Abortion

The word alone provokes strong emotion in both women and men alike. Roe v. Wade was decided twenty five years ago, but still the fight is not over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings of abortion clinics, murders of doctors and workers at such clinics, intimidation, arrest, political lobbying, and numerous Supreme Court cases. What is it that divides families, and keeps old friends from speaking to one another on the topic? Why are opinions so polarized and why are minds so closed? As the great philosopher Plato said, “A perfectly simple principle can never be applied to a state of things which is the reverse of simple”.

The topic of abortion is anything but simple, and our laws governing the matter are ever changing to try to achieve a middle ground. In the late nineteenth century a specific backward law was added in Connecticut. It banned not the sale or manufacture of contraceptives but their use. The Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, Griswold, and its medical director, a licensed physician, were convicted under the statute as an accessory after they gave advice to married couples on contraception.

Griswold appealed the statute to the Supreme Court, where the question was whether the statue violated the Constitution. The Court was convinced that it did, though it refused to become specific about what clause of the Bill of Rights it violated. The court drew notice to a “zone of privacy”, which was an emanation created by various amendments. This “zone” grew out of the right to privacy implicit in the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Ninth Amendment also hints at its existence when it says that the enumeration of specific rights does not preclude the existence of other rights enumerated.

With Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), the Court established that married couples have a “Right to Privacy” as a prenumbra to the Bill of Rights. Seven years after the Griswold decision, the Supreme Court expanded the “right to privacy” to include the right of women to obtain abortions, during the first six months of pregnancy. Roe was blocked, by the laws of Texas, from obtaining an abortion, because Texas law prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother.

Citing the Griswold case, she appealed to the Supreme Court, charging that the Texas statute was an unconstitutional restriction of her “right to privacy”. By a margin of seven to two, the Court agreed. In his majority opinion of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), Justice Blackmun said the Court found no agreement on when human life begins. And instead of extending it back to the period of fertilization, the Court tended to fix its origin somewhere in the period of “quickening”, when the fetus begins to move in the uterus, which might be anywhere from forty to eighty days.

The Court’s decision was grounded in the Ninth Amendment by saying where uncertainty exist, the state has no right to make laws pretending to be certain. However, he rejected the view that the state has no interest in a woman’s decision whether or not to have an abortion. He expressed that the state “does have an important and legitimate interest in protecting and preserving the health of the pregnant woman” and it has “still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. Blackmun asserted that the state’s interest increases as the pregnancy progresses.

During the first three months, the state has no compelling interest. However, the state may enact abortion regulations affecting the second three months of the pregnancy, but only to protect the health of the pregnant woman. Only with regards to the last trimester man the state enact regulations to protect “potential life”, unless the pregnant mother’s health is in danger. Over the past twenty five years since the Roe decision, the Court has clearly chipped away at Justice Blackmun’s open framework of the Roe case. Maher v. Roe 432 U. S. 4 (1977), was brought before the Court as a challenge to Connecticut’s limitation of state Medicaid funding to medically necessary abortions and refusal to fund “elective” abortions. However, the court held that the law is constitutional. It declared, the state need not fund a woman’s exercise of her right to choose abortion even though it pays the costs of childbirth. Then in 1980, in Harris v. McRae 448 U. S. 297, the Court heard the challenge to the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal Medicaid funds for abortion except for those necessary to save the woman’s life.

The Court held that the Hyde Amendment is constitutional and that the government has no obligation to provide funds for the exercise of the right to choose abortion even though it pays for the cost of childbirth. Currently, forty-six states and the District of Columbia have laws or constitutional amendments similar to the federal ban on abortion coverage for Medicaid recipients, which funds abortion services only when a woman’s life is at risk or her pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. At this time, laws limiting funding for low-income women’s abortions are in effect in 34 states and blocked by courts in 12.

In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services 492 U. S. 490(1989), the Court heard a challenge to Missouri’s 1986 Act: (a) declaring that life begins at conception; (b) forbidding the use of public funds for the purpose of counseling a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life; (c) forbidding the use of public facilities for abortions not necessary to save a woman’s life; and (d) requiring physicians to perform tests to determine viability of fetuses after 20 weeks gestational age.

It held that, (a) the declaration of when life begins to go into effect because five justices agreed that there was insufficient evidence that it would be used to restrict protected activities such as choices of contraception or abortion. Should the declaration be used to justify such restrictions in the future, the affected parties could challenge the restrictions at that time; (b) unanimously declined to address the constitutionality of the public funds provision. (c) upheld the provision that barred the use of public facilities.

It ruled that the state may implement a policy favoring childbirth over abortion by allocations of public resources such as hospitals and medical staff; and (d) upheld the provision requiring viability tests by interpreting it not to require tests that would be “imprudent” or “careless” to perform. In Webster, the Court declined explicitly to overturn Roe v. Wade but in effect invited the 50 state legislatures to decide for themselves. Currently, because of the Webster decision, 19 states have banned so-called “partial-birth” abortion and other abortion methods.

Most of these laws make no exception to protect a woman’s health and ban the abortion methods throughout pregnancy. Eight are now in effect. However, in two of these states (Alabama and Georgia) the laws are restricted in their application to post-viability abortions. Another big chip was taken from Roe in 1992 when the Court heard Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey 505 U. S. 833. The nature of the case was a challenge to Pennsylvania’s 1989 Abortion Control Act.

The 1989 statute required that, except in narrowly defined medical emergencies: (a) a woman wait 24 hours between consenting to and receiving an abortion; (b) the woman be given state-mandated information about abortion and offered state-authorized materials on fetal development; (c) a married woman inform her husband of her intent to have an abortion; and (d) minors’ abortions be conditioned upon the consent, provided in person at the clinic, of one parent or guardian, or upon a judicial waiver.

In addition, physicians and clinics that perform abortions were required to provide to the state annual statistical reports on abortions performed during the year, including the names of referring physicians. The court held that all restrictions, except for the husband-notification requirement, are constitutional. In reaching its decision, the court reaffirmed the validity of a woman’s right to choose abortion under Roe v.

Wade, but revoked its longstanding definition of that right as “fundamental. ” Instead, the court constructed a new standard of review that allows restrictions on abortion prior to fetal viability so long as they do not constitute an “undue burden” to the woman. Such provisions are not unduly burdensome merely because they are an attempt to persuade a woman to carry her pregnancy to term. Pennsylvania’s husband-notification requirement was struck down as unduly burdensome under the new standard.

This landmark decision gave states the power to enact forced parental consent or notification for minor females and mandatory delays before abortion and the opportunity for the state to councel women with bias information against abortion. Currently, twenty states have passed requirements that women receive information biased against abortion and, in all but one state, delay a set number of hours or days before having an abortion. Also, an overwhelming number of states have adopted laws mandating that a young woman must obtain the consent of or notify one or both parents prior to her abortion.

Unless otherwise noted, these measures contain a judicial or other bypass for young women who cannot involve their parents. Unfortunately, I believe that if Roe v. Wade keeps getting chipped away, there won’t be much ground left to stand on. I believe these recent Supreme Court ruling have reached a middle ground between “pro-life” and “pro-choice”. However, I also believe that as long as the topic creates and stirs such strong emotion in the public, politicians will continue to use it as a platform.

Approximately 1. 6 million murders are committed legally each year. With the exception of laws in few states, the mutilated bodies of the victims are thrown into dumpsters like pieces of rotten meat. While these victims lay waiting in the infested dumpsters to be hauled off to a landfill, the murderers are in their offices waiting for their next patient–the accomplice to the murder. This is the murder of an innocent child by a procedure known as abortion. Abortion stops the beating of an innocent child’s heart. People must no longer ignore the scientific evidence that life begins at the moment of conception.

People can no longer ignore the medical and emotional problems an abortion causes women. People must stop denying the facts about the procedure, and start hearing the silent screams of unborn children. The argument by the pro-abortion side is that the unborn child is not truly a child. Many people who are pro-abortion justify their beliefs through the concept that a fetus is only a blob of tissue until it is born, or the statement: life begins at birth. Abortion is not as simple as removing a “blob of tissue” (as the pro-abortion activists put it) from a woman’s body.

Abortion is the destruction, dismembering and killing of a human life–an unborn baby. “But it is scientific and medical fact based on experimental evidence, that a fetus is a living, growing, thriving human being, directing his or her own development” (Fetal Development). A fetus is not just a blob of tissue, rather a fetus is Latin for “offspring or young one. ” Human life begins at fertilization, therefore it is wrong to murder the innocent child in the womb. At a US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee meeting, most scientists said that life begins at conception or implantation of the embryo.

No scientist at the meeting claimed that life begins at birth (Factbot). Professor Hymie Gordon of the Mayo clinic stated “‘ . . by all criteria of modern biology, life is present from the moment of conception'” (Fetal Development). In a 1963 Planned Parenthood pamphlet entitled ‘Plan Your Children’ it states “an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health” (Factbot). Even though abortion is dangerous to a woman’s life, and it kills her baby, Planned Parenthood still offers it as a safe solution.

This statement contradicts what most abortion clinics say. It is not possible for abortion to be offered to women as a safe solution, when it not only puts her life in danger, but it also kills her child. Not only has science proven that a fetus is truly a human, the simple facts also confer abortion kills the life of a human being. Life begins at conception because of the fact that life in the womb does not change at birth. There are no special procedures or changes that occur during birth to magically change the fetus to a baby. It is already a baby–a human life.

If a fertilized egg is not by itself a full human being it could not become one, because nothing is added to it,'” said Dr. Jerome Lejeune (Factbot). Most of all the development also takes place before one is born. Of the 45 generations of cell divisions before adulthood, 41 have taken place before a person is born (Factbot). Fertilization is just the beginning of a long process of growing and maturing. “Life in a continuum. From the moment the egg is fertilized a new life has begun. All of the genetic information is present to construct a unique individual.

Gender, physical features, eye color have already been determined. The baby’s heart begins beating regularly at 24 days. Babies in the womb hiccup, cry, play, and learn” (Factbot). Life continues from the day of fertilization until death. Nothing is added to a person during a lifetime. “‘Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind,'” said Dr Landrum Shettles father of in vitro fertilization (Factbot). Abortion is wrong because it ends the life of a human being.

The day of conception marks the beginning of a new human life. The zygote is the first cell of a new human being,'” said Keith L. Moore. There is no way that the fetus is just a “blob of (Factbot) tissue. ” Scientific and medical facts prove that the fetus is living. They prove that the fetus is a person, a human, and functions separate from the mother. According to our law murder is wrong, therefore it is unlawful to kill an unborn child. The child in the womb deserves the right to life. The fetus is a real human being and deserves all the rights and freedom given to people under the Constitution.

This right is evident in the Fourteenth Amendment that states, “The State shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, property, without due process of the law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law” (Factbot). Abortion denies babies equal protection under the law, and is depriving a person of life. Thomas Jefferson stated human rights best when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Factbot).

All unborn babies have the right to life guaranteed to humans under the constitution. No other person has the right to take away the unborn child’s life, no matter what the situation is. One must not sacrifice a life to make one’s own life better. Many argue that most of the babies that are aborted are unwanted babies. They believe that they would be abused and neglected. This is why abortion is okay to them. They believe abortion is saving the child from abuse. Abortion, however, is the most severe case of child abuse.

The procedures are painful to the child and intentionally end in death (except in cases where the procedure results in a living child. “About once a day, somewhere in the US, something goes wrong and an abortion results in a live baby” (Factbot)). The fetus is alive and has the capacity to feel the painful abortion procedure. The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that after nine weeks unborn babies can feel pain, yet 48 per cent of all abortions are done after this point ( Fetal Development). The baby can feel all the pain put on it by the painful procedures.

The ultra sound shows the baby struggling to survive. Abortionist doctors such as Joseph Randall admit that seeing the abortion “. . . of the baby on the ultra sound bothered me more than anything else. The staff couldn’t take it. Women were never allowed to see the ultra sound” (Factbot). Women should be allowed to see this. They should see the struggling of the life they are killing. An early abortion takes about five minutes and is performed six to fourteen weeks after a woman’s last period.

The procedure is called a suction aspiration. It is like a vacuum cleaner. A hollow plastic tube with a sharp edge is placed into the uterus. The suction tears the baby apart, and the sharp edge is used to scrape the placenta from the wall of the uterus. Everything is sucked out into a bottle'” (Whitney 94). The other common method is dilation and curettage. “‘A curette, which is a loop-shaped steel knife, is inserted into the uterus, and the baby and the placenta are cut into pieces and scraped out. Both procedures are usually done under general anesthesia, so they’re not painful for the mother. Of course we know the child feels pain'” (Whitney 94).

Another method that is not performed much anymore is the saline injection; a long slow death process of poisoning the baby. The saline injection was developed in the Nazi Concentration Camps (Factbot) The most controversial form of abortion is the partial-birth abortion. Using an ultra sound the abortionist grabs the baby’s legs with forceps and pulls them out into the birth canal. The abortionist then delivers the entire baby except for the head and continues by jamming scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole. The scissors are removed and a suction is inserted.

The baby’s brains are sucked out causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed ( Partial). It has been proven that babies can feel pain in these procedures. The fetus can feel pain because it is alive and growing like a human. Something that is not living cannot feel pain. If one crushes a pop can as the abortionist crushes a baby, the pop can feels no pain because it is not living. The baby feels pain because it is a living human being. Abortion is wrong because it deprives the baby of rights and happiness because of the suffering it must go through during the abortion.

Women who have these painful abortions suffer emotional stress, and years after having the procedure they discover that they destroyed a human life. The women finally realize after many years of emotional stress the cause of it. “After 5-10 years 54 per cent of mothers choosing abortion had nightmares and 96 per cent felt they had taken a life” a from study by Dr Anne Speckhard of the University of Minnesota. People need to listen to the women who have had abortions in the past to hear what they are really about. >From them people can learn much more than a clinic can teach.

After having an abortion, many women can tell a person the true facts–abortion is murder. “‘Recent evidence indicates many women harbor strong guilt feelings long after their abortions. Guilt is one important cause of child battering and infanticide. Abortion lowers women’s self-esteem and there are studies reporting a major loss of self-esteem in battering parents,'” said Dr. Phillip Ney. There are places that give abortion counseling. However, many of these places do not give accurate information Accurate information is needed so women, and men, know that abortion will take away a human life.

Ninety-five percent of women who had abortions said their Planned Parenthood counselors gave “. . . little or no biological information about the fetus which the abortion would destroy. ” Where 80 percent of women who have had abortions from Planned Parenthood said little or no health information was given to them about potential health risks (Factbot). Women need to be told the true facts of abortion. They need to see the fetal monitors. In many clinics they are not allowed to see the ultra sound. The doctors do not want a woman to see that the baby inside of her is alive.

This is wrong because it not only denies the child the rights such as the right to be heard and seen, it denies women the truth. The truth must be told and shown. Shari Richard, an Ultrasonographer, said, “‘In fact many women will come to me considering an abortion, and I have been personally told that I am to turn the monitor away from her view so that seeing her baby jump around on the screen does not influence her choice'” (Factbot). Abortion clinic staff members are taught how to sell abortions, told never to give alternatives, and told to tell the women how much trouble a baby is.

Women are not told the facts. It is obvious from the ultra sound that the baby they are carrying is alive, and abortion kills the baby. If the clinic can clearly see that the baby is alive, the mother should also see. Abortion is described as a decision between a women and her doctor. Yet over 90 percent don’t even see the doctor until he appears to abort their baby. This should not be the case. The clinics are hiding and withholding the true facts. Clinics need to shape-up and tell the truth to women: Abortion is wrong. Abortion is one of the key issues facing the human race today.

This issue, like many, forces people to take sides against each other, and is one of the main factors people look at when voting. In a 1973 court ruling, known as Roe v. Wade, abortion became legal. Since this ruling the number of teen pregnancies has increased from 4. 94 per cent in 1972 to 9. 92 per cent in 1990. The number of teen abortions has doubled from 19. 9 per thousand teenagers in 1972 to 43. 8 per thousand teenagers in 1990 while the number of teen births has increased from 22. 8 to 42. 5 per thousand.

The number of births to unmarried women has increased 7. er cent during the years from1972 to 1990 while the number of abortions increased 11. 7 per cent during those years (Factbot). Abortion should no longer be legal. It is rapidly becoming a form of birth control. No longer must women worry about protection, if they should conceive a child, they can choose to take its life. One-third of all babies (Planned Parenthood) are aborted, which entitles the abortion industry to $500 million a year in income in the United States (Factbot). Abortion is the most frequent surgical operation in the US, and the leading cause of death in Minnesota (Factbot).

Currently there are two million couples waiting for adoption in America, yet there are 30 abortions for every one adoption (Factbot). These statistics are true. Abortion needs to be stopped. There are arguments against the stopping of abortion. However, there are solutions. Many say abortion should be legal if the woman’s life is in danger. Only three percent of all abortions are done for the mother’s health, where 40 percent of women who have abortions will have more than one, and 50 per cent use it as their sole means of birth control (Factbot).

As for the argument that women will do them illegally in the back alleys endangering their lives, 72 per cent said they would definitely not have sought an abortion if they were illegal, and death happens during a legal abortion too; maternal death rates for first trimester abortions are 61 per 100,000 cases (Factbot). Abortion is clearly the taking of a human life, an action that is wrong under the United States constitution. Women must stop being denied the facts and start being told the truth. The people of the US must start standing up for the rights of all people, born and unborn.

Abortion concerns not only the unborn child , it concerns every one of us. ” said former President of the United States Ronald Reagan (Factbot). Abortion concerns all of us. People need to start caring for the women who are hurting as a result of an abortion, and women who are struggling over the decision. People must tell them the facts, and work at making the conditions better for women, because 84 per cent would keep their babies under better circumstances (Factbot). America needs to open her ears to the screams of the 1. 6 million babies murdered each year.

Approximately 1. 6 million murders are committed legally each year. With the exception of laws in few states, the mutilated bodies of the victims are thrown into dumpsters like pieces of rotten meat. While these victims lay waiting in the infested dumpsters to be hauled off to a landfill, the murderers are in their offices waiting for their next patient–the accomplice to the murder. This is the murder of an innocent child by a procedure known as abortion. Abortion stops the beating of an innocent child’s heart. People must no longer ignore the scientific evidence that life begins at the moment of conception.

People can no longer ignore the medical and emotional problems an abortion causes women. People must stop denying the facts about the procedure, and start hearing the silent screams of unborn children. The argument by the pro-abortion side is that the unborn child is not truly a child. Many people who are pro-abortion justify their beliefs through the concept that a fetus is only a blob of tissue until it is born, or the statement: life begins at birth. Abortion is not as simple as removing a “blob of tissue” (as the pro-abortion activists put it) from a woman’s body.

Abortion is the destruction, dismembering and killing of a human life–an unborn baby. “But it is scientific and medical fact based on experimental evidence, that a fetus is a living, growing, thriving human being, directing his or her own development” (Fetal Development). A fetus is not just a blob of tissue, rather a fetus is Latin for “offspring or young one. ” Human life begins at fertilization, therefore it is wrong to murder the innocent child in the womb. At a US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee meeting, most scientists said that life begins at conception or implantation of the embryo.

No scientist at the meeting claimed that life begins at birth (Factbot). Professor Hymie Gordon of the Mayo clinic stated “‘ . . by all criteria of modern biology, life is present from the moment of conception'” (Fetal Development). In a 1963 Planned Parenthood pamphlet entitled ‘Plan Your Children’ it states “an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health” (Factbot). Even though abortion is dangerous to a woman’s life, and it kills her baby, Planned Parenthood still offers it as a safe solution. This statement contradicts what most abortion clinics say.

It is not possible for abortion to be offered to women as a safe solution, when it not only puts her life in danger, but it also kills her child. Not only has science proven that a fetus is truly a human, the simple facts also confer abortion kills the life of a human being. Life begins at conception because of the fact that life in the womb does not change at birth. There are no special procedures or changes that occur during birth to magically change the fetus to a baby. It is already a baby–a human life. “‘If a fertilized egg is not by itself a full human being it could not become one, because nothing is added to it,'” said Dr.

Jerome Lejeune (Factbot). Most of all the development also takes place before one is born. Of the 45 generations of cell divisions before adulthood, 41 have taken place before a person is born (Factbot). Fertilization is just the beginning of a long process of growing and maturing. “Life in a continuum. From the moment the egg is fertilized a new life has begun. All of the genetic information is present to construct a unique individual. Gender, physical features, eye color have already been determined. The baby’s heart begins beating regularly at 24 days. Babies in the womb hiccup, cry, play, and learn” (Factbot).

Life continues from the day of fertilization until death. Nothing is added to a person during a lifetime. “‘Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind,'” said Dr Landrum Shettles father of in vitro fertilization (Factbot). Abortion is wrong because it ends the life of a human being. The day of conception marks the beginning of a new human life. “‘The zygote is the first cell of a new human being,'” said Keith L. Moore. There is no way that the fetus is just a “blob of (Factbot) tissue. ” Scientific and medical facts prove that the fetus is living.

They prove that the fetus is a person, a human, and functions separate from the mother. According to our law murder is wrong, therefore it is unlawful to kill an unborn child. The child in the womb deserves the right to life. The fetus is a real human being and deserves all the rights and freedom given to people under the Constitution. This right is evident in the Fourteenth Amendment that states, “The State shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, property, without due process of the law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law” (Factbot).

Abortion denies babies equal protection under the law, and is depriving a person of life. Thomas Jefferson stated human rights best when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Factbot). All unborn babies have the right to life guaranteed to humans under the constitution. No other person has the right to take away the unborn child’s life, no matter what the situation is.

One must not sacrifice a life to make one’s own life better. Many argue that most of the babies that are aborted are unwanted babies. They believe that they would be abused and neglected. This is why abortion is okay to them. They believe abortion is saving the child from abuse. Abortion, however, is the most severe case of child abuse. The procedures are painful to the child and intentionally end in death (except in cases where the procedure results in a living child. “About once a day, somewhere in the US, something goes wrong and an abortion results in a live baby” (Factbot)).

The fetus is alive and has the capacity to feel the painful abortion procedure. The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that after nine weeks unborn babies can feel pain, yet 48 per cent of all abortions are done after this point ( Fetal Development). The baby can feel all the pain put on it by the painful procedures. The ultra sound shows the baby struggling to survive. Abortionist doctors such as Joseph Randall admit that seeing the abortion “. . . of the baby on the ultra sound bothered me more than anything else. The staff couldn’t take it.

Women were never allowed to see the ultra sound” (Factbot). Women should be allowed to see this. They should see the struggling of the life they are killing. An early abortion takes about five minutes and is performed six to fourteen weeks after a woman’s last period. The procedure is called a suction aspiration. It is like a vacuum cleaner. “‘A hollow plastic tube with a sharp edge is placed into the uterus. The suction tears the baby apart, and the sharp edge is used to scrape the placenta from the wall of the uterus. Everything is sucked out into a bottle'” (Whitney 94).

The other common method is dilation and curettage. “‘A curette, which is a loop-shaped steel knife, is inserted into the uterus, and the baby and the placenta are cut into pieces and scraped out. Both procedures are usually done under general anesthesia, so they’re not painful for the mother. Of course we know the child feels pain'” (Whitney 94). Another method that is not performed much anymore is the saline injection; a long slow death process of poisoning the baby. The saline injection was developed in the Nazi Concentration Camps (Factbot) The most controversial form of abortion is the partial-birth abortion.

Using an ultra sound the abortionist grabs the baby’s legs with forceps and pulls them out into the birth canal. The abortionist then delivers the entire baby except for the head and continues by jamming scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole. The scissors are removed and a suction is inserted. The baby’s brains are sucked out causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed ( Partial). It has been proven that babies can feel pain in these procedures.

On January 22, 1973, the movement to legalize abortion achieved its greatest victory with the Roe v. Wade ruling. This paper will analyze the rise and continuation of this movement over the course of the past forty years. Unlike other social movements, the Pro-Choice movement as maintained it’s power even after apparent victory was achieved. Due to this, the abortion argument continues today and will probably continue into this century and beyond. The emergence of the Pro-Choice movement did not occur via the usual social movement routes.

Most social movements emerge from within established institutions, ith support from elites, or with origins that involved professional movement organizers. The early Pro-Choice movement, however, emerged as a collection of concerned physicians and professionals who wanted to help legalize abortion and keep it safe. In the 1950s and 1960s several published articles appeared that suggested needed reforms to the abortion laws and this began public attention on this issue. Two events occurred during the 1960s that also brought media attention to this emerging movement.

The first was the highly publicized case of Sherri Finkbine, a woman ho attempted to get a legal abortion in the United States after learning that a drug she had taken, thalidomide, could cause fetal defects. This incident caused nationwide concern about the drug as well as sparking a nationwide debate over abortion. The second event was the epidemic of rubella measles that occurred in the United States. This disease can cause fetal defects when contracted by a pregnant woman. Both of these events gave a rise to the movement by influencing public opinion toward the reform of abortion law.

These events forced doctors to confront the differences within their rofession over abortion. This caused some liberal doctors to support the reform of the abortion laws. The Association for the Study of Abortion (ASA) was formed as a result of the professional interest in this issue. This association was formed in 1964 by Dr. Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood as an educational association. Only twenty active members, consisting of doctors, lawyers and other professionals, were actively involved in this group.

However; the ASA was important in lending credibility and authority to the abortion movement in the early years when this support was badly needed. It should be oted that in the early years the ASA was not in the forefront of the movement as it refused to support aggressive measures to change the abortion laws. The ASA was crucial in bringing together activists who disagreed with the ASAs cautious approach. These activists later worked together to found the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL). Lawrence Lader, NARAL founder, had become a ASA boardmember as a result of his research on abortion.

Ruth Smith, another NARAL founder, had served as executive director of the ASA. Also, Dr. Lonny Myers was crucial to the founding of NARAL and Lader contacted her through his ASA ontacts. Early organizers used their connections to recruit professionals who would lend this movement prestige and influential power. The early Pro-Choice movement also benefited from other social movements of the era. Women, college students and other young people who were activated by earlier movements of the 1960s became the grass-roots constituents of the movement to legalize abortion.

These constituents were available and also felt very strongly about the issues at hand. The population organizations of the time also aided the early Pro-Choice movement. The Association for Voluntary Sterilization (AVS) and Zero Population Growth(ZPG) shared members with NARAL. ZPG, especially, had local chapters that were heavily student influenced. These local chapters became deeply involved in the mobilization of the movement. The women’s movement was emerging as the abortion movement was getting off the ground.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) endorsed abortion appeal, although narrowly, at the second national convention in 1967. NOW participation in the abortion movement was minimal in the early years, but was there nonetheless. NOW was loosely organized in the beginning and was unable to promote grass-roots participation on he issue. The organization did form a national committee to deal with abortion but lacked an ample supply of resources. Other women’s groups were also emerging at this time. The ones that had memberships almost solely comprised of younger women, especially those in college, had the most to offer the abortion movement.

Many of these young women became key players in the mobilization in these early years. Not only did the emerging abortion reform movement have the advantage of the preexisting organizational bases and concerned constituents, this emerging movement had a tactic. This tactic was abortion referral and it aided the movement in getting publicity, mobilizing activists, and helped to build a constituent base. Many women who had undergone illegal abortions stepped forward to help other women. Also, religious groups stepped in to aid the early reform movement.

The national Jewish and Protestant religious denominations did not become heavily involved in the movement but a number of these religious institutions did step forward to support reform of the abortion laws. Prior to 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision, the abortion movement’s principal source f political opportunity was the expanded social movement sector. Activists who fought for civil rights, women’s rights, and the like were also joining this emerging movement. Immediately felt grievances also aided the movement’s mobilization due to the volunteers who had strong feelings about abortion rights. The movement was off the ground.

1973 was the year of the Supreme Court decision that made sweeping changes in the abortion laws. Few abortion law repeal supporters had anticipated the changes that would occur as a result of that decision. After such a major success, activists in the ro-choice movement might have been expected to glow in their victory and then close down shop. Some reconstructors of the history of this movement have claimed just that. However; it is now believed that in light of the victory achieved, via Roe v. Wade, another movement emerged that should be considered separate from the original abortion reform movement.

After the decision there was some decline in the movement, although this did not occur immediately after legalization and the movement never disappeared entirely. There were battles that needed to be fought due to the surge in membership and power of the ounter-movements that were rising up. These countermovement activities created immediate threats to the newly won right to abortion and this helped keep the pro-choice movement mobilized. The continuing multi-issue population and women’s movements assisted the single-issue pro choice groups in surviving the victory.

The re-organization of the national Pro-Choice movement also allowed the group to stay mobilized for a continued battle over this issue. A large difference between the pre-1973 movement and the one that emerged out of the decision was the rise of organizational group and interest group support. Prior to the decision these groups had not been heavily involved. These groups provided resources and stability for the pro-choice movement that was not there so readily before. Among the established groups joining forces with the pro-choice movement were professional associations such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Most critical to the movement were the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. The feeling of victory after the 1973 decision was short lived for the pro-choice movement. It soon became apparent that the war was continuing on new fronts. The legalization of abortion brought out the anti-abortion activists who were able to create a real threat to the newly won right to abortion. These anti-abortion activists pressed Congress for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion and were pressing for legislation that would cut off federal funding of abortions.

In response to the anti-abortion threats, single-issue abortion movements did not disband but regrouped. The National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws changed its name to the National Abortion Rights Action League after it became apparent that this ight over abortion rights would continue for some time. Local groups also took to renaming their organizations and continuing on with the fight to protect their victory. Even legislators who had supported the movement prior to the victory were preparing for the next wave of fighting.

Tactics that were used following the Roe v. Wade decision were much like the tactics leading up to that decision. It had become apparent that litigation was a successful tool for social change and legalization offered the movement the opportunity to use tactics that had been used successfully in the past. It was not just the victory but the past xperience of the movement’s leaders that allowed the movement to take advantage of the Supreme Court decision. Pro choice groups used litigation to carry out Roe v. Wade. Pro-choice groups teamed up with the ACLU and filed lawsuits that would force hospitals to provide abortions.

After several successes with this litigation, pro-choice groups began mailings to hospitals showing the successful results of these lawsuits. These groups urged the hospitals to provide abortions so that they could avoid litigation. Also, pro-choice groups supported the creation of independent abortion clinics and ade efforts to ensure that the services offered at these clinics were of high quality and accessible. Seminars were held nationally to teach how to effectively set up one of these clinics with the support of Planned Parenthood.

Prior to the Supreme Court decision there was no organized pro-choice lobby inside Washington. However; the movement did not lack insiders who were in touch with legislators. NARAL had leaders who had “inside” connections and established organizations, like Planned Parenthood, had lobbyists who reported on legislative developments and reactions to elected officials. Through these sources, pro-choice leaders learned that the anti-abortion movement was flooding Congress with mail supporting an amendment banning abortion. The pro-choice movement responded to the counter-movement threat with tactics of its own.

They urged their supporters to write their own letters to congress when it became clear that the pro-choice side was making a poor showing in this area. It became very important to counter the large number of letters being sent from anti-abortionists and to make it known that the pro-choice movement was still in the arena. Also, a pro-choice lobbying coalition was established that utilized both movement organizations and established organizations. In late 1973, NARAL opened a lobbying office in Washington to create an ongoing NARAL presence on Capital Hill and to participate more fully in the newly emerging lobbying coalition.

When NARAL moved its headquarters to Washington in 1975 it had become clear that institutionalized tactics in defense of legal abortion had become very important to the movement. The years following the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision show a change in the organization of the pro-choice movement. The political opportunity structure had changed for the group as more formalized organizations stepped forward to support the Supreme Court decision. Also, the political environment of the movement had changed with the victory as the group was now on the defensive rather than the offensive.

Movement victories help mobilize counter-movements and they provide opportunities for the opposition to constrain the movement activities by putting the group on the defensive. However; in the case of the pro-choice movement the challenge was risen to. The pro-choice movement responded to the countermovement and began to create an rganizational structure that allowed them to play in institutionalized arenas like Congress. The years following the Roe v. Wade decision can be seen as a transitional period for the movement. The leaders established themselves as political insiders and lobbyist organizations were created.

Pro-choice groups were implementing organizational tactics that would prepare them for the long term battle ahead of them. The fight was really just beginning. The anti-abortion countermovement scored its first victory in 1976 with Congressional passage of the Hyde Amendment which banned the federal funding of bortions. The countermovement also gained publicity during the 1976 election year which helped to reinvigorate it. New anti-abortion organizations were formed and fundamentalist Christians and political conservatives were attracted.

Other anti-abortion successes occurred with anti-abortion victories in the courts that permitted state abortion funding bans. The majority of states responded to these ruling by refusing to fund most abortions and many states continued to consider additional restrictive legislation including parental consent requirements. The pro-choice movement had been successfully hreatened and its prior victories were being challenged. By 1982 the period of threat to the pro-choice movement was showing signs of decline. Pro-choice candidates won out over many anti-abortion candidates that year.

In 1983 anti-abortion legislation was defeated in Congress and the Supreme Court struck down most of the restrictions that had been passed by state and local governments. Obviously, the countermovements victories produced an overwhelming mobilization of pro-choice forces. In response to the countermovement’s successes, new pro-choice organizations were formed to attract a greater assortment of constituents. Also, existing organizations took advantage of the concerns raised among pro-choice supporters to increase their resources and expand their operations.

Because the movement had not demobilized following the 1973 decision, it was in a position to respond to the countermovement’s threats. The National Abortion Federation was formed in this post-Hyde period. This organization was comprised of clinics and other service providers. Also formed during this time was the Friends of Family Planning and Voters for Choice. These two groups were political action committees specifically formed to counter anti-abortion PAC ctivities. The threat imposed by the countermovement reinforced both national and local pro-choice organizations.

With the exception of the reproductive rights organizations, pro-choice organizations became more professionalized in their leadership and formalized in their structures. These new changes put the movement in a better position to obtain the resources necessary to act in institutionalized arenas. NARAL needed to counter anti-abortion activities and in order to do that they needed to greatly increase their resources, which included money and participants. The rofessionalization of leadership along with the threatened political environment enabled the organization to greatly increase these resources.

The increase in resources lead to the hiring of more professional leaders and the creating of a bureaucratic organization. Staff members now took responsibility for more differentiated functions such as public relations, lobbying and political campaign work. Another key tactic of this time was the development of an advanced direct mail technique to raise money and membership. This new technique included the hiring of professionals who could get the message out and deliver the desired results. NARAL’s direct-mail drive was a success that greatly increased the membership and financial resources.

Constituents mailed their checks in record numbers in response to visible threats to abortion rights. The influx of resources allowed NARAL to expand and formalize its ties to local activists. NARAL recruited affiliates by offering training for local leaders, low-cost professionally produced NARAL literature, how to’ manuals, and audiovisual aids. The national organization was eventually able to offer financial aid as well which allowed the national organization to have more control in implementing state and local strategies.

This emphasis on grass-roots organizing resulted in activists pushing to increase the involvement of the board of directors. Board members began attending at least four meeting a year and terms were shortened so that more activists could be brought into the decision-making process. Changes were occurring within this organization. By 1983 the pro-choice groups were no longer acting in the defensive to the countermovements. There was a fear that the victories that had been achieved in over-ruling many of the anti-abortion decisions may lead to complacency among their constituents.

The director of NARAL demanded that his activists continue to take the anti-abortion threat seriously and that the pro-choice lobby continue in Washington. It was also essential that work continued to prohibit the reelection of the President Reagan and the possible opportunity of appointment of Supreme Court Justices by a conservative leader. NARAL and other pro-choice organizations began lobbying Congress for a Reproductive Health Equity Act that would restore Medicaid funding and federal employee insurance coverage for abortions. As feared, the pro-choice constituent support began to decline as the movement hifted into the offensive.

Local and national informants reported a drop in financial resources and active participation as threats to abortion rights began to subside. People felt that the issue had been settled so they backed away. Luckily, for the movement, national organizations like NARAL had professional leaders who helped sustain the momentum and continue movement activities despite the changes in the political environment. Informally organized groups, such as the Reproductive Rights National Network, began to dissolve as they were running out of funding. The severe financial problems that hese small groups faced began after the 1983 Supreme Court ruling.

Even though there was activity and support for the regaining of Medicaid funding and the providing of abortion services to teenagers, momentum was being lost because the new issues at hand held less appeal than the original legality issues. The survival of the movement during this time, when no victories were being won and when the constituents felt nothing more could be done, was due largely to the Reagan-Bush Administrations continued attack on abortion rights and the continued threats to the victories that had been won. The countermovement responded to its losses by changing the arena.

The new arena was public relations. The centerpiece of the new anti-abortion strategy was the film The Silent Scream, which was produced by the former NARAL activist turned anti-abortionist, Dr. Nathanson. This film was released in late 1984 and used sonography in an attempt to make its case that the fetus suffers pain in an abortion. The idea was to shift the debate on abortion to “scientific” issues. The film was issued to members of Congress and received a great deal of media attention, including network news coverage round the time of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in January 1985.

Pro-choice movements were forced to respond to this public relations threat. The countermovement tactic was beneficial to the pro-choice movement in that it aroused supporters and created opportunities for local and national pro-choice movements to mobilize. Some organizations used their own experts to refute the “scientific” arguments while other groups attempted to reframe the debate. NARAL formed its own tactic through “Abortion Rights: Silent No More”. This strategy involved asking women around the nation to write letters about their experiences ith abortion.

The letters were addressed to President Reagan and other elected officials. The letters were read at an open forum on a scheduled day and it aroused much media attention. The NARAL message: “We are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your friends, and abortion is a choice we have made” became a battle cry. NARAL was effective in the reframing of the debate. Emphasis had been taken off the fetus and placed on the role of the woman. Also, feminist groups used this time to develop responses, including some feminist films, to the anti-abortion strategy.

Although he outrage and activism produced by the countermovement’s tactics could not sustain the pro-choice movement indefinitely, it came along at a critical time. It provided opportunities which utilized the energies of activists and helped revive the sense of immediately felt grievances that had rallied the activists prior to the legalization of abortion in 1973. Following the Silent Scream strategy, the countermovement continued to use tactics that helped to keep the pro-choice movement on the alert. Direct action techniques were developed by the countermovement during this time.

These tactics were often aimed at abortion services, their workers, and their clients. They often employed the use of bombs and other forms of harassment. The countermovement, by engaging in direct action and bringing the abortion conflict back to the level of women’s experiences, helped the pro-choice movement revitalize it’s grass-roots movement. In July of 1989 the Supreme Court, now including Reagan appointees, upheld provisions of a Missouri anti-abortion statue in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services.

The court did not overturn Roe v. Wade but it allowed states leeway in limiting abortion ights and appeared to invite challenges that might dismantle the 1973 ruling. The Webster ruling was a critical event in marking the beginning of a new round of intense conflict over abortion. The changes that took place in the pro-choice movement as a result of this decision resemble those that occurred during the post-Hyde period. Prior to the July 1989 ruling the pro-choice movement organized a massive abortion rights march in Washington on April 09, 1989.

The march was intended to send a signal to media reports and received a great deal of publicity. This march provided the enerations of activists to unite and gain a sense of solidarity and commitment to the pro-choice cause. This march was an important mobilizing event for the movement. Although the ruling was in favor of the countermovement, the pro-choice movement gained much from the anticipation leading up to the decision. NARAL had built up its resources and membership increased by one hundred percent.

NOW membership also rose considerably as did Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. In the light of the defeat, the pro-choice movement was now opened up to new tactical opportunities. Politics began to play an important part of the movement’s tactics. Pro-choice candidates began to win sweeping elections. New Jersey elected a pro-choice governor as did Virginia. Framing of the argument shifted into private choice versus government involvement. The perception among many politician following the Webster decision was that the pro-choice position had become politically advantageous.

The pro-choice movement had influenced politics despite the defeat at the Supreme Court. The pro-choice movement is unique in it’s development and continued force throughout the decades. It succeeded in overturning abortion laws in 1973 and remained obilized in order to continue to influence politics and prevent the destruction of the Roe v. Wade decision. The cycle of protest that occurred in the sixties and seventies was the most significant source of political opportunity for the pro-choice movement.

The ability to motivate constituents from other fights’ into the pro-choice movement was key to it’s early success. After the initial Roe v. Wade decision the political opportunities changed and more organized constituents were to become involved. Formalization of the movement occurred and the structure of the movement changed. Resources from the established organizations provided an opportunity to lobby the legislature and created a trend of mainly reactive, institutionalized actions.

The framing argument that took place all throughout the history of the pro-choice movement has also been important. In the beginning the frame was about safety and keeping women out of illegal abortion clinics where their life would be in danger. As the countermovement emerged and began to win some victories the framing changed. Pro-choice activists fought to keep attention on the woman and off of the fetus. They ought to make it an issue of individual rights versus government rights.

As the movement changed and the tactics changed, so did these framing arguments. The history of the Pro-choice movement as a social movement is unique to itself. The movement has not behaved in a traditional sense in that it did not have its origins in the traditional sources. The movement did not fall away after achieving its victories. In fact it was at its strongest when in a defensive, not offensive, stance. The fight continues today between the pro-choice and anti-abortion movements. It will probably continue well into this century and beyond.

Approximately 1. 6 million murders are committed legally each year. With the exception of laws in few states, the mutilated bodies of the victims are thrown into dumpsters like pieces of rotten meat. While these victims lay waiting in the infested dumpsters to be hauled off to a landfill, the murderers are in their offices waiting for their next patient–the accomplice to the murder. This is the murder of an innocent child by a procedure known as abortion. Abortion stops the beating of an innocent child’s heart. People must no longer ignore the scientific evidence that life begins at the moment of conception.

People can no onger ignore the medical and emotional problems an abortion causes women. People must stop denying the facts about the procedure, and start hearing the silent screams of unborn children. The argument by the pro-abortion side is that the unborn child is not truly a child. Many people who are pro-abortion justify their beliefs through the concept that a fetus is only a blob of tissue until it is born, or the statement: life begins at birth. Abortion is not as simple as removing a “blob of tissue” (as the pro-abortion activists put it) from a woman’s body.

Abortion is the destruction, dismembering and killing of a human life–an unborn baby. But it is scientific and medical fact based on experimental evidence, that a fetus is a living, growing, thriving human being, directing his or her own development” (Fetal Development). A fetus is not just a blob of tissue, rather a fetus is Latin for “offspring or young one. ” Human life begins at fertilization, therefore it is wrong to murder the innocent child in the womb. At a US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee meeting, most scientists said that life begins at conception or implantation of the embryo.

No scientist at the meeting claimed that life begins at birth (Factbot). Professor Hymie Gordon of the Mayo clinic stated “‘ . by all criteria of modern biology, life is present from the moment of conception'” (Fetal Development). In a 1963 Planned Parenthood pamphlet entitled ‘Plan Your Children’ it states “an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health” (Factbot). Even though abortion is dangerous to a woman’s life, and it kills her baby, Planned Parenthood still offers it as a safe solution.

This statement contradicts what most abortion clinics say. It is not possible for abortion to be offered to women as a safe solution, when it not only puts her life in danger, but it also kills her child. Not only has science proven that a fetus is truly a human, the simple facts also confer abortion kills the life of a human being. Life begins at conception because of the fact that life in the womb does not change at birth. There are no special procedures or changes that occur during birth to magically change the fetus to a baby.

It is already a baby–a human life. ‘If a fertilized egg is not by itself a full human being it could not become one, because nothing is added to it,'” said Dr. Jerome Lejeune (Factbot). Most of all the development also takes place before one is born. Of the 45 generations of cell divisions efore adulthood, 41 have taken place before a person is born (Factbot). Fertilization is just the beginning of a long process of growing and maturing. “Life in a continuum. From the moment the egg is fertilized a new life has begun. All of the genetic information is present to construct a unique individual.

Gender, physical features, eye color have already been determined. The baby’s heart begins beating regularly at 24 days. Babies in the womb hiccup, cry, play, and learn” (Factbot). Life continues from the day of fertilization until death. Nothing is added to a person during a lifetime. “‘Conception confers life and akes that life one of a kind,'” said Dr Landrum Shettles father of in vitro fertilization (Factbot). Abortion is wrong because it ends the life of a human being.

The day of conception marks the beginning of a new human life. ‘The zygote is the first cell of a new human being,'” said Keith L. Moore. There is no way that the fetus is just a “blob of (Factbot) tissue. ” Scientific and medical facts prove that the fetus is living. They prove that the fetus is a person, a human, and functions separate from the mother. According to our law murder is wrong, therefore it is unlawful to kill an unborn child. The child in he womb deserves the right to life. The fetus is a real human being and deserves all the rights and freedom given to people under the Constitution.

This right is evident in the Fourteenth Amendment that states, “The State shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, property, without due process of the law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law” (Factbot). Abortion denies babies equal protection under the law, and is depriving a person of life. Thomas Jefferson stated human rights best when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Factbot).

All unborn babies have the right to life guaranteed to humans under the constitution. No other person has the right to take away the unborn child’s life, no matter what the situation is. One must not sacrifice a life to make one’s own life better. Many argue that most of the babies that are aborted are unwanted babies. They believe that they would be abused and neglected. This is why abortion is okay to them. They believe abortion is saving the child from abuse. Abortion, however, is the most severe case of child abuse.

The procedures are painful to the child and intentionally end in death (except in cases where the procedure results in a living child. “About once a day, somewhere in the US, something goes wrong and an abortion results in a live baby” (Factbot)). The fetus is alive and has the capacity to feel the painful abortion procedure. The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that after nine weeks unborn babies can feel pain, yet 48 per cent of all abortions are done after this point ( Fetal Development). The baby can feel all the pain put on it by the painful procedures.

The ultra sound shows the baby struggling to survive. Abortionist octors such as Joseph Randall admit that seeing the abortion “. . . of the baby on the ultra sound bothered me more than anything else. The staff couldn’t take it. Women were never allowed to see the ultra sound” (Factbot). Women should be allowed to see this. They should see the struggling of the life they are killing. An early abortion takes about five minutes and is performed six to fourteen weeks after a woman’s last period. The procedure is called a suction aspiration.

It is like a vacuum cleaner. ‘A hollow plastic tube with a sharp edge is placed into the uterus. The suction tears the baby apart, and the sharp edge is used to crape the placenta from the wall of the uterus. Everything is sucked out into a bottle'” (Whitney 94). The other common method is dilation and curettage. “‘A curette, which is a loop-shaped steel knife, is inserted into the uterus, and the baby and the placenta are cut into pieces and scraped out. Both procedures are usually done under general anesthesia, so they’re not painful for the mother. Of course we know the child feels pain'” (Whitney 94).

Another method that is not performed much anymore is the saline injection; a long slow death process of poisoning the baby. The saline injection was developed in the Nazi Concentration Camps (Factbot) The most controversial form of abortion is the partial-birth abortion. Using an ultra sound the abortionist grabs the baby’s legs with forceps and pulls them out into the birth canal. The abortionist then delivers the entire baby except for the head and continues by jamming scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole. The scissors are removed and a suction is inserted.

The baby’s brains are sucked out causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed ( Partial). It has been proven that babies can feel pain in these procedures. The fetus can feel pain because t is alive and growing like a human. Something that is not living cannot feel pain. If one crushes a pop can as the abortionist crushes a baby, the pop can feels no pain because it is not living. The baby feels pain because it is a living human being. Abortion is wrong because it deprives the baby of rights and happiness because of the suffering it must go through during the abortion.

Women who have these painful abortions suffer emotional stress, and years after having the procedure they discover that they destroyed a human life. The women finally realize after many years of emotional stress the cause of it. After 5-10 years 54 per cent of mothers choosing abortion had nightmares and 96 per cent felt they had taken a life” a from study by Dr Anne Speckhard of the University of Minnesota. People need to listen to the women who have had abortions in the past to hear what they are really about. From them people can learn much more than a clinic can teach.

After having an abortion, many women can tell a person the true facts–abortion is murder. “‘Recent evidence indicates many women harbor strong guilt feelings long after their abortions. Guilt is one important cause of child battering and infanticide. Abortion lowers omen’s self-esteem and there are studies reporting a major loss of self-esteem in battering parents,'” said Dr. Phillip Ney. There are places that give abortion counseling. However, many of these places do not give accurate information Accurate information is needed so women, and men, know that abortion will take away a human life.

Ninety-five percent of women who had abortions said their Planned Parenthood counselors gave “. . . little or no biological information about the fetus which the abortion would destroy. ” Where 80 percent of women who have had abortions from Planned Parenthood said little or no health nformation was given to them about potential health risks (Factbot). Women need to be told the true facts of abortion. They need to see the fetal monitors. In many clinics they are not allowed to see the ultra sound. The doctors do not want a woman to see that the baby inside of her is alive.

This is wrong because it not only denies the child the rights such as the right to be heard and seen, it denies women the truth. The truth must be told and shown. Shari Richard, an Ultrasonographer, said, “‘In fact many women will come to me considering an abortion, and I have been personally told that I am to turn the monitor away rom her view so that seeing her baby jump around on the screen does not influence her choice'” (Factbot). Abortion clinic staff members are taught how to sell abortions, told never to give alternatives, and told to tell the women how much trouble a baby is.

Women are not told the facts. It is obvious from the ultra sound that the baby they are carrying is alive, and abortion kills the baby. If the clinic can clearly see that the baby is alive, the mother should also see. Abortion is described as a decision between a women and her doctor. Yet over 90 percent don’t even see the doctor until he appears to abort their baby. This should not be the case. The clinics are hiding and withholding the true facts. Clinics need to shape-up and tell the truth to women: Abortion is wrong. Abortion is one of the key issues facing the human race today.

This issue, like many, forces people to take sides against each other, and is one of the main factors people look at when voting. In a 1973 court ruling, known as Roe v. Wade, abortion became legal. Since this ruling the number of teen pregnancies has increased from 4. 94 per cent in 1972 to 9. 92 per cent in 1990. The number of teen abortions has doubled from 19. 9 per thousand teenagers in 1972 to 43. 8 per housand teenagers in 1990 while the number of teen births has increased from 22. 8 to 42. 5 per thousand.

The number of births to unmarried women has increased 7. per cent during the years from1972 to 1990 while the number of abortions increased 11. 7 per cent during those years (Factbot). Abortion should no longer be legal. It is rapidly becoming a form of birth control. No longer must women worry about protection, if they should conceive a child, they can choose to take its life. One-third of all babies (Planned Parenthood) are aborted, which entitles the abortion industry to $500 million a year in income in the United States (Factbot). Abortion is the most frequent surgical operation in the US, and the leading cause of death in Minnesota (Factbot).

Currently there are two million couples waiting for adoption in America, yet there are 30 abortions for every one adoption (Factbot). These statistics are true. Abortion needs to be stopped. There are arguments against the stopping of abortion. However, there are solutions. Many say abortion should be legal if the woman’s life is in danger. Only three percent of all abortions are done for the mother’s health, where 40 percent of women who have abortions will have more than one, and 50 per cent use t as their sole means of birth control (Factbot).

As for the argument that women will do them illegally in the back alleys endangering their lives, 72 per cent said they would definitely not have sought an abortion if they were illegal, and death happens during a legal abortion too; maternal death rates for first trimester abortions are 61 per 100,000 cases (Factbot). Abortion is clearly the taking of a human life, an action that is wrong under the United States constitution. Women must stop being denied the facts and start being told the truth. The people of the US must start standing up for the ights of all people, born and unborn.

Abortion concerns not only the unborn child , it concerns every one of us. ” said former President of the United States Ronald Reagan (Factbot). Abortion concerns all of us. People need to start caring for the women who are hurting as a result of an abortion, and women who are struggling over the decision. People must tell them the facts, and work at making the conditions better for women, because 84 per cent would keep their babies under better circumstances (Factbot). America needs to open her ears to the screams of the 1. 6 million babies murdered each year.

I have finally decided that I should tackle an issue of grave importance in the world today. That issue is abortion. You have heard the arguments from all sides I am sure. It is a personal choice. It is murder. It is something the government should have no place in. It is something the government should be involved in. It is something I can tolerate but I do not want my tax dollars going to fund it. What stand am I going to take on this issue? I am not sure I have a stance, all I have are questions and observations. In the following document, I shall attempt to share them with you.

Those two categories are: nonpreparation and failure followed by rather extensive lists of words meaning the same. The connotations are obvious. However, I have to ask myself, should we attempt to stop abortion? I have often joked that abortion is fine, after all, stupid people shouldnt breed. Now I find myself thinking about this joke in detail.

What is the purpose of life? What, ultimately is hardwired deep in the genes of our species. A need to procreate, a desire to extend our genetic legacy into future generations. Survival of the species. Some animals will kill the young to establish their dominance, allowing only a few to survive. The lucky few. However, a race that kills too many of its young is at genetic dead end. A species that has no concern or regard for its young goes against survival of the species. This may sound like an argument opposing abortion, but consider all the ramifications.

On a strictly animal level, an nimal that allows its young to die should not breed, least it pass on that trait to future offspring. Consequently, an animal that does so should have its young destroyed, to prevent this trait from passing into the gene pool. I can think of no stronger argument for abortion than this. I remember reading an article once that stated that the fetus would often scream as it was dismembered. Its obvious that this cannot be the case, because it is simply a mass of tissue, a grouping of cells, something that is not yet human, or subhuman is you prefer.

In that case dismembering the fetus is no crime. Neither ould giving an injection to induce premature labor, inducing a heart attack, or poisoning the fetus so that its heart stops beating. Despite the fact that that the fetus has a human form, eyes, legs, arms, a heart, and often a different blood type than the mother, it isnt human. There is of course plenty of historical precedence to support the fact that something may look human, but is in fact not. Any Plantation owner in the old south of America could tell you as much. Doesnt this sound good? Doesnt it sound familiar?

It simply a reflex reaction that causes the screaming-like reaction, not pain, and after all, you ant physically hear any screaming so its obviously isnt there. Its as plain as the nose on your face. After all, the walls were pretty thick at Auschwitz; you couldnt hear any screaming there either. America is obviously falling behind other nations of the world today in industrial capacity. After all, 1940s Germany managed to take care of eleven million unwanted pregnancies in just a few short years. America has eliminated three times that many, but has taken five times as long. It is clear to me that we need to step up the process.

After all, what better way to cut spending then by eliminating uture generations that have the potential to go on welfare and spend my hard earned money. What is this you say? Not every child that is born goes on welfare? Well I can confidently say that 100% of aborted fetuses would go on welfare. After all, if theyre never born, how can you prove me wrong? What is this you say? They could be great scientists, leaders, authors, engineers, poets and more. Well again, I can confidently say that you are wrong, because we will never know will we? And of course, abortion is useful in preventing genetic imperfections into our modern gene pool.

What a world we could live in if we were free from the horrors of Muscular Dystrophy, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Tay-Sachs Disease, Neurofibromatoses, diabetes, and the like. Just think about it, you would never have to see people like that again. It wouldnt be necessary to hide them from the world; they quite simply wouldnt be here. Think of it, we would have achieved the master race. Doesnt that sound good? Doesnt that sound familiar? Think about it, just think about it for one moment. Is this the world you want to live in? Is this a world you can accept? I know my answer to that question. Not on my watch.

Since the Darwinian Revolution of the 19th century our society has turned upside down. Everything under the sun had become questionable, the origin of life, how we came to be, where are we headed and what to do in the here all became questions in life. But one of the greatest impacts of this new age thinking is its effect on our Old World values. Western societies values, morals and ethics became debatable, with some people striving for change and others clinging for stability. Battle lines had been drawn and the Liberals and Conservatives were ready to duke it out on a number of issues.

One of these debates centers on a womans right to have and abortion. According to the Websters dictionary and abortion is defined as a miscarry, something misshapen or unnatural. An abortion is a procedure in which an embryo or fetus is prohibited from developing by artificial means. One could argue that this is next to murder. How can we as a society sanction the murdering of developing babies? Also it can equally be stated that abortion is unnatural and a health hazard to women who have undergone the procedure. Whatever the case, abortion should be outlawed because it is immoral and mothers should face the responsibilities of their actions.

Many arguments can be used in order to put an end to abortion or at least in order to establish dialogue. One of the oldest arguments against abortion is the religious standpoint. Western society (Canada & U. S. A. ) is historically a Judeo-Christian culture with Judeo-Christian values. Although in recent times we have become an increasingly pluristic society the Old World thinking is still at the heart of our social relations and laws. The Bible says Thou shalt not kill thus prohibiting people from harming others or themselves. Abortion and its advocates violate this law.

They seek to change one of the most fundamental values of our society. Pro-choice under this stance is equated with murder and playing God. One may raise the question, how can a minority inflict its views of the majority? According to Francis X. Meenan, this is a false assumption. He goes on to claim that those who favor abortion on demand are the real minority (Bender & Leone, 97). He also claims that the issue of abortion is a moral debate and cannot be settled by numbers. So even if pro-choice advocates outnumbered pro-life advocates, this would prove or settle nothing (Bender & Leone, 97).

This stance claims that we should focus more on moral principals and eradicate the practice of abortion in our society. The Biblical understanding of life isnt the only religious argument that opposes abortion and its practice. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and many other world faiths have a similar stance on the topic at hand. Hinduism claims that the soul enters the embryo at the time of conception and abortion should hence be outlawed except in the case of rape or incest. Buddhism takes a similar stance and claims abortion is murdering, yet also states that each case should be individually analyzed.

Islam considers abortion as a moral crime and sees life (its start finish) as the jurisdiction of God. Islamic law states that abortion is illegal except in those situations in which the womans life is in jeopardy. The question that arises after examining these numerous perspectives is how can these practices which violate or threaten our fundamental beliefs be tolerated? The critics of the ant-abortion perspective, pro-choice, have arguments of their own. First and foremost they argue that biblical law and its perspectives are codes of life for believers and in a pluralistic society this view shouldnt be a reference or a deciding factor.

One could imagine how it would be to have another foreign view imposed on us so why would anyone impose their views on others or the society at large? Other pro-choice arguments have went to claim that abortion isnt immoral because morality is subjective hence people decide on their own what is moral or immoral. According to Daniel C. Maguire, even religious people can disagree on abortion. One ground for going against religion as an argument against abortion is the fact that the Church is dominated by male influence (bender & Leone, 101).

Maguire wants to know how and why men have the authority to dictate what women decide to do with their bodies (Bender & Leone, 101). Is it life they seek to protect or is it the female sexuality they wish to control? The Catholic Code of Canon excommunicates one for aborting a fertilized egg, but not for killing a baby after birth. This hypocrisy thus discredits the religious argument against abortion. The counter-criticism, which in turn disproves of abortion claims that advocates of pro-choice are imposing their values on the greater population and not the other way around.

In my opinion this is a good counter-strike because too often pro-choice individuals claim that the other side is being closed minded and yet seem to neglect their own errors. The second argument, which opposes abortion, states that abortion shouldnt be a womans personal choice. Women only play one role in having a baby. There is a mans role involved and there is a new life, which under the banner of abortion would be extinguished. A pro-abortionist denies humanity to the fetus at all, a stance that shows a lack of moral character (Wennberg, 57).

This perspective states that the growing fetus is an autonomous life form that has its own rights regardless and separate of the woman. I would argue that females who have undergone an abortion have infringed on the life of another human being in order to satisfy their own needs. Other arguments opposing abortion state that if we keep abortion legal it will become a choice ethic or a new form of birth control (Wennberg, 9). Life will be a privilege only for a chosen few, the value of human life will be cheapened with people only having babies when it is convenient.

Critics of this argument claim abortion should be a womans personal choice. They state that true womans liberation is intertwined with the right to bear children or the decision to abort their unborn child at will (Saarni, 104). Further claims have stated that the pro-choice argument is embedded in a larger issue which the dominant male-oriented society wants to avoid, that being feminism (Wennberg, 68). This statement regards abortion as a social issue which opens the doors for womens liberation and gives them power to make decisions in their own life.

As one could imagine this isnt a view that would be favored by male society. Other criticism claims that women who are opposed to abortion do so because they value human well being and those politicians who seek to outlaw abortion come in the name of family values (Saarni, 115). Thus pro-choice isnt seen as a stance, which is concerned, about the well being of people. In a quest to establish a womans choice the government is viewed as a powerful entity. Perhaps the issue of choice should be left to the individual instead of the state (Wennberg, 82).

In my opinion the right to bear children or not shouldnt be just a womans decision. Why must womens liberation be related to her independent choice and not with a socially intellectual choice where all parties find a middle ground? The statement that the abortion argument is a part of a larger sphere, which includes feminism and that the powers that be are trying to put an end to this, is based on speculation. If this were true why is it that women have gained power all across the board in all walks of life only to be oppressed in this issue.

