Abortion Should Stay Legal

Abortion Should Stay Legal By Ariam Abraham Professor Maria Mollinedo English 102 9 December 2011 Abstract The topic of abortion is one of the most controversial of our times. It discusses human interaction where ethics, emotions and law come together. There are different points of views towards abortion. These views can be broken down into two categories, Pro-life and Pro-choice. Everyone has their own views and opinions; despite what several people may believe, abortion is neither right nor wrong. A pro-lifer is against abortion.Pro-lifers believe that from the moment of conception, the embryo is alive and this life imposes a moral obligation to preserve it. It has a brain and a heart; therefore it also has a right to life. Religion plays a big role on pro-life. Abortion is against the Bible and most  religious people  don’t believe in it either. On the other hand  a pro-choicer would feel that the decision to abort a pregnancy is that of the mothers’; and the s tate has no right to interfere. Abortion is a women’s  own right hand choice. Women should  not be forced to have babies they don’t want or aren’t ready for.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. Abortion allows us to choose what we want for ourselves, and it also helps us to follow family planning. We have every right to choose whether we want to have an abortion or not. Religious people don’t support it but since it is their belief and decision they should not force other people to be like them. It has been proven above that all their arguments were not fully true.The reasons why women have abortions vary. It may be a case of rape,  physical or psychological condition. A choice must need 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. Abortion is a tough choice and the decision  should be a personal one, without interference of government or special  interest groups. Outline I. Abortion is a very controversial subject that has been continually argued over for the past few years and probably for many years to come.A. Abortion is the destruction of a fetus or unborn child while the child is still in the mother’s womb. B. Abortion in the United States has been legal in every state since the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, on January 22, 1973 C. There are two sides to abortion, the pro-life and prochoice. a. Pro-life are people who are against abortion. b. Pro-choice are people who support abortion. II. Religion and philosophy thinking shouldn’t affect the law of abortion. A. A fetus is not a person. B.Pro-life people shouldn’t push other people to believe their religion. C. The pro-life’s arguments against abortion are p rovn to be false. a. Women having an abortion have been decreasing since 1973. III. Abortion playes a big role in some cases. A. A pregnancy from rape is better to be avoided. B. Incest children face a lot of difficulties in being accepted by their society. C. Woman should have an abortion if her pregnancy is uncompitible with her health IV. Abortion has allowed us to choose what we want for ourselves, and it also helps us to follow family planning. A.New  laws  that are being developed make it harder and harder for women to  deal  with the problems of pregnancies. Abortion is a very controversial subject that has been continually argued over for the past few years and probably for many years to come. The main controversy is should abortion be legalized? Before we get to the answer, let’s first define the word abortion. According to Tom Head â€Å"Abortion is the international terminology of a pregnancy after conception. It allows women to put an end to their pregnan cies, but involves killing the undeveloped embryo or fetus† (1).This destruction of a fetus or unborn child while the child is still in the mother’s womb can be done by almost anyone from the mother herself to even to abortionist by clinics set up especially for this purpose. Since abortion involves killing a fetus, it is considered as a sensitive subject to discuss, because every person around the world have a different view and opinion about it. As history tells us â€Å"Abortion in the United States has been legal in every state since the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, on January 22, 1973† (Lewis 1).Since then, there have been many debates among the citizens whether the law is right or wrong. There are two sides to this abortion topic the pro-life, which are those who are against abortion, and the pro-choice are those who believe it is the woman’s right to choose if she wants to have an abortion or not. These two groups offer diffe rent solutions to a problem. The pro-life solution is to have the child and basically live with it. They believe abortion is not an answer. The pro-choice solution is abortion because of reasons they feel are appropriate.Although abortion is morally and ethically wrong, should it be legal for victims of rape or incest who have no other alternative? To see the Americans view on abortion, a popular TV channel in the United States did a survey on over 1133 people over the age of 18 in 2004. Generally, 57 percent in this ABCNEWS poll say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 43 percent voted against it. I will point out the argumentative reasons for abortion to stay legalized through out the paper.Many famous and respected people have talked about abortion, like  Mother Teresa who was the winner of Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. She argues, â€Å"If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people to not kill each other? Any country tha t accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want† (Barbier and Goree 98). Since Mother Teresa was very religious women what she said make sense but I totally disagree with what she said. Killing a fetus is not the same as killing a person.The word â€Å"murder† is often used by pro-lifers to describe abortion. Murder means  deliberate and unjustified killing of another person   containing intent. How can anybody see an evil intent in a woman's decision  to interrupt pregnancy if it is a result of rape or incest? A woman cannot  bear the thought of having a child that would be a constant reminder of  what had happened on such and such a day, such and such number of years ago. She doesn't want to kill a baby; she wants to interrupt the growth of an  embryo so that it will not become a baby. She interrupts potential life. But potential life is just that, potential.There's an argument until these days that a fe tus is a person that is 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 thinking, feeling, conscious human being is arrogant and absurd.It only serves to diminish women. A fetus is like a body part in women’s body not an individual person and can only be recognized as a person since the day it is born. It is not registered as a citizen in the government’s book and is not even considered as existing person. So killing a fetus can be called as getting rid of a body part. And, it is not the government’s duty to teach the citizens how to love. People learn about love f rom their parents, from their religion and relatives and society. Government cant build a law based on how it is going to affect the behavior of the citizens.It is like we can’t have a war because it is not nice to kill people. What if another country attacks us? Are we going to sit and wait until we die? We should protect out country and our selves and the same goes with abortion, we have to protect ourselves if we see harm is coming to us. On the other hand, Abortion is a difficult issue when it is viewed from a religious point  of view. On one hand there is the Commandment against murder, which begs  the question of whether a fetus is a human or not. There is a passage in  the Bible, which deals specifically with the act of causing   woman to  abort a pregnancy. In Exodus 21:22-25 we read:   † And if men struggle and  strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no  further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him,  and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury,  then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for  tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise  for bruise†( New Revised Standard Version, Exodus 21:22). In this passage we find a woman losing her child by being stuck by men who are fighting.Rather than it being a capital offense,  however it is looked as a civil matter, with the father – to – be taking  the participants to court for a settlement. But, as we read on, if the  woman is killed, a â€Å"life for a life,† then the men who killed her shall be  killed. Some have claimed that the life for a life part is talking about  the baby, but in this passage we also read, â€Å"Tooth for a tooth†. Fetuses/babies do not have teeth when they are born. Thus we can see that  if the baby is lost, it does not require a death sentence – it is not  considered murder. But if the woman is lost, it is considered murder and  is punished by death.I do not want to say that abortion is Biblical, but I  just want to show that there can be arguments on both sides and a judgment  against people in God's name should be stopped. As we have seen above every individual have their own opinion on abortion, depending on their religion and beliefs. If the pro- life group doesn’t support abortion they don’t have to do it. The law doesn’t force you to have abortion in any case. So people against abortion due to their religions or beliefs shouldn’t protest against abortion because it is their personal preference. Religious ideology is no foundation for any law.Freedom of religion is guaranteed to any citizen in the United States, so why would the beliefs and values of one religion mandate actual laws for all citizens? It would be unfair, unjust and  immoral. We do not have laws against eating fish, nor do we have laws that declare it is legal to sell one’s daughter, rape someone, or keep a person as slave -all things that are promoted in religious text. There are also few pro-life people that claim women are using abortion as a birth control. By that they mean women are going to be irresponsible and will have unprotected sex since abortion is legal.This is proven to be untrue by Ms Heather Boonstra. She is a Senior Public Policy Associate in the Guttmacher Institute's Washington, DC. On the article Abortion in Women’s Lives that she published in 2006 she states, â€Å"from time to time the number of women having abortion is decreasing † (3). Here is here summarized graph. [pic] As we can see in the graph the number of women having abortion has been going down since 1981, which proves that women are using abortion in special cases not as birth control. Other than that, abortion plays a big role in some special cases.We don’t hear it that often but t here is sexual intercourse between two people called incest. In definition â€Å"Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close ‘blood relationship’; members of the same household; step relatives related by adoption or marriage; and members of the same clan or lineage† (Stritof). Even though it is between families it can be taken as sexual harassment if it is between an adult and an under age.It is not accepted in out society. People consider it as the nastiest thing that human being would do. If by any chance someone becomes a victim of incest, their family and friends will isolate them for their rest of their lives. Likewise, when a girl is raped, she feels dreadful. The trauma of being raped could break her down and make her depressed and that is only the beginning. After she gets raped, in her own eyes, she has no respect or self-esteem for herself and then comes the embarrassment. Her reputation in the society will be damaged permanently and everyone will look down upon her.Even her own family's reputation will be tainted. If she is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy, the result is unwanted children. After the unwanted baby is born, the childhood that he will get will not be the best one because of how it was originated. At home, the raped woman would not be a good mother and would be cruel to the baby. Therefore, because of this abnormal type of childhood, when the child grows up and becomes a teenager, he will often turn to crime and be involved in gangs and drugs. For example, 40% of African-American kids grow up by a single mother due to unplanned sex or poverty.And 20% of those kids drop out in middle school (Hanson 141). Once a kid stops going to school he or she have a high chance of doing illegal things in order to get money. They are among society's mo st tragic cases, often uncared-for, unloved, brutalized, and abandoned. Those children have a very strong chance of getting hurt or getting arrested or in a worse case scenario, be killed. All this could be prevented if the mother was allowed to get an abortion early on and she would not have to face all the shame and embarrassment for herself and her family. This is not good for children, for families, or for the country.Children need love and families who want and will care for them. Therefore, women who are raped or victims of incest should not be forced to carry out a pregnancy. Odds are that 1 in 3 women will be victims of sexual violence in her lifetime (Mahkorn and Dolan182). Does that mean that 33% of all women should be forced to carry out a pregnancy from this violation? Those people always don’t tell that they have been in that situation until the woman becomes pregnant and all her relatives find out. The baby they have is going to go through a lot since he is born between two family members.Isolation, bulling, and it is most possible that he will involve in illegal medicines or drags just to put himself in the mood since he is most of the time unhappy. These are few of the bad things the child will face, as he got older. This poor baby will have a lot of problems just because of his parents made a mistake. Why would their child take the punishment for what his parents did? Abortion is the only choice here. Many would argue that these women could endure the pregnancy, spending nearly a year of her life simply re-living the rape and its effects over and over again, to give up a baby at the end of it for adoption.However, we all are aware of the fact that there are millions of unwanted children awaiting adoption as we speak who remain unclaimed; in fact, UNICEF estimates that there are 210 million orphans in the world right now. If they have no one willing to be their parent or guardian, why would another baby have a better chance? In other wor d abortion will help in decreasing world’s population. Similarly, World health organization posted an interesting article about women and pregnancy saying, â€Å"Every minute, at least one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth – that means 529 000 women a year.In addition, for every woman who dies in childbirth, around 20 more suffer injury, infection or disease – approximately 10 million women each year† (10). It is shocking that a lot of women die during pregnancy. People against abortion think that a woman must have the baby once she is pregnant, but that is ridiculous. There are many women in a situation that they can’t have a baby. Women have to avoid pregnancy if she has some kind of diseases that gets worse with pregnancy, because it could affect her health or the baby’s health.For example a breast cancer women-getting chemotherapy should not get pregnant because she does not know the effect of chemotherapy on the outcome for the fetus. In this case if a women gets pregnant accidentally she should think about her health first and her baby’s health second, and have an abortion before the fetus gets older. Most people now agree that if the mother's life is in danger abortion  is acceptable. It seems unreasonable to let both die when one can be saved. There are many  other situations in which abortion can be morally  justified. One thing is obvious.These pregnancies were not planned and  they are unwanted. Children born to these mothers are â€Å"biological  accidents†. In my opinion it is sinful to bring innocent and defenseless  children into the world when they  will not be cared for. All over the  globe these are children starving, being raped, dying, being beaten up  because they’re unwanted. They suffer abuses from which they never  recover. Medical researchers also show that unwanted children whose mothers  refused an abortion suffer from serious psychological disturbances  throughout their life (Morgentaler, 52).Another reason why I believe that availability of choice is vital for  women is that if a woman decides to have an abortion, she will do anything to end her pregnancy. This is the reality. There is no such thing as a one hundred-per cent effective contraceptive which of course results in  unwanted pregnancies. From the illegal days we know many ways in which  women aborted themselves. Many women would introduce caustic detergent  substances into themselves,  producing major burns of the vaginal wall and   systemic poisoning.Others would insert a tablet of potassium, which led to  serious lesions. Number of women tried to dislodge their pregnancies by  introducing knitting needles, coat hangers, or other metal or wooden  objects into their uteruses. Some women threw themselves down flights of  stairs, and some pumped air into the uterus by means of a small pump used  to blow up bicycle tires. Illegal abortions were performed by people with  no or little  medical knowledge, in back rooms, in a non-hygienic  environment. All this led to tremendous number of deaths but did not stop  the abortions.Anyone who thinks that outlawing abortion makes abortion go  away is a fool. It makes it dangerous and it makes it shameful. Women  will always get abortions. And if we are truly concerned about human life  and if this is not just a hollow slogan for us we should make abortion safe  and clean procedure instead of trying to make women feel guilty. Additionally, making abortion legal can decrease illegal abortion. Let’s look. The following chart was used on the floor of the US Senate during the tumultuous debate on abortion in 1981. It was compiled from official U. S. tatistics. As we can see on the graph, abortion was first legalized on 1967 and we can clearly see that after that year the line started to drop sharply which shows that the death of women due to illegal abortion decreased. Simply, Laws against abortion do not stop abortion; they simply make it less safe. The number of women who get abortions does not change when it goes from being legal to illegal, or vice versa. The only thing that changes is more women die. [pic] 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 women. But  can you really understand the issue of abortion unless you have been in the  situation of possibly having one? What some people do not seem to  understand is that abortion is not an easy way out. This issue concerned  with badness, and if there is badness there is bitterness and worseness. Woman herself has to make a 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.There is a question that should be answered. Should government be involved in