Abortion is and has always been a highly controversial issue. With its relations to religion, safety, and emotional risk the arguments are heavy and strong for both sides. Both sides are pro; pro-life and pro-choice. Neither side is for abortion, no one likes the idea of an abortion but one side is more willing to give woman the choices they’re granted. Pro-choice is the side that believes that abortion should be legal allowing woman to make the decision for them whether or not they want or need one. Pro-life on the other hand is against abortion 100 percent, majority of it relating to religious beliefs. They don’t think abortion is right because the fetus is another human being that has the right that everyone else has and personhood is present within the fetus. The arguments that go between the two sides usually relate to the constitution in when a fetus is considered human, which both sides disagree on, and when it is deemed a citizen of the United States. Because it’s a constitutional issue it has had a lot of history in Supreme Court cases and protests for or against it. The most notorious Supreme Court case relating to abortion was Roe v. Wade. The 1973 case made abortion legal under the Privacy Zone that is given to citizen within amendments 1, 3, 4, 5, and 9. Many times the case has been tried to be overthrown but never has anyone succeeded. With all the given information and what I have researched I am pro-choice. I do not believe that the fetus feels pain during the abortion and I do not have a religious opinion on the subject, I am against abortion as much as the next person but I do feel that a woman should be allowed the choice to have an abortion if need be.
During the Panel Maria McGrath, who was pro-choice, had a lot to say about abortion linking with woman in poverty. Even though woman who are in poverty and need abortions are out there they aren’t the only ones getting abortions. Most women get an abortion because it is an unwanted pregnancy. There are defiantly many that get abortions because they know they wouldn’t be able to support a child. 42% of women have incomes that are 100% below the poverty line. Those who are under that poverty line and chose to have an abortion, I think, are smart because they know that they couldn’t provide the things necessary for the child to survive and may think that putting the child into a foster system isn’t much better, and in some cases it might not be. Some women have to send their children into foster homes because they do not have a way to get to a clinic. Around half the counties in the United States do not have clinics such a Planned Parenthood to help those who are or may be pregnant or even local doctors who do not wish to perform the procedure. Without the clinics woman who cannot support their child must put them into a foster home which I feel doesn’t help anyone. Putting more children into an already overpopulated home only creates for the people holding control over the home and the unhappy children who live there. I don’t like how some physicians must go over the options prior to the abortion because in some cases, once the child gets into foster care, they may never enjoy their childhood to the extent they could have if the mother was able to support them.
Motherhood should be something a woman should see coming and should be relatively prepared for. She should chose when