As for the women who seek the well being for life they naturally side up with the pro-life perspective. To claim that politicians with their own personal agendas are manipulating these women is saying that these women value life alongside their male counter parts and that is the reasoning why many strive towards pro-life. The argument that legal abortion harms public health is yet another reason to re-evaluate the case of abortion. The fact is that abortion is a complicated procedure that can harm a womans body, disabling from bearing children. Complications include hemorrhaging and laceration of the cesuix (Richardson, 36).

Other studies done by Stallworthy, Moolga, Oker and Walsh have reported the complications that occurred during 1,182 legal abortions. While their where no deaths, 9. 5% of the patients required blood transfusions, 4. 2% had cervical lacerations and 1. 2% of the patients uteri were perforated. Post-abortion infection occurred in 27% of these women. Other complications in pregnancy and with abortions state that there is a correlation between pre-mature birth and a womans exposure to abortion (Richardson, 42). This perhaps has to do with the fact that the cervix could be damaged after the use of instruments to perform abortion (Richardson, 42).

A first pregnancy permanently changes the structure of a woman’s breasts. Before she is pregnant, her breasts cannot produce milk, as the gland cells are immature and underdeveloped. When she becomes pregnant, estrogen and other hormones flood her system. This results in rapid growth in size, while the internal structure undergoes dramatic change. Cells, previously dormant, rapidly grow into a system of branching ducts and gland cells capable of producing milk. Once this growth, change and maturing is complete, there is no further significant change the rest of her life. Once mature, the chance of the breast developing cancer is much less.

When these cells are changing and transitional, they are less stable and have much greater potential of becoming cancerous. If she completes her first pregnancy, this unstable period passes and her gland cells mature and stabilize. But — if she interrupts her pregnancy, in its early phase, and 90% of abortions are done in the first trimester, she in effect stops the development of the cells at this unstable, transitional phase. It seems apparent that cancerous changes can and do occur more frequently among these transitional cells of a woman who has terminated her pregnancy.

If she aborts more than once before completing a pregnancy, her chance for cancer increases even more. A subsequent full term pregnancy helps, but sadly never removes the sharply increased threat of cancer. In my opinion the facts speak for themselves. Abortion decreases public health and is a dangerous procedure. Other arguments for abortion stem from claims that abortion actually guards public safety by providing an outlet for young women who would have otherwise had a back alley abortion (Richardson, 57).

Advocates of this argument would most likely state that since the legalization of abortion an account of accurate records has been kept thus catering to health concerns. Other statements claim that since 1973 the number of women, percentage wise, who are using safer methods has increased (Richardson, 51). In my personal opinion these arguments simply state how legalized abortion has reduce the black market. It doesnt attempt to debate on the ethics of the matter, or doesnt mention the risk factor associated with abortion. Im sure military force monitoring our cities could reduce crime, yet is this a solution which server the best interest?

To argue that society is better off with legalized abortion because it reduces the black market isnt a very good solution. It is a decision that is poor, unethical, and most of all a tremendous health hazard. Another argument, which is often cited as a justification for abortion, is ones economic concerns. Many women who get pregnant but are poor are the first to get an abortion. It seems like that the struggles of modern life create an obstacle for those women in which a child becomes a burden (Saarni, 17). Is this what our society has come to? Is this the condition of our mothers?

It seems like more and more women are redirected towards abortion as a solution to their problems (Saarni, 19). Human life now comes with a price tag, it is no longer regarded as sacred but is seen as a disposable entity when the going gets tough. Society no longer values life and is willing to, or demanding that women, especially poor or black women control the number of babies they have or the government will control it for them (Saarni, 24). The critics take the other stance and claim that economics is one of the most important reasons we should keep legal abortions.

Legal abortions provides an avenue for underprivileged women who cannot support another child in this world (Saarni, 29). They claim that abortion is in the best interest for the mother, child and the taxpayers (Saarni, 29). They also claim that abortion services are an equalizer which maintain low birth rates amongst todays women (Saarni, 30). This means that women us abortion as a method of birth control, which enables them to remain independent, carry out a career, and live a free-spirited life.

I personally believe that economics isnt a good reason to abort a life. If one cant afford to bring a life into this world then take all necessary precautions to make sure you wont get pregnant. I dont think abortion is in the best interest of anyone but the selfish mother who has willingly destroyed the life of an unborn baby. Finally, its a shame if modern women feel that abortion is some sort of birth control. It is unfortunate that life isnt valued like it once was and that independence and financial gain gave become the new objectives in life.

It is perhaps this mentality to equate abortion with birth control and thus female liberation that is the most dangerous to traditional family values. What does this say about us as a society when we begin to murder our own and then claim that we are modern and civilized? In conclusion, abortion has many ominous consequences and show how the very moral fiber of our society is disintegrating. It is a moral crime, a crime to the unborn child, a crime to society as a whole and therefor should be outlawed.

Let’s examine the fetal development on a daily basis for the first 28 days of life – and then decide whether such an early abortion would be “harmless” or not.

Day 1: Fertilization: One little boy begins the first day of his life within his mother’s body. At this point, his father’s sperm and his mother’s egg combine to form a new human being who carries with him as much information as 50 sets of a 33-volume encyclopedia. This genetic information (DNA) will determine all of this little person’s physical characteristics and much of his intelligence and personality. (Moore 25, Davis 39, Sadler 3, Gasser 19, Arey 55, Patten 43, Rugh 2-7, Flanagan 41)

Day 2: Our little friend is now three cells big. His cells will continue to divide as he starts down his mother’s Fallopian tube towards her uterus (womb), where he will get the food and shelter he needs to grow and develop.

Day 6-7: Implantation into his mother’s uterus begins and all the while he continues to grow. As his cells multiply, they differentiate to perform specific functions-circulatory, muscular, neural and skeletal.

Day 14: Implantation is completed around this time and his mother misses her first menstrual period.

Day 20: His heart, brain, spinal column, and nervous system are almost complete and his eyes begin to form.

Day 22: His heart begins to beat.

Day 28: This little boy is now approximately 1/4 inch long – 10,000 times larger than he was only three weeks ago! The blood flowing in his veins is completely different than his mother’s.

Whoops!! The fetal development stops at this point because the expectant mother has elected to have an abortion after 28 days. Has a human life been destroyed?

Abortion actually terminates a human life. Physicians, biologists and scientists testified before Congress that human life begins at conception (fertilization). In Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, it states that “There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological and scientific writings.” Every abortion involves, either surgicallly or chemically, the destruction of a human zygote or a human fetus, and the subsequent removal of same from his mother’s womb. Therefore, every abortion ends a human life. (“US Congress”)

Abortion is killing of an unborn baby. It is a procedure that is performed during the early stages of pregnancy. In the past abortion used to be illegal, however it is now legal and is also a major controversy in our country today. On one hand are the Pro-Choice supporters mostly consisting of feminist, teen mothers, rape, and incest victims. On the other hand are the Pro-Life supporters, mostly consisting of Christians and Catholics. In spite of the many arguments in favor of abortion, the murder of unborn infants is wrong, immoral, and should be illegal.

Pro-Life supporters choose life over abortion because they believe that abortion is wrong and unjust, goes against the bible, is murdering a defenseless unborn baby, and because it does not show any respect for human life. There are many Pro-Life supporters that fight against abortion everyday so that, abortion can be illegal today. I believe that in spite of the many arguments in favor of abortion, the murder of unborn infants is wrong, immoral, and should be illegal.

Abortion is not only killing of a defenseless unborn baby, but it is also taking them from what they considered to be the safest place on earth their own mothers womb, and throwing them into a dumpster. There have been many cases of nurses who worked in abortion clinics, and had to quit because they became sick of what was going on inside. They tell of some babies being born whole including the head, and then being killed through methods of drowning, or by other horrific methods.

Many nurses watched in horror, as the babies flailed their little arms and legs fighting for their lives. However pro-choice supporters say that unborn babies are not humans, and consider abortion not to be murder. They consider it to be nothing more than a mere killing of an unborn fetus. When then is a baby considered human. It is proven that once conceived the baby is alive. Many babies are born from c-sections which is when the doctor has to take the baby out of the mothers stomach for premature birth. In recent studies it shows that unborn babies do feel pain.

Animals are given anesthetics when they are killed in late term, yet babies are not given any sort of pain killers, and have to suffer through excruciating pain when they are being torn apart. Considering the fact that God created us at conception, to kill a baby five seconds after it is born, is the same as killing a child at five years of age. The principle of violence is still the same in both cases. If the fetus is human, and murder is wrong as the law currently states, then it is a civil issue just like all other crimes.

Legislating morality would make it illegal to not practice a religion prohibiting abortion protects the rights of citizens just like every other law. Animals are given anesthetics when they are killed in late term, yet babies are not given any sort of pain killers, and have to suffer through excruciating pain when they are being torn apart. If someone were to destroy the Mona Lisa or some other creation by a famous artist, the world would be up in arms about it. How could they do such a thing? eryone would scream.

Where is their outrage, when a baby is butchered inside its mothers womb? Can there be any comparison between the most famous paintings in the world and Gods most magnificent creation human life? How did our values get so twisted?. To be anything other than Pro-Life is wrong, and shows no respect for life whatsoever. In many cases of abortions, feminists tend to say that it is their own body, and that they can do whatever they please with it. Yes, it is a true statement that it is their body.

It is also a true statement that women have the fascinating ability to conceive babies. The baby is a separate living human being from the mother. When they say abortion is between a woman and her doctor, they are leaving the central, significant person out. A woman should have the right to do whatever she pleases with her body but not with the baby she is carrying. The baby should be able to have a say in whether it would like to live or die. Due to the fact that the baby cant, we would automatically assume that he or she would rather live than to die.

Giving a woman the right to have an abortion is giving woman the right to have the power over life and death. It is immoral that only if the unborn baby is lucky, he or she will have a loving mother and will be given the gift of life; otherwise the baby will be killed in a horrible manner. All men were created equal. Woman should not have the right to think that they can kill an unborn baby. When a woman has an abortion she is basically laying down the life of her baby so that she can live as she wants, without the baby having any say in it.

It is ridiculous that a baby has to die, so that his or her mother can live, as they want. It is wonderful that feminist can fight for their rights, however they should be able to do it without hurting any other human being. I believe that a real feminist would not kill a baby. Being sexually active has its consequences; therefore if you are going to be irresponsible enough to have sex without considering the consequences, it is your fault not the babies. A baby should not have to die in order to make another persons life easier.

The baby has no fault in this case. In many rape incest cases, abortions are taken place. It is a shame that the victim had to be raped, or that the victim had to be in any part of an incest relationship, but the baby is not the one to be punished for the criminals acts. There are many options other than abortion such as adoption. When a baby is adopted, he or she is given a chance of life, but when abortions are taken place an innocent baby is given the life sentence of death for another persons crime.

In the Declaration of Independence it states, 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. The Declaration of Independence does not say all men are born equal, but that all men are created equal. When our forefathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, they wrote it carefully so that there would be no misinterpretation. Some people argue that changing laws will not eliminate abortions.

It is certainly true that a change of heart is more important than a change of law. What is forgotten, however, is that the law is the great teacher. Children grow up believing that if a practice is legal, it must be moral. We live in a society in which what was illegal and believed to be immoral is suddenly declared to be legal soon grow accustomed to the new law and take the new morality for granted (Opposing Viewpoints 96). Many Pro-Choice supporters choose abortion over life because they say some women just arent ready to be mothers.

Other reason for keeping abortions legal is for womens health concerns, and womens right. They believe that abortions help to strengthen womens rights, save women with health concerns associated with pregnancy, and help do away with babies conceived from rape or incest. Their future goal is to protect abortion so that it can remain legal, just as it is today. Abortion is a crisis that must be stopped now. We have turned what used to be homicide at criminal law into a fundamental right at constitutional law (Bender 124). Abortion is wrong, immoral, ludicrous, and a major controversy that must be stopped now.

To be a Pro-Choice supporter, means to have nothing on your side. They do not have the word God, love, compassion, science, or common decency in their vocabulary. They are truly on the side of deceit, misery and death. When you are Pro-Life you are given the love that enables us to lay down our lives for our children. However, in abortions, it is just the opposite. Therefore in spite of the many arguments in favor of abortion, the murder of unborn infants is wrong, immoral, and should be made illegal immediately before any more innocent children have to die.

Since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, about one out of three pregnancies end in abortion. This means that 1. 5 million abortions are performed in the United States each year (Flanders 3). Not since slavery has an issue posed a greater moral dilemma. It ranks among the most complex and controversial issues, arousing heated legal, political, and ethical debates. The modern debate over abortion is a conflict of competing moral ideas and of fundamental human rights: to life, to privacy, to control one’s own body.

Trying to come to some sort of a compromise has proven that you cannot please all of the people on each side of the debate. Many people describe the abortion debate in America as bitter and uncompromising, usually represented on both sides by people with an intense devotion to their cause and usually with irreconcilable positions. Many of those who are pro-choice insist that a woman’s right to abortion should never be restricted while those who are pro-life maintain that a fetus has an unequivocal right to life that is violated at any stage of its development if abortion is performed.

Discussions between both sides are usually argumentative, and sometimes violent, so any attempt at coming to a mutual agreement is drowned out. How can anyone hear if they refuse to acknowledge the other side except to shout at them? Since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion, proposed compromises on limiting or allowing abortion have taken two forms: those based on the reasons for abortion and those base on fetal development at different stages of pregnancy.

The first compromise would allow abortion for “hard” cases (rape, incest, or risk of the life or health of the pregnant woman), but not for the “soft” cases (financial hardship, inconvenience, possible birth defects, or failure of birth control). Compromises of the second type would allow abortions, but only until a given stage of pregnancy, which is usually much earlier than the medically accepted definition of viability (when the fetus can survive outside the womb) (Flanders 8).

Although compromises based on reasons for abortion have been incorporated in law (the Hyde Amendment, for example, restricts Medicaid funding for abortion to so-called hard cases), many people now focus on time-based restrictions. This idea is more realistic and practical than banning abortion all together since there would still be many women who would find a way to have the procedure done even if it became illegal or highly restricted. Agreeing to a time-based restriction could protect older fetuses and still safeguard the rights of most of the women seeking abortions, who are usually within 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Coming to an agreement as to when the fetus is viable is the next step to coming to a time-based restriction agreement. Medical science has advanced the ability of the fetus to survive outside the womb from about 28 weeks to about 23 to 24 weeks. Since the progression of medical technology is always changing, suggestions for compromise propose a cutoff date for elective abortions at eight to sixteen weeks, which is well before viability (Flanders 25).

One of the strictest proposals includes prohibiting abortions after approximately the eighth week when fetal brain waves can be detected. Some say that this is appropriate because this is the same way that doctors determine the end of a persons life. The counter-proposal to eight weeks was a less strict sixteen weeks since this would acknowledge that women would still have the right to make reproductive decisions and that they may need a reasonable period of time in which to acquire and think about relevant information for making a decision with which she feels comfortable.

Pro-choice people argue that this restriction would be less objectionable than the eight-week restriction since ninety percent of all abortions are performed within the twelfth week of pregnancy (Driefus 101). Millions of pro-choicers and pro-lifers believe that any such compromise would be impossible. From different ends of the argument, they criticize any proposal of time limits that would, according to one side, violate the rights of women or, according to the other side, violate the rights of fetuses.

They all agree that denying some fetuses life and some women liberty is hardly a solution to this very heated debate. Since abortion is going to remain a fact of our time, a compromise based on the time-based restriction should be resolved. While the abortion debate is continuing and compromises are still being argued over, a new method of abortion is about to become available in the U. S. Mifepristone (aka RU 486 or “the abortion pill”) is an abortion method and medical advance that has created yet another heated controversy in this debate.

The development of a safe and effective antiprogestin compound had been the goal of researchers in the field of reproductive biology for decades (Points 106). The ingenious work of French scientists led to the approval of RU 486 to be used as an alternative to surgical abortion in France in September of 1988. RU 486 is not a magic pill that allows a woman to have an easy or painless abortion. In fact, a RU 486 abortion, which can be done up to the forty-ninth day of pregnancy, requires three office visits over more than two weeks.

On the first visit, a physical exam, medical history and a possible vaginal ultrasound (to determine how far along the woman is in her pregnancy) is performed. Then she swallows three RU 486 pills to block the action of the hormone that makes the uterus receptive to an embryo. She waits half an hour (in case she vomits) and goes home. Two days later, her second visit, she is given a second drug, a prostaglandin, to trigger contractions that cause a miscarriage. She waits at the clinic or doctors office for several hours while the miscarriage occurs.

Between the two appointments, the woman may experience bleeding, cramping, nausea, and vomiting. A third visit is necessary to confirm that the abortion was complete (Points 106). The long- and short-term effects of using RU 486 are unknown. It would be impossible to compare the death rate from surgical abortions to that of present RU 486 figures because only 100,000 RU 486 abortions have been performed (Bender 145). One major difference is that the majority of RU 486 abortions were performed under strict trial conditions. Accidents are more likely to happen in less controlled general use.

A drawback to RU 486 becoming legalized in America for general use is that since 30 percent of fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted, large numbers of women may be unnecessarily exposed to the drug. Once approved, this drug should be administered only by physicians and under strict conditions to protect women from possible extreme reactions. RU 486 does not seem to make abortion painless, but it would make it more available. Research shows that doctors who do not perform surgical abortions today would offer the drug to their patients once it is legalized for use in America (Carlin 6).

Even if it is legalized, many women may still prefer to have a surgical abortion instead. Surgical abortion may be opted for over RU 486 since many women may be against using drugs with unknown long- and short-term effects. Surgical abortion requires less time spent at the hospital or clinic than that of a RU 486 abortion. In a surgical abortion, the doctor inserts a long tube into the uterus, which is used for suctioning the fertilized egg out of the womb. The woman will feel some cramping, but the pain should not be intense.

The doctor then checks for any excessive bleeding and instructs the patient to return for a checkup in two weeks to confirm that the abortion was successful. What kind of abortion to have is a personal, and often difficult, decision. Some women find that a chemical abortion is troubling because of the unknown long-term effects the chemicals may have on the body although, to date, no health problems have been associated with RU 486 (Alcorn 88). Some women prefer surgical abortion because it is more convenient for them since less time is required at each visit.

Other women would prefer RU 486 because they do not want surgical instruments put inside their uterus. With either procedure, fewer than one percent of women suffer serious complications. An advantage to taking RU 486 is that after taking it, a woman has two days to think about what she is doing. If she has decided that she has been too hasty in making her decision, she can choose not to go in for the prostaglandin that triggers the contractions which aborts the fetus. With surgical abortion, you do not have that chance. The cost of both procedures is about the same, around $250.

This may be a high cost to pay for poor women or for those who are not able to afford an abortion. Many poor women are having children, many of them illegitimate, simply because they are unable to afford an abortion. This social issue leads the abortion debate down another heated debate: should the government fund abortions for the poor? Charles Murray, an advocate for government funded abortions, wrote “Illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time–more important than crime, drugs, poverty, welfare or homelessness, because it drives everything else. Alcorn 125).

In 1978, an amendment banned the use of federal funds for poor women’s abortions. The number of federally funded abortions fell from 294,600 in 1977 to 165 in 1990 (financing permitted because the mothers’ lives were in danger) (Bender 96). Publicly financed abortions makes a lot of sense. For every tax dollar spent on abortions for poor women, the public saves at least four dollars in public medical and welfare expenditures in the first two years of the child’s life alone.

If abortion were fully funded in every state, the net savings for the nation as a whole in a two-year period would total between $435 million and $540 million–four to six times the $95 million to $125 million it would cost to publicly fund abortions for all medicaid-eligible women who want one (Bender 102). Pro-choice supporters are in favor of reinstating federally funded abortions, but staunch pro-lifers do not care about the costs inflicted upon themselves as long as the lives of unborn babies are saved. Saving unborn babies is the ultimate goal of many radical pro-lifers.

No matter what the consequences are, these people are willing to put their money and their freedom on the line for the chance to save innocent human beings. An example of such devotion to this cause is the slaying of Dr. David Gunn. On a sunny morning in Pensacola, Florida, Dr. Gunn was shot in the back and killed as he tried to enter Pensacola Medical Services. His murderer, Michael Griffin, cried, “Don’t kill any more babies,” as he fired (Bender 199). Michael Griffin was convicted of murder and sent to prison, losing his personal freedom for his beloved cause.

One anti-abortion demonstrator was quoted saying, We have found that the weak link is the doctors. Dr. Gunns murder reflects the violent oppositions that have occurred over abortion in this country. Instead of quiet civil disobedience, anti-abortion activists are trying to get America to listen to their side by shooting doctors, burning down clinics, bomb threats, vandalizing clinics, and assaulting patients. Not every patient who goes to these clinics are going in for an abortion. The main priority for many family planning clinics is to educate people about safe sex.

They provide services such as treatment for STDs and AIDS. They test women for cancers of the ovaries or cervix, provide PAP smears, pregnancy tests, safe contraception and a whole bunch of other family planning services at a lower price than what hospitals would charge. They also council people on such issues as unplanned pregnancy, how to be more responsible about their bodies, and how to be a more responsible parent. By harassing every patient that goes to these clinics, the demonstrators are hoping to put them out of business.

In the aftermath of Dr. Gunn’s slaying, some pro-choice groups are using this incident to link quiet protesters to violent protesters. Civil suits brought by abortion clinics and others asked and got large sums of money which virtually bankrupted groups such as Operation Rescue. In bankrupting these organizations, the anti-abortion groups are not helping their cause financially, but other effects of the violence are making a significant difference. The violence and harassment are having a profound effect on the staff and the patients of targeted facilities.

The surge of violence has also affected the staff and patients at facilities who have not been a direct victim of violence, but who perceive themselves as a potential “next target”. There are also larger social consequences, including reduced availability and access to abortion services and increased costs for abortions and contraceptive services where abortion is available. The staff of facilities that provide abortions learn to live with bricks thrown through their windows, threats toward them and their children, and many jeering picketers and blockaders surrounding their cars as they come to work.

The cumulative effect of years of violence has no doubt taken its toll, and some physicians have stopped performing abortions because of the risks involved (Rubin 53). There is no evidence that these tactics from anti-abortion activism have stopped women from having abortions, but they are making it harder for the women who seek one. Women have to be escorted into the clinics by staff members to shield them from the protesters who try to keep them from entering the clinics.

Nonetheless, the taunting remarks and the graphic pictures of aborted fetuses has caused untold stress and trauma. One can only assume that it is a hard enough decision to have an abortion without having protesters make you feel like you are committing murder. The violence and jeering protesters have created unnecessary health risks and the loss of personal integrity and privacy for hundreds of thousands of women. At least one positive thing has come out of all this turmoil: national polls have revealed a wave of public revulsion at the behavior of the extreme anti-abortion groups.

This revulsion must now be turned into a positive community action with all nonviolent and pro-choice citizens ensuring that their own communities, their own clinics, and their own physicians are not targeted for violence and intimidation. The purveyors of violence win only as long as people shake their heads, say “Isn’t that terrible? ” and keep on walking without a backward glance. Americans cannot accept violence as a solution to a social problem. Laws must be put into place that protect each side of the abortion debate, but how to come to such a compromise seems very far out of reach.

There is no easy solution to this provocative social dilemma. Coming to some sort of a compromise seems impossible. All ideas are rejected with some opposition. Even the invention of RU 486, which would flush out an embryo before it even has a chance to grow, is rejected on the grounds that it is still killing a human being, no matter that it is at its earliest stage in life. Since there are no compromises forthcoming thus far, it seems that as long as abortion is available, the scare tactics of pro-life activism will also continue. Legislation needs to be stricter against the violent protesting.

It is a strange concept that some radical anti-abortion activists think that killing an adult human being in order to save the lives of the unborn is acceptable. These people need to spend more time and effort with their own families instead of harassing doctors, staff members and patients at abortion clinics. With or without the violence and harassment, women will seek abortions. It is a hard enough decision to make. Lets not make it any more difficult for them to do what they believe is best under their circumstances. After extensive research on the subject of abortion, I find myself straddling both sides of the fence on this debate.

I do not agree with abortions that are later than 12 weeks but abortion should remain a safe and legal alternative. There are many women who are not ready to take on the challenges and responsibilities of raising children. To have millions of poor, homeless and unhappy children in the world to cope with lifes injustices would be far more heartbreaking than extracting an embryo from a uterus. Abortion is a very complex issue that should remain a personal decision. The bottom line is that each woman should make her own decision based on her own morals and beliefs.

Presently, one of the most complex and emotional dilemmas facing modern society is that of abortion. The complexity of this dilemma has caused controversy throughout the nation. It has raised many fundamental questions such as who has the right to make the decision to abort a child, the female or the male? It has also raised many moral questions, questions that differ among society. Societies’ view on abortion has been greatly influenced by factors beyond ones control. Dealing mainly with circumstances that a woman has little or no control over.

These circumstances are unfortunate and often lead to ones decision to have an abortion. The reasons as to why a woman may have an abortion varies from individual to individual. A woman may have an abortion with or without the consent of her partner. Ones religious beliefs may play a minor role in influencing the decision. The Roman Catholic Church feels strongly about abortion and prohibits it entirely. A woman between the ages of 16-25 may choose to have an abortion because of the lack of contraceptives and carelessness.

Whereas, a woman between the ages of 35-45 may have an abortion due to medical, social, or economic reasons. By definition, abortion is the termination of a pregnancy before the fetus is visible or capable of living outside the womb. It is also defined as the termination of a pregnancy before twenty-eight weeks. In modern society, abortion has become the number one birth control pill. Women who become pregnant often consider abortion as their first option. If they are not ready to take the responsibility of raising a child, they choose to have an abortion.

Today, women believe that if one becomes pregnant, an abortion is the answer. This is how abortion has become known as an effective birth control pill. In 1986, in Ontario alone, there were 172,286 planned abortions. 147,619 were performed on resident women, the remaining 24,667 were carried out on non-resident women. A great percentage of these abortions were carried out because of the lack of contraceptives and carelessness. The abortions were performed to rid the women of unwanted pregnancies. (Charlish 5) The circumstances surrounding the unwanted pregnancy plays a key factor in the decision of having an abortion.

If a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest, she will most probably have the child aborted. The woman will not want a constant reminder of how the child was conceived. This reminder is too painful. In such cases, the woman often takes into consideration the child’s feelings. The child will eventually learn of its conception and may blame itself for his/her mother’s grief. In the case of incest, a woman will take into account that the child will be born with a birth defect or severe disability caused by the mating of a blood relative.

Seventy-six per cent of all women who have abortions do so because they feel that the child will change the woman’s life considerably and they are not ready for such a change. This often applies to a single woman. If this woman is still in school, having the baby will result in dropping out of school and not finishing her education. Having the child will also result in a loss of a social life. The woman could no longer enjoy her independence, but must assume the responsibility of a child who is dependent on her for love and security.

Sixty-eight per cent of women decide to have an abortion because they are unable to afford the expenses of having a child. “These women are often found living below the poverty line. They cannot afford to support themselves, let alone support a newborn. ” (Judges 131) These women are not the only ones with the inability to afford a child. Many women with careers cannot afford to pay for the expenses needed to raise a child. Thirty-one per cent of women are not ready for the responsibility of parenthood. They may not be mature or old enough to accept the responsibility of caring for a newborn.

Thirty-one per cent of all women may choose to have an abortion because they do not want others to know that they are pregnant and that they are sexually active. This reason most often applies to teenagers who know that this news would be upsetting their parents or to those teens who are afraid that they will be judged by others. This particular group believes that abortion would solve all their problems. Women between the ages of 35-45 most often have abortions only when they feel that the fetus, her family or the woman herself is at risk.

If a woman has a disease, such as A. I. D. S, she will abort the child because the disease could be transmitted to the fetus and prove harmful to the child. If a doctor has grounds to believe that a woman may become mentally ill because of the pregnancy, he/she can recommend an abortion. Many woman take into consideration that a newborn child may be harmful to an existing child in the family who requires a lot of attention because of a handicap or disability. The newborn child will acquire plenty of attention, and the parents will therefore be unable to focus all of their attention on the disabled child.

These women also take abortion into consideration when severe physical or mental handicap is detected in the fetus. Many women feel that they cannot cope with a child who has a disability. They may fear that their relationship would not take the strain of having a handicapped child in the family and that it would be unfair on existing children. Most women requesting an abortion fall into two main categories. These two categories are teenagers and women over forty. In the case of older women, requests for late abortions are often the consequence of worrying whether or not the child will be normal.

In the case of teenagers, it is very often because they are afraid of seeking help. (Charlish 21) Teens are more likely than any other group of women to delay asking for help because they are frightened and guilty or because they deny being pregnant. They may not know who to ask. Teenagers do not tell their parents and they are afraid that if they seek the advice of a doctor, he/she will inform their parents. There are various reasons for the high rate of pregnancy in teens. Teenagers may lack easy access to contraceptives and therefore have sexual intercourse without any means of protection.

They may lack knowledge about contraceptives and instead of seeking advice, ignore the issue completely. Teenagers often rely on the withdrawal method, disregarding the fact that a male often pre-ejaculates without acknowledging it. They often refuse to believe that they will become pregnant. They fail to remember that as long as a woman is menstruating, one can become pregnant. Lastly, teenagers often become pregnant because they desire a child without considering the time and devotion that is needed. Women under the age of twenty are at their peak of fertility.

This age group therefore account for more than half of those having abortions when the fetus is capable movement and sensation. Out of 1000 girls who fall under this age group, approximately 200 get pregnant. Only 40 are married at the time of conception, of the remaining 160, 90 go ahead and have the baby, 70 have abortions. Out of the 90 girls that have the baby, 37 bow to the pressure to get married, and 53 look after the baby themselves. (Charlish 21) Legally, if a teenager is mature enough to make a decision, she does not need parental consent.

If one parent (being the mother) agrees that her daughter should have an abortion and the father disagrees, the father cannot tell his daughter to have an abortion. He has no legal right to do so. The fact that a father has no legal right to help his daughter decide whether or not she should have an abortion has caused a great deal of controversy concerning the males rights in deciding whether or not his wife/girlfriend should be allowed to abort his child without his consent. This led to a review of the legal system and a decision that a man has no legal rights over the fetus.

He cannot prevent his partner from seeking an abortion. The question of a man’s influence in the decision of abortion was dealt with in the case of Barbara Dodd, a twenty-two year old woman who had to go to court to win the right to have an abortion. Dodd had her abortion after the Ontario Supreme Court threw out an injunction against it obtained by her lover, Gregory Murphy. A man can neither stop an abortion from occurring nor can he induce a woman to have an abortion if she does not wish to. The Constitution ensures that the man is not given the power to decide to have the woman destroy the fetus or carry it to term.

