Between 3,000 and 4,000 babies are aborted every day, in the United States alone. Worldwide, there have been 55 million abortions since 1973.

Why is this? Many women and teens feel that because they don’t have the money to support a child, or because they aren’t married and can’t raise a child, that the right thing to do is to have an abortion. But I think that there is a different simple solution: adoption.

In 1973, the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court case, Norma McCorvey, alias “Jane Roe”, argued that abortion should be legalized in Texas to women without the financial means to pay for one. This led to abortion becoming available in the United States. “Roe” claimed in the case that she was pregnant because of rape. However, she later revealed that she lied about the rape in an effort to make a stronger case for abortions. Roe also later stated,” Well, the morality of abortion is, it’s totally wrong. Since Aug 8, 1995, I have been Pro-Life clear across the board,” in an interview with Catholic priest Frank Pavone. ““Roe” did not actually proceed with an abortion. It took the case so long to pass through the courts that she gave birth to the baby and gave her up for adoption before the final ruling of the case.

It’s ironic that in Washington, you can be fined $5,000 and be put on probation for killing a bald eagle, yet we allow the killing of innocent unborn babies to occur every day.

People act as though it somehow makes them more ethical if they have an abortion within the first nine weeks of pregnancy rather than later on, but in actuality, having an abortion earlier on is exactly the same. The embryo is still growing, developing, and alive as it would be in any period of the pregnancy.

According to abortionfacts.com, the fetus can feel pain as early as 8 weeks into the pregnancy. R. White, the Director of Neurosurgery and Brain Research at Case Western University, said, “The fetus within this time frame of gestation, 20 weeks and beyond, is fully capable of experiencing pain. Without doubt a partial birth abortion is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant.”

What if that unborn embryo had the chance to live, and grew up to become a person as influential as Martin Luther King, Jr. or Condoleeza Rice? And even if that baby’s future wasn’t headed toward changing the world, he/she should still have the right to live and to positively impact those around them.