“I’m writing you a letter
This is to my unborn child (to my unborn child)
Wanna let you know I love you (please take care of all my kids, my unborn child)
Love you, want you to know I feel this way (I love you, how I feel) (to my unborn child” : Tupac Amaru Shakur.
One of the most significant debates of all generations is when does a foetus gained the fundamental right to life and, therefore, must never be subjected to abortion. When can the baby in the womb be determined to have assumed the identity of a human being?
There is perhaps no other place whereby the question of abortion right or otherwise has become highly heated than in the United States of America.
Politics in the USA can’t be completed without the detailed mention of which perspective in the abortion debate does each of the two dominant parties of the Republican and the Democrats belong.
The ongoing presidential election campaigns by both political divides are also sharply divided alongside the highly explosive debate on abortion or what is technically summarised as reproductive rights.
The debate on abortions or matters around the UNBORN BABY in the USA, has also formed the fulcrum of popular songs by musicians but perhaps Tupac Amaru Shakur popularised this thematic area of HUMANITY OF THE UNBORN BABY in his globally acclaimed song titled as “A letter to my unborn child.”
In Tupac Amaru Shakur’s letter to my unborn child, he was actually lamenting that if in the line of his duty as a revolutionary singer, that his rivals succeeded in killing him and then his unborn baby is delivered to mother earth without the father being present physically to witness the birth or arrival of his baby, he said the unborn baby should know that he the father loves him so passionately.
I will give a citation of just some aspects of that lyric of Tupac Amaru Shakur’s letter to my unborn child.
Tupac Amaru Shakur sang thus:
“I’m writing you a letter
This is to my unborn child (to my unborn child)
Wanna let you know I love you (please take care of all my kids, my unborn child)
Love you, want you to know I feel this way (I love you, how I feel) (to my unborn child)
‘Cause I think about you every day
I have so much to say
This letter goes out to (I’m writing you a letter)
Any seeds that I might not get to see ’cause of this lifestyle
(My unborn child) (my unborn child)
Just know your daddy loved you
(Wanna let you know I love you) (love you)
Got nothing but love for you
(Love you, want you to know I feel this way)
And all I wanted was for you to have a better life than I had
So I was out there on a twenty-four hour three-sixty-five grind
(‘Cause I think about you every day) (everyday)
When you get to be my age, you’ll understand (I got so much to say)
Just know I got love for you
And I’ll see you if there’s a ghetto in Heaven
If there’s a ghetto Heaven
I’ll be there waiting for you (to my unborn child)
Haha, take care
Run wild, but be smart (to my unborn child)
Follow the rules of the game (letter to my unborn child) (everyday)
I know sometimes there’s confusion (I’m writing you a letter)
Rules of the game are gonna get you through it (this my letter to my unborn child)
(This is to my unborn child)
All day every day
Watch out for these snakes and fakes (wanna let you know I love you)
Friends come a dime a dozen (letter to my unborn child)
(Love you, want you to know I feel this way)
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Be an individual
(‘Cause I think about you every day)
Work hard, study
(I got so much to say)
Get your mind sharp, trust nobody, “Tupac Amaru Shakur concluded.
As a conservative Roman Catholic, this writer is a pro-life campaigner and I believe that the unborn baby is a human being who can actually be written a letter by his father which philosophically implies that the mother or father of the unborn baby must as a matter of law treat the unborn baby as a human being.
But as I stated above, the debates on abortion are heated up in the USA right at this period of campaigns for the November 2024 presidential election. I will proceed to summarise where the protagonist and antagonist in the political divides on abortion rights stand in the USA currently.
Reproductive rights are among the most discussed issues in the 2024 presidential election, reports one of the leading newspapers in the USA.
The newspaper stated that when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, in 2022, ended the constitutional guarantee for abortion access. The court left it up to individual states to decide on regulations.
Since then, 14 states have ceased nearly all abortion services, and four states have enacted six-week bans, according to an ABC News tally. At the same time, some other states have moved to enshrine abortion rights.
While Republicans have called for a range of restrictions on abortion, Democrats have said they support abortion access and have called on Congress to codify Roe.
Here’s a brief look at where the major presidential candidates stand on the issue.
Kamala Harris
After Roe was struck down, Harris led the Biden administration’s charge to protect reproductive rights. She toured the country advocating for abortion access, including a first-of-its-kind visit to an abortion clinic for any vice president.
Harris has called on Congress to pass a law restoring protections to the right to abortion that were guaranteed by Roe, saying she would “proudly” sign it if it came to her desk.
When announcing her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, she praised his state for being the first in the country to pass a law codifying abortion right after Roe was overruled.
She’s been critical of abortion restrictions passed by Republican-led states in recent years and has tied the fall of Roe to Trump after he appointed three Supreme Court justices to the court who supported overruling the landmark abortion decision.
Donald Trump
Trump previously touted his support for abortion restrictions and his role in nominating three conservative Supreme Court justices, all of whom helped overrule Roe in a 5-4 vote.
Throughout this campaign, however, he’s shifted his stance on some issues. Trump now says abortion should be a states’ rights issue and rejects Republican calls to endorse a national abortion ban after previously urging some level of restriction at the federal level in his tenure as president.
He declared that under his administration, the government or company insurance would be mandated to pay for all costs associated with in vitro fertilization or IVF.
He did not give specifics on how the plan would work or be funded.
ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey, Abby Cruz, Hannah Demissie, Fritz Farrow, Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim, Nicholas Kerr, Will McDuffie, Kendall Ross and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
As Americans are in the season of campaigns for the presidential election coming up in less than 40 days, in Nigeria, the rights to abortion are limited. The abortion laws of the criminal code are expressed within sections 228, 229, and 230.
Specifically, Section 228 provides that: “any doctor providing a miscarriage to a woman is guilty of a felony and up to 14 years imprisonment.
However, what is not in doubt is that even when abortions are legally prohibited and the laws of Nigeria make provisions for punitive measures and sanctions for violator, scientists have observed that a large number of clandestine abortions continue to be carried out regularly often with dire consequences for the lives and health of the women involved.
Whilst the US Supreme Court has recently pushed back on some of the abortion rights just as the Presidential candidates are squaring up for the votes of the Americans and the matter of abortion is top on the lists of issues shaping the election, there is definitely the fundamental argument in support of the fact that the UNBORN CHILD is definitely a human being and must not be terminated unduly especially indiscriminately without any underlying health issues trailing the pregnancy.
I therefore pay the highest tribute to the American Pop singer, the late Tupac Amaru Shakur who, in his widely acclaimed track, had sent a LETTER TO HIS UNBORN BABY.
*Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) and was NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA.