Should Abortion Be Legal Essay Examples and Research Papers Page 2

To kill or not to kill?

Numerous individuals don’t’ know what abortion is, who can receive abortions, and why people would indeed select to induce them. Abortion according to the dictionary it is the termination of pregnancy and expulsion of an embryo or of a fetus that is incapable of survival. This essentially implies, inducing birth to kill the fetus, or infant before it is carried to full term. Often times early in a pregnancy, a woman will go to the doctor, and take a pill, and doing that will terminate pregnancy. If it is later, then she has to have the infant surgically removed from the woman’s body. If it is too late, at that point the woman will be unable to have the procedure. Consequently, many people have the conflict about whether the abortion should be allowed or not.

Today’s discussion

Nowadays, abortion is an enormous issue with women because for years this topic has been an on-going debate about if abortion should legal or not. Abortion may be an exceptionally sensitive issue and it is a center stage for controversy. Numerous individuals are against the idea of abortion while some others favor abortion. Many others feel that aborting an unwanted child, or killing an unwanted child should be against the law. People who are against abortion say that abortion is like committing murder as it is killing the human fetus. Others feel that the decision should be between the mother and her physician to have the right to choose. So, ought abortion has to be seen about in which stage the fetus has to be in? In very early stages abortion is not murder but if the fetus has developed viability, it can be considered as murder.

Statistics

Many doctors agree state that, if someone has the complication in during pregnancy, then it is ok to abort a child, otherwise the mother will suffer. According to some doctor’s opinion, abortion in early stage should not be considered as the murder. Because, the baby did not have the consciousness in the early stages of pregnancy. According to the statistics from the article “The Real Reason Abortion Has Declined” by Nora Bricker state that the incidence of abortion has been found to be declined since the laws against abortion has been passed. The number of legal tempted abortion in United States doubled between 1973 to 1979 and reached its peak till 1990 according to the Center for Disease. But after Supreme Court legalized the procedure, there was marked decline in the cases. But, the lack of access to health care, contraception, and religious beliefs are the example of why there are 219 abortions per 1,000 live births. White women are a 37.2% rate of abortion, Black women have a 36.2%, Hispanic women 19.7%, and other ethnicities is at a 6.9% rate of abortion, according to the C.D.C. Groups like socio economist think that ultimately the decision should be upon the mother. They strongly believe if the mother cannot take care of the baby because of low income problem then it is a good idea to abort the baby because the rate of early stage child death is high due to the lack of good medical background. They want abortion to be legal and accessible. So that, a woman can decide whether she wants to keep the baby or not.

Abortion law

This topic of abortion is correlated to topic of Freedom versus Order. In 1965 Connecticut had a law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. In the textbook, American Government and Politics Today, Brief Edition, by Steven W. Schmidt, et. al., discusses how in 1965, the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme court deposed that law because of the case of Griswold v. Connecticut. The case showed how the law violated the ninth amendment and was a direct abuse to the right of privacy. (Schmidt et. al. pg.79). Furthermore, in some countries, abortion is a punishable crime. Here in the United Stated they also have certain anti-abortion laws which has been adopted since 1900. For example, there are certain states like California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have been permitted to perform abortion with a licensed physician only (Schmidt et. al. pg.82). Whereas in other states like Missouri and Pennsylvania some women that undergo an abortion have to go through a waiting period, counseling, and required parental or judicial permission if the woman is underage (Schmidt et. al. pg.82). Another case law that brought light into the unfairness of abortion was Roe versus Wade, which the Supreme court accepted the argument that the laws against abortion violated “Jane Roe’s” right to privacy (Schmidt et. al. pg.80). According to these laws, abortion was considered to be legal if conducted during a specific time frame. In the beginning soon after independence, the anti-abortion law stated that the abortion is not permitted after the quickening which is after fifteen through twenty weeks of gestation. (Schmidt et. al. pg.79). Because of the Roe v. Wade case by 1973, the abortion was considered to be legal in many states but under limited circumstances in order to protect the life of women and also to terminate pregnancies which result due to rape or incest. But soon after that the court system kept issuing a number of cases completely redefining the limitations of an abortion. By the 1990’s the laws and boundaries were took a more conservative approach. In 2000, Supreme Court passed a law called ‘Partial birth abortion ban act’. This was mainly enacted to prohibit late-term abortion that ends a pregnancy and results in the death and intact removal of a fetus from the uterus. Opponents against abortion argue that this procedure can endanger the woman’s life and does not contain an exception to protect the woman’s health. Many argue otherwise, in 1981, Dr. Jasper Williams, Jr., of the Bernard Hospital in Chicago, Past President of the National Medical Association, said that “Since 1953, I have never seen a patient die because she needed an abortion and it could not be performed. Doctors now have the tools and the knowledge with which to work so that they can handle almost any disease a patient may have, whether that patient is pregnant or not, and without interrupting the pregnancy.” In 2002, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was passed which aimed at the fundamental rights of those infants born after failed attempts of induced abortion.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, the definition of freedom is the ability to do anything a person wants, as long as that person does not harm anyone else. But, considering both sides of the argument, is if getting rid of the fetus is considered harmful to a living human. This great division in people’s beliefs of “pro-life” and “pro-abortion” are beliefs that will be really difficult to over come with a simple law or by just a whole singular answer. In many cases people from these two groups will most likely not hear what the opponent has to say because each have their own beliefs and experiences. These various reasons which have been found in US leading to abortions are the desire to postpone childbearing, cannot afford a baby, relationship problem with the partner, too young parents, career issues, want no more children, risk to fetal and maternal health, pregnancy from rape or incest and others. The financial issues regarding abortions are also considered by the US laws. The Medicaid will pay for only those abortions which is due to rape or incest and life endangerment. However, the other private insurance policies also do not provide coverage to abortion cases. Though abortion may have legal causes but it is still considered as a matter of guilt, an act to kill a life by many people. Various measures have been implemented in different states that will prevent these incidences of unwanted pregnancy and laws to protect women from violence are also applied. Moreover, health education, easily accessible health care and contraceptive will pave a solution towards this problem.