Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

By Britt Nelson

If President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of retired four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis for Defense Secretary is any clue, let’s hope Pro-Life Trump nominates the most hard-nosed-conservative ‘hangin’ judge he can find to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court and begin the process of saying goodbye to Roe versus Wade.

No other subject stirs political, religious and moral emotions like abortion, which has been debated for years. Not even gun control matches the heated controversy of abortion. Pro-life or pro-choice? The most glaring and despicable statistic concerning abortion is that it has been legal to kill at least 55 million unborn America citizens since 1973 due to the Roe versus Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing abortion as a women’s constitutional right to choose. Roe versus Wade must be overturned. It’s time to stop referring to the unborn as a fetus and recognize the unborn child as a real person.

It’s not liberal Democratic or conservative Republican thinking that keeps abortion legal. Abortion is still legal because the subject is too hot for lawmakers to handle. The abortion situation in America is much like attempts to further control guns in America. These hot-button issues need to be dealt with once and for all. Changes to the nation’s abortion laws must occur as they must with gun control. What’s the difference between being shot dead on the streets of Chicago or being yanked from the womb at a clinic?

As Trump and the Republican controlled U.S. Congress promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Obama, there is a good argument to be made about making birth control free for men, women and teenagers with or without parental consent. Universal healthcare should also be free in America for all citizens and it can be accomplished like it is in other counties. It’s all in the priorities of government and how they spend the people’s money.

It boggles the mind to consider those 55 million people that were not born. How many brilliant minds have been lost to abortion? How many artists never got a chance to create? How many future politicians never got a chance to lead? These are unanswerable questions, but just as sure as the Nazis killed six million Jews in Hitler’s Germany during World War II, the abortion numbers in America far exceed the Jewish Holocaust.

The time has come to shut down all the remaining abortion clinics in the United States and defund any federal money to support abortion provided by the controversial Planned Parenthood organization. If a woman for health reasons must have an abortion, then a real hospital setting is best. Women and men have had birth control methods for decades; they should start using it regularly.

Children should have constitutional rights at conception. Constitutional rights at conception would mean abortion is murder, period. The law should also consider requiring mothers-to-be to begin a pre-birth certificate with their local Health Department. Too extreme? Not when you consider the true value of life and legally protecting its potential.

Twenty-five percent of the world’s populations live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, according to information provided by www.womenscenter.com. This group also states that if abortions are made illegal the number of abortions performed will stay the same, there lies this dilemma.

Abortion statistics show a steady decline in the annual numbers of reported abortions performed, but it’s still legal. And someone else may want that child. Even in cases of rape, it’s never the fault of the unborn child.

If a future U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe versus Wade, then it is imperative to immediately make adoption procedures easier for anyone qualified to bring a parentless child to a loving and nurturing home. The adoption process is far too long and cumbersome which cause childless couples or singles to seek an orphaned child from a foreign county. There is nothing wrong with adopting a foreign child, but in America thousands of orphans are waiting to be adopted, and they should have priority. Many orphans in America never get adopted because the procedures — that differ widely from state to state — take far too long. Legal adoptions are over-regulated to say the least. Many orphans turn 18 years old and leave state orphanages without ever having been loved by a family with no dads to look up to and no moms to cuddle.

If abortion becomes illegal, steps must be taken to prevent illegal ‘back alley’ abortions by making the penalties so severe – like first-degree murder — the illegal abortions stop. It should be the women’s legal responsibility to bear the child, put the child up for adoption and then walk away if that’s her final decision.

After this U.S. Supreme Court candidate is nominated and approved, it won’t be long until another vacancy occurs, since several U.S. Supreme Court justices are in their 70s and 80s. The new president is sure to appoint more conservative judges that will shape America for generations to come, and will have the guts to deal with the most sensitive of complex issues. A lot has changed since Roe versus Wade passed in 1973.

The late Dr. Bernard Nathanson, M.D., a former abortionist turned Pro-Life activist said, “In the tiny, almost invisible thirty-two cell blastocyst – in that one gram or so of tissue – there is a physical potential and moral destiny unparalleled in our universe. Next to it, a gram of plutonium is a triviality: plutonium cannot compose a symphony, cannot cure cancer, cannot plan our course to the stars.”

 

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.