As Ferguson, Staten Island, Sandy Hook and other tragedies have rocked the United States the past few years, one universal truth has emerged: all lives matter.
No matter the race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or age, every human life is precious and holds tremendous potential in making the world a better place. This includes ones who haven’t been born yet.
Abortion results in the killing of an innocent person — a precious life.
Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor at Boston College, offers two points on why abortion should be illegal. The first is that deliberately killing an innocent person is morally wrong.
Most pro-abortion supporters agree with this, but the two sides disagree on Kreeft’s second point: A human being becomes a person at conception.
Pro-abortion supporters deny that abortion kills an innocent person. So at what point does a person become a person?
As Kreeft argues, it’s either a sudden or a gradual occurrence. Some pro-abortion supporters believe it’s a sudden occurrence: When the doctor delivers you from your mother’s womb and cuts the umbilical cord, you become a person.
But science would disagree that a pair of scissors cutting an umbilical cord makes you a person.
Science proves we become people in another sudden occurrence: conception. Fertilization creates the diploid embryo, cells replicate and organs develop. We are literally growing from the point of fertilization, just as we grow through the rest of our lives. 
Other pro-abortion supporters may disagree with both sudden occurrence arguments and support a gradual occurrence theory.
“In that case, it’s not so bad to kill somebody who doesn’t have all their systems in place, like a child whose reproductive systems are still immature, as it is to kill an adult,” Kreeft said in a recorded lecture at Georgetown University in 2006. “Does anybody seriously believe that it’s not as bad to kill an eight-year-old as an eighteen-year-old? Of course not.”
Human beings start their development at conception, not birth. That is when they become a person. That is when their lives begin to matter, and that is when the law should begin protecting them.
If you haven’t noticed yet, I refrain from using the politically charged words “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” They are prime examples of hypocritical politics.
How can you be “pro-life” but support the death penalty or oppose bans on extended magazines for assault rifles?  A weapon that can mow down a room full of kindergartners in under a minute is not “pro-life.” 
How can you be “pro-choice” if you do not give the person maturing in its mother’s womb the choice of life or death? 
Many far-right conservatives tout their “pro-life” stances while going on a witch-hunt to cut welfare benefits like food stamps and Women, Infants and Children program benefits. How can you legally stop abortion while cutting the programs that allow mothers to financially care for their children?
A 2004 study published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health shows 74 percent of women had abortions because the child would interfere with their education or work; 73 percent of women also stated they could not afford the child.
While adoption is a current answer for these women, it isn’t a long-term solution.  Women should have the right to keep their children. If they cannot afford it, we as a society are morally responsible for providing a livable environment for the child.  Leaving children and single mothers to starve and suffer is immoral.
Aborting an unborn baby because it will have disabilities is immoral as well. A child with disabilities may face difficulties in life, but his or her contributions to this world after birth make the innocent life worth protecting.  Every child has a purpose on Earth, and no life should be discriminated against and killed because of a disability.
When it comes to abortion after a woman is raped, I admit I am morally uncertain on the issue. I recognize the possible psychological trauma from carrying a baby conceived through rape, but according to my argument, the unborn baby is still a person.  In all honesty, I just don’t know what to think.
While I am being transparent — I am Catholic. My religion has helped guide my moral compass throughout life. However, I am not a blind follower of the Catholic Church. My moral compass directs me to oppose the Church (and Peter Kreeft, who I quoted earlier) on gay marriage and contraception. A child should have the right to be born and grow up to marry the person he or she loves, no matter the gender. 
My morality shaped by my religion directs my beliefs. That morality, combined with science, directs me to oppose abortion.  The protection of innocent life is paramount for our society’s well being. 
 
Justin DiCharia is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Slidell, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @JDiCharia.