The Controversy Over Abortion Essay Research Paper

The Controversy Over Abortion Essay, Research Paper During the past quarter century, abortion has joined race and war as one of the most debatable subjects of controversy in the United States. It discusses human interaction where ethics, emotions and law are combined. Abortion poses a moral, social and medical dilemmas that focus many individuals to create an 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-choice person would feel that the decision to abort a pregnancy is that of the mothers and the state should have no right to interfere. A pro- life person would hold that from the moment of conception, that the embryo or fetus is alive. This life imposes on us a

moral obligation to preserve it and that abortion is the same as murder. 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 have an abortion, than women with incomes above twenty-five thousand. Unmarried women are four to five times more likely to abort than married. In the past years the abortion rate has doubled among 18 and 19 year olds. Recently the U.S. rate has dropped 6 percent overall but the rate of abortion among girls younger than 15 has jumped up to18 percent and the rate among minorities 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 woman 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. At this point the fetus has bones, bulk and can is able to move, the second trimester abortions are not as simple. When as much of the fetus and placenta are vacuumed out then the tweezers are used to remove the larger parts. The beginning of the fifth month abortion is the 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 do with 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 the result of rape or incest. 15 percent believe it should be illegal in all cases. Although abortion is regarded as a woman’s right, it should be banned with exceptions because its considered murder has many psychological side effects. Young teens say that when they see a baby it reminds them of their own that they could have had. Abortion is a woman’s own right and choice. In 1973 the Roe v. Wade decision proved this by recognizing abortion as a fundamental constitutional 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 were illegal it would force poor women to bear and raise children they can’t afford to bring up. It would force young women to raise children when they are still children themselves and would cause many deformities when incest is in involved. 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 incest to carry and nurture