Institutionalized child abuse

Child abuse is an issue that is considered, across the board, to be wrong. Even in a world where morals are often philosophically questioned, hurting a child to the point of injury or fatality is still one of the most horrific acts imaginable.

Why is that? We really shouldn’t have to ask this question, but it brings up some interesting points. Children, after all, do not pay taxes. They don’t contribute to society, and they are far from being valuable citizens. They eat up our resources and cause a whole lot of problems economically, once education is considered.

Technically, I’m one of those children. I don’t have a job, and I still go to public school. Why does it matter if someone beats me to death? My demise would not damage society as a whole in the slightest, because I haven’t really done anything of importance yet.

This argument is ridiculous, right? As “logical” as it might be, the murder of a child, the murder of anyone, is morally wrong, and I think most people would agree. Despite my young age, I am still a person with thoughts and feelings, and I have aspirations that I’ve developed over the course of my short lifetime. Killing me, killing a three-year-old, killing a twelve-week fetus – what’s the difference but a few added years of experience? We all have potential, and destroying that potential is morally reprehensible.

Abortion is really no different from institutionalized child abuse. It is shameful that we live in a world that values the life of children we can see, children with whom we can physically interact, far above children too young to thrive outside their mothers’ bodies. Why is it that those non-tax-paying, non-beneficial beings whom we can’t see with our own eyes are so much less important?

In 2010 alone, an estimated 1,560 American children died from abuse and neglect. On any given day, approximately 3,700 abortions are performed in the United States. These figures are staggering and heart-wrenching. I don’t want any child to die, let alone a child who hasn’t seen the light of day.

Some people feel otherwise, and I have to respect that. The issue of abortion is deep and wrought with emotion. Painful experiences add up to create a controversy that will probably never go away. All I ask is that we think of the children before we think of ourselves.

Think of the children who are saved from abusive situations, who are put up for adoption and loved for who they are. Think of the children who don’t yet know that they almost didn’t make it, pre-birth or otherwise. Think of your own children, for whom you would do anything. All of these precious beings could have been destroyed without a second thought.

When a child is abused, no one cares about the “choice” of the abuser, who is almost always a parent. We don’t give him the right to hurt his child, even if he really wants to, even if it’s in his “best interest.” There are plenty of laws against that, and if he were to kill his child, the consequences would be dire.

For some reason, the law doesn’t apply this philosophy to pregnant twenty-something women. There is something very wrong with that.

We know that children are innocent, that they have done nothing to deserve harm. We naturally sympathize with children, protecting them from danger regardless of class or creed. Children are inspirational in their capacity for understanding, often naturally lacking prejudice that adults must strive to repress. Children are wonderful pieces of society, and to lose just one to any type of abuse is a sign of a world in need of improvement. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.