Controversy Of Abortion

The Abortion Controversy
Abortion has long been an issue of great controversy in the United States. “Each year, almost half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended. About half of these unplanned pregnancies, 1.3 million each year, are ended by abortion” (prochoice.org). A common misconception is that abortions are often times done by young, uneducated women, who have insufficient lives. This opinion is not valid. Abortions are done by women from various religious groups, education levels, and income levels. Pro-choice activists know that revoking the right of an abortion would be the same as violating women’s civil rights. The right to have an abortion should be left up to the woman to decide. Abortions have always been a…show more content…
Wade case set forth different guidelines including:
During the first trimester (three months) of pregnancy, a woman had the right to an abortion for any reason. During the second trimester of pregnancy, states may pass laws regulating abortion to protect a woman’s health. During the third trimester of pregnancy, when the fetus can live outside the womb, states may pass laws to protect the fetus by prohibiting abortion except to preserve the health or life of the pregnant woman. (Gay, 29-30) A possible example would be this situation: Samantha is a twenty-three-year-old professional pursuing a college degree in biology and has recently discovered that she is pregnant. Her decision to have an abortion is a difficult and personal one to make. Like many Americans, Samantha has never agreed with the practice of abortion. However, after much deliberation, Samantha has come to the conclusion to have an abortion; it would only make life more difficult if the baby was to be born. Revoking a woman’s right to have an abortion would be unconstitutional because this right is protected under the ninth and fourteenth amendments. The ninth amendment enforces implied rights, which are rights not directly stated in the Constitution, but can be interpreted as such. The fourteenth amendment says that the various states cannot deprive a person of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, which can be “implied” to mean a woman’s reproductive system, therefore, granting…show more content…
They believe that a child is formed at conception. However, according to medical professionals, a fetus is not considered a human being. Many people will not classify a fetus as a human being unless “quickening” (the point in a pregnancy when a woman can feel the movement of the fetus) has occurred. Fetuses are uniquely different from human beings. A fetus solely depends on a woman for survival, while a human being can operate on his own without the nurturing from a woman’s body. Because of this difference, the question remains: can pro-life activists refer to abortion as legalized murder? In the case of in vitro fertilization, fertilized eggs that are not implanted into the woman’s body are thrown away. If abortion is considered murder, then should not this be considered murder as well? What about in the case of rape, incest, or threat to the woman’s life? This is a tough topic to cover because even some die-hard, pro-life activists believe that in this situation abortion is acceptable. If, in their eyes, a fetus is a human being from the point of conception, then shouldn’t it have rights as well? Shouldn’t those fetus rights be protected in severe emotional and damaging cases like these? Supporting exceptions to the rule is the same as acknowledging that a woman right is more important than the fetus’s; thereby admitting that the right to have an abortion needs to be the woman’s