It is believed that “any man’s right to control the destiny of his sperm genetic material necessarily ends when his sperm fertilizes an ovum. ” (Tribe 224) The majority of society, both male and female disagree with such a statement and men are continuing to fight for their legal rights in the decision of abortion. The Roman Catholic Church plays a key role in its view of abortion. The Catholic Church opposes abortion completely. The Church also opposes pre-marital sex and the use of contraceptives.

It is believed that man-kind can not play the role of the creator by using contraceptives to prevent pro-creation and by having abortions to put an end to reproduction. It is believed that human life begins at the moment of conception. The Roman Catholic Church believes that the fetus develops the sense of hearing upon conception. It has human-like qualities and is dependent on its mother for basic survival. The Roman Catholic Church therefore believes that to abort a delicate, fragile being that cannot survive without the interference of its mother is murder.

Today, abortion is known as a ten minute procedure to rid one of the burden of an unwanted child. Many have failed to realize that the child is an innocent being, with human-like sensations. Rather, abortion has become recognized as a birth control pill. Although many women choose to have an abortion because of circumstances they cannot control, many women have an abortion because they are not ready to accept the responsibility of raising a child. Deciding who has the legal right to make a decision pertaining to the child will take many years of conflict to resolve.

There was a constant debate about the approval ratings for President Bill Clinton in the midst of the sex scandal. At times the ratings were higher than even before news of the scandal broke. Everyone agreed that the high ratings were linked to the strong economy. Herein lies the truth. After all, Americas strong economy wasn’t built on presidential scandals, but on abortion. The greatest economic fear right is the possibility of ending abortion, and the champions of abortion happen to be President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party One should recall that the economy of the pre-Civil War South was built on the backs of slaves.

They feared abolition, even to the point of going to war, because their whole economy would collapse without slavery. They certainly would not be able to keep the same standard of living. Today we have a similar situation. The present economy has been built on the backs of dead babies and those who support abortion fear that its abolition will mean that they will not be able to keep the same standard of living that they have grown accustomed to. Is it fair for me to make this dramatic claim?

Consider the following and decide for yourself. Imagine a family with two children, one in 7th grade and one in 10th. Mom and Dad both work, he earns 60% of their income and she earns 40 %. Mom becomes pregnant. The first issue is whether she can or will continue to work after the baby is born. If she quits, this means a 40 % cut in income right off the top. Even if she can continue to work, now there are five people to support instead of four; three to send to college instead of two; and a child living at home for eighteen more years instead of five.

Now consider the nation as a whole. In the last 25 years we have killed one-third of all babies before they were born. Without abortion, whatever resources and income we have as a nation would have to be spread around over 35 million more citizens not to mention the babies the 16- to 25-year-old women would have had by now. Think of the added cost for the programs being touted now by the president in education, day care, health care, energy usage, etc. Plug in these extra dependents over the years and add to it a slower economy and you get even less tax dollars in government hands.

Can you really deny that legal abortion has played a major role in the present standard of living in the US, both for in families that have killed a child or two and for all of us as a whole? What of my claim that there is a fear today of the possible demise of legalized abortion? The people in the South knew that there was trouble coming when states in the North abolished slavery. It was just a matter of time if one part of the nation ended slavery that it would be ended throughout the country.

In other words, once the humanity and rights of Negroes were recognized in one part of the country they would eventually be recognized for the whole country. That’s why the South fought a war of secession. They needed their own nation that was completely slave oriented. The same thing is happening today with abortion. The country has been on the verge of ending one type of abortion, partial-birth abortion. In fact, Congress has twice passed bills to criminalize this procedure. Only the president’s veto and the Democratic minority in the Senate have kept this from becoming law.

Pro- abortion people have rightly understood that such a law would mark the beginning of the end of legalized abortion in this country. In other words, once the humanity and rights of unborn babies are recognized during birth, it is just a matter of time before they are recognized before birth. Jan. 22 marked the 25th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in our country. With the media circus over the presidential sex scandals the rallies, marches, and prayer vigils that week in January went almost completely unreported.

The subsequent touting of the strong economy as a reason to overlook the personal scandals of our president has in fact unmasked the true motivation behind the real scandal in this country: legal abortion. How much longer will we as a people be able to accept the fact that our high standard of living in the United States today is not due only to the many valiant soldiers who have died in our many wars and the great genius and industry of a hard working people, but also is due to the 35 million babies we have sacrificed to the god of money these past 25 years? May the true God in heaven have mercy on us all.

There comes a time in the lives of most women when an ovum, fertilized with sperm, will implant itself into her uterine wall. This is nature’s first step in its attempt to continue the human race. Currently, when this implantation occurs, the impregnated woman has the right to allow the embryo to nourish itself into existence or to eliminate all chances of that embryo attaining life through abortion. Every species of plant and animal on earth reproduce in one way or another. How could something as ancient and fundamental as reproduction turn into one of the most hotly contested moral debates in history?

The question can only be answered if we first examine the intellectual psyche of the human animal. Since we are currently the most intelligent beings on earth, we use our critical thinking capabilities to selectively choose what should be morally acceptable and what should be deemed unacceptable. To the best of our knowledge, we as humans are the only species in existence that wrestle with moral dilemmas. Absolute morality that will be agreed upon by the majority of a society is extremely difficult to determine since each individual has the ability to decide for themselves what is morally acceptable.

It is because of this decision that our American culture intensely debates issues of morality such as abortion. The debate over abortion pits the rights to life of an unborn fetus against the rights of rational women who want to control what happens to their own body. Does the termination of a pregnancy deprive a human of their right to life? Should our government be allowed the power to regulate what a woman can and cannot do with her own body? These are two of the questions which will be deliberated over throughout the course of this paper.

In his article “Abortion and Infanticide”, Michael Tooley tackles wo important questions about abortion. The first is “what properties must someone have in order to be considered a person, i. e. , to have a serious right to life? ” Tooley answers that anything which completely lacks consciousness, like ordinary machines, cannot have rights. If a being does not desire something such as consciousness, it is impossible to deprive that being of his right to it. In other words, Tooley argues that since a fetus does not show outward desires to have life, it is morally permissible to abort that fetus.

There are three exceptions to this rule that need to be clarified. First, if the being is in a temporary emotionally unbalanced state, such as a deep depression, he should still be allowed rights to life. Secondly, if the being is unconscious due to sleep or some sort of trauma, he should not be deprived of his rights to life. Finally, if the person has been brainwashed by a religious cult or any similar institution into wanting death, he should still be given a right to life.

The second question addressed by Tooley is “at what point in the development of a member of the species Homo Sapiens does the organism possess the properties that make it a person? The law in America currently implies that the fetus possesses the properties that make it a person when it reaches the third trimester or the sixth month of its germination inside the uterus. Is this a reasonable assessment of when a fetus has a right to life? Tooley says “No”. An organism does not have a right to life unless it possesses the concept of a self as a continuous being of mental states.

This definition of possessing a right to life can be applied to newborn babies that do not yet have a concept of a self as a continuous being. Therefore, it is morally acceptable to deprive them of their right to life, or they don’t show desire for life. According to Tooley, the fetus does not have a right to life at any time therefore, the mother of that fetus should have the right to terminate her pregnancy as she so chooses. Tooley implies that until the fetus reaches the age of about three weeks outside the uterus, it does not show signs of wanting life.

Only when the child shows signs of desiring life should the child be given a right to life. These arguments are controversial to say the least. However, they contain a rational opinion of when an organism should be given a right to life. Mary Anne Warren also examines the morality of abortion in her article titled “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”. She attempts to address the question “how are we to define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights, such that we can decide whether a human fetus is a member of this community or not? To accomplish this definition, Warren lists five major criteria she believes are most central to the concept of personhood.

They are: 1. consciousness so that the being is capable of feeling pain 2. reasoning in order to solve relatively complex problems 3. elf-motivated activity independent of genetic or external control 4. the capacity to communicate 5. the presence of self-awareness These criteria could be used to decide whether or not an alien person from another realm of existence should be considered a person, and therefore given human rights.

However, a being does not need to hold all five of these attributes in order to be considered a human being. Warren says possessing only criterion (1) and (2) would be sufficient for personhood. If these criteria are acceptable requirements for a being to be considered human, then a fetus is definitely ot human since it possesses none of these characteristics. Warren says the one exception to an entity being given human status even though they do not meet the above five criterion is someone whose “consciousness has been obliterated”, through trauma, stroke, etc… Warren classifies such a being as a defective human, not a person.

These people may gain consciousness again so their right to life should not be taken away. Richard Werner argues for the fetuses right to life in his article titled “Abortion: The Ontological and Moral Status of the Unborn”. He uses he continuum argument that states “if you and I are human beings, then there is every reason to believe and no good reason to deny that the unborn are also human beings. ” Werner believes that one is a human being from the moment of conception onward and that all previously proposed cut-off points for determining when one is a human are unacceptable.

Werner says these “cut-off” points are unacceptable because there is no clear line that can be drawn in the human’s development from conception to adulthood that can be used to ‘say a being does not have a right to life before that point. ‘ According to Werner, since there is this hazy period in the embryological development of a fetus where it gradually becomes a human, the fetus should be considered a human from the moment of conception onward. Since the fetus will eventually reach humanhood if it is allowed sufficient time to develop, it should not be denied its opportunity for life.

To strengthen his position, Werner uses the comparison of an acorn to a fetus. He states that “admittedly an acorn is not an oak, nor is an ovum or sperm cell a human, but an acorn germinating in the soil is indeed an oak and so is the impregnated ovum a human. He uses this comparison to illustrate when he believes life begins, both for an oak tree and a human being. After the sperm and egg unite, a human is formed, just as an oak tree is formed as soon as the acorn begins to germinate. This analogy poses a difficult problem for the intelligent critic.

The acorn did not require any thought or planning to fall onto the ground and begin germination. Ideally (not always), when a woman has unprotected intercourse, she is aware that she may be planting a seed in her uterus which might turn into a fetus. The woman has the choice to not get pregnant through abstinence hereas the acorn lacks all abilities to make a decision about whether or not to germinate. Because of this fact, the woman should be held responsible for her actions, nor should she be compared to an acorn.

In the essay titled “A Defense of Abortion”, Judith Jarvis Thomson uses her violinist argument to show why abortion should be legal. The argument follows: you wake up one morning and find yourself hooked up intravenously to a famous violinist who is unconscious. You discover the violinist has a fatal kidney ailment and your blood type and kidneys alone are the only things that can save his life. If you choose to unplug yourself from the violinist, he will most certainly die. You were connected to this person against your will and had you known this was going to happen, you would have never given consent.

If you choose to stay hooked to the violinist, he will recover form his ailment in nine months and then go on to live a healthy and productive life. The question of “does this person’s right to life supersede your right to decide what happens to your own body” comes into play at this point. Thomson equates choosing to unattach yourself from the violinist to deciding to have an abortion. She then goes on to state that your actions would most certainly be justified if you chose to disconnect yourself.

According to Thomson, regardless of the fact that the violinist will die if you unplug yourself, your right to decide what happens to your own body outweighs his rights to life. There are a few problems that arise when Thomson’s argument is closely examined. First of all, the fetus is never older than its mother whereas the violinist may be. The “right to life abortionists” focus on the premise that you are taking the life of a child who has its whole life ahead of it. The violinist may have already lived a fulfilling life.

Secondly, the woman was involuntarily hooked to the violinist whereas (in this example) a pregnant woman generally gets pregnant because she chooses to do so. The pregnant woman does not directly give the fetus permission to implant itself in her uterine wall however, she does give it the means necessary to attach itself. If this premise is followed, the pregnant woman chose to impregnate herself, voluntarily. There are exceptions to this premise such as, rape or molestation, which may result in pregnancy that require special attention.

However, for the sake of brevity, the ideal case where the woman chooses to have intercourse in order to give a fetus the necessary means to implant itself will be followed for this argument. Finally, the violinist is not the woman’s child whereas the fetus is. A woman has no biological ties to the famous violinist. Half of her fetuses genetic makeup comes from her chromosomes. This biological link can be a strong bond for the mother to her fetus. The woman connected to the violinist has no personal ties to this person therefore, she may feel no obligation to sacrifice part of her own life in order to save a strangers.

When the issue of contraceptives is brought up, a whole new argument arises. For instance, most devout anti-abortionists agree that the use of the birth control pill is an acceptable form of contraception. These people are ignorant hypocrites. They are either unaware of the fact that the pill works by not allowing the fertilized egg to implant into the uterine wall or else they just choose to ignore it. Therefore, every time a woman has intercourse while she is on the pill, there is a chance she may be causing the death of a ‘child”.

If the right-winged anti-abortionists ere educated in the physiology of the birth control pill, they would have to declare its use immoral. The I. U. D. is a birth control method comparable to the pill. It is a small, Y-shaped piece of plastic that is inserted into the uterus. Whenever a fertilized egg attempts to attach itself to the nutrient-rich uterine wall, the harsh plastic of the I. U. D. scrapes it off. This method also ends a potential life but you don’t hear the anti-abortion extremists protesting its use. Woman who use the I. U. D. , could be convicted of mass murder if the Supreme Court were to outlaw bortion.

If “right-to-lifers are to be consistent in their beliefs, people who strongly believe in a fetuses right to life should only use birth control methods which do not allow implantation of the embryo. The include the male/female condom, diaphragm with foam, the rhythm method, or abstinence. These types of child prevention are not supposed to allow sperm and egg to unite. Other forms of birth control actually end the germination process of an embryo which should be labeled morally unacceptable by anti-abortionists if they are not to be declared hypocrites.

A justification for the woman’s right to have an abortion comes from the potentiality argument. The argument goes: “Jon once was a fetus. Now Jon is a human. It does not follow from this that Jon is now a fetus. ” Jon will never again be a fetus therefore, human rights given to Jon should not be given to the fetus simply because Jon was once a fetus and is now a human. If fetuses were to be given human rights simply because they will one day be a human then we as logical beings would have to alter our entire way of thinking. We could never drop a piece of fabric, for it may one day e sewn into an American flag.

We must not scratch a piece of metal, for it may one day be the fender of a Rolls Royce. The list could go on and on and as it did, it would get more and more ridiculous. The fact that the fetus will one day be a human should not be given consideration when debating abortion because of the potentiality argument. Abortion is an issue that the majority of Americans have a definite opinion about. It can usually be broken down into religious groups. Those who believe strongly in “the word of God” are the ones who admonish abortion and all who practice it.

Some of these extremists would deny a woman the chance for an abortion even in the case where she has been impregnated because of a rape or incest. They site one of the Ten Commandments which states “Thou shalt not kill” as their guiding light. This is ironic since these very people have been known to murder Doctors who perform abortions. Most anti-abortionists are not so drastic. They would allow abortions to be legal under certain circumstances such as pregnancies that occurred because of rape, molestation, or incest. Are these moderates being hypocritical by taking this view?

Regardless of who he father is or how the mother got pregnant, half the genetic make-up of the child still belongs to her. If you are going to take an anti-abortion stance, you should not allow these victimized women to have an abortion. On the other hand, people who support the woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion are typically liberals who don’t affiliate strongly with any one religion. They generally don’t deny that a potential human is being destroyed when an abortion takes place. However, they believe the life and desires of the already living woman outweigh any rights the fetus may have.

Since I am an Epicureanist, I believe each woman should be given the means by which they can get a safe, legal abortion if they so choose. Whatever promotes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of already living woman should be promoted by the government. The State should not place restrictions on the woman’s right to govern what she does with her own body. Women who are desperate enough to seek out an abortion are not going to abandon the idea simply because the government has declared it illegal. They will search out back alley abortions which would be unsanitary, dangerous, and possibly lethal.

The health of women cannot be put in jeopardy simply because a few bureaucrats have a moral dilemma with abortion. Because having an abortion is legal, does not mean anyone is forced into aborting their fetus. If you choose to carry your child to term, more power to you. However, don’t enforce your morality onto others. Allow people the right to be individuals and establish their own morality. If the government were to step in and attempt to regulate morality in this case, it could create an avalanche of laws concerning moral issues. This country is based on the premise of freedom, let’s keep it that way.

The topic of Abortion is one of the most controversial of our times. It has caused countless deaths and several violent confrontations between the two separate parties of opinion. The fight between pro-life and pro-choice supporters has been long and brutal. This is because, despite what several people may believe, abortion is neither right nor wrong. It is a matter of personal opinion and it varies from person to person. In this way, each side can say with certainty that the other side is wrong. Therefore, the question remains; should abortion be legal?

Though some may disagree on this point, the fact that legalizing abortion is the only option that will protect the lives of American citizens. This is all because of the difference in opinion of the pro-life and pro-choice activists. Pro-life activists carry a very strong argument, and continue to push their beliefs. They feel so strongly about these beliefs that violence has broken out in some known instances. They present an argument that from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive.

This life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it and that abortion is tantamount to murder (Kolner 5). Pro-choice activists on the other hand, also carry very strong points. They believe that the child inside the women is her own property and the state has no right to interfere. In 1973, the United States Supreme Court decided that as long as the baby lived inside the womb, he or she would be the property of the mother, because of this decision almost every third baby conceived in America is killed by abortion, over one half million babies a year (Willke 7).

Abortion is the choice of a woman whether or not she wants to receive one. Under the 14th Amendments personal liberty women are given the right to receive an abortion. The 14th Amendments concept of personal liberty and restrictions on state action is enough to allow a womans decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The right to choose to have an abortion is so personal and essential to a womans life that without this right a woman cannot exercise other fundamental rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution (Paltrow 72).

The state cannot interfere in the private lives of a citizen. Without the right to choose an abortion the 14th Amendments guarantee of liberty has little meaning for women. With the right to choose abortion, women are able to enjoy, like men, the rights to fully use the powers of their minds and bodies (Paltrow 73). Abortion has been around since a lot of years in every inhabited corner of the globe. It has always been accepted as a means to prevent the suffering of both woman and potential child.

It has been practiced widely in every society for many reasons including famine, war, poverty, overpopulation, or simply because a woman felt she was not ready for a child (Whitney 40). No one ever questioned a womans right to this procedure till the 1800s. During this era of change people began to turn their attention in a new direction, the fetus. They began to protest abortion as cruel, inhumane, and murderous. Abortionists who were once revered and depended upon were scorned and threatened.

Though abortions still happened with regularity, they were kept silent and seen as a matter of shame. Over the next hundred years, public sentiment for fetus continued to rise until the inevitable happened in America during the early 40s; Abortion was made illegal. (Cohen 17). The pro-life supporters had succeeded in saving the lives of innocent babies who would have been slaughtered for the convenience of selfish, ignorant and irresponsible women. This new law had made women actually settle down and raise families or give birth to beautiful children.

We all know that, it has been proven time to time throughout history that the human spirit will not allow prohibition. Something inside us feels the need to strike out at that, which restrains us and holds us from the life we want. Just as prohibition of alcohol made a black market for liquor. Government, through regulation, had once again created a need that would be fulfilled by the lawless. Most doctors refused to treat the women who so desperately wanted abortions. Women, seeing no other solution to their problems, were often desperate enough to turn to these Back Room clinics.

These clinics were located in poverty-ridden sections of the city and their conditions were really bad. The places themselves were layered with filth and disease. Inexperienced and so-called doctors and nurses treated the desperate girls with crude equipment, and some times because of these inexperienced surgeons, many girls died at the time of these illegal surgeries. When the girls could not afford to pay for these illegal and high priced surgeries, some of them chose to perform the act themselves.

Knitting needles, coat hangers, antiseptic douches and poisons were used most often. (Welton 123). Emergency rooms primarily in more urban areas were reporting higher numbers of intractable bleeding to the point of death. Pelvic inflammatory disease and other forms of life threatening diseases were on the rise. Self induced poisoning was another complication. (Boyer 98). One thing that most people do not think about is fetus. Abortion is defined as The induced termination of a pregnancy before it is capable of survival as an individual (Frohock 186).

Considering this definition, at the time of abortions, the fetus is not an individual. One needs to take into consideration the developmental stages of the fetal life span. Most abortions occur soon after the confirmation of pregnancy, (usually prior to 12 weeks gestation). The first twelve weeks is known as the first trimester or the embryonic phase. At this time the fetus is about 3-3. 5 inches long having a weight of 15-20 grams. The neurological system is primitive at best, demonstrating only vague swimming motions. (Rosenblatt 37).

The second trimester heralds at a time of rapid growth. At about 20 weeks the mother usually first perceives fetal movement. After 24 weeks, the brain resembles that of a mature person. The fetal weight is about 650 grams. (Rosenblatt 39). The third trimester is from 24 weeks to birth (approximately 40 weeks). At 26th week, the nervous system begins to regulate some body processes. (40). It is only logical that the more complex the neurological system, the more likely one is to induce pain or end a sense of self if in fact that sense exists prior to birth. (Frohock 28).

The people, who ask questions about the killing of fetus, I personally would like to ask a question from them, that what would they do if they come to know about their daughters or sisters getting pregnant and also at an underage? Would they still like to just ask questions about fetus and the life of fetus? , I guess not. I would also like to question the people who talk about women having, the right of abortion, that what would they do if their sister or daughter was pregnant at an underage and her so called boyfriend had suddenly disappeared from the scene or was not willing to give his name to the child for some reason.

Would they let their sister or daughter to keep the baby or force her to get an abortion, thinking of what would people in the society say? I agree with some people who talk about orphans and that some women who do give birth to a baby and later are unable to raise it, they surrender the babies to the orphan homes. I would also want to ask those women a question about their foolishness that why would they give birth to a child at the first place? , and if they did they should try to give it for adoption in their family or take care of it.

If they cannot for a reason that they are underage and their so-called boyfriends are not willing to give their name to the child, then according to me the reason is justified. On the other hand, if they are just abandoning the child because they just think it would be really tough for them to raise a child. Besides they have to enjoy their life, partying all nights, getting drunk, and not caring about the little life they gave birth to, then I think those women are not only wrong but also a disgrace to the humanity.

These women should think about the fact that there are a lot of families just wanting to have a child but are not able to for some reason and they are just waiting for it with open arms. The people who dont have a child, can only explain, how hard life is for them? In India, people are very religious, as per what Ive seen, being born there. The couples who are not able to conceive try almost everything to have a baby and when theyve tried all the medical procedures they can, but are unable to have a baby.

They start paying visits to all the holy places they can to pray to god to bless them with the opportunity to have a child. When they get tired of all the prayers, some of them choose to go for adoption and some of them who are afraid of the society, ruin their life caring about what the society would say and prevent themselves from leading a happy life. The conflicting views of the pro-life activists and the pro-choice activists have led to many deaths and injuries on both sides from riots, bombings, and fights.

Some of my colleagues at work have seen these fights when they were in San Diego, but they didnt wanted to talk about it, all they told me about it was it was one of the worst experiences of their life. They, also said, that these two groups will never join in their ways of thinking. According to me, if both the groups could just stop the finger pointing and name-calling, and just listen to what group has to say, they might find that both sides have some points. Only then we can stop the hatred and violence that has done so much wrong to America in the last few decades.

In conclusion, my research leads me to believe that, while abortion must be legal, a woman should also be provided with all the correct information she needs to make a responsible and rational decision. I believe that this is the only solution we can have which can conclude this war between the two groups once and for all. Most of the negativity regarding the issue of abortion comes from the people who try to hide behind the curtain of religion and try to impose their own beliefs on others that the right to the life of the fetus supercedes everything else. Unfortunately, this will always be there.

Abortion must be a legal and attainable procedure for women throughout the United States. Abortion is a subject which easily fits into the themes of CORE 1. Abortion pertains to many issues which are involved in CORE 1. CORE 1 analyzes civil rights as well as equal treatment for women in America. Abortion challenges the civil rights of the mother and the fetus which she bears. To deny abortion is denying the mother certain civil rights, but if the fetus is considered a person, then the rights of the fetus are being denied by allowing abortion to be legal.

Abortion has been an element of human life for centuries. It dates back to BC times. Ancient abortions usually consisted of mildly poisoning a pregnant mother. The poison was hoped to be just strong enough to kill the fetus, yet mild enough to keep the woman alive. Also, sometimes women would receive physical blows to their abdomen an effort to kill the fetus. Since both of these methods were very dangerous for women, infanticide was a much more popular form of abortion. Infanticide is grossly just the killing of the baby directly after birth (3 Gilbert).

J. Gilbert, the author of an informative Texas state web-page, states that some time after 1750, a new procedure was introduced to abortion. The new procedure consisted of probing objects through the cervix and into the uterus of the women to accomplish the abortion (4 Gilbert). Laurence Tribe, author of Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes, states that the court case Roe v. Wade revolutionized the legality of abortion. The case set boundaries and regulations illustrating how much power the mother and state possess in deciding whether to abort a pregnancy (12 Tribe).

During the past twenty-five years abortion has become one of the most debated controversies in the Unite States’ history. The issues surrounding abortion strike questions based on ethics, morals, emotions, and law. There are many alternative perspectives from which people can approach the legality and morality of abortion. But basically there are pro-life people and pro-choice people. People who are pro-choice believe that women hold the right to abort a pregnancy, but people who are pro-life believe that abortion is wrong and unjust to the fetus. When pondering issues surrounding abortion, many questions come to mind.

Is a fetus a human being? Is abortion physically and mentally safe for women? And finally, should abortion be legal? It is only after exploring these questions can a person justify their position on abortion. A major question which strikes at the heart of abortion legality and morality is: When is an embryo considered a life or human being? Many people argue that life begins at the point of conception. Bonnie Steinbock, an author who considers herself an expert on fetuses and their legal rights, says, Conception is the joining of the male and female sex cells which have twenty-three chromosomes each.

The process of conception takes twelve hours, at which time the egg is completely fertilized and becomes known as a zygote. Distinct and unique characteristics of a person are determined at the time of conception. After the time of conception, until death, nothing will be added or removed from the genetic make-up of an individual (200 Steinbock). In other words, everything physically and chemically is determined shortly after the point of conception. Being alive means that an object grows, develops, and matures. A zygote, from the time of conception grows, develops parts of its body, and replaces its own dying cells.

The heart of the zygote begins beating just eighteen days after conception (198 Steinbock). This is often well before the mother even realizes that she is pregnant. After three months, all of the fetus’s organs are formed and all of the bodily systems are working. The fetus can swim, grasp a pointer, move freely in the womb, and excrete urine. If a doctor injects a sweet solution into the fluid surrounding the fetus, the fetus will swallow it because it likes the taste. If a bitter solution is injected, the fetus will realize the taste and quit swallowing (196 Steinbock).

The previous examples are evidence enough that life begins at conception, or at the time the fetus’s heart begins to beat. Others believe that the life of the fetus is just merely the life of the woman until the fetus is born. Those people who believe that life does not start until birth believe that, without the life-style and habits of the mother, the fetus would not survive. In 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled over a case called Roe v. Wade. This case described the legality of a fetus and the conditions which apply to the mothers rights as well.

The ruling stated that the fetus is merely a living appendage of the mother until the completion of the second trimester. But once the third trimester begins, the fetus gains civil rights which guarantee life, liberty, and property. A woman can only abort a fetus in the third trimester if it poses a direct threat to the health and well being of the woman (189 Tribe). In conclusion, the Roe v. Wade case developed the needed boundaries to determine the legal rights of the mother and fetus. Is abortion physically and mentally safe for the mother? Do the advantages of abortion outweigh the disadvantages?

Ft. John L. Grady, medical examiner for the Florida State Attorney’s office, says, I believe it can be stated with certainty that abortion causes more deep-seated guilt, depression, and mental illness then it ever cures (38 Novak). Grady is drawing upon his years of experience as a medical examiner and concludes that when a woman aborts a fetus, she is causing more pain and problems mentally and socially than if she bears the child. This mental anguish and guilt may be only half of the problem women face though. Women who receive abortions also may have physical problems as well.

Women who have an abortion in the third trimester are at a greater risk of becoming sterile than women who bear their child (157 Steinbock). Women realize these consequences, but they still believe that an abortion’s advantages outweigh its disadvantages. These women may face years of depression, guilt, and physical damage, but they still freely choose to abort their pregnancy. Should abortion be legal? According to the Supreme Court’s ruling in 1973 on the Roe v. Wade case, abortion must be legal (82 Tribe). If the fetus is considered an appendage to the woman who bears it, the fourteenth amendment must hold true for women.

Thus, women are given the right to receive an abortion (82 Tribe). The amendment states that, No person or state may deprive a person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law (475 US Constitution). This states that the woman cannot be denied an abortion because it would violate her life and property. The state cannot interfere with the private lives of US citizens (475 US Constitution). Denying women the right to choose an abortion, is denying rights and is discriminating against women. There are many reasons for which women desire to have an abortion.

Contraceptives sometimes fail. Women are periodically raped and impregnated by corrupt and deranged men. Demented fathers may also rape their daughters which is called incest. For these reasons alone abortion must be legal. These unfair and undesirable pregnancies can prevent women from keeping jobs, feeding their families, and from creating a favorable life-style for themselves. Pregnancy and child birth may determine and greatly influence whether or not a woman can begin or finish her education leading to a successful and gratifying career.

In conclusion, abortion must be legal because women should not have to sacrifice their lives at the hand of a failed contraceptive or a terrible rape. Women should not be forced to submit themselves to a life of hardships because of an unwanted pregnancy. To do so would be discrimination. But, there are still other people who believe that abortion should be illegal. Some people say that abortion should not be legal because it is murder. Some people interpret the fourteenth amendment differently. They believe that the life and liberty is being denied from the fetus.

Although the law has set boundaries on when a fetus should be considered a citizen, there are people who believe that life starts before birth no matter what the law states. I am sure these people wonder why the fetus doesn’t have rights as well as the mother. Abortion author Faye Ginsberg states that, never in the history of the United States has the state granted one citizen the right to have another killed to solve one’s problems (156 Ginsberg). But, people who consider a fetus to be a life must also believe that Constitutional rights are being denied from the fetus.

Abortion, to people who that believe a fetus is a citizen, seems as though a human life is being terminated because someone else justifies the cause with reasons of their own. How can the legality of abortion ever be determined if one cannot determine whether or not a fetus is considered a human being? Since every person has individual beliefs and thoughts on the livelihood of the fetus, the legality of abortion must be determined on the circumstances of the pregnancy as well one’s belief to what a fetus really is.

In order to intelligently formulate a stance on abortion, one must come to conclusions and formulate answers on some aspects of abortion. Is a fetus a human being? Yes, a fetus is indeed a human being livening in the womb of its mother. Upon conception, the fetus is uniquely distinct and different than any other human being (200 Steinbock). The fetus is like a snowflake; there are no two alike. Very shortly after conception the fetus takes on very human characteristics. The fetus thinks, moves, dreams, and feels pain just like you and I.

