A piece of old news has just been uncovered regarding a student teacher who was found missing on a hot summer evening last June. She was last sighted all alone grading stacks of exams in a dingy dim lit classroom on Walnut Street. Friends and acquaintances report that her unusually severe case of schizophrenia had become progressively worse with time, and the night before her disappearance, she had been clearly confused, and had displayed a passive aggressive temper which was quite unlike her. This case has drawn the attention of the public once again because of a recent strangely familiar case involving an air force pilot. Suffering from the same syndrome, he is reported to have lost his usual level-headed equanimity, and begun to display a frazzled emotional reasoning in his decision making in the last few days. These strange events culminated in a dangerous crash landing just off the coast of Miami last night, which he survived but which has terminated his career in perfect failure. The similarity between the conditions of the student teacher and the pilot, as well as both of their tragic circumstances, has led psychologists and government authorities to investigate the potential dangers of schizophrenia more closely.

Oh, by the way- none of that is true. In fact, it’s all a genuine falsehood. But it grabbed your attention, didn’t it? That may be because the passage is simply dripping with oxymorons. One thing I’ve found as a literature major: people practically adore paradox. There is something about contradiction that captivates the mind. Maybe it’s the fact that the meaning isn’t handed to you on a silver platter; you have to work for it, and that’s the good old American dream.

Last semester, each person in my Poetics class had to do a presentation on a poem. On the big day, before the first presenter began, a whisper went around the room: include the word “paradox” in your presentation, and you’ve got it in the bag. It was true- the moment a paradox was pointed out, ears perked up and the discussion became heated. Oxymorons are such proficient attention-getters that I’m surprised they’re not used more often in pick-up lines.

So here’s a new paradox for the American public to mull over, and I sincerely hope it will call some attention. Abortion: I consider this the greatest oxymoron of the century. Ending the life of another for the sake of one’s own greater quality of life has always been frowned on by civilized societies. Some like to call it “murder,” and the pronouncement of that word causes people to jump from their seats with their hair standing on end. Yet this very act is occurring daily all over the world, a few blocks away from home at most, and people continue to sip their coffee, unruffled. Nobody likes to call abortion “murder;” nobody likes to admit that an unborn child is a living human being with the same rights as you and me. Perhaps if we call the weeds infesting the garden “roses,” they may start to look beautiful and stop choking the real roses by the roots. Something tells me this is naïve, wishful thinking.

Yesterday, a large group of my friends and classmates marched in Washington D.C. to take a stand and protect these young lives- these babies who are too small to defend themselves. I consider those who devote themselves to the pro-life cause to be true American heroes, for their actions stem from a firm belief in man’s equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of age or size. Our country is founded on freedom and equal opportunity; we are straying from our roots if we are allowing the most fundamental right to be stifled, the right to life.

I hope the paradox of abortion will at least spark the curiosity of Americans and politicians today. The time has come for people to recognize the severity of killing an unborn baby, to experience good grief in response to all the lives lost, and to join in the fight to give these children what they so deserve: simply a chance to live.