John Trandem: North Dakota's Abortion Fight Was Worth Every Penny

The Fargo Forum recently chastised the North Dakota legislature for engaging in the battle to curtail abortion through legislative action and the Attorney General for defending the laws in court.

What they didn’t mention is that a host of pro-life legislation which has been passed, even against the advice of the Forum and others in the pro-choice movement, has been implemented and is in practice right here in Fargo.

I am a husband and a parent. If I were put in a position where my wife or child’s life was being threatened, I would do whatever I could to save them. If my efforts failed but there was a chance that by spending a significant amount of money I could still potentially save that life, I would spend the money.

If I didn’t have it, I would raise it or borrow it. Even if the odds were stacked against me, I would take the chance on the basis that no amount of money is of greater value than the preservation of a life.

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]It is intellectually irresponsible and inconsistent to treat the value of life differently at different stages based on the imposition of arbitrary standards which have no bearing on the humanity of the living being.[/mks_pullquote]

In ND, around 1,200 lives are lost every year to abortion. The number over the past 43 years is around 69,000. Is it worth it to take a chance that the lives of so many sons and daughters, future husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, laborers, inventors, doctors, musicians, and artists may be protected if we go to bat for them with scientifically sound protective legislation, or is it more reasonable for us to say to them, ‘the cost was just too high and the opposition was just too strong’.

The fact that we don’t recognize the value of these small, faceless, nameless little living human beings does not mean that they have none. We each were and are ‘clusters of cells and tissue’; but we are, just as those we have lost to abortion, living, growing, and uniquely human.

Zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, adolescent, teenager, adult, and senior citizen are all just terms to describe stages of development along the continuum of human life, which necessarily begins at conception and ends with death.

It is intellectually irresponsible and inconsistent to treat the value of life differently at different stages based on the imposition of arbitrary standards which have no bearing on the humanity of the living being.

This is an irrefutable biological reality, and the failure to recognize it and treat those beings with the same level of dignity and intrinsic value at every stage is a selfish, cowardly, and a decidedly anti-scientific rejection of truth and decency.