Yes, the fetus can feel pain; it can feel itself being murdered by the abortion (200 Steinbock). Another important question one must answer is: Who’s life is the fetus’s? Is the fetus merely a living appendage of the woman, or is the woman an incubator for a life of an independent human being? This question can in no way be answered by practical means. It can only be determined on a personal and moral level. The court case of Roe v. Wade in 1973 set up legal regulations and standards for which abortion cases can be approached.

Although case does not determine when the fetus is considered a human, but it outlines a basis for when a fetus can be legally considered a citizen. The case determined that for the first two trimesters of a pregnancy the woman has a right to abort the fetus for her won personal reasons, but she must go to a certified clinic. Fetuses in the third trimester, according to law, are considered to have undeniable Constitutional rights as well as the mother. But, a woman may abort a fetus in the third trimester if she is in personal danger due to the fetus (188 Tribe).

In conclusion, there are two angles to approach determining whether a fetus is a citizen or not. The law’s method of declaring the citizenship of the fetus is controversial to many people. These people are pro-life and most believe that the fetus is a life upon conception. Is abortion physically safe for women? Abortion is often times physically safe for women. According to Laurence H. Tribe’s, Abortion, The Clash of Absolutes, abortions in the first trimester are actually physically safer for a woman than going through with the pregnancy and having a child. Tribe’s book also says, Within only a few year of the Roe v.

Wade case, the death rate for women undergoing legal abortions was ten times lower than that for women who had illegal abortions and five items lower than that for women who went through with child birth (208 Tribe). This statistic proves that with abortions being legal, women are at a lesser risk of injury through abortion. Although the physical effects of abortion are not very detrimental, the mental effects of abortion in women can be devastating. According to The Eagle and Cross, a pro-life organization which supports freedom, women often suffer extreme depression due to the guilt of having an abortion (4 The Eagle and Cross).

Having a child may effect the rest of a woman’s life, but aborting a child may also have an effect on the woman’s life as well. Women must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of having an abortion and choose the less severe and personally harmful of the two alternatives. Should abortion be legal? Abortion should definitely be legal. Women should not let a fertilized egg dictate the way in which they spend the rest of their lives. A pregnancy should not be able to have the power to radically alter the social and professional life of a woman.

If a woman cannot choose an abortion she must take a leave of absence from her daily life in order to have a child and take care of it. For many women this may mean quitting school or leaving their career. These women would be forced to a disadvantage in society because they were denied control of their bodies. Since having and caring for a child is an expensive procedure, poor women may be forced into welfare. This not only burdens and embarrasses the mother, but it also forces the rest of society to support a child which was not wanted by the mother in the first place.

Also, the social life of a woman who bears a child is greatly altered. Women who do not give their children up for adoption must constantly care and provide for their children which greatly effects the social life of the mother. Women who are forced into having an unwanted child are forced to a disadvantage if abortions are not legal. If abortions were illegal many women would suffer. Instead of bearing unwanted children, many women would turn to illegal and underground abortions. These underground abortions are often times unsafe, and unsanitary, causing women to submit themselves to many life-threatening dangers.

Since abortions were deemed legal through the Roe v. Wade case, the death rate for women undergoing legal abortions were ten times lower then that for women who had illegal abortions (232 Tribe). Legal abortions are in sanitary and government regulated clinics. At the clinics there is a focus on the safety and well-being of the mother. If a woman is forced into having a child rather than having an abortion, would she be a good mother? Why should a woman be forced into having a child that she does not want? If abortions were illegal, laws would force unfit mothers into bearing undesirable children.

Forcing birth would not benefit either the mother or the child. The goal of parents is to offer their children the best possible chances for success in their children’s lives. Children who come from mothers who were denied an abortion are not likely to be given chances of success from their mothers. Thus, denying abortions, may cause a negative and undesirable childhood for children everywhere. Answering the question about the legality of abortion is a losing cause. There are too many instances where questions cannot be answered due to diverse moral beliefs.

Yes, of course abortion should be legal, but society is focusing on the wrong concept. Birth control may be the root of all abortion problems and it should be addressed more so than abortion. If issues concerning birth control are addressed on a more aggressive level, the frequency of abortions would decline greatly. Thus with more and better uses of birth control, the number of incidental pregnancies would plummet. In ending, abortion must be legal. Women should not be forced to let a rape or an incidental pregnancy dictate the rest of their lives. Denying abortions unjustly sets women at a disadvantage in life.

Denying women the right to abort their pregnancies would cause wide spread use of under ground abortions which poses threats to the health and well-being of women who seek abortions. Next, unfit mothers and uncaring mothers should not be forced into having a child which they do not desire. Finally, when addressing abortion, a greater concentration on birth control must be addressed as well. There are pro-life people and there are pro-choice people, but nobody is pro-abortion. Nobody wants to end the miracle of life, but to ensure the safety and Constitutional rights of women, abortion must be legal.

What would it be like to die so young and so fragile? What would it be like to kill something so young and so fragile? Abortion, in my definition, is the taking of a life. Now it is hard for me to sit here and type this paper when I know good and well that if my daughter or wife were ever raped I would want whatever was inside of them out — immediately. I think that to take the life of an unborn just because the couple involved were too lazy to use contraceptives, is immature and quite horrid.

In this informative paper, you as a reader will come to understand the facts on abortion and then understand where I stand. Let us begin. According to US Abortion data provided in 1995 by Planned Parenthood, there were 1. 8 million first trimester abortions, 180 thousand second trimester abortions, and about four thousand required Hysterotomies. Now according to these figures we, as the United States, killed/aborted 1,984,000 fetus’. Sure we could keep down the increase in our population at this rate, but where would we be emotionally?

Speaking from a “my” point of view, I wouldn’t get to far. I enjoy children profusely and thinking that there are 1. 9 million children less in the world every year sends shivers down my spine. But I guess you may say that it is not my place to speak. There are fewer deaths per million abortions than per million births according to the Planned Parenthood survey of 1995. There are nine deaths per million abortion procedures and sixty-three deaths per million births. Both complications and the death rate rise with the age of the fetus.

I can understand that these facts portray a much better picture for abortion than carrying to term, but what about the pain that the fetus will feel? According to pro-choice physicians they believe that a certain connection, synaptic, ecessary to perceive pain, for the fetus, is not formed until the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy. Others who are pro-life believe that the fetus can feel pain as early as the seventh week. But even though these facts by Planned Parenthood show a better side to abortion as well, nothing can compare to the guilt of the ” Post-traumatic abortion syndrome” right?

Wrong. According to Dr. Paul Sachdef, professor of social work at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, long term guilt or depression was rare in the seventy in-depth interviews that he conducted of women ages eighteen to twenty-five, single, and white. These classifications of the women interviewed represented the largest group of women seeking abortions. He also found that two-thirds of the women used contraceptives rarely or not at all. Three-fourths of the women thought they would not become pregnant.

Almost eighty percent ” felt relief and satisfaction” soon after the abortion. He also found the elective abortion is much less traumatic for the parent/s than an elective adoption. June Scandiffino disagreed with the good doctor’s findings. She believes that Post-traumatic abortion syndrome does not set in until perhaps seven years after the abortion. I would like to believe both findings but I find that it would be hard not to feel some loneliness and some guilt immediately after having an abortion. What do you think?

My English professor gave me this assignment, to investigate a subject of interest that we know little about but have wanted to learn more about and then present it, but I kind of cheated on it. I know a good amount about abortion, emotionally, but I don’t know a lot of the facts. I know what the main points are and that I always hated when someone would bring up the subject of abortion and then ask my opinion. I have a real split opinion. As for the percentage of abortions dealing with rape and incest — go for it.

If my daughter or wife were ever subject to either one of these I probably would consent to having an abortion and then going out and killing the bastard who did it. As for the percentage of abortions that concentrate around the health of the fetus/ and finding that the fetus has an irreparable disease or body malfunction that would mean bringing a neurologically impaired child, or a deformed child into this world than I would, as well, consider an abortion. There are probably several other “percentages” that once confronted with them I ould change my feeble mind.

When you hear about all the bombings or incidents of arson on abortion clinics you, well at least I do, wonder what those people involved with those incidents would do if confronted with something of the magnitude of rape or something. I think a lot of those minds would change. Because I know that if I found that I was the product of rape, I probably would want to kill myself. You? My final statement is this, “I am usually pro-life and if there is anyway of keeping and supporting a healthy child than do it. For new life comes around only once in a while. “

In recent years, many countries have made drastic improvements in their economies, technological advances, social equalization, education, health care and many other social issues. However, for centuries there have been economic and resulting technological divides between nations. In thousands of cities and villages across South America, many people live at least three miles from the nearest telephone. When the sun goes down, many larger cities are flocked with people from outlying smaller villages simply because they have no electricity by which to see in the darkness.

Most toilets have no seats, much of the water is undrinkable and in a city of over five thousand, you may find a single shop that offers a few outdated computers for public use. However, according to a recent study performed by NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League), every single nation in the world is home to at least one abortion clinic, be it legally or illegally run, despite the aforementioned lack of technology in most countries.

A quick look at the history of abortion shows that three factors are enerally considered the main contributions to a nation’s decision as a whole to legalize abortion. Obviously, when dealing with a personal decision to terminate a pregnancy or not, factors differ from person to person and situation to situation. However, when a nation decides to legalize any form of abortion, the three most common factors are: Overpopulation/low material standards of living, modernization/secularization and the political equality of women.

A structural-functional look at abortion might suggest that the legalization f abortion may be response to over-population and low material standards of living. A symbolic-interaction view of the issue might focus on a modernization theory of abortion, which states that as individuality and secularization is fostered in a given nation, that nation is more likely to legalize abortion. Finally, a social conflict analysis might produce a feminist theory regarding the issue – that is, where women have achieved greater equality in spheres of social life, abortion laws will be less restrictive.

The following research will show how each of these theories might be studied and whether or not each has sufficient merit. For each theory, two countries from each of the three national class systems have been chosen as representative of their class. That is, two examples from first world, second world and third world countries will be explored. To explore the structural-functional theory which states that abortion is a result of overpopulation and low material standards of living, infant mortality rate is a sufficient indicator of problems with both causes.

Third-world countries Mozambique and Angola lead the rest of the world in infant mortality rates, averaging 199 and 193. 82 deaths for every 1,000 babies born, respectively. Tajikistan and Azerbaijan have the highest infant mortality rates of all the second-world countries with 113. 43 and 82. 41 for every 1,000 babies born, respectively.

Finally, of the handful of first-world countries, Turkey and Hungary have the high infant mortality rate, with 44. and 8. 58 infant deaths to every 1,000 births. 3 If the structural-functional analysis which pinpoints overpopulation and low aterial living standards (both common causes of infant mortality) as primary causes of the legalization of abortion is correct, then it would not be a stretch to predict that the countries listed above as having the highest infant mortality rates within their socio-economical class would also offer legalized abortion.

This sociological theory regarding legalized abortion may very well prove true of lower income nations. However, it is evident that some of the more wealthy countries in the world also provide this service, if for no other reason than to offer uninhibited freedom and ndividuality to each person. A modernization theory on this subject might suggest that as societies become more tolerant and knowledgeable about the social structures within which they live, they begin to encourage individuality and secularization.

These factors can be adequately measured by the quality and amount of education offered in each country, which can in turn be indicated by the literacy rate of each country. According to nationsonline. org, all but three first-world countries have at least a ninety-five percent literacy rate. Of those that do, Czech Republic and Iceland both have a 99. 9% literacy rate. Of the second-world countries, Georgia and Bulgaria have the highest literacy rates at 99 and 98. 6%, respectively.

In the third-world countries, Samoa and Equatorial Guinea have the highest literacy rates with 99. 7 and 85. 7%, respectively. Analyzing and judging the truth of this theory is a bit easier than the other theories because of the controlled environment created by the surprisingly high percentages of literacy in the top of the third and second-world. The fact that one of our third-world xamples has almost one hundred percent literacy helps to mitigate any effects on the outcome of this particular research method produced by factors related to a low literacy rate.

To restate, this theory holds that as the education of a nation increases, individuality and secularization is encouraged, which in turn results in the legalization of abortion. This theory fails to call into account the effect of religious and social beliefs held by societies, which in some cases are predominant despite a government’s attempts to secularize a nation. On the contrary, many governments are linked very closely to the national religion and promote conservative lifestyles while still offering legal abortions.

In these cases, the structural-functional theory offers a much more likely reason. Finally, the third popular theory regarding the legalization of abortions is a feminist theory which suggests that abortion legalization occurs in nations with high regard for women. To measure the pro-feminism of nations, this study uses the percentage of females that hold national political office in a given nation. According to the UNECE, in 2000 there were low percentages of female national office holders in both first and second world countries.

UNECE offers no statistics for third world countries regarding this issue and the author was unable to find statistics for females holding office in third world countries (one might speculate that the sheer lack of female office-holders in third world countries is the reason for the lack of available statistics). In first world countries, Finland and Iceland lead the world in percentage of female national office olders, with 37% and 36. 51%, respectively. Croatia and Estonia lead the second world with 21. 85% and 17. 82%, respectively.

Analyzing this theory is difficult because of the lack of available statistics and the fluidity of the term “feminist”. Also, the small percentages offered for analysis may or may not demonstrate the fact that even the highest amounts of feminism in a culture are very low indeed. However, this theory does offer strong evidence in the fact that the link between feminism and legalization is very clear. I would be apt to predict that despite its shortcomings, this theory joins the structural functional theory as the most likely to produce positive results.

According to three sociological models, abortion is made legal in a nation depending on measurable factors. This article serves to highlight the sociological models, analyze the claims made and measure the pertinent statistics. If the structural-functional theory is correct, Mozambique, Angola, Tajikstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey would almost surely each offer legalized abortions. Hungary might not be as clear a case study for this theory due to its relatively low infant mortality rate.

As it turns out, the legalization laws in these countries vary tremendously, ranging from almost complete intolerance in Angola (only life-threatening pregnancies are terminated) to complete and unrestricted legalization in Hungary and a number of combinations of restrictions and tolerances in between (Tajikstan offers abortion in the first two trimesters for a handful of reasons and only allows it in the first trimester for social reasons). Contrary to my redictions, it appears from the samples I have taken that this model does not adequately explain why countries legalize abortions.

If the modernization theory holds true, then countries with high literacy rates in their respective socio-economic statuses would most likely offer abortion legally. Specifically, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Georgia, Bulgaria, Samoa and Equitorial Guinea would each have little restriction on abortion due to their extremely high literacy rates. With the exception of the third world countries, this seems to be the case. Although each of these countries puts restrictions on when and for what reasons one may terminate a pregnancy, they are all fairly lenient.

The third world countries each allow abortion, but the restrictions are less lenient than in the other countries. All in all, this sociological model seems to produce fairly consistent results. Finally, the feminist theory suggests that Finland, Iceland, Croatia and Estonia would each offer lenient abortion laws. As it turns out, Croatia and Estonia each offers completely unrestricted abortion aws, while Finland and Iceland each only specifies that there must be a good reason for abortion.

The evidence in favor of this sociological model via pseudo-logistic regression analysis is very strong, as all of the test cases have proven very lenient on abortion. 6 Each of these theories hold merit and perhaps the most accurate way to predict legalization is by analyzing a combination of the factors listed. However, for the study given, the feminization theory produces outstanding results and if this theory were further analyzed, would undoubtedly produce similar results.

The topic of abortion has been a highly debated and highly controversial issue before America was even founded. There are many aspects of the debate and many angles that can be taken. In order to understand, and to form an opinion on the topic of abortion a person must be informed about the History of abortion, the methods of abortion performed today, the potential side affects of abortion, and the two different and equally debatable sides that are taken today. These are all very important issues to be informed about before making a decision on where you stand.

Abortion is not a particularly new issue or practice and is not exclusively concentrated on American culture. The first record of abortion dates back to 2600 BC, where the first abortion-causing drug was produced. Sometime after this recipe was created the Egyptians used it for contraceptive pessaries. This abortion recipe was neither healthy, nor effective; one of the main ingrediance in this very unscientific recipe was crocodile dung. After some time the Egyptians and many other cultures perfected the process of abortion, and in the 4th century AD St. Augustine laid down catholic rights allowing abortion up to 80 days for female fetuses, and up to 40 days for male fetuses.

St. Augustines decree is very significant in the history of abortion because it is the first time that the church has gotten involved with the issue of abortion and actually gave their own opinion. In 1564, the Italian anatomist Fallopius, founder of the fallopian tube, publicized condoms as a disease-avoiding device. In 1564, Pope sixtus forbad all forms of abortion. Directly after the decree of Pope sixtus Pope Gregory XIV withdraws Pope sixtuss decree and allows abortions to be performed freely.

In 1803 Some time after the Catholic Churchs rain, Great Britain decreed that abortion would now be charged as a misdemeanor. During colonial times abortion was legal before quickening, or about the fourth month of pregnancy, historic colonial home medical guides gave recipes for bringing up the messes with herbs that could be grown in anyones back yard. Unfortunately these recipes were fatal and many women died. The first statutes preventing abortion were not actually against abortion. These laws were in fact against poison used in the home, or poison control.

In the 1840s the abortion business was booming, including the sale of illegal drugs that were prohibited by the poison statutes that were mentioned earlier. The sales of illegal drugs and of abortions were advertised openly in the media. To give you an example of how big the business was, the most popular abortionist was Madame Restell; she would openly provide abortion to any women who wanted one. She had offices that she operated out of in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. She also had traveling sales people that promoted her famous female monthly pill.

Oddly enough in a historical twist the one group that was petitioning for abortion to be outlawed was the American medical association, this was an association of physicians. The very group that is now performing a majority of abortions that go on today. The American medical associations crusade against abortion was not entirely selfless. The reason the association decided to crusade against abortion was because they saw the white American birth rate declining and saw the immigrates birth rate moving up.

In that day the economic status and ethnic heritage of the women receiving the abortions were very different from today, the average women who was receiving an abortion were upper class to middle class Caucasian women who were considered Americans. Horatio R. Storer, anti-abortion leader of the cause asked in 1868. This is a question our women must stated; upon loins depends the future destiny of the nation. The womens rights movement also opposed abortion, basing their hopes that women could time the frequency that they had sex, and that they could regulate their own motherhood.

In late 1869 these two groups won their fight against abortion. The United States of America for the first time spoke directly against the issue of abortion. The congress wrote a law that declared abortion was to be illegal in all U. S territories, these laws would stay intact until 1973 (Pollitt). In the famous case or Roe vs. Wade, On Monday January 22nd 1973, 7-2-majority vote in favor of allowing first trimester abortion to be legal in the United States, the decision was permitted to be decided between the women and her physician.

The father was not allowed to have say in the matter if the mother did not desire it. The court also ruled that abortion in the 2nd trimester of the pregnancy was allowed if it was required to maintain the health of the mother. The court went on to rule that abortion could be performed in the third trimester of the pregnancy if the mothers life was at risk (Hopeclinic. com). Today the abortion issue is hotter than ever. Abortion is a hot topic at every election debate whether for president or local office.

With republicans running all branches of the government hopeful pro-life supporters are rallying to make abortion illegal. There are many other points to abortion that affect someones decision when choosing to go through a pregnancy or to terminate. Types of abortion are just another aspect to consider when making this momentous decision. There are numerous types of abortions that can be performed. Two things decide what kind of abortion will be administered; the condition of the child and the condition of the mother decide the type of abortion that is performed.

Dr. Robert Baird, in his book, The ethics of Abortion, has divided methods of abortion into three categories: those that invade the uterus and kill the child by instruments, those that kill the preborn child by administration of drugs and then induce labor, and the last is those that invade the uterus by abdominal surgery. Before any procedure can take place dilation of the uterus must be performed. The uterus is normally dilated by manually increasing the size of the cervix using metallic curved instruments, called dilators. Studies conducted by UCLA show that this procedure would normally cause permanent damage.

Rather than the cervix stretching naturally over a period of hours as it does in natural birth, it instead stretches within seconds at the hand of the abortionist. Once the dilation has taken place then the abortion will proceed. There are seven popular types of abortion that are being used in abortion clinics across the country. I will cover all seven types in chronological order according to the babys progress. The first method of abortion and most popular method that are being used today are called suction aspiration. Suction aspiration is administered during the first 12 weeks of the babys life.

The mother is first given General anesthesia and her cervix is quickly dilated. A suction curette is inserted into the womb. This instrument is connected to a vacuum machine. The vacuum suction is at least 29 times more powerful than a home vacuum. The vacuum tears the placenta and fetus into small pieces and disposes it into a bottle where it is then disposed of (Lewis 46). The second type of abortion is called Dilation and curettage. This process is also performed when the baby is at 12 weeks or less. This method is not too different that the suction aspiration method.

The only difference between the two methods is that before the suction tube is inserted the abortionist uses a knife like object called the curette which cuts the baby into pieces allowing the fetus to be sucked out of the womb easier than before (Lewis 48). Dilation and evacuation is an abortion procedure that is performed up to 18 weeks of gestation. This procedure is a lot like the D&C procedure. But instead of using a hooked shape knife a pair of forceps is inserted in to the womb. The forceps grasp a part the child and then are trusted back and fourth repeatedly until the child is totally dismembered.

Usually the skull must be crushed and the spine must be broken. After this procedure has taken place the body parts are removed from the womb (Lewis 50). After the child has been in the mother for at least 16 weeks (four months) other methods must be used if D&E is not an option. Salt poisoning is a method that is becoming more widespread. This method takes place when enough fluid has built up inside the womb. A needle is inserted through the mothers abdomen; a strong salt solution is inserted into the babys sac. The baby then swallows the fluid and is poisoned by it.

It usually takes about an hour for the child to die, after the child has died the mother then goes into labor. She will either give birth to a dead child or she will give birth to a child that is dying. If the child is born alive he or she will be left on a table to die, when the child dies the body is taken and disposed of. There have been quite a few instances where the child has lived through it and was later adopted (Lewis 42). At six months if the child has not been aborted yet a procedure called Prostaglandin chemical abortion is administered.

This form of abortion uses chemicals produced by the Upjohn pharmaceutical Co. When these chemicals are injected into the mother in causes her uterus to contract violently and force the child out. These contractions are so much more violent than contractions that happen during labor that it almost instantly kills the child, normally by breaking its neck. If the mother has decided that she wants to abort during the last three months of pregnancy more than likely a hysterectomy or caesarean section will be performed. The process is similar to a caesarean delivery.

The abortionist begins the process by cutting through the wall of the abdomen, and cutting the umbilical cord while the baby is in the womb. When the umbilical cord is cut the childs oxygen supply is also cut causing the baby to suffocate; the baby will die normally in a few minutes and then removed from the womb and disposed of (Lewis 56). The last and most physical process of abortion is called partial birth abortion. This type of abortion can be performed all the way up to the end of the pregnancy term. The abortionist begins by reaching his hand into the womb and grabbing the babys leg.

He or she then pulls the baby into the birth canal, and then the abortionist delivers the entire baby except the head. When the body is delivered a tool resembling scissors is jabbed into the back of the babys head to enlarge the skull. Once all this takes place the abortionist enlarges the tool and removes it from the childs skull. A suction catheter is then inserted into the hole that was made by the scissor like tool, and the brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is removed and disposed of.

According to UCLA. u there are two kinds of side effects that result after an abortion takes place. The two kinds of side effects are Physical and Psychological. The following is a list of side effects, keep in mind when reading these that all women that have gone through an abortion do not experience these side effects. Physical effects could include: Intense pain, Sterility, bleeding, perforation of the uterus, laceration of the cervix, peritonitis, shock, increased risk of breast cancer, passing blood clots, death, miscarriages, entopic pregnancies.

Psychological effects that can be a result from an abortion are: Guilt, obsession with baby, loss of interest, night mares, regret and remorse, hatred, feelings of exploited, anger and rage, lower self esteem mourning, suicidal impulses. To make a decision about your stand on the topic of abortion, you must be informed about both sides. There are two sides of the abortion issue, pro-choice (for abortion), pro-life (against abortion). It is essential that everyone have an idea of which side that they stand on. The pro-choice stand is centered on womens right to choose.

They believe that only a woman can get pregnant so only a woman can have an abortion, they feel that since the child is not able to live on its own than it is not yet living. Pro-choice supporters support this argument by going on to say that a fertilized egg is a potential life, based on scientific evidence the fetus is not viable, or able to live outside of the mother. They say that it is not a person but merely a potential life (Rudy 12). Another angle on the pro-choice view is that if abortion was deemed illegal than it would be a lot more dangerous than if it was legal.

According to the world health organization 40-60 million abortions take place each year. 20 million of these are in countries where abortion is illegal opting women to undergo back street abortions. Due to the unsafe conditions of back street abortions 100,000 women die each year, and leave many others permanently injured. Pro-choice supporters argue that whether or not abortion is legal it will still continue to be practiced. Pro-choice supporters also say that there are many justified reasons for ending a pregnancy.

They argue that many mothers are too old or too young to handle the responsibility of raising a child, they also say that many mothers are single and lack the emotional capacity to care for a child. Another reason explained by pro-choice supporters is that the child will be born with disabilities and will not be able to lead a happy, productive life, the mother could have a serious disease that could be made worse by a pregnancy. Pro-choice supporters continue arguing that some families have hereditary diseases and do not want to pass them on to offspring.

But the most frequent stand argued is that if the child is a product from rap or incest than the mother has a 100% right to terminate the pregnancy. Pro-life advocates disagree strongly with all arguments that pro-chiocers put on the playing field. The basis of the pro-life argument is their concern for the rights of the fetus. Pro-lifers believe the fetus to be a living person with an equal right to life as all other people enjoy. It is the mission of the pro-life force to speak for those who dont have a voice. Often, it is not uncommon for pro-life arguments to come across accusing the mother of being selfish.

They play on the idea that we live in a me society where women opt for abortion over changing their lifestyle for a child (Baird 43). The pro-life issue is based on when life begins for a child. Pro-choice advocates argue that life does not begin until the child is born. But according to pro-lifers, it is when conception occurs and there is a fusion of genetic codes that is the moment when an individuals life begins. It has its own unique genetic code, from each 23 chromosomes of both its parents and now contains all DNA necessary to grow into an independent, conscious human being.

From here stems the point that not only is the fetus an individual, but it should be guaranteed the right to live (Baird 57). The pro-life group suggests that embryo and fetus refer simply to stages of development, just as infant, adolescent and toddler do. They are terms used to describe levels of growth that a human passes through, thereby giving an unborn equal due respect as a born human. The word fetus can be traced back to the Latin meaning of young one or little child, both of which describe people, rather than potential people (Baird 41).

Both pro-life and pro-choice agree that there are problems in the world today that and that there are many social problems that affect children today. Both sides also agree that a woman has the ultimate right to choose what she does to her body. Ultimately, the entire complex issue comes down to one question. Is the fetus a person? Each side is focused on a different topic and renders it impossible to reach consensus. No progress is made because we are not talking about the same thing. On the one side, pro-abortionists prefer to discuss choice and to dwell on all the social problems inherent in an unwanted child.

Believing it is not a person, and simply part of the womans body and subject to her control, any attempt to diminish that control would therefore be an infringement of her rights. On the other side, anti-abortionists are primarily interested in protecting the life of a child. Believing the fetus is a person, one is obligated to protect it even if deliminating the actions of the woman carrying it is required. Basically, pro-abortion focuses on a womans rights and anti-abortion focuses on a fetus rights (Rudy 128).

Religions have often sought to provide a solution to this pivotal question, and they too have swayed towards particular positions. Religious beliefs and organizations are primarily concerned with the sanctity of human life, however, are caught between defining whose life and what is life, whether it be that of the mother or fetus. In further confusion, during the past century, the increased diversity of traditions and practices within religious communities has led to a diversity of approaches to the abortion issue. The fact is that even the church can not decide what side to take a stand on.

The fact is like many other issues, this is one that no one will ever totally agree on. You need to decide where you stand and what you represent. In order to understand, and to form an opinion on the topic of abortion I hope that I have informed you about the major angles and views of abortion. The History of abortion, the types of abortion performed today, the potential side affects of abortion, and the two different and equally debatable sides of abortion are all things that you must understand to choose a side to defend concerning abortion.

My best friend is a 26-year-old woman in Medical School at the University of South Florida who has had two abortions. Through each one, I have stood by her as a faithful and loyal friend. This is not something she wishes everyone to know, but this woman is not bashful about it if asked. As a matter of fact, she has discussed it several times in front of me. In these cases, her birth control failed, and she aborted her unborn children early in the pregnancy. Simply, she made the decision to abort because she just wasn’t ready. Honestly, being a successful medical student, would you blame her?

I found myself beginning to judge her after twenty years of friendship, and I think, she would not be pleased with my judgment. But, after wondering what I would do in her shoes, I have asked myself, “Is abortion justified”? My view, No. Abortion is immoral in every circumstance, which makes me an ultra-conservative person. Before I begin to discuss Marry Ann Warrens’ article, “Abortion is Morally Permissible”, I wish to define the different views of abortion. The first view of abortion is a called, “Ultra-Conservative”, which state regardless of the reason, having an abortion is immoral.

This, as I stated in my introductory paragraph, is my personal view of abortion. The second view is referred to as, “Moderate-Conservative”, which states that abortion is permissible in some instances, but, overall, not moral in others. In society, many people believe this view to be accurate. But, who can judge what is permissible or not? The third view is the “Ultra-Liberal position”, which is the view that Mary Ann Warren wishes to provide support for in her article, “Abortion is Morally Permissible. ” This position states that abortion is fine in all instances, regardless of the circumstances.

Although many people have different views, Mary Ann Warren does hold the view of Ultra-Liberal. In Warrens’ article, she believes that a child is not a “person”. She believes that before the fetus reaches a certain point in the mothers’ pregnancy, the child cannot understand the concept behind abortion. Warren (2000) mentions in her article the following about the development of a fetus: “In the ways that matter, from a moral point of view, human fetuses are very unlike human persons, particularly in the early months of development. ”

Generally, Warren defines that the forming of a fetus into a “person” can only come after the first trimester. I disagree. To me, this is the most controversial portion of her argument. While they may not have the ability to act upon circumstances or make decisions, does not mean that fetus are not “persons. ” Most people as well as myself would say that humans begin at conception, and grow from there. The baby in the womb before birth is the same baby as when he or she is held in his/her mother’s arms after birth. Birth causes a change in the baby’s methods of obtaining food and oxygen, but does not cause a change in the baby itself.

