JUNIOR HIGH RUNNER UP

Essay by Lindsey Lehmann, Farley, Iowa

I have a daily reminder of abortion's greatest lie. His name is Tommy, and he is MY three year-old brother. When he looks at me with his big blue eyes, I know the color of those eyes was determined at the moment of fertilization.

When Tommy comes running to me from across the yard and jumps into my arms, I can feel his heart pounding against my chest. At three weeks, the heart of a fetus in the womb starts to beat. Tommy's beating heart at three years of age is the same beating heart as the one at three weeks of age in his mother's womb.

When my brother comes in my bed to get warmed up at night, he starts kicking. At seven weeks, the baby is already starting to kick, but the mother does not feel it until four and a half months.

At dinner or supper when Tommy likes to eat, he has to swallow all of his food, this is the same swallowing that Tommy started when he was eight weeks in his mother's womb.

In Church, Tommy loves to climb across the pews, under the pews, across our laps, or say, "When is Church going to be over?" He can never sit still. This hyperness began when Tommy was inside his mother's womb at nine weeks.

When Tommy wraps his fingers around my hand, or grabs a piece of candy, or tightly holds the string of a balloon so it won't sail off into the sky, those are the same hands that at 10-11 weeks can seize an object that is placed in the hand.

When Tommy and I wrestle on the floor and we're laughing, and all of a sudden Tommy asks, "Lindsey smell my feet!" Those are the same feet that were perfectly shaped at 11 weeks.

Tommy developed all of his body parts at 12 weeks. At 13-14 weeks into pregnancy, Tommy started pumping several quarts of blood through the body every day. At 18 weeks he was perfectly formed. Inside his mother, Tommy could have been legally killed, but outside of his mother, Tommy is fully protected by law.

How can anybody say that Tommy was not a human being when he was in his mother's womb? How can anybody say that Tommy couldn't feel pain in his mother's womb? How can anybody say that Tommy's mother can kill Tommy just because he is still in her womb? People who believe abortion is cool say that Tommy was just a mass of tissue inside his mother's womb. That is abortion's greatest lie.

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