"Rick Santorum, Meet My Son"

“Rick Santorum, Meet My Son”
-Emily Rapp

Central Argument: In this article, Emily Rapp disagrees with Rick Santorum’s assumption that prenatal testing immorally correct as it increases the number of abortions as she says it is the woman’s choice whether to abort the baby or not depending on the situation, in this case illnesses.

Imagine two children are born in a hospital, both boys for simplicity’s sake; however, one of them is from a wealthy family and the other from a poor family. They are both diagnosed with the genetic, incurable disease Tay Sachs, which will eventually be the cause of their death. These two boys will lead a very similar life filled with difficulty and suffering and being an unintentional cause of pain to those around them, even though there is a great difference in their financial backgrounds. This is just one of the numerous circumstances that could take place if prenatal testing were banned or if a woman was not allowed to abort the baby in her stomach. Emily Rapp faced a similar situation, though in her case the disease of her child, Ronan, was undetected, and she wishes that she had known earlier so she could have stopped her child from all the misery he is facing. Like Rapp, millions of woman of all ages face such harsh conditions as abortion is looked down upon and is considered immoral. However, Rapp refutes Rick Santorum’s moral views by arguing that women should make the decision on whether they should abort their child or not according to the situation that she and her child will be facing.
In this article Rapp gives us a glimpse of the hard life her son is facing, as every breath he takes could be his last due to Tay Sachs. This puts as much pressure on her as she is the mother and in the eyes of a mother nothing can be compared to her child. She tells us that she would have aborted Ronan if she had known he had this disease. She does so because she loves him and is in no way morally wrong – you might as well take a life of a person to stop all the suffering faced. By aborting Ronan, she would not yet have that attachment between a mother and child as she would not have known him physically and mentally, this would make the situation much easier.
In Rapp’s argument she does not only specify the choice of aborting a child due to an illness, but to any situation in which the mother and the child would face difficulties. There are many cases of underage pregnancy due to rape and stupid choices. I know a girl who had to face the thought of becoming a mother at the age of 14. This girl, Bina, was the neighbor’s housemaid’s sister. On an unfortunate night, Bina had been drugged and deceived by her friend. In the weeks to come she was pregnant with the child of an unknown man. Bina, an orphan whose sister could barely support the family, was in no condition to bring up a child and she had to resort to abortion. Though abortion is looked down upon in her community, she went back to living a normal teenage life again. Being a single mother at the age of 15 would have been a worse condition to be in than aborting the child. Bina did herself a favor and saved her child to-be from all the financial issues they would have faced.
The debate over abortion being morally incorrect stills goes on. However, if abortion is conducted before the embryo turns into a fetus; it is not considered as taking a life. The embryo shows no sign of life and no one needs to feel bad about it. If it is likely that the baby will have a disease, it the possibilities of a stillbirth are greate