However, many ultra liberalists deny this. Many medical textbooks show that experts on human development agree that human life begins at conception and continues in the mother’s womb. Below are a few quotes I have obtained from medical books relating to Gynecology and Embryology: Langman (1977), a doctor in Philadelphia, states the following in regards to the development of a fetus: “The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, a ygote, which is the beginning of a fetus.

Gilbert (1939), states the following in regards to fertilization: “At the moment of fertilization there has been determined not only the existence of this new human being, but also his individuality. ” These statements are not quotations from what I call “pro-abortion” information; they come from scientific textbooks on medical embryology used around the world. None of the texts I researched state that human life begins at birth or after first trimester, as Warren eventually states in her argument for abortion. The textbooks show that experts agree (professionals as the ones above) as to when human life begins.

They all agree that life of a new human being begins at fertilization with the production of a zygote. When human life begins is a subject on which there seems to be many opinions, but there is only one fact. The lack of agreement among these people is not because scientists have not been able to determine when human life begins, but because some people are mistaken, such as Mary Ann Warren. In her article, Warren (2000) mentions the following traits that she feels are traits of a fetus being classified as a “person”.

Consciousness of objects and events external and/or internal to the being, and in particular the capacity to feel pain. ” “Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems. ) “Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control) “The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number if possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics. “The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both.

If I were to refer to her five characteristics of being a person as listed above, a fetus could not be a person and abortion is moral. Untrue. She admits that a person doesn’t need to meet all of the above criteria, but should have a few. However, she does not state which ones are critical for the “reward” of her signifying them as a member of “personhood. ” This opens a door for philosophers and other people to say that she is saying yes to infanticide, because an infant is not much more of a person than a fetus according to the five standards listed above.

Other questions people may ask are: What about animals? Can we take children and kill them at anytime irregardless of age or location? I do not know of many people that would agree to this, even Mary Ann Warren herself. One argument that is against Mary Ann Warrens’ article is an article written by Richard Werner titled, “Abortion: The Ontological and Moral Status of the Unborn. ” He forms an argument that states, “If you and I are human beings, then there is every reason to believe and no good reason to deny that the moment of conception onward and that all previously proposed cut-off for determining when one is a human are unacceptable.

Werner says the cut-off points are “unacceptable” because there is no clear line that is to be drawn in the human’s development from conception to adulthood that can be used to “say a being does not have a right to life before that. ” According to Werner, since there is this hazy period in the fetus development where it gradually becomes a human, the fetus can be considered a human from the moment of conception onward. Since the fetus will eventually reach human hood if it is allowed time to develop, it should not be denied its opportunity for life.

This strengthens the fact that fetus are “persons” at the time of conception. So what do you think? Which view do you wish to take? And for what reasons? Does it matter if a mother is not old enough, is worried about life changes, can’t afford a baby, doesn’t want to be a single parent, or is just plain not ready? Was my original intuition about my best friend’s choices the right one? Or was I right to re-examine the reason for my judgment? I hope this goes to show that fetus are human and “person” even before they are born.

During the last twenty-five years, abortion has been one of the most heated topics being debated in the United States and Canada. The only topics that equal the abortion debate are race and war. Abortion is a discussion of human interaction where ethics, emotions, and law come together. There are people that have different views of abortion but no matter what their view is they fall under a thin line. There is the pro-choice and the pro-life. These are the only two categories that peoples views fall into. A pro-choice person would feel that the decision to abort a pregnancy is that of the mothers and the government has no right to interfere.

A pro-lifer would hold that from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive. Since this embryo or fetus is alive and is a person you have no moral right to abort a life. If you aborted the life (person) you would be committing murder. The word murder is mainly used by pro-lifers to describe what happens when you abort an embryo/fetus. Murder means deliberate and unjustified killing of another person containing intent. How can anyone tell a woman that they cant abort an embryo/fetus to interrupt a pregnancy if it is a result of rape or incest?

A women cannot bear the thought of having a child that would be a constant reminder of what happened on such and such a day, such and such number of years ago. The mother doesnt want to kill a baby; she wants to interrupt the growth of an embryo so that it will not become a baby. The mother interrupts potential life. If the mother aborts the embryo at a very early stage its not even recognizable as human and thats why potential life is just that, potential. My personal belief is that each woman has the right to decide whether she wants to abort an unwanted pregnancy.

Remember the termination of the pregnancy might have to do with the health of the mother herself, maybe the mother is unable to attend to the childs needs after its born, resulting in child abuse and mental disease. In these situations abortion is a must in my opinion. Most abortions occur because contraception fails, because of a rape or because of a serious medical condition of the mother, which could lead to her death. In these situations abortion is often the only way that prevents the birth of an unwanted child or saves a mothers life.

In the world today pregnancy often has catastrophic effects on adolescents. They drop out of school, have nervous breakdowns, and even commit suicide. Research shows that it can be unsafe for young teenagers to go through with pregnancy, they can die because their bodies arent mature enough. Many teenagers cannot provide the right conditions for raising a child for they are still children themselves. The effects of having a baby can result in an end to a future career, meaning that there is a high possibility of the mother and baby living in poverty.

The pro-lifer would say that the teenager should have the baby for reasons being that the mother could become more mature. They also would go on to say that the mother could give the baby up for adoption and preserve a life. Another issue on the topic of abortion is when pregnant women are older. They no longer have the energy to efficiently take care of the child. Most of these women already have grown-up children and possibly even grand children. From a medical standard these women are at a very high risk that health problems for the mother and the baby could happen.

Some people are opposed to aborting the child for reasons that if that mother is capable of getting pregnant that she should have the responsibility of having the child. There is also the issue of rape that has to be considered when we discuss the importance for women of having a right to a safe and legal abortion. It seems obvious to most people that they shouldnt force a woman who has become pregnant as a result of being raped to give birth to the baby. The pro-lifers dont see the same picture; they use the same old murder argument to not allow the pregnant women to get an abortion in a case of rape.

They say that the child could be born and if the mother doesnt want the baby that she could give the baby up for adoption. What the pro-lifers dont see is the affect that will be upon on the women that is involved. The pro-lifers are only concerned for the fetus and not what will happen to the mother or the mothers family that has to deal with the incident. If the mother gives birth to the baby she might be unable to bear the psychological trauma of the event and so getting the abortion would prevent her that grief.

Opponents of abortion seem to think that women who choose to have abortions typically do so thoughtlessly. They do not know that a decision in itself is already agonizing and a very painful thing for a women. Can you really understand the issue of abortion unless you have been in the situation of possibly having one? What some people dont seem to understand is that abortion is not an easy way out. A woman herself has to make a decision on which is better for her. Many people try to force their beliefs on others and judge them for their decision on which is which.

Many people try to force their beliefs on others and judge them for their actions. These people need to judge themselves before they start to judge others. The reasons why women have abortions vary. It may be a case of rape, physical or psychological condition. A choice needs to be available to prevent the birth of unwanted children, to avoid damage to the child as well as to safeguard the emotional and physical health of women. Preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they really want is control.

Control over our behavior and power over womens choices. Abortion is a tough choice and the decision should be a personal one, with out interference of government or special interest groups. Losing safe and legal abortion would mean reducing women to childbearing machines It would mean turning our backs on the technology we have, and it would also devalue women as independent human beings. It would bring more meaningless deaths from the illegal and self-induced abortions and more pain for women. There also is another war that is brewing but its not as public as abortion, it is to do with genetic engineering.

As of right now there are two types of engineering being worked on. They are positive and negative genetic engineering. Positive genetic engineering is when scientists use their research to benefit humanity. Negative genetic engineering is when advances in genetic technology are detrimental to society in general. When a person has a deadly disease like leukemia, in todays world there is no cure, but maybe in the future by the use of positive engineering the person would be disease free and be able to live healthy for the rest of his/her life.

With this method there will be a lot less people dieing of horrible diseases. The negative thing that would be bad for humanity is that if scientists are keeping people healthy of all diseases there will be a dramatic rise in the amount of people that live in the world. If we keep doing this type of positive engineering the world could come to a state of overcrowding. As people in this world there are no two alike, there are smart people and average people, good-looking people and just people etc.

Think about it if we had all the newborn babies being genetic engineered so that they are very smart, good looking, and athletic, everything a parent wants in their baby. Our society would become much smarter and there would be great advances in all area that make humanity run. We could have one person do a job that took five normal people to do, these smart people could learn two or three times as fast as a normal person could. All of these ideas sound just beautiful. What parents would like to see in their child, but there are problems that could arise with that. Think about what would happen to the parents of the smart kids.

The parents would most likely lose their jobs because the new generation of smart kids could do their job more efficiently then they could. What would happen if all parents in the world got their kid genetically engineered to be good looking or smart there will be no diversity in our society. Maybe with two or three generations of the same gene pool, problems could arise with deformities that even smart scientists in that day couldnt fix. For the sake up humanity lets not let negative genetic engineering come into our society, lets force governments to ban research into this area.

Humanity has been running perfectly for thousands of years and why would we want to change it, its always work and so it will keep working. When looking at abortions and genetic engineering there are many pros and cons for each. What it mainly comes down to is how each individual perceives each situation of abortion and genetic engineering. If one person sees abortion as a womens choice and can back up his views with proof that it would be better for the mother, then do not try to destroy their views.

If a person sees abortion as killing a life and they want to abolish abortion, then let them have a chance to voice their opinions. Remember that it is good to have views from both sides because then people arent always seeing in tunnel vision. When looking at genetic engineering I hope people realize that this field of science could be very good to society and also very detrimental. So what ever our society decides to do with abortion and genetic engineering, remember the effects that could happen to the world as a whole.

The controversy within the biomedical ethics topic, abortion, has two main proponents. The first is the view against abortion, also known as pro-life. The other view is rooted upon the belief of being pro-choice, or basically for abortions. These two different views are like two mathematical principles, in that although these two views have many differences, they also have larger similarities in the background. For example, when pro-choice activists support abortions due to unwanted pregnancies, the activists are not rallying behind the idea of sexual incompetency (pregnancies due to lack of birth control).

Rather, they are supporting the idea that women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. In order to understand these opposing views, justifications and condemnations, on abortion, it can basically be divided into three categories. These categories are based upon the reasons for which abortions are carried out, and include congenital defects, rape, and economics. Congenital defects, is when deformities within the baby are detected during an early stage of a pregnancy. These defects, such as Downs syndrome, are detected through an amniocentesis test. The second justification for abortion is from criminal cases, such as rape.

A final reason for an abortion is due to economics, the financial condition, of a family. Economics can also include cases such as teen pregnancies. The anti-abortionists have numerous reasons for their beliefs, and many of them are attached to their religion ideals. Religious ideals, range from having an abortion before 120 days after the pregnancy, as in Islam, to considering it a sin to have an abortion, as in Christianity. However, the anti-abortionists reasons also come from the belief that a human being is born after conception, and that the death of that embryo or fetus resembles the murder of an innocent human being.

They believe that no one has the power to take command of anothers life, mainly an infant, which is dependent on others for survival during the initial stages of life. In addition, to the fact that abortions kill innocent human beings, anti-abortionists believe that they also damage the mental, as well as physical condition of the mother. Since, after an abortion a mother is more susceptible to breast cancer, and to periods of depression. In the case of congenital defects, the pro-life activists argue that such indications of a disease, do not guarantee that the child will be born into a life of suffering.

They believe that through love, and guidance anyone with any form of deformity or disease, can lead a normal life. The cases pertaining to rape also have different anti-abortionists views. Many anti-abortionists believe that the child can actually help the mother get through the turbulent times in her life, by providing each other with a loving environment. Finally, in the case of economics, the pro-life activists believe that having an abortion due to financial reasons is ridiculous. Because, it doesnt mean that the child will have a life full of isolation and depression.

The pro-life activists argue that there are also numerous welfare programs for such families. However, the pro-choice or the activists for abortions, argue that if a family is in a state of financial trouble, then abortion should be a practical option. Otherwise, the child would be born into a life of suffering, and inadequate living conditions. The pro-choice believers, bases their beliefs, upon the fact that having an abortion is the inalienable right of women. They believe that by outlawing abortions, women arent allowed to practice their freedom of privacy.

In a way, women are being denied their constitutional rights. Many pro-choice activists also state that abortion is justifiable, because at the time of fertilization the ensuing embryo is not yet a human being. It is not a human being, but a potential one. Therefore, its death does not constitute a murder. Pro-choice activists beliefs, that the economics of a family necessitates an abortion, are similar to their beliefs on congenital defects as reason for an abortion. That is, a child born with a condition like Downs syndrome, will tend to live a life full of suffering, and in other cases might die after birth.

This death can have damaging effects on the parents, by leaving emotional scars. In the case of rape, pro-life activists consider that since a woman was impregnated without her consent, that child can be exterminated. The pro-choice activists justify this action, in that if the child were born, it would be a recurring image of the pain the mother had suffered. The differences between the two opposing sides on abortion are obvious, since ones interpretation of the cause for an abortion is the exact opposite of the other.

The anti-abortionists view abortion as a defilement of God, since God created everyone in his ideal image. On the other hand the pro-choice activists believe that the right to have an abortion, rests within a womans right to choose. Also, on the three main causes for either justifying or condemning an abortion, both sides have the opposite views of each other. In the case pertaining to economics as justification for an abortion, the anti-abortionists believe that one should have the child because it does not declare that the child will be brought up in poverty.

However, the pro-choice activists believe the exact opposite in that a child born into an economically poor family will grow up in poverty. The differences between the anti-abortionists and the pro-choice activists can also be seen in their views toward rape and congenital defects. While the pro-choice activist believes that a child born within these cases will most likely live a life of suffering and isolation, the anti-abortionists believe that a child of such nature can live a normal life provided a loving family and support.

In this century-old debate the differences between the two opposing views are easily seen than the similarities between them. However, there are numerous comparable beliefs from both sides of the debate. The fact, that pro-choice activists believe a woman has a natural right to make her own choices, and in this case, abortion, does not mean that she wont make the wrong choice; a choice that she may regret later on in her life. The pro-choice activists, by being supportive of abortions does not support it as a form of birth control, or the fact that being sexually incompetent is a good notion.

Many pro-life activists also tend to believe that if a child is to be born into a life that will eventually end after birth, then that child should not live. The fact that pro-choice activists favor abortion does not mean that her or she favors abortion as a good deed. There is also a similar belief that pro-life activist wont condemn abortions in which the life of the mother is at risk, due to her pregnancy. For example, in Islam, an abortion is permitted after 120 days in a pregnancy, if the life of the mother is at risk.

The debate about abortion is rooted within numerous issues between the anti-abortionists and the pro-choice activists. While, the pro-life activists base most of their support against abortions upon a religious basis, the pro-choice activists are more geared toward the individual rights attributed to women. Although, both sides have similarities, in broader aspects, of the mother and the choices she makes. These broader aspects include ideals such as, when a pro-choice activist supports abortions. His or her support is not stating that abortion is a good idea, but that if it was outlawed it would limits the rights of women.

Although, pro-choice activists have numerous beliefs for supporting abortions, they fail to comprehend the economical analysis of abortions. In the eyes of Economics, abortion can also have a negative effect, or an opportunity cost. For example, is the mother of Einstein or Darwin had an abortion, then the opportunity cost would be the loss of knowledge they discovered. Likewise, the opportunity cost of an unborn child due to abortion, whom could have had a significant effect on human race, can be devastating.

The tragedy of an unwanted pregnancy that threatens a woman’s life or health existed in the ancient world as it does today. At the time the Bible was written, abortion was widely practiced in spite of heavy penalties. The Hebrew scriptures had no laws forbidding abortion. This was chiefly because the Hebrews placed a higher value on women than did their neighbors.

There are, however, some references to the termination of pregnancy. Exod. 1:22-25 says that if a pregnant woman has a miscarriage as a result of injuries she receives during a fight between two men, the penalty for the loss of the fetus is fine; if the woman is killed, the penalty is “life for life. ” It is obvious from this passage that men whose fighting had caused a woman to miscarry were not regarded as murderers because they had not killed the woman. The woman, undeniably, had greater moral and religious worth than did the fetus.

A reference in the Mosaic law which is found in, Num. 5:11-31 indicates that if a husband suspects his wife is pregnant by another man, the “husband shall bring his wife to the priest,” who shall mix a drink intended to make her confess or be threatened with termination of her pregnancy if she has been unfaithful to her usband. Aside from these passages, the Bible does not deal with the subject of abortion.

Although both Testaments generally criticize the practices of the Hebrews’ neighbors, such as idol worship and prostitution, as well as various immoral acts committed in their own land, there is no condemnation or prohibition of abortion anywhere in the Bible in spite of the fact that techniques for inducing abortion had been developed and were widely used by the time of the New Testament.

A key question in the abortion controversy is, “When does human life begin? The Bible’s clear answer is that human life begins at birth, ith the first breath. In Gen. 2:7, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being” (in some translations, “a living soul”). The Hebrew word for human being or living person is nephesh, which is also the word for “breathing. ” Nephesh occurs hundreds of times in the Bible as the identifying factor in human life. This is consistent with the opinion of modem medical science.

A group of 167 distinguished scientists and physicians told the Supreme Court in 1989 that “the most important determinant of viability is lung development,” and that viability is not achieved significantly earlier than at wenty-four weeks of gestation because critical organs, “particularly the lungs and kidneys, do not mature before that time. “(1) In the scriptures the Incarnation, or “the Word made flesh,” was celebrated at the time of Jesus’ birth, not at a speculative time of conception.

We follow the biblical tradition today by counting age from the date of birth rather than from conception, a date people do not know or seek to estimate. The state issues birth certificates, not conception certificates. Fifty-one percent of all abortions in the United States occur before the 8th week of pregnancy; more than 91 percent occur efore the 12th week (in the first trimester); and more than 99 percent occur before 20 weeks, which is about 4 weeks before the time of viability (when 10 to 15 percent of fetuses can be saved by intensive care).

In such cases of early abortion there is no fetal neocortex, and hence no pain. However, every termination of potential human life presents a moral problem and can be justified only by the damage to living persons that may result from an unacceptable pregnancy. Contraception (birth control), the practice of which can greatly reduce the number of abortions, involves the prevention of onception, ovulation, or implantation in the uterus.

The Vatican’s position that all sexual activity must allow the possibility of procreation has led the antiabortion movement to be silent about contraception as a way to prevent the need for abortion. Those who claim that a human being exists at conception are guilty of prolepsis, a term defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “an anticipating, especially the describing of an event as if it had already happened. “(2) This type of anticipation is being practiced by those who speak of the few cells that after conception, or a fetus in the early trimesters as “a baby” or “an unbom hild.

Some years ago at a meeting of the American Society of Christian Ethics, a workshop was confronted with the case of a 3-year-old child and an 18-week fetus, both with a dread disease for which there was only one injection of medicine in Chicago. The Chicago airports had been shut down by a blizzard, preventing the doctors from obtaining more of the medicine. We unanimously concluded that the child should get the injection. The moral difference is that the child is among us in a way that the fetus is not. The child’s claim is based on relationship, rather than on a legal point of birth.

Although the Roman Catholic hierarchy strongly opposes intentional abortion, in practice it sometimes recognizes the priority of the woman over the fetus, as is evident in the following excerpt from a U. S. Catholic Conference publication: Operations, treatments and medications, which do not directly intend termination of pregnancy but which have as their purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of the mother, are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the fetus is viable, even though they may or will result in the death of the fetus.

The Roman Catholic church argues that in this situation, although the death of the fetus is foreseen, it is not intended, because the intention is to preserve the health and the life of the woman. Is it not reasonable to assert that the intention of most women who choose abortion is to preserve their health and well-being, not to “kill” the fetus, although its death may be foreseen? In such situations, the fetus does not have equal value with the mother, and allowing the fetus to be lost is not the same as permitting the woman carrying the fetus to die or otherwise suffer.

Judaism enerally views the fetus as a part of its mother. Just as a person may choose to sacrifice a limb or organ to be cured of a malady, so may the fetus be removed for the sake of the pregnant woman. Isaac Klein, a 20th-century conservative rabbi, elaborated on a ruling of Maimonides against a “pursuer” that is comparable to the law of self-defense: “Since the child causing a difficult birth and threatening the woman’s life is regarded as one pursuing her and trying to kill her it may rightly be aborted. ”

Neither Anglo-Saxon law nor the U. S. Constitution has ever given a fetus the same legal status as a woman. Until a baby is born there is only a potential person. When abortion was illegal, it was reviewed as a felony rather than a homicide. The fetus has always been a potential rather than an actual person. (4) What right does a woman have to an abortion? One answer is that the right of living persons takes precedence over any rights of potential persons, just as immediate or present needs take precedence over future or potential needs. This question can also be restated: What right does anyone have to impose mandatory pregnancy on a woman?

The ethical question is not whether abortion can be justified, but whether we ocus on an embryo or fetus as the object of value or whether we focus on the woman as a moral agent who must have freedom of choice. When Moses asked God his name, God said, “I am who I am,” or, in the future tense, “I will be who I will be. ” God is a free moral being whose actions are not determined by cause and effect. Humans made in the image of God are likewise moral beings precisely because they engage in free choice in all of their decisions.

A passage in Genesis describes humans as moral decision makers who, like God, know the difference between good and evil. Of all the animals in the Garden of Eden only one, the human being, was free to make choices. Humans were given the ability to choose between good and evil and, of course, the responsibility to face the consequences of their choices. In the New Testament, there is an emphasis on the priesthood of all believers: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Pet 2:9). Each believer has direct access to God and has the ability to know and do God’s revealed will.

We are not bound by any natural law derived from Greek philosophy; neither are we bound by the ancient Jewish law or by any other egalism handed down by any religious or spiritual leader. When Jesus said, “Man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27), he struck at the heart of legalism, or the imposition of rules for their own sake. The Bible tells us that we live by grace. This. means that God acts within human beings to set us free and to enable us to assume responsibility for ourselves, our environment,. and our future.

If we make wrong choices, God’s grace is available as judgment and forgiveness. Humans, by the grace of God, have developed medicine, surgery, and psychiatry to prolong and enhance life. These same medical approaches can be chosen to prolong or enhance the life of a woman for whom a specific birth would be dangerous. Catholic and Protestant doctrines differ in, among other things, the degree to which they are legalistic. The Catholic church would have us all obey the rules formulated by the Vatican, but Protestants believe that we are free by grace and justified by faith.

The phrase “the sacredness of life” means one thing to Catholic bishops–that the life of the fetus is all-important–but to most Protestants and many others it means that there is a presumptive right to life that is not absolute ut is conditioned by the claims of others. For us the right to life and the sacredness of life mean that there should be no absolute or unbreakable rules that take precedence over the lives of existing human persons. The pro-life position is really a pro-fetus position, and the pro-choice position is really pro-woman. Those who take the pro-fetus position define the woman in relation to the fetus.

They assert the rights of the fetus over the right of the woman to be a moral agent or decision maker with respect to her life, health, and family security. The second doctrinal issue in both the abortion and irth-control controversies is who is to have the power to control procreation–women, in consultation with their partners and their physicians, or the church. The historic natural-law position of the Catholic Church was concerned not about feticide, but about the sin of sexuality if it interfered with procreation, as contraception and abortion do.

The Pope and the bishops have been unable to persuade women to accept control by the church over their sexuality; their only hope for asserting that control is to persuade the state through political power to make a church sin into a secular crime. The low iew of women that keeps them from being ordained and insists that their proper role is that of mother is not simply Catholic theology but fundamentalist political ideology, which is also anti-woman. The key term in the controversy is not simply “pro-life,” but “pro-family,” in which “family” is always defined as a patriarchal family.

The Supreme Court in its Roe v. Wade decision did not hold that women have a constitutional right to an abortion; it held that they have a constitutional right of privacy that permits them and their physicians to make decisions “including a woman’s qualified tight to terminate her pregnancy. The Court also held that during the last three months of pregnancy, the state, “in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion, except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

The right of privacy is the night to make personal choices without governmental supervision or dictation. The government exists to serve the people, not to dominate them. The government should not force women to bear children, to remain at home, to relinquish their careers, to accept welfare as the price of ot working, or to be subjected to a higher mortality rate from coerced childbirth. Both the woman and her physician have the right to choose appropriate medical procedures for the health of the patient without government’s dictating that one medical procedure is forbidden regardless of the consequence to the woman.

In answering the question, Is there a moral right to abortion? If I am walking along the bank of a river and someone who cannot swim falls or jumps in, it could be argued that I ought also to jump in to rescue the drowning person, even if my own life is thereby endangered. But he person who jumps or falls in cannot claim that I must jump in because that person has a right to life. The mere fact that rescuing another would be a virtuous choice does not give that other person a right to decide my actions.

The common-law rule is that we have no duty to save the life of another person unless we voluntarily undertake such an obligation, as a lifeguard does in contracting to save lives at a beach or swimming pool. Neither is there a biblical mandate that each of us is morally required to risk our lives to save the life of another. Jesus considered it highly exceptional and evidence of great ove if “a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). No one who has not willingly contracted to do so is legally or morally required to give his or her life, or to make large sacrifices of health or money, to save the life of another person.

Even an identical twin is not legally required to donate a kidney or blood to save a sibling’s life. The virtue of the Good Samaritan lay precisely in his doing something he was not obligated to do. No woman should be required to give up her life, her health, or her family’s security to save the life of a fetus that is threatening her well-being. At the very least she is entitled to self-defense. On the other hand, many women are willing to sacrifice their health and their future in order to have one or more children.

The religious community that respects the freedom of women to make such a choice must respect equally their freedom to choose not to bear a child. Laws cannot eliminate abortions. In Romania under Ceausescu, the Communist secret Police checked monthly on all female workers under the age of 45 and monitored pregnant women; yet Romania outranked virtually all other European nations in rates of abortion and abortion-related female deaths. 5) In Brazil, where abortion is illegal, there are twice as many abortions as in the United States, although Brazil’s population is only half that of the United States.

In Latin America, illegal abortion is the number-one killer of women between the ages of 15 and 39. (6) By contrast, in countries where abortion is legal, it is a medically safe procedure–11 times safer than childbirth. The Cook County Hospital in Chicago, prior to the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion, admitted about 4,000 women each year for medical care following illegal abortions. After the decision, the hospital admitted fewer than five such Cases a month. 7)

Rather than pursuing laws banning abortion, which I believe would be as effective as passing laws against earthquakes, we should direct our energies toward reducing the need for the procedure. Supporters and opponents of legal abortion alike would agree that reducing the need for abortion, and thus the number of abortions performed, is a worthy goal. Women do not engage in sexual intercourse or become, pregnant in order to have abortions. Some women become pregnant unintentionally because of a lack of sex education. Increasing the availability of birth control information and contraceptives is a possible response to this problem.

Then there is the problem of contraceptive failure. The failure rate of barrier methods is in the 10 to 15 percent range, and of birth control pills 1 to 4 percent Until a contraceptive that is 100 percent effective is developed and made widely available, we must provide support for victims of contraceptive failure. For some women, particularly those close to the poverty line who would be financially unable to care for an additional child without jeopardizing the very existence of their amilies, an unexpected pregnancy can be devastating.

Free day care centers for children of working mothers, or a guaranteed annual income such as Milton Friedman and former senator Barry Goldwater once proposed, would remove some of the economic reasons for seeking abortions. Another way the number of abortions could be reduced would be for society to provide ample facilities for the care of children with severe birth defects at no cost to the parents. For families unprepared or unable to devote the vast emotional and financial resources necessary to care for a severely handicapped child, such a program ould present a compassionate and realistic alternative to abortion.

Finally, we must face the horrendous problems presented by rape and incest, both of which induce great suffering among their victims. The responsibility of men in sexual relationships must be stressed in the home, in schools, in our churches, and in our legal system. Our society must undertake strong educational and enforcement measures to reduce the tragedies of rape and incest and ensure the safety and dignity of American women. Many Christians are quick to condemn what they believe is immorality in others.

Such people should be eminded that men and women sometimes find themselves caught in situations that they feel leave them no choice, and that we all need understanding, forgiveness, and compassion. All too often a young, physically and psychologically vulnerable woman must bear the entire cal, social, emotional, and financial cost of birth while the father of the child assumes no responsibility. A young woman in those circumstances needs the acceptance, love, and compassion of her parents, her pastor, and her community.

In the story of the woman who was about to be stoned because she had been caught n the act of adultery, Jesus expressed compassion and understanding when he said to the men, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” and to the woman, “Neither do I condemn you. ” Jesus was always more critical of sins of the spirit than sins of the flesh. That is why he spoke so compassionately to this woman, but so strongly to the self-righteous, legalistic men. All of us who discuss ethics must learn from Jesus that it is not laws that make people good, but love, education, active concern for are others, arid forgiveness when others found wanting.

Our world today is full of unsolved, devisive and controversial issues. Most of them relate to our morals, ethics and religion, thus creating a very strong yes and no, or good and bad side. Like the Chinese Yin and Yang sign, abortion has a very prominent black and white side but also contains traces of each in the alternating colour. This shows that if you were to come to any kind of conclusion on abortion, there would still be a downside to it, and that is primarily why the world cannot agree on this sensitive and emotional issue.

Being female myself, I can understand why a woman would want to have an bortion. Being pregnant and wishing you werent is probably the worst feeling a woman can have. Knowing that if you brought a child into the world and you didnt want it, or you would have to give it up for adoption is such a disheartening way to start off, and you and the un-born child would be so much better off if you were to terminate the pregnancy and wait for a more appropriate time, or in the case of rape, put the past behind you and move on.

Society has attached a stigma to abortion. When we hear of women having abortions, we seem to automatically think that she wasnt careful enough, or she idnt use contraception. We forget to stop and think about the other possible reasons she may have accidentally become pregnant. Just forgetting to take one pill per packet can reduce its effectiveness and also taking anti-biotics, or being ill can also undermine the way the pill works.

Condoms can tear or be forgotten, and emergency contraceptives like the morning after pill are underprescribed and not readily available. Would it surprise you that over 50% of women getting an abortion in Britain used some form of contraception when they got pregnant? This obviously shows that women are having huge problems with using contraception, and something needs to be done about it now. Starting by educating women more on the pill and the way it works, the after effects of abortion, and the risks of having an abortion.