personal matters such as abortion? In my opinion government should not interfere with citizens personal problems. Having an abortion is the same as having a kidney surgery. Once a doctor tells you in what condition your kidney is, it is your decision to have a surgery depending on what the doctor said. Even your kidney is in the worst condition you still have a choice to stay without medication. That doesn’t consider as a suicide by the law. It also goes the same with abortion.Would you allow the government to tell you if you could have a kidney transplant or a blood transfusion? Of course not, the fact that we even consider, let alone allow, governments to regulate a medical procedure is both illogical and foolish. Depending on your health, your baby’s health, and your baby’s future you should have the right to decide weather you want to have an abortion or not. Therefore my theory is that people who spend so much time, energy, and money on anti-abortion campaigns should instead spend it on the precious children they say need saving so much—the ones who are alive and parentless.Imagine if all the funds spent on all those billboards and flyers and campaigns were instead either spent adopting or donating to places that are overrun with orphaned children, perhaps some actual credibility would be given to these people who claim to love children so much. Also, there is the fact of the matter of the more than one million homeless youth in America alone. The number one factor for a child being homeless is physical or sexual abuse at home. Perhaps these child-lovers should step in and care for these already-born children as well. If those people really want to stop abortion, they should turn to methods that  do  work.These include comprehensive sex education and safe, affordable contraceptives. Unfortunately, as illogical as it sounds, the people who are most against abortion are also often most against these preventative measures. If they truly wanted to reduce the number of abortions that occur, they would embrace these methods. Additionally, if the Supreme Court ever declared abortion illegal, only the poor will be adversely affected. The rich will purchase a round-trip ticket to one of the European Countries, have an abortion there and return. The poor, do not have enough sometimes even to ay for the bus fare to go downtown. The impact of such a law would be disproportionate. This is in fact what happened before 1973 (before Roe), when abortion was illegal. We must learn from history otherwise we are condemned to repeat it. People who oppose abortion do so usually on religious and moral grounds. They can continue with their moral standards, no one is asking them to have an abortion in the event of rape or incest or some other medical reason. We just ask to be let alone. There is nothing more private to a woman then the right to regulate her own fertility and no one has a right to tell her otherwise.Not in U. S. A. not in this land of the free which guarantees individual and constitutional rights? Choice is a constitutional right, the Supreme Court says so. Michael Monahan is the author of non-profit organization called the Heritage House and in is article â€Å"Illegal Abortion† he says, â€Å"I’d still worry that if you forbid abortion, it will just go back to back-alley but butchery and lots of mothers dying. † (1). I totally agree with him, stopping abortion will be a totally disaster and we will see more death of women due to illegal abortions.As I mentioned through out the paper, abortion should be the mother and the father choice to do, not the law or the government, because it is important when the mother can have a baby due to health problem, when the baby have no future, when a pregnancy occurs under a circumstances that is not accepted on the society ETC. N ew  laws  that are being developed make it harder and harder for women to  deal  with the problems of pregnancies. If  laws  were adapted leaving the choice up to the families of the newly conceived, it would make their lives and their choices a lot easier.My personal belief is that each woman should have a right to decide  whether she wants to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. For reasons of  women's right to self-determination, protection of their health,  adequate  care of children which are born and in order to prevent child abuse and  mental disease, easy access to abortion is a must. Most abortions occur  because contraception failed, 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.We have seen that abortion is really important to the society. It has allowed us to cho ose what we want for ourselves, and it also helps us to follow family planning. We have every right to choose whether we want to have an abortion or not. Religious people don’t support it but since it is their belief and decision they should not force other people to be like them. It has been proven above that all their arguments were not fully true. The reasons why women have abortions vary. It may be a case of rape,  physical or psychological condition.A choice must need 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 women. Abortion is a tough choice and the decision  should be a personal one, without interference of government or special  interest groups. Losing safe and legal a bortion would mean reducing women  to childbearing vessels.It would mean turning our backs on the  technology we have, and it will 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. Works Cited Barbier, Jean, and Georges Goree. Mother Teresa: The Love of Christ. New York: Harper ; Row, 1982. Print. 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Abortion and Contraception. 1st ed. Beaufort Books, 1982. Print. Reagan, L. J. When Abortion was a Crime, Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973.Univ of California Pr, 1999. Print. Sproul, R. C. Abortion, a Rational Look at an Emotional Issue. Reformation Trust Publishing, 2010. Print. Stritof, Bob. Prohibited Marraige. Web. 24 November 2011. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, New Revised Standard Version. Michael D. Coogan, editor. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. WHO. District Planning Tool for Maternal and Newborn Health Strategy Implementation. 6-13. Print. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. â€Å"Abortion† Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 10 Aug. 2011