logically sound.
It seems ridiculous pro-choice advocates believe, at some discrete point during the pregnancy, the fetus ceases to be a “cluster of cells” and becomes a human child. The only real debate is whether human life begins at conception, or if human life begins at birth.
A zygote is alive and, if left to its natural courses, with time, the zygote will become a baby. This is the natural order of life, and is scientifically observable. According to Dr. J.A DiPietro and his team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
“In infants and children, patterns inherent in continuously monitored heart rate are frequently used indicators of the autonomic nervous system,” DiPietro said.
In fetal development, a doctor can detect a heart rate around week six of the pregnancy. Even sooner, by weeks four and five, a doctor can observe the early formations of the eyes, ears and limbs of the baby. As early as week nine, early signs of brain development are present in the fetus. All of these changes are scientifically observable, posing the question, why is the birth of the baby intrinsic to his/her personhood?
Some argue it is neurological and relates to the uniquely human trait of conciseness. This is incorrect according to DiPietro, who claims “developmentalists who study the fetus commonly assert that nothing neurologically interesting happens at birth.”
So, confronted with the reality that a fetus is an unborn person as opposed to whatever justifies its killing, pro-choice people shift the focus of the argument away from the baby and put the focus on the mother herself. 
The self-proclaimed champions of reproductive rights defend abortion as a personal choice of women expressing control over their bodies. First, we have already established the woman’s body, and that of the fetus, are two independent people, but research suggests the woman is psychologically and physically affected by the abortion process.
According to a study conducted by Dr. Abolghasem Pourreza and Dr. Aziz Batebi of the Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, “At least one-third of the respondents experienced psychological side effects,” including but not limited to, “depression, worrying about not being able to conceive again, and abnormal eating behavior.”
In addition, Pourreza and Batebi claim many physical symptoms surface as a result of a woman getting an abortion, such as “life threatening complications such as hemorrhage, fever, and infection.” This is the woman’s body responding to this unnatural process, proving abortion as a medical procedure goes against our nature as human beings.
In the natural world, mothers of various species go to extraordinary lengths to protect their young—why does the species with the most developed understanding of morality consider its young disposable? 
Abortion is the denial of another person the opportunity to leave their mark on the world. Each child has the potential to be the next Albert Einstein or the next Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. To barter this potential for simple expediency is a crime against humanity, and diminishes us as a thinking and feeling species.
When we choose convenience over life, we cheapen all human life as a whole, and we degrade the intrinsic worth inside all of us as people.