We dont want abortion to become the easy way out though. People just need to know more about it and have to satisfy specific criteria before having the pregnancy terminated, for instance by interviews with doctors, given unbiased advice, and consultations with people of their specific religion. It is hugely important to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies but we have to accept that abortion is a fact of life for many women, – Ann Furedi of the British pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

In the United States doctors who administer abortions are being targeted by anti-abortion activists and some have actually been murdered. The doctors are now having to take many precautions including wearing bullet-proof vests and pulling blinds and shades down in their homes. One obstetrician-gynecologist had to shut down his medical practice after he was terrorized by protesters who had istributed wanted posters with his photograph, mailed threats to his home and listed his name on a baby butchers web site.

What makes a person think that just because they feel strongly about an issue it gives them the right to go and kill someone, or harass them till they fear for the safety of their family? In Scotland the Roman Catholic Church offered a 12yr old pregnant girl money in the attempt to prevent her from having an abortion. She was advised by her teachers and a social worker to terminate the pregnancy mainly because of her age and her familys financial position. But her parents were more convinced with the advice given to them by the Scottish churchs Pro-Life Initiative, a program that offers alternatives to abortion.

A writer of the Tabloid Daily Mirror argues that offering 12yr olds cash for babies is tantamount to bribery….. and it stinks to high heaven. But Monsignor Tom Conelly a spokeperson for the Catholic Church in Scotland said that the churchs offer gives the girl real choice, so the child in the womb does not suffer at all, irrespective of age or race or creed. If the girl chose to go through with the abortion, it would able her to continue on with her life ormally and go on with her schooling.

Unfortunately though, if she did have an abortion there would be the risk that she may not be able to conceive in later years. This is a high price to pay, but maybe she should have thought about some of the consequences of having sex at such an early age. It all comes back to sex education and informing children about the consequences and responsibilities that come with having sex. Pap smears, contraception, STDs and abortion should all be addressed at school and this should all be re-inforced by the parents at home.

No matter how any of us feel about embryos and fetuses and their “rights”… about women and sex and responsibility… about God’s will, Karma, or the Bible… the fact still remains: Women have always used abortion as a last resort to prevent the birth of a child, and they always will, regardless of what the laws say or the rest of us think. But when abortion is illegal, it is unsafe and dangerous. Therefore, abortion must be legal, and it must be accessible too. Abortion is never an easy decision, but women have been making that choice for thousands of years, for many good reasons.

Whenever a society has sought to outlaw abortions; it has only driven them into back alleys where they became dangerous, expensive, and humiliating. Thousands of American women died. Amazingly, this was the case in the United States until 1973, when abortion was legalized nationwide. Thousands more were maimed. For this reason and others, women and men fought for and achieved women’s legal right to make their own decisions about abortion. However, there are people in our society who still won’t accept this.

Some argue that even victims of rape or incest should be forced to bear the child. And now, having failed to convince the public or the lawmakers, certain of these people have become violent extremists, engaging in a campaign of intimidation and terror aimed at women seeking abortions and health professionals who work at family planning clinics. Some say these acts will stop abortions, but that is ridiculous. When the smoke clears, the same urgent reasons will exist for safe, legal abortions as have always existed.

No nation committed to individual liberty could seriously consider returning to the days of back-alley abortions; to the revolting specter of a government forcing women to ear children against their will. Still, amid such attacks, it is worthwhile to repeat a few of the reasons why our society trusts each woman to make the abortion decision herself. Here are some reasons why legal abortion is necessary 1. Laws against abortion kill women. To prohibit abortions does not stop them. When women feel it is absolutely necessary, they will choose to have abortions, even in secret, without medical care, in dangerous circumstances.

In the two decades before abortion was legal in the U. S. , it’s been estimated that nearly a million women per year sought out illegal abortions. Thousands died. Tens of thousands were mutilated. All were forced to behave as if they were criminals. Making abortion illegal has little effect on the number of abortions, as history and present-day evidence from all over the world show. But illegal abortion is much more dangerous. According to the American Medical Association in the 1930s there was “an epidemic of criminal abortion” in the United States.

The number of births dropped by about half, as women who refused to bring children into a depressed economy resorted to illegal abortion to end their pregnancies. As a result, about 2500 women died each year from abortion omplications, accounting for nearly one in four maternal From 1950 to 1965 in the US, the National Center for Health Statistics stated that there were 200 to 250 abortion-related deaths reported each year, a number that is acknowledged to be lower than the true death count.

But even using these statistics, and assuming that illegal abortion was two or three times as dangerous as legal abortion at that time, a simple calculation shows that there were at least 500,000 illegal abortions each year. It’s not worth the death of one woman if that’s what it would take to cut the number of bortions by 60%, let alone fifty or a hundred women. Thanks to changes in the law, today the mortality rate from legal abortion is almost zero, and abortion accounts for only 3% of maternal deaths.

The publication Lancet said that “It is impossible to achieve a low maternal mortality without access to safe abortion. 2. Legal abortions protect women’s health. Legal abortion not only protects women’s lives, it also protects their health. For tens of thousands of women with heart disease, kidney disease, severe hypertension, sickle-cell anemia and severe diabetes, and other illnesses that can be ife-threatening, the availability of legal abortion has helped avert serious medical complications that could have resulted from childbirth. Before legal abortion, such women’s choices were limited to dangerous illegal abortion or dangerous childbirth.

In a case-controlled study women whose own health is are more likely to miscarry and to deliver babies who are sick. Their babies are also more likely to die after birth. Women’s Health, Am Journal of Public Health, and Demography, all stated that women whose pregnancies are unwanted are less likely to get prenatal care, more likely to use cigarettes, alcohol, and rugs during their pregnancies, more likely to be abused by their partners, and more likely to give birth to low-birth weight, sick babies, as well as not to breast-feed.

The Demography believed that This is not simply a correlation with ethnic or socioeconomic status rather than pregnancy wantedness, because women who abort one pregnancy are more likely to have a healthy baby in the next pregnancy, and some of the poor outcomes persist even when correcting for race and income level. 3. A woman is more than a fetus. There’s an argument these days that a fetus is a “person” that s “indistinguishable from the rest of us” and that it deserves rights equal to women’s.

On this question there is a tremendous spectrum of religious, philosophical, scientific, and medical opinion. It’s been argued for centuries. Fortunately, our society has recognized that each woman must be able to make this decision, based on her own conscience. To impose a law defining a fetus as a “person,” granting it rights equal to or superior to a woman’s – a thinking, feeling, conscious human being – is arrogant and absurd. It only serves to diminish women.

What they ignore is that allowing an embryo to use a woman’s ody against her will would give it more rights than she has, since women (including pregnant ones) are not entitled to demand the use of other people’s bodies to save their own lives. In fact, children cannot gain access to the bodily resources of their parents, even when their lives are at stake. Abortion opponents also ignore thousands of years of cultural, religious, social, and legal history which has never held an embryo to be a person.

Only abortion opponents have ever defined embryos as persons-and then only for the purpose of opposing abortion, as they are quite willing to regard embryos as non-persons when it suits them. For instance, by allowing abortion in circumstances that would never justify killing an innocent person. ) Calling for laws that define an embryo as “a person,” with rights equal to or greater than those of women, is arrogant and absurd. Subjugating women-living, breathing, thinking, feeling, hoping, suffering human beings-to the needs of a tablespoon of insentient, unaware tissue is perverse.

Equating a person with a hollow ball of cells trivializes everything we value about humanity. The time to worry about equal rights and human dignity is when a society singles out one group of people and strips hem of rights that other people in that society take for granted. It’s when a society decides that one group is going to bear burdens and provide services that are expected from no one else. It’s the societies which ban abortion, now and in the past, where human rights are not respected, and lives are in danger, for people besides pregnant women.

Compulsory pregnancy laws are incompatible with a free society. . It is impossible to regulate the private consensual behavior of people, as the examples of Prohibition and the failed War on (Some) Drugs show. Outlawing abortion is discriminatory. Anti-abortion laws discriminate against low-income women, who are driven to dangerous self-induced or back-alley abortions. That is all they can afford. But the rich can travel wherever necessary to obtain a safe abortion. Like drinking, drug use, prostitution, and unorthodox sexual behavior, abortion is a “victimless” (no complainant) crime.

In 1965, sociologist and lawyer Edwin Schur looked at existing laws against homosexuality, drug use, and abortion, and concluded that the laws were futile, writing: Shur stated, “Unsatisfactory experience with the laws against abortion points up some of the major consequences of attempting to egislate against the crimes without victims. As an English legal authority writes, unsuccessful laws against abortion illustrate ‘the inherent unenforceability of a statute that attempts to prohibit a private practice where all parties concerned seek to avoid the restriction. ”

Unenforceable laws do little to regulate people’s behavior, but do lead to crime and corruption. To suppress women’s use of abortion would require dedicated and persistent government vigilance of a kind that no society has ever seen. The Romanian dictator Ceaucescu failed to restrict abortion even with all the existing resources of totalitarian police state at his disposal-the birth rate went up briefly, then plunged again as women sought out illegal abortions.

But Romania’s draconian fertility law, which went so far as to give pregnancy tests to all working women monthly and require them to explain their miscarriages, did result in the highest maternal mortality rate in Europe. In a country like the United States, where individual freedom and liberty are paramount, it is inconceivable to imagine a successful campaign to outlaw abortion and prevent women from obtaining it illegally. The loss of civil liberties would never be tolerated. If there is any matter which is personal and private, then pregnancy is it.

There can be no more extreme invasion of privacy than requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted to compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop? 6. Choice is good for families. Outlaw abortion, and more children will bear children. Forty percent of 14-year-old girls will become pregnant before they turn 20. This could happen to your daughter or someone else close to you. Here are the critical questions: Should the penalty for lack of knowledge or even for a moment’s arelessness is enforced pregnancy and childrearing? Or dangerous illegal abortion?

Should we consign a teenager to a life sentence of joblessness, hopelessness, and dependency? “Every child a wanted child. ” If women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the result is unwanted children. Everyone knows they are among society’s most tragic cases, often uncared-for, unloved, brutalized, and abandoned. When they grow up, these children are often seriously disadvantaged, and sometimes inclined toward brutal behavior to others. This is not good for children, for families, or for the country. Children need love and families who want and will care for them.

Choice is good for families. Even when precautions are taken, accidents can and do happen. For some families, this is not a problem. But for others, such an event can be catastrophic. An unintended pregnancy can increase tensions, disrupt stability, and push people below the line of economic survival. Family planning is the answer. All options must be open. At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really about abortion. It is about the value of women in society. Should women make their own decisions about family, career, and how to live their lives?

Or should government do that for them? Do women have the option of deciding when or whether to have children? Or is that a government decision? The anti-abortion leaders really have a larger purpose. They oppose most ideas and programs which can help women achieve equality and freedom. They also oppose programs which protect the health and well-being of women and their children. Anti-abortion leaders claim to act “in defense of life. ” If so, why have they worked to destroy programs, which serve life, including prenatal care and nutrition programs for dependent pregnant women?

Is this respect for life? Anti-abortion leaders also say they are trying to save children, but they have fought against health and nutrition programs for children once they are born. The anti-abortion groups seem to believe life begins at conception, but it ends at birth. Is this respect for life? Then there are programs, which diminish the number of unwanted pregnancies before they occur: family planning counseling, sex education, and contraception for those who wish it. Anti-abortion leaders oppose those too. And clinics providing such services have been bombed. Is this respect for life?

Such stances reveal the ultimate cynicism of the compulsory regnancy movement. “Life” is not what they’re fighting for. What they want is a return to the days when a woman had few choices in controlling her future. They think that the abortion option gives too much freedom. That even contraception is too liberating. That women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. Americans today don’t accept that. Women can now select their own paths in society, including when and whether to have children. Family planning, contraception, and, if need be, legal abortion are critical to sustaining women’s freedom. There is no going back.

Almost half of American women have terminated at least one pregnancy, and millions more Americans of both sexes have helped them, as partners, parents, health-care workers, counselors, friends. Collectively, it would seem, Americans have quite a bit of knowledge and experience of abortion. Yet the debate over legal abortion is curiously abstract: we might be discussing brain transplants. Farfetched analogies abound: abortion is like the Holocaust, or slavery; denial of abortion is like forcing a person to spend nine months intravenously hooked up to a medically endangered stranger who happens to be a famous violinist.

It ometimes seems that the further abortion is removed from the actual lives and circumstances of real girls and women, the more interesting it becomes to talk about. Opponents often argue as if the widespread use of abortion were a modern innovation, the consequence of some aspect of contemporary life of which they disapprove (feminism, promiscuity, consumerism, Godlessness, permissiveness, individualism), and as if making it illegal would make it go away. What if none of this is true? Historical advertisements: The Granger Collection, New York.

When Abortion Was a Crime, Leslie J. Reagan demonstrates that abortion has been common procedure — “part of life” — in America since the eighteenth century, both during the slightly more than half of our history as a nation when it has been legal and during the slightly less than half when it was not. The first statutes regulating abortion, passed in the 1820s and 1830s, were actually poison-control laws: the sale of commercial abortifacients was banned, but abortion per se was not. The laws made little difference.

By the 1840s the abortion business — including the sale of illegal drugs, which were widely advertised in the popular press — was booming. In one of the many curious wists that mark the history of abortion, the campaign to criminalize it was waged by the same professional group that, a century later, would play an important role in legalization: physicians. The American Medical Association’s crusade against abortion was partly a professional move, to establish the supremacy of “regular” physicians over midwives and homeopaths.

The physician and anti-abortion leader Horatio R. Storer asked in 1868. “This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation. ” (It should be mentioned that the nineteenth-century women’s ovement also opposed abortion, having pinned its hopes on “voluntary motherhood” — the right of wives to control the frequency and timing of sex with their husbands. ) Nonetheless, having achieved their legal goal, many doctors — including prominent members of the AMA — went right on providing abortions. omen were often able to make doctors listen to their needs and even lower their fees. And because, in the era before the widespread use of hospitals, women chose the doctors who would attend their whole families through many lucrative illnesses, medical men had self-interest as well as compassion or a motive. Thus in an 1888 expos? undercover reporters for the Chicago Times obtained an abortion referral from no less a personage than the head of the Chicago Medical Society. Unless a woman died, doctors were rarely arrested and even more rarely convicted.

Even midwives — whom doctors continued to try to drive out of business by portraying them, unfairly, as dangerous abortion quacks — practiced largely unmolested. What was the point, then, of making abortion a crime? Reagan argues that its main effect was to expose and humiliate women caught in raids on abortion clinics or brought to the hospital with bortion complications, and thereby send a message to all women about the possible consequences of flouting official gender norms. Publicity — the forced disclosure of sexual secrets before the authorities — was itself the punishment.

Reagan’s discussion of “dying declarations” makes particularly chilling reading: because the words of the dying are legally admissible in court, women on their deathbeds were informed by police or doctors of their imminent demise and harassed until they admitted to their abortions and named the people connected with them — including, if the woman was unwed, the an responsible for the pregnancy Unsurprisingly, the Depression, during which women stood to lose their jobs if they married or had a child, saw a big surge in the abortion rate.

Well-connected white women with private health insurance were sometimes able to obtain “therapeutic” abortions, a never-defined category that remained legal throughout the epoch of illegal abortion. Even for the privileged, though, access to safe abortion narrowed throughout the fifties, as doctors, fearful of being prosecuted in a repressive political climate for interpreting “therapeutic abortion” too broadly, set up hospital ommittees to rule on abortion requests. Some committees were more compassionate than others.

Moderate reforms had already been tried: twelve states permitted abortion in instances of rape, incest, danger to physical or mental health, or fetal defect, but since most women, as always, sought abortions for economic, social, or personal reasons, illegal abortion continued to thrive Legalizing abortion was a public-health triumph that for pregnant women ranked with the advent of antisepsis and antibiotics. Anti-abortion zealots have committed arson, assault, and murder in their campaign against abortion clinics.

Similarly, the general lack of enthusiasm for prosecuting those who perform abortions and the almost total failure to prosecute and jail women for having them suggest that whatever Americans may consider abortion to be, it isn’t baby killing, a crime our courts have always punished quite severely. it seems absurd to suggest that the overburdened mothers, desperate young girls, and precariously employed working women who populate these pages risked public humiliation, injury, and death for mere “convenience,” much less out of “secular humanism” or a Lockean notion of property rights in their bodies.

It’s even more preposterous — not to mention insulting — to see them as standing in relation to their fetuses as a slaveowner to a slave or a Nazi to a Jew. Reagan suggests that the abortion debate is really an ideological struggle over the position of women. How much right should they have to consult their own needs, interests, and well-being with respect to childbearing or anything else? Arguments Abortion as philosophical puzzle and moral conundrum is all very well, but what about abortion as a real-life social practice?

Since the abortion debate is, theoretically at least, aimed at shaping social policy, sn’t it important to look at abortion empirically and historically? Historical advertisements: The Granger Collection, New York. Copyright 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; May 1997; Abortion in American History; Volume 279, No. 5; pages 111-115. http://www. theatlantic. com/issues/97may/abortion. htm May 11th, 2000 “A fetus is not a person and not the subject of an indictment for manslaughter,” Boston’s Superior Court Judge James P.

McGuire told the jury. “I will continue to do abortions. They are a woman’s right,” he said after his conviction, “Women since they’ve been on his earth have been making that choice, whether they want to carry that baby or not…. The only humane thing we can do is make sure that when they make that choice they have the opportunity to make it under the best conditions possible. ” Copyright 1975 by Seth Mydans. All rights reserved. http://www. theatantic/politics/abortion/myda. tm May 11th, 2000 At the same time, there begins to appear on the part of some an alarming readiness to subordinate rights of freedom of choice in the area of human reproduction to governmental coercion. Notwithstanding all this, we continue to maintain strict antiabortion laws on the books of at least four ifths of our states, denying freedom of choice to women and physicians and compelling the “unwilling to bear the unwanted. ” Since, however, abortions are still so difficult to obtain, we force the birth of millions more unwanted children every year. o cut down on population growth we should make abortion easy and safe while we continue to develop other and more satisfactory methods of family limitation. “There is no perfect contraceptive. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration reports that the intrauterine devices, one of the most effective contraceptives available today, have a failure rate of 1. 5 to 3%. This means that if all married women in the United States could and did use these contraceptives, there would still be about 350,000 to 700,000 unwanted pregnancies a year among married women alone.

Even sterilization is not a 100% effective method of contraception; some operations fail. Therefore, in order to insure a complete and thorough birth control program, abortion must be made available as a legal right to all women who request it. ” The situation is today reversed; abortion under modern hospital conditions is safer than childbirth. Though the population experts have not yet aligned themselves on the ide of abortion-law reform, something is beginning to happen.

Seven states–Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Carolina–have amended their laws to permit abortion not only to save life but also to protect the health, mental and physical, of the mother, in cases of rape and incest, and to avert the birth of defective offspring The 8000 to 10,000 in-hospital abortions contrast, of course, with the estimated one million performed outside hospitals annually. Probably not much more than one half of these are performed by doctors; the rest by the “kindly neighbor,” the “close friend,” or the woman herself.

Generally speaking, the laws do not distinguish in their prohibitions of abortions between doctors and nondoctors. Moreover, the out-of-hospital abortions performed by doctors are obtained by the same group which accounts for the bulk of the in-hospital abortions: the middle- and upper-income white woman who can afford the hundreds or thousands charged for expert medical service outside the law. And these are the same women who can afford to go to Japan, Sweden, England, or one of the Iron Curtain countries where abortions are legal and where they typically cost something between $10 and $25.

But most of the old laws on abortion remain nchanged on the statute books. In a few states, like Connecticut or Missouri, the law says that the abortion may be performed to save the life of the child as well as that of the mother, although no one is sure what this means. As a matter of fact, no one knows what the laws which permit abortion to save the life of the mother mean. “In order that a physician may best serve his patients he is expected to exalt the standards of his profession and to extend its sphere of usefulness. ” Copyright 1969 by Harriet Pilpel.

All rights reserved. http://www. theatantic/politics/abortion/pilp. htm Published FridayMarch 31, 2000 White House Seeks to Join Carhart Case Washington (AP) – The Clinton administration is asking the Supreme Court to let it join a Nebraska doctor’s fight against a state abortion law. Justice Department lawyers asked the nation’s highest court this week to let them participate when the Nebraska case is argued before the justices the week of April 24. They said the law violates some women’s constitutional right to end their pregnancies.

The court’s decision in the case may determine the fate of 30 states’ bans on the late-term procedure opponents call “partial-birth” abortion and which is known medically as intact dilation and extraction. President Clinton twice has vetoed a federal ban enacted by Congress. The court has not yet said whether it will let the administration participate in the argument, but in a friend-of-the-court brief made public Thursday government lawyers called the Nebraska law “unconstitutional for three reasons. The brief says the law challenged by Bellevue doctor LeRoy Carhart is written so broadly that it could be enforced against more than one abortion procedure and is too vague to let doctors know just what abortion techniques are outlawed. Even if the law is limited to a single procedure, the brief says, it unduly burdens a woman’s right o abortion because “it fails to provide an exception to preserve the pregnant woman’s health. The only exception to Nebraska’s ban is if the outlawed procedure is necessary to save a woman’s life. ” “The statute therefore prohibits the . . . ethod even when a physician concludes that that method is best suited to preserve the health of a particular woman,” the brief says. “The ban therefore forces at least some pregnant women to forgo a safer abortion method for one that would compromise their health. ” The surgical procedure involves partly extracting a fetus, legs first, then cutting the skull nd draining it to allow full removal from the uterus. Abortion-rights advocates say the court’s decision could broadly safeguard or dramatically erode abortion rights, depending on what state legislatures can consider when regulating abortions.

A federal appeals court struck down the Nebraska law along with Iowa and Arkansas laws. But nearly identical laws in Illinois and Wisconsin were up-held by another federal appeals court. Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. http://www. abortionclinics. org/nebraska. htm Jan. 22, 1998, marked he 25th anniversary of the landmark decision Roe v. Wade. The U. S. Supreme Court ruling, of course, gave women the legal right to have an abortion.

Poll results: 8,885 people voted 1. Should abortion be legal? 77% yes22% no 1% don’t know 2. Will Roe v. Wade be overturned in your lifetime? 13% yes 69% no 18% don’t know 3. Have you or has anyone you know had an abortion? 86% yes 10% no 4% don’t know Poll date: Jan. 18, 1998 Copyright 1995-2000 Women. com Networks. All rights reserved. http://www. womanswire. com/backtalk/roewade. html Abortion Coverage Leaves Women out of the Picture By Tiffany Devitt For example, the

Supreme Court decision that enabled states to require women under the age of 18 to get parental consent before getting an abortion was widely covered. However, while more than 1 million teenagers become pregnant each year, and thousands of them are affected by state legislation requiring parental consent, reporters almost never sought their reaction, covering the legal change without consulting anyone in the group that it impacts. This graphic depicts the abortion debate as two hands tugging at a rag doll– suggesting that the debate is about an “unborn child” rather than about women’s rights.

During the past quarter century, abortion has joined race and war as one of the most debatable subject of controversy in the United States. It discusses human interaction where ethics, emotions and law come together. Abortion poses a moral, social and medical dilemma that faces many individuals to create a emotional and violent atmosphere. There are many points of view toward abortion but the only two fine distinctions are “pro-choice” and “pro-life”. A pro-choicer would feel that the decision to abort a pregnancy is that of the mothers and the state has no right to interfere.

A pro-lifer would hold that from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive. This life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it and that abortion is tantamount to murder (Kolner 5). In the United States about 1. 6 million pregnancies end in abortion. Women with incomes under eleven thousand are over three times more likely to abort than those with incomes above twenty-five thousand. Unmarried women are four to five times more likely to abort than married and the abortion rate has doubled for 18 and 19 year olds. Recently the U. S. ate dropped 6 percent overall but the rate of abortion among girls younger than 15 jumped 18 percent.

The rate among minority teens climbed from 186 per 1,000 to 189 per 1,000. The most popular procedure involved in abortions is the vacuum aspiration which is done during the first trimester (three months or less since the women has become pregnant). A tube is simply inserted through the cervix and the contents of the uterus are vacuumed out. The most commonly used type of second trimester abortion is called dilation and evacuation. Since the fetus has bones, bulk and can move, second trimester is not as simple.

When as much of the fetus and placenta are vacuumed out then tweezers are used to remove larger parts. After this, or the beginning of the fifth month abortion is serious and actually induced as childbirth. That is, the mother is given substances which puts her into labor and delivers the fetus as she would a full-term baby. About 40 percent of Americans believe that abortion should remain legal and 40 percent believe it should be banned except when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother or is the result of rape or incest. Also 15 percent believe it should be illegal in all cases.

Although abortion is regarded as a women’s right, it should be banned with exceptions because it’s considered murder, has many psychological side effects and there is an alternative. Abortion is a women’s own right and choice. In 1973 the Roe v. Wade decision proved this by recognizing abortion as a fundamental constitution right and made it legal in all states. The law now permits abortion at the request of the women without any restrictions in the first trimester and some restrictions in the second trimester to protect the women’s health.

The National Abortion Right Act League argues that without legal abortion women would be denied their constitutional right of privacy and liberty. The women’s right to her own body subordinates those of the fetus and the U. S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade argued that the women’s “right to privacy” overruled the fetus’s right to life. If abortion was illegal it would force poor women to bear and raise children they can’t afford to bring up. There would be a number of unsafe abortions in back allies.

It would also force women to give up their dreams and stay home to bring up babies. Worst of all, it would condemn victims of rape and incest to carry and nurture the offspring of their rapist. (Kolner 5) Abortion is necessary for women to have control over their own bodies and life. One activist said, “If I hadn’t had that abortion my life would have been a disaster. I wouldn’t have made it to medical school. I was married at that point to a very ill man and it would have been terrible to have to have my baby.

People who need abortions are in some kind of turmoil and it’s really a life-saving thing. “(Blender 4) To ignore the rights of others is selfish and injustice. Women must have the right to control the functions of their own bodies. Rev. George Gardiner pastor of the college Hill United Methodist Church, told the council that the ordnance would have done little good. “Young women need the freedom to make choices for their reproductive life when their family can’t guarantee them parental support. “(Lynn B6-7) Women should not be forced to have babies they don’t want.

They must be able to decide what happens to them and have a safe plus legal way of doing so. Women are in control of their own bodies and lives. Legislators have no right to interfere. The practical assertion that since pregnancy involves a women’s body, the choice of continuing that pregnancy must be hers alone. This was the first given full theoretical articulation and defense by Judith Thomson. (meilander 3) However, abortion is considered murder by half of all Americans. Pro-lifers believe that human life begins at the moment of conception.

When the merge of the egg and sperm is complete, they are fertilized and known as the “zygote”. The zygote contains a full set of 46 chromosomes which is required to create a human life. Scientists identify that at the moment of fertilization the ovum takes on a entirely different destiny, life. About 15,000 genes from the sperm and ovum form a unique combination. This is nothing less than a new human life at its earlier stage of life. In the United States many infants will not make it to puberty, old age or even their second birthday.

Just because of their shortened life, it doesn’t mean that it never existed. Dr. Nathanson stopped performing abortions after becoming aware of the horrors he observed. “A woman has the right to go to bed with who she wants, but she can not choose death for her child. It’s a direct violation of human rights. ” (Koval i grid c-7) Anthony Simpson has a photo of a aborted fetus and believes that abortion is nothing less but ruthless murder. In southern Kentucky, Robert Hollis brutally assaulted his wife in effort to abort the fetus he suspected wasn’t his.

He successfully did so and Caroll believed Hollis set out intentionally to kill that fetus and that is in fact murder. Kristina Kleg a graduate from high school has recently become pregnant and decided against abortion. She feels that it’s an innocent child inside of her. It has a brain and a heart therefore it also has a right to life. “Abortion is the unnatural end of pregnancy. That child has a right to life that is equal to the mothers right. One cannot kill another human being just because they wished it wasn’t around. Abortion is murder of the innocent practiced on a national scale. (Abortion: The Personal, Medical and Social Dilemma) Overall it has been proven that the fetus is a real person. It responds to noise, has feeling and fears. To have an abortion it will destroy an innocent life which is directly connected to murder. Scientific research has successfully shown that abortion causes many psychological side effects. It leaves the woman with many strong feelings about their decision. They feel sadness, wishing things could have been different and grief for a lost life. Guilt arises because they know a fetus represents an independent life.

Anger builds up towards other people having to do with their decision. Sometimes the mother may feel that she has in fact been abandoned. Most of all the mother feels ashamed and embarrassed about her action. People close to the mother may be angry at her for ending her pregnancy and make it difficult for her to deal with. Even years after the abortion, women tent to remember the regretful experience. They usually wonder what the baby would have looked like and its birthday. Thirty-three year old Michelle Urbain of south Florida has had five abortions so far.

She realizes now that they all left emotional scares her that are unbearable. “It wasn’t just a mass of cell t was children I was killing. ” (Kovaleski c-7) It maybe a month or a year but feelings do catch up with the mother. Symptoms like nightmares, panic attacks and flashbacks are signs of a recently discovered Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS). According to a study published by Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Valves and Social Change, one in five women studied had diagnosable stress disorders. (Lyons d-11) Also two in five had sleep disorders and flashbacks following abortion.

The abortion debate is raging in America. The opposing sides in the debate each strongly believe they are right. The pro-choice supporters see a woman’s right to choose as central to the debate. The life of the baby is the most important concern of the pro-life advocates. Very little middle ground exists on the issue of abortion. Abortion is murder and should be illegal except in instances when the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy. Abortion is murder. The embryo is a person from the moment of conception.

According to Shettles, “Scientists identify the first moment of human life as that instant when a sperm cell unites with an ovum or egg cell” (18). Most pro-choice supporters do not believe the fetus is a person until the first or second trimester. Pro-choice people do not think abortion is murder because they consider the aborted fetus a mass or cells or tissue (Shettles 20). Abortion is the taking of innocent human life, which is wrong under virtually any circumstances. An unborn baby is more than potential life.

An unborn baby is meaningful human life that should not be considered expendable. After conception, no event occurs in the development of the fetus that indicates a change in the fetus from not being human to becoming one (Foster 33). Human life begins with conception. A middle-aged person, a teenager, and an unborn baby are all in stages of human life. Killing the unborn baby is no more justifiable than killing the two other people. Abortion is a practice that should be prohibited by law because it basically amounts to murder.

An unborn baby’s right to life should have priority over a woman’s right to choose. No woman or man should have the power to decide if a baby is allowed to live. Pro-choice advocates believe women’s rights are being jeopardized when the right to an abortion is taken away. The pro-choice camp fails to take into account that the baby has a right to life. A woman’s rights over her body do not give her the right to an abortion (Schwarz 113). If a woman has rights over her body, then the unborn baby has those rights too.

The child has the right not to be killed. The appeal to a woman’s right over her body as a justification for abortion backfires because the right must also be extended to the child (Schwarz 123). All things considered, abortion is not made justifiable by appealing to women’s rights over their bodies. Abortion should not be allowed because it is immoral. Foster states that “There is no morally relevant difference between deliberately killing a human being who has been born and deliberately killing a human being who is still inside his mother” (32).

Abortion has become morally acceptable to some simply because it is currently legal. Legality does not necessarily imply morality. Slavery was once legal in the United States, even though it clearly was not moral. The taking of an innocent, defenseless human life is unacceptable and morally wrong. Killing innocent people is immoral and illegal in the United States; therefore, to be consistent, abortion should also be illegal. The moral aspects of abortion are clear. It is time for society to truly consider what it is doing to other humans.

Abortion is a horrible atrocity that should be illegal unless the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy. Unborn babies need to be recognized as persons. The right to life that everyone takes for granted should be extended to the unborn. As long as the law reflects the pro-choice view, unborn babies will continue to be murdered. The laws need to be changed; babies’ lives are depending on it. Works Cited Foster, J. “Personhood And the Ethics of Abortion. ” Abortion And the Sanctity of Human Life. Ed. J. H. Channer. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1985. 1-53. Schwarz, Stephen. The Moral Question of Abortion. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990. Shettles, Landrum, and David Rorvik. “Human Life Begins At Conception. ” Abortion- Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Bonnie Szumski. St. Paul: Greenhaven Press, 1986. 16-22. Abortion -The Wrong Choice abortion argumentative persuasive Abortion-The Wrong Choice The abortion debate is raging in America. The opposing sides in the debate each strongly believe they are right. The pro-choice supporters see a woman’s right to choose as central to the debate.

The life of the baby is the most important concern of the pro-life advocates. Very little middle ground exists on the issue of abortion. Abortion is murder and should be illegal except in instances when the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy. Abortion is murder. The embryo is a person from the moment of conception. According to Shettles, “Scientists identify the first moment of human life as that instant when a sperm cell unites with an ovum or egg cell” (18). Most pro-choice supporters do not believe the fetus is a person until the first or second trimester.

Pro-choice people do not think abortion is murder because they consider the aborted fetus a mass or cells or tissue (Shettles 20). Abortion is the taking of innocent human life, which is wrong under virtually any circumstances. An unborn baby is more than potential life. An unborn baby is meaningful human life that should not be considered expendable. After conception, no event occurs in the development of the fetus that indicates a change in the fetus from not being human to becoming one (Foster 33). Human life begins with conception.

A middle-aged person, a teenager, and an unborn baby are all in stages of human life. Killing the unborn baby is no more justifiable than killing the two other people. Abortion is a practice that should be prohibited by law because it basically amounts to murder. An unborn baby’s right to life should have priority over a woman’s right to choose. No woman or man should have the power to decide if a baby is allowed to live. Pro-choice advocates believe women’s rights are being jeopardized when the right to an abortion is taken away.

The pro-choice camp fails to take into account that the baby has a right to life. A woman’s rights over her body do not give her the right to an abortion (Schwarz 113). If a woman has rights over her body, then the unborn baby has those rights too. The child has the right not to be killed. The appeal to a woman’s right over her body as a justification for abortion backfires because the right must also be extended to the child (Schwarz 123). All things considered, abortion is not made justifiable by appealing to women’s rights over their bodies.

Abortion should not be allowed because it is immoral. Foster states that “There is no morally relevant difference between deliberately killing a human being who has been born and deliberately killing a human being who is still inside his mother” (32). Abortion has become morally acceptable to some simply because it is currently legal. Legality does not necessarily imply morality. Slavery was once legal in the United States, even though it clearly was not moral. The taking of an innocent, defenseless human life is unacceptable and morally wrong.

Killing innocent people is immoral and illegal in the United States; therefore, to be consistent, abortion should also be illegal. The moral aspects of abortion are clear. It is time for society to truly consider what it is doing to other humans. Abortion is a horrible atrocity that should be illegal unless the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy. Unborn babies need to be recognized as persons. The right to life that everyone takes for granted should be extended to the unborn. As long as the law reflects the pro-choice view, unborn babies will continue to be murdered. The laws need to be changed; babies’ lives are depending on it.

We of the Ethics Committee have reviewed your case for an extended period of time. We took into consideration, for our decision, the yearn of any female to experience childbearing, child birth, and the joy of raising young. Being a mother is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and once you become a mother you are a mother for life. There is a tremendous amount of responsibility and work that goes along with having children.

We understand your desire to continue the pregnancy, and to keep the child, but due to your legal status, ental health, and the baby’s well being, the decision to terminate the pregnancy has been reached and voted for unanimously. Your mother has proper legal custody, and as you know, wants the abortion to take place. We agree with her concern for your well-being. Child birth is an extremely stressful situation. The trauma of the pregnancy could intensify your paranoid schizophrenia, or cause some other mental disorder. Mrs. Smith has informed us that she herself is not capable of caring for the child.

We feel that you will suffer further if you are forced to give up the child. Your psychiatrist has come to the conclusion that you are not capable of being a responsible parent, but you are, at times, capable of making rational moral decisions. However, because you are not able to make important, rational, moral decisions most of the time your mother can claim that you are not mentally capable of raising a child. Also. We took in to account that the father of this unborn child is unknown. There is no one to help you make this decision, but more importantly, there is not another parental figure to aid in the raising and caring for this child.

From testimonies from your mother and your psychiatrist, it is our understanding that you can do neither on your own. Ms. Smith, you have been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. As you know, the treatment for paranoid schizophrenia is a variety of different drugs. This gives you a slightly higher chance of having fetal defects such as cystic fibrosis, pulmonary emphysema, abruptioplacentae, miscarriage, or placenta previa to name a few. We also feel that there is an increased chance that the child will develop a mental disorder.

It is not fair for the child or its’ care akers to suffer from deformities that were caused from drug reactions. You must understand our position in caring for the physical health and safety of this child. You will not be able to provide for the child, because you have no annual income. We feel that the child will not have equal opportunities to have positive growth and development because of this. Living in Community Hospital’s long term care unit does not provide a heathy environment for the baby to live in. The baby will have little opportunity to go outside, be with peers, and have friends.

A baby needs a healthy environment to grow and be nurtured in. This is a basic right that should be granted to any new born. We feel that because of your living situation your baby will not get the essentials. Adoption is another issue to be dealt with. As we stated earlier, you might suffer more if you are you are forced to give the baby up for adoption. You could possibly develop serious depression, and worsen your paranoid schizophrenia. You may think you give the child up for adoption to benefit their well being, but once you actually give birth to this child, your feelings may hange.

The could cause serious emotional trauma on you, your mother, and in the long run will hurt your child. Orphanages aren’t the best environment for a child to grow up in. If you did put your child up for adoption, the likelihood that someone will want to adopt a mental patient’s child is low, and if the child is deformed in some way the chance is even smaller. You took the responsibility to have sex, now you must take the responsibility to do what is right for your child, no matter how much pain will be placed on you.

Every hild deserves to have loving, providing parents and we feel you can’t give your child that, and an adoption may not be successful. We, as an Ethics Committee are not willing to take that chance with an unborn child’s life. Children’s development is influenced by several different mediums like environment, parents, friends, and personal characteristics. We feel that if this child were born under these circumstances, the influences presented would be negative, and the baby’s well being, health, and security are top priority in this case.

Being an ethics committee, we cannot permit you to give birth to this fetus. You are not mentally capable to bear, or properly raise the child. Your lifestyle is not suitable for properly raising a child. Living in a mental hospital does not provide an acceptable environment for a baby to grow in, and the negatives of this case out way the positives. We are truly sorry about this decision, but it is the best for you and the child. We will do our best to help you in any way. We are here to offer mental and physical support. Please understand that this is the best solution or everyone involved.

If you have any problems or questions feel free to contact us any time. We did not impose this decision to hurt you in any way. We want you to get healthy and care for yourself. Until you can care for, and have responsibility for yourself, you can’t care for and take responsibility for another. This decision is final and you must cooperate with us to make this painful situation as easy as possible. We have sent a copy of this letter to your mother and to your doctors and we would like to talk with you further. Thank You for your cooperation.

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion. When the it ruled that abortion was legal, the court not only gave women the right to choose but also gave the unborn babies a right to die. Since that day, millions upon millions of unborn children have been ripped apart, burned with saline solutions, and sucked from their mothers’ wombs. With every abortion that occurs another inaudible scream from the unborn child is silenced and the rights of that child are taken away . If someone where to be asked if murder was wrong, the general answer would be yes.

When that same person is asked if abortion is murder, the answer may be yes, but most likely the answer is no. Why do most people think that murder is wrong, but do not agree that abortion is murder? The reason for this contradiction is that most people believe that the unborn infant is not a human, but an organ or part of the woman’s body, which would make the act of aborting the child just the same as removing an appendix. This problem of when life begins stems from the inconsistencies which come from the case of Roe v. Wade.

The Supreme Court interrupted that by the ninth and fourteenth amendments that woman has the right to an abortion. The court that day, however, did not rule when a life begins for a human. If society is to assume that a fetus is a human the second it leaves the uterus, then what is the unborn baby three minutes from birth , a monkey. When an unborn baby is aborted, society must realize that an organ was not taken out, but a living human being. This would make abortion wrong because according to law, no one has the right to take away anther’s life.

With many people considering the cases of unwanted pregnancy due to ape or incest to be acceptable, they must realize that the child is not the crime. Society’s reason behind this is, why should the woman suffer from the pain and remembrance that the pregnancy brings. Even though cases of abortion due to rape and incest only make up one percent of the total number abortion performed, there is no reason why 15,000 unborn babies should be murdered annually. Why should the baby be condemned to death because of a crime that was committed by another person.

If innocent people should be condemned to death because they are the result of the crime, then instead of imprisoning or putting eath a convicted murder we should kill one of that prisoner’s family members. If the woman does not want to have the baby they could either carry the unborn baby until full term and give the child up for adoption, or go within twenty four hours to a hospital and have the rapist’s semen removed before conception. The last reason why abortion should be wrong is the use of it as genocide.

With the growing technologies in the world today, society is able to see and hear their child inside the mother. Technology today also allows humans to find out if there is something wrong with the child or if the child is male r a female. Many times this advanced warning can help the parents cope with the trauma if something is wrong with their baby; however, many couples are opting to have the unborn babies aborted rather than keeping them. The couple’s logic is that they were looking out for the child’s well-being or that they did not want a girl but a boy.

If they are trying to protect their child, why do they kill the unborn baby? God for some reason is giving them a child who is not normal and rather then parents thinking that the child is a blessing the parents see the child as a freak of nature. God will not have giving that child to them if He knew the parents could not handle the child. Parents are also using the same technology, in order to see if the child will be a certain gender. There is nothing wrong with this, but many parents after finding out the child does not have the gender the want abort it.

Almost fifty years ago the world stopped a man named Hitler because he was committing genocide. The reason he was murdering millions of people was because he wanted a race of blond hair and blue humans to rule the world. If the Holocausts were consider wrong fifty years ago, hy is not the genocide that is happening in the United States. Also the world would be a dull place if society was made up of one gender and people with a certain eye or hair color. Many different reasons are given why women have abortions in this country. Since the decision of Roe v.

Wade, twenty-two million unborn children have died. With these children dead, so are their dreams and ideas that could have revolutionized the world. When the government allowed abortions to be legal, they also put themselves in the same category with men like Stalin and Hitler. The citizens of the United States need to wake up and see that the holocausts did not end in Germany but continue today on American soil. At one time blacks did not have rights because the were consider below white and not citizens. America needs to realize that unborn children are also citizens and have rights.

Even though these babies can not be heard and are not able to contact their congressmen to suggest that a law against the murdering of them should be legalized, society should realizes they have a voice through their vote. Abortion – Can You Hear the Babies Screaming? bortion argumentative persuasive Abortion – Can You Hear the Babies Screaming? On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion. When the it ruled that abortion was legal, the court not only gave women the right to choose but also gave the unborn babies a right to die.

Since that day, millions upon millions of unborn children have been ripped apart, burned with saline solutions, and sucked from their mothers’ wombs. With every abortion that occurs another inaudible scream from the unborn child is silenced and the rights of that child are taken away . If someone where to be asked if murder was wrong, the general answer would be yes. When that same person is asked if abortion is murder, the answer may be yes, but most likely the answer is no. Why do most people think that murder is wrong, but do not agree that abortion is murder?

The reason for this contradiction is that most people believe that the unborn infant is not a human, but an organ or part of the woman’s body, which would make the act of aborting the child just the same as removing an appendix. This problem of when life begins stems from the inconsistencies which come from the case of Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court interrupted that by the ninth and fourteenth amendments that a woman has the right to an abortion. The court that day, however, did not rule when a life begins for a human.

If society is to assume that a fetus is a human the second it leaves the uterus, then what is the unborn baby three minutes from birth , a monkey. When an unborn baby is aborted, society must realize that an organ was not taken out, but a living human being. This would make abortion wrong because according to law, no one has the right to take away anther’s life. With many people considering the cases of unwanted pregnancy due to rape or incest to be acceptable, they must realize that the child is not the crime.

Society’s reason behind this is, why should the woman suffer from the pain and remembrance that the pregnancy brings. Even though cases of abortion due to rape and incest only make up one percent of the total number abortion performed, there is no reason why 15,000 unborn babies should be murdered annually. Why should the baby be condemned to death because of a crime that was committed by another person. If innocent people should be condemned to death ecause they are the result of the crime, then instead of imprisoning or putting death a convicted murder we should kill one of that prisoner’s family members.

If the woman does not want to have the baby they could either carry the unborn baby until full term and give the child up for adoption, or go within twenty four hours to a hospital and have the rapist’s semen removed before conception. The last reason why abortion should be wrong is the use of it as genocide. With the growing technologies in the world today, society is able to see and hear their child inside the mother. Technology today also allows humans to find out if there is something wrong with the child or if the child is male or a female.

Many times this advanced warning can help the parents cope with the trauma if something is wrong with their baby; however, many couples are opting to have the unborn babies aborted rather than keeping them. The couple’s logic is that they were looking out for the child’s well-being or that they did not want a girl but a boy. If they are trying to protect their child, why do they kill the unborn baby? God for some reason is giving them a child who is not ormal and rather then parents thinking that the child is a blessing the parents see the child as a freak of nature.

God will not have giving that child to them if He knew the parents could not handle the child. Parents are also using the same technology, in order to see if the child will be a certain gender. There is nothing wrong with this, but many parents after finding out the child does not have the gender the want abort it. Almost fifty years ago the world stopped a man named Hitler because he was committing genocide. The reason he was murdering millions of people was because he wanted a race of blond hair and blue umans to rule the world.

If the Holocausts were consider wrong fifty years ago, why is not the genocide that is happening in the United States. Also the world would be a dull place if society was made up of one gender and people with a certain eye or hair color. Many different reasons are given why women have abortions in this country. Since the decision of Roe v. Wade, twenty-two million unborn children have died. With these children dead, so are their dreams and ideas that could have revolutionized the world. When the government allowed abortions to be egal, they also put themselves in the same category with men like Stalin and Hitler.

The citizens of the United States need to wake up and see that the holocausts did not end in Germany but continue today on American soil. At one time blacks did not have rights because the were consider below white and not citizens. America needs to realize that unborn children are also citizens and have rights. Even though these babies can not be heard and are not able to contact their congressmen to suggest that a law against the murdering of them should be legalized, society should realizes they have a voice through their vote.

November 14, 1979, with the temperature outside at fifteen degrees, a two pound baby girl was found in a field wrapped up in a wet, dirty, old shirt. The umbilical cord was still attached, and the baby had been aborted twelve weeks prematurely. With little chance of survival, the baby was taken to a medical center. The little girl survived surgery and other efforts to save her. The baby was later adopted by, Susan Morrison, one of the nurses who attended to her. The baby was named Christelle, and now she and her mother talk to thousands of people about abortion and the pro-life movement (Maffet 13-14).

This is an example of one person who felt they had the right to kill an unborn child. There are one million six hundred thousand other abortion stories every year in the United States alone (Swindoll 13). No one should have the right to kill an unborn child. “Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by death of the embryo or fetus: as spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first twelve weeks, induced expulsion of a human fetus” (Webster 2). The life of a child starts in the womb where God personally and sovereignly superintends the development and maturation of the baby before birth” (Swindoll 25).

Because life begins at conception, abortion is more than terminating a pregnancy, it is taking a life. The development of a baby can be medically documented. At eighteen to twenty-five days the baby’s heart starts to beat. At forty to forty-two days the brain waves can be detected and at eight weeks the baby can grasp its hands. It can also swim with a natural swimmer’s stroke and will already have its own set of fingerprints (Student Pack 1).

It is at this eight week period that about fifty percent of abortions are done (Swindoll 13). Approximately twenty-seven percent of all abortions are done at ten weeks into the pregnancy (Swindoll 13). At this stage of development, a baby can feel and respond to pain and yet seven hundred and seventy-two thousand eight-hundred abortions are done yearly after this point in a pregnancy (Student Packet 3). Also, at ten weeks, ninety-five percent of the baby’s organs, features, and muscles are formed and working (Student Packet 1).

Fourteen percent of abortions occur when the baby is eleven to twelve weeks old and five percent occur at thirteen to fifteen weeks. Four percent of the abortions occur at sixteen to twenty weeks and only about two percent are aborted after twenty weeks (Swindoll 13). There are five main methods of performing an abortion. One method is dilatation and curettage. This procedure starts with paralyzing the cervix muscle ring and stretching it open. Then a curette is inserted into the opening and used to cut the placenta and baby into pieces.

The remains are scraped into a bin and discarded. This procedure usually causes profuse bleeding. A second form of abortion is known as the suction method. A hollow plastic tube is inserted and attached to a strong vacuum. The baby and the placenta are torn into pieces as it is sucked into a bottle. Many times women will need blood transfusions due to hemorrhaging after this method of abortion. This procedure is done up until the eleventh or twelfth week of pregnancy. The third method is called a hysterectomy abortion. The abdomen is cut open and the baby is removed and discarded.

This method is performed after the fourteenth or the fifteenth week (Wilke 27). It has been documented that there was a baby who tried to cry and its little arms were moving and the legs were kicking and the doctor smothered it with the placenta (Wilke 27). All babies are alive before being aborted with this method. Another case was reported about a baby in New York that refused to die and later was adopted into a good home (Wilke 29). At sixteen weeks saline abortions are done. A needle is put into the mother’s stomach and it reaches into the baby’s bag of water.

A concentrated salt solution is injected into the fluid which poisons the baby. This causes the baby to convulse and die. A day later, the mother will go into labor and will deliver a dead baby. It has been recorded that a woman had a saline abortion and was sent home right after the procedure, two weeks later she delivered twins. One weighed three and one fourth pounds and the other was three and three fourths pounds (Wilke 29). God can overrule what man chooses to do. Partial birth abortions are the fifth method. In this procedure the doctor grabs the baby’s legs and pulls them out into the birth canal.

The baby’s whole body is delivered except for the head. The doctor then pokes scissors into the baby’s skull and opens the scissors to increase the size of the hole. A suction tube is then inserted into the hole and the child’s brain is sucked out. The skull collapses and the dead child is removed and discarded. This method is performed any where from four and a half months until the ninth month (Student packet 14). There are many reasons why abortions are done. Most of them are for selfish reasons. Only one percent are done because of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities.

Sometimes the doctor will advise an abortion for health reasons, but this is the case in only four percent of the women. Fifty percent of the women claim that they do not want to be a single parent or that they are having problems in their current relationship. Sixty-six percent say they cannot afford a child and seventy-five percent say it would interfere with their lives. Unfortunately, ninety-five percent of abortions are done because of the last three excuses (Swindoll 12). A current trend is for babies to be aborted because the parents do not like the gender of the child.

One woman said that she had tried all methods she knew of to conceive a girl. She found out twice that she was carrying a boy and she had both babies aborted (Student pack 5). Many women have abortions because they are willing to do what others tell them to do. A victim of sexual abuse said that her mom told her that if she continued her pregnancy, she could not live at home. Many of these girls are fifteen to seventeen years of age and have no where else to live. They often are never told all the facts about abortion and have no one else there to support them.

It is sad, because many times parents care more about their reputation than what is best for their daughters (Green 21-15). Many women do not know about the long term effects that abortions can have on them physically and emotionally. In a survey of one thousand one hundred and forty-five women who have had an abortion, eight hundred and sixty-eight of them said they would not have an abortion again. Of those interviewed, nine hundred and thirteen of them said that they experienced guilt. Six hundred and seventy-four have lower self-esteem and seven hundred and ninety-eight experienced excessive crying and depression.

Other psychological and emotional problems women have experienced are nightmares, remorse, hostility, hatred toward males, promiscuity, feeling dehumanized, abuse of children, despair, eating disorders, suicidal tendencies, inability to forgive themselves, anger, rage, drugs and alcohol abuse. Many women also will have a desire to get pregnant again, while others continue to have abortions and some have thwarted maternal emotions (Spring 66). One woman said, “I have this dream that I hear a baby crying and then another. I go to a closet and open it. Out fall a hundred babies’ bodies. Another woman says, “No one ever told me I would live with this decision the rest of my life. It has been several years, but my grief continues” (Student packet 11). There are many physical complications as a result of abortion. Many women will later have intense pain, menstrual disorders, infections, neo-natal death, shock, coma, blood clotting defects and a scarred uterus. Women can also become infertile or sterile. Some women who do become pregnant again, usually have complications such as premature birth, long and difficult labor, tubal pregnancy, and many will miscarry (Student pack 13).

Women also die as a result of an abortion. Doctors will not list it as the cause of death, but will put hemorrhaging, suicide or infection as the cause. Abortions leave behind emotional trauma to families. Tendencies toward drug and alcohol abuse, self-destructive behavior, guilt and suicide occur in ninety-nine percent of women who have had abortions (Maffet 14). Abortion became legal on January 22, 1973. Abortion was ruled as a constitutional right in all the states. There were two cases that were brought to the Supreme Court which played a major role in the legalization of abortion.

The primary case was Roe versus Wade. This involved a Texas woman, Jane Roe. Her real name was Norma McCorvey. She claimed to have been raped and felt she should be able to have a legal abortion. Later Miss McCorvey confessed that she had not really been raped. McCorvey was not able to have an abortion legally, so she carried the baby and then delivered a baby girl. The baby was given up for adoption and many years later she got to meet the child she had wanted to abort (Student pack 7). The second case was Doe versus Bolton.

This was a case involving a couple from Georgia who wanted to abort a baby which they had not planned on (Student packet 7). This law did not protect the unborn because it said that, “Legal personhood does not exist prenatally. ” It said there would be no restrictions at all on abortions done within the first three months. Abortion would be legal after twenty to twenty-four weeks if a licensed doctor said it was necessary for the mother’s health. This became a loophole for doctors to say physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and age would be relevant to the mental or physical well being of the patient (Student packet 9).

This abortion law was passed despite the fact that the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life… that to secure these rights, government are instituted among men” (Wilke 94). The fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States further says, “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or poverty without due process of, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, that equal protection of the laws” (Wilke 94).

In addition, on November 20, 1959, the Declaration of the Rights of a Child, was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It stated that, “The child, by reason of physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after, birth” (Wilke 94). The unborn are beginning to gain more rights. From state to state, legal rights of an unborn child can mean the difference between the death of a fetus being a criminal act to being just a matter of legal consequence. Mothers are now starting to be prosecuted for harming their babies through drug and alcohol abuse.

Drunk drivers are also being punished in some states for injuring fetuses. Accidents like these would have gone without punishment up until a few years ago. Almost half of the states, such as Delaware, do not consider the killing of a fetus as murder unless the child is born and then dies (USA Today). Patricia Bast Lyman added to the American Center for Law and Justice, fetal rights to its docket. It was stated, “The law is a teacher and we think the law should teach respect for children at all states in the womb. ” While fetal rights are growing, the woman’s right to control her body in ways that could affect the fetus, are lessening.

Planned abortion is the only circumstance under which the killing of an unborn child goes on without consequences. The growing consideration of a fetus is a surprising change in the law. The so called, “born-alive” rule is still in effect in almost half of the states. This rule says that the fetus must be born alive, even briefly, before its death can be recognized as a homicide. In 1994, this rule showed its inadequacy. A woman was hit by a vehicle that ran a red light. The car she had been riding in was damaged, and so was her baby. The day after the accident she delivered a dead baby.

The man who had hit her was charged with manslaughter. Later the judge dropped the charges because of the “born-alive” rule. The mother stated, “It was bad enough losing my child, but then to learn there was no penalty was too much to take. I was three weeks from my due date, and they were telling me my daughter was not a person” (USA Today). In another case, however, a woman was given sixteen years in prison because of her part in a drunk driving accident. She was charged with manslaughter in the death of a baby who met the legal requirements of being “born-alive,” but two days later the baby died due to the injuries (USA Today).

There are two opposing positions on abortion. The pro-life position believes that abortion is immoral and should not be legal. The pro-choice position believes that a woman should legally be able to have an abortion, and that it is her right to terminate the pregnancy or carry the baby (Burtchaell, 101). Pro-abortionists say that the unborn child is just fetal tissue and not really alive until it is born (Walton 12). Pro-life groups say that the unborn are, in reality, a living human who has to die a painful death when being aborted (Walton 12).

Many doctors perform abortions because of the financial rewards. Fortune magazine says that abortion is now one of the major businesses in America. They estimate that abortuaries probably make more than half a billion dollars a year. This estimate was made ten years ago (Walton 8). Doctors who perform abortions are breaking the Hippocratic Oath that they repeat before entering the medical profession. The Oath states, “I will follow that method of treatment, which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.

I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel. Furthermore, I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion” (Colliers 113). Not only does the Hippocratic Oath say something about abortion, but so does the Creator, God. He is the Creator of the unborn. Psalm 139:13-16 says, “For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My name was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be (Bible 640). God values each and everyone of us highly, especially His children. In Genesis 1:27 it says, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Bible 3). God further tells us in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder” (Bible 80). God has the ultimate authority in life and death.

One of the strong messages from the Pro-life movement comes from Deuteronomy 30:19. It says, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Bible 209). They encourage people to choose life, to carry their babies to full term and not abort them. To God there are no exceptions for choosing life. He does not allow us to kill a child because it was conceived as a result of rape or incest or has deformities or handicaps.

He tells us in Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin” (Bible 204). In Romans 8:28 God also tells us that, “In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Bible 1218). He says all things, not just for the perfectly formed baby or the baby that was conceived in harmony and love, but for all situations. God also reminds us in Exodus 4:11 that He is the one who gives us our mouth and who makes us deaf and mute or who gives us our sight or chooses to make us blind (Bible 64).

The Bible tells us that women do not have a right to control their own body. He tells us in Psalm 127:3, “Children are a heritage from the Lord; children are a reward from Him” (Bible 636). In Ezekial 18:4, God further reminds us that, “Every living soul belongs to Me, the father as well as the son-both alike belong to Me. The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Bible 871). Pro-choice women feel they have a right to choose about their bodies. The Bible clearly states that no man is allowed to take a life before birth. Matthew 18:14 tells us how precious babies are to Him.

It says, “Your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish” (Bible 1030). To those doctors or clinic workers who are involved in abortions God gives a stern warning. He says in Deuteronomy 27:25, “Cursed be he that accepts a reward to kill an innocent person” (Bible 206). There are solutions to the abortion problem. Unfortunately, there are some places which originally started out to help women, but became greedy and no longer provide all sides to the pregnancy and abortion issue. One such organization is Planned Parenthood. It was started about sixty years ago.

In 1963, a Planned Parenthood pamphlet said, “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child, you cannot have it” (Student Packet 15). In 1984, there were eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-four abortions done by Planned Parenthood. They now have over fifty clinics around the country. Planned Parenthood says that , “Abortion is currently the safest of the most frequently performed surgical procedures,” yet abortion is the sixth leading cause of maternal deaths (Student Packet 15).

Planned Parenthood receives about thirty million dollars a year from Title X, a government program, and millions more from other tax supported programs (Walton 8). Even though there are some bad centers for women, Crisis Pregnancy Care centers and Right-to-life centers are good places to go for real help. They tell women the truth and give them alternatives to abortion. Adoption is one alternative given to women. Adoption needs to be presented as a loving act for a child and a unique and special way to build families.

Adoption laws must be modernized so that laws advocate the rights and needs of the baby, biological parents and the adoptive parents (Sider 69). Adopted children have more socio-economic advantages than kids who stay with their unmarried mothers. They have better educated mothers and live with families with a higher income. Thousands of babies are being aborted daily, and yet there are about two million infertile and fertile couples or individuals that want to adopt children. In 1986, fifty-one thousand one hundred and fifty-seven American children were adopted.

Half of these children were healthy babies under two, from all races and backgrounds. Another alternative or preventative measure would be to teach or encourage abstinence in dating relationships. This needs to be taught in the home first and then supportive teaching by the church, community and in the schools (Student Packet 8). Shepherding or maternity homes are also a helpful alternative for the pregnant woman. A woman can come and live in these homes during her pregnancy. She is given the support of a loving family and learns about healthy family relationships, adoption and bringing up her own baby (Falwell 118-119).

Legal changes need to be set into place. One change would be the consent requirement law. This law says that the consent of the husband or man who is responsible for the pregnancy will have to agree to the abortion. There are states that prohibit minors from having an abortion without their parent’s consent. In Minnesota, a pregnant minor that chooses not to go to Court to have a judge decide whether she is mature enough to make the abortion decision or if an abortion is in her best interest, must tell or notify both of her parents and have their consent before having an abortion.

The law makes no exceptions for girls of divorced or unmarried parents who do not have guardianship (Tribe 198-199). Limiting the reasons for abortions also will lessen the number of aborted babies. A compromise is that a woman would have to be examined before having an abortion. This was suggested because in Pennsylvania women wanted to kill their fetus because it was the wrong sex. This reason for abortion became outlawed in Pennsylvania (Tribe 204). Abortion is wrong and there are no exceptions.

No one should have the right to kill an unborn child. God says it is wrong and He has the ultimate say in life and death. Mother Theresa stated, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish” (Student Packet 13). Abortion is not a quick fix for a child that is unwanted. Every child should be a wanted child. There are viable solutions to this problem, and we must do all that we can to promote those solutions. By doing this, we can help stop the killing of innocent children