General Purpose: To convince
Specific Purpose: To convince my audience that partial birth abortion is an
unnecessary killing of a baby and should be made illegal. Attention Step
I. Melissa Drexter, the girl who killed her baby at her prom, received 15 years in prison. Amy Grossberg, who along with her boyfriend, killed their baby in a motel room, received 2-1/2 years. Both of them were sentenced because they killed their newborn baby, just minutes after they delivered. Why is it such a crime just minutes after the baby is born, and yet perfectly fine to so many people, just days before they are to be born? (The Hawk Eye, 1998)
A. Fifty to sixty million babies are killed each year in the world. (Academic American Encyclopdia, 1995) In the United States alone, 1.4 million babies die a year, due to abortions. That is nearly 4 thousand a day. (NRLC, 1998)
1. Among these abortions, partial birth abortions take place, a particularly gruesome killing of a baby.
2. Are teenagers becoming confused why killing just before delivery is OK, and not illegal just minutes after?
B. This topic of abortion, specifically partial birth abortion, is a very disturbing one to me. I believe in the sanctity of life, but also have friends of my family still living with the horrors of the abortion they had years ago. Because of this, I have researched this topic numerous times.
C. A partial birth abortion is a gruesome, unnecessary killing of a newborn baby, and should be made a federal crime.
Need Step
II Of the above numbers of abortions each year that I have already stated, many of these are partial birth abortions. In one clinic in New Jersey alone, 1500 partial birth abortions were done just in 1996. (Bauer, 1997)
A. Many people have not been educated to know what a partial birth abortion is.
1. A partial birth abortion is a procedure done typically between 4
and 6 months of pregnancy, but is commonly done into the 9th month. (Shafer, 1995)
2. This transparency shows the procedure that takes place during a partial birth abortion.
(fc.net/~garlt/newsletter/step95/diagram.html, 1998)
a. First, the doctor reaches up and grabs the baby's leg with a forcep, or his/her hand, and turns the baby around so that it comes out with its feet first.
b. Then the baby's legs are pulled out into the birth canal.
c. The doctor delivers the baby's entire body, except for the
head.
d. The doctor will then stick scissors into the baby's head,
and then the scissors are opened so the hole will enlarge.
e. The scissors are removed, and then a tube is stuck into the
baby’s head, and the baby's brain is sucked out by a suction
catheter. The caved-in skull is then removed.
B. Following are some startling quotations and statistics that most people are
not aware of.
1. A pro-choice nurse of 13 years, Brenda Shafer, was assigned to an abortion clinic for three days. She thought this would not be a problem, but this is what she says about her experience: "I stood at the doctor's side and watched him perform a partial birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant. The baby's body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby's body was moving, his little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brain out.
Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen." (Shafer, 1995)
2. 80% of these abortions are not for medical reasons, like to keep the
mother alive or complications with the baby, but purely for elective and social reasons. The mother just simply decides that she doesn't want the baby. Has this become a form of birth control? (Shafer, 1998)
C. With this type of procedure legal, is this causing confusion and the value of life to go down, in the minds of our generation, and the generations to come? Educating ourselves about this topic will help.
Satisfaction Step
II Partial birth abortion needs to be made a federal crime.
A. Our Congress can override President [CLINTON]'s veto on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. It will take the citizens support though.
B. In 1997, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the proposed Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. (NCRL, 1998)
1. The act states that a physian, or anyone, commits a federal crime if they perform a partial birth abortion, except for in the case that the mother's life is endangered, that is if no other medical procedure would take care of her.
2. President Clinton vetoed this act in October of 1997, still making it legal to perform such a gruesome procedure.
3. Twice now, the House has voted to override the President's veto. Their last vote, on July 23, 1998, surpassed, by 10 votes, the 2/3's necessary to override.
4. It then went to the Senate where the 2/3's override lost by only 3 votes.
C. All of us are of an age that we can write a letter to our Congressman, supporting their vote against such an act as partial bith abortions.
D. There are many objections to the banning of abortions, but here are a couple of things to ponder.
1. Dr. Pamela Smith, Director of Medical Education in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago, said, "There are absolutely no obstetrical situations encountered in this country which require a partially delivered human fetus to be destroyed to preserve the health of the mother." (Shafer, 1995)
2. A baby’s heart begins to beat at only 24 days after conception,
and brain waves can be recored at only 43 days. A baby can survive outside the mother only 6 months after conception. I know a family that all 4 children were premature by at least a month, one of which was 6 months old. (Milestones, Heritage House 1996)
Visualization Step
IV I say again, partial birth abortions need to made a federal crime.
A. If procedures like this continue to be acceptable in the minds of Americans, confusion will continue and more teenagers, like Melissa Drexler and Amy Grossberg, who were, among other things confused, will make life-changing mistakes due to the declining value of life.
B. Passing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act would be one large step for this country, even for the world, remembering the sanctity of life, and this verse when God says: "I formed you in the mother's womb…you are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13,14)
Action Step
V. A partial birth abortion is an unnecessary killing of a baby, that many people are not aware of, and this type of abortion needs to be made a federal crime.
A. Congress can override President Clinton's veto, and make it a federal crime, but he may need our support.
B. Are we going to totally forget the sanctity of life, and how important children are to us?
C. This country works hard to preserve our natural resources, but we must realize our most precious national resource is children.