2003 National Right To Life Oratory Contest:
Katie Beebe's
Winning Speech
On March 31, 1998 an Oregon Newspaper ran the headline "Fertility
Mix-up Causes Anguish." A fertility doctor in Manhattan
had accidentally implanted embryos from a black couple, Deborah
and Robert Rogers, along with the embryos from a white couple,
Donna and Richard Fasano, into Mrs. Fasano's uterus. The doctor
detected the error early in the pregnancy, and both couples were
informed of the situation. Donna underwent amniocentesis, which
determined that she was carrying two healthy babies. A DNA test
further revealed that only one of the two babies was genetically
hers. Both babies were perfectly healthy, and she decided to
carry them through the full pregnancy. In December of 1998 she
gave birth to two healthy boys - one white and one black.
When debating abortion, the question of when life truly begins
is often brought up. The Rogers' and the Fasano's story presents
compelling evidence to the Pro-Life belief of life beginning
at conception. Today I plan to present to you evidence proving
that life does indeed begin at conception as well as disproving
the Pro-Choice opinions about when life begins.
First, there is multiple evidence that life begins at conception.
Often, pregnancy isn't discovered until the mother is around
3 weeks along. By this time, the baby has a heart beat that pumps
its own blood through its body. Development continues. The liver,
kidney, intestines, backbone and nervous system are beginning
to take shape. Legs and hands develop. Teeth begin to form and
fingernails grow. Fingerprints are present. The baby can frown
and hiccup. All this occurs in the first seven to ten weeks of
development, the time when a majority of surgical or chemical
abortions takes place. Continuing development, the baby begins
to practice breathing by taking amniotic fluids into its developing
lungs. Vocal cord development is complete. Nerves, spinal cord,
and thalamus give the baby the ability to feel pain. Taste buds
are present. Bone marrow forms and 25 quarts of blood is pumped
a day. The baby can have dream sleep and can recognize its mother's
voice All this occurs in the first 20 weeks of life. It is after
these twenty weeks that partial birth abortions are performed.
These babies have the organs, the teeth, the blood, the fingernails,
just like you and I have today. Yet they are still unjustly killed.
They are still taken from their mother's womb when they have
the chance to live. Every single human being begins as a separate
single cell. The only things added are oxygen and nutrition.
If the process is not broken, a human being will live about nine
months in the mothers womb, and a lifetime outside of it. That
person has never existed before and will never exist again.
On to my next point of disproving Pro-choice absurdities. A
popular argument of those who support abortion is that "Fetal
tissue is no more a human being, than a bolt is a Buick." Obviously,
these people must have skipped high school biology. Almost every
medical book and even a Senate hearing maintain that human life
begins at conception. In 1981, a report from Senate Judiciary
Committee S-158 stated that "Physicians, biologists and
other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of
the life of a human being--a being is alive and is a member of
the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point
in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." We
can refer back to the Fasano's and Rogers' mix-up. The birth
of these two boys seems to refute the lie of the pro-abortionists
and the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade that there is
no "personhood" prior to birth. They feel that no one
knows when life begins, but obviously, the life of the black
baby began at fertilization. He was alive before implantation
in the womb of Donna Fasano. His white mother's womb gave him
a place for nourishment and a place to develop until birth. She
neither gave nor took away anything from his body. All that he
is now was all there at the moment of conception. Since the black
baby is the same person today as he was prior to implantation
in the womb, he must have been the same "person" at
his conception as he is now.
In our nation's Declaration of Independence it is stated that,
as Americans, "We hold these truths to be self evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These rights
are endowed by our Creator, our God. It is this higher power
that gives us life and creates us in His image. It is not up
to an unprepared mother or an abortion doctor to take away the
precious gift that was given to us when we were conceived.
I'm a healthy 16 year old girl. My heart beats, just as it did
in the third week of my mother's pregnancy. I have a liver, kidneys,
and intestines, just as I did four weeks after I was conceived.
I have eyes, legs, hands, teeth, toes, lips and fingerprints,
just as I did when I was a ten week old fetus. I have the hair
of my father, the ears of my mother, the hands of my grandmother,
the nose of my grandfather, and all this was set in stone the
second my life began, when that single egg was fertilized by
that single sperm. I was a one celled forty six chromosomed human
being possessing everything I needed to grow into an adult human
except time. I'm not a "blue print" or a part of a
human being, and neither are the millions of innocent babies
killed because our nation refuses to recognize them as they truly
are, living human beings.
Katie Beebe is a sixteen year old junior at Cabot High School.
She is the daughter of Rick and Joan Beebe of Lonoke. Aside from
public speaking, Katie enjoys soccer, debate, quiz bowl, and
learning the Spanish language. She is interested in a future
career in medicine.
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