Forty-eight million, five hundred eighty-nine thousand, nine hundred thirty-three people dead &#8212 all tragically taken away from us for no fault of their own.

None of them ever had a chance to even defend themselves. No, this is not an account of some madman’s genocide. Nor is it the lives lost to bloody wars fought overseas. Fifty million is the number of babies that have been aborted since 1973 when our Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision. The deaths from both the Holocaust and all wars ever fought by American soldiers combined would not even come close to this horrifically high rate of death. This systematic execution of the unborn is far and away the single greatest tragedy in American history.

On Nov. 9, the Daily published an article stating the world’s abortion rates have declined by 4 million since 1997. While this statistic is somewhat promising, it is only a drop in the bucket of progress that still needs to be made. Considering that approximately 1.5 million babies are aborted in the United Sates yearly, a decline of 4 million worldwide over a 10-year period is not all that significant.

This attempt to shed positive light on an overwhelmingly negative issue is ultimately futile. A decline in abortion is about as significant as a decline in deaths of soldiers in Iraq. The last two months have yielded a drop in soldier death. Does that make the lives still being lost any more justified? Absolutely not.

A typical abortion is a gruesome and sickening procedure. First, a doctor will open the cervix with a dilator. Next, the doctor inserts tubing into the uterus, and then connects the tubing to a suction device. The suction then rips the fetus apart and removes it from the uterus. One variation of this procedure is called dilation and curettage. In this method, the doctor may use a curette, a loop-shaped knife, to scrape the fetal parts out of the uterus.

This murderous act should not be an acceptable procedure. How can people really rally behind this sort of action? How can we allow this murder to continue?

The most baffling aspect of this American tragedy is the political spin that’s enabled it. This madness has been perpetuated by politically correct, liberal-fueled rhetoric. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the goal of its organization is to “work worldwide to protect and advance reproductive liberty, including rights of women to decide whether and when to have children .”.

Reproductive liberty? Right to choose? All these slogans sure sound good. They sound as if they are the safeguards of women’s rights. But what is that even implying? That having children is a violation of a women’s rights? That being a woman gives you the right to choose to kill a living human being?

The simple fact is this is not a “women’s rights” issue. This is a human rights issue – a human rights violation, in fact.

The aspect to this debate that everyone seems to forget is that the child being aborted, simply by its biological development, has lost all of its rights to “choose.” Its right to choose existence has been taken away. Its choice to lead a fulfilling life, and maybe even change the world, has been taken away. Its right to learn and love – taken away. All of these rights that we hold so dearly in this country are violently taken away from the most innocent among us – how sick and sad is that?

We live in a country with such moral hypocrisy that people, who typically are against the death penalty, are in favor of abortion. Can we really justify this to ourselves? Have we slipped so far into apathy that we can stand by and let this atrocity happen in our own backyard? Fifty million dead babies is 50 million too many. We cannot bring them back, but we can prevent this from going any further.

The issue of abortion is not a dead issue as so many may have you believe. Just because the violation of an infant’s God-given human rights have been violated for more than 30 years does not mean we should continue down this path of destruction. Speak up and let your voice be heard. Whether it be by just talking with a friend about abortion, or getting out and voting. This country can change, and by all sensibility, should change. We must defend the rights of our citizens – even those who have yet to embrace this world.

&#8212 Chris Potratz is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Dallas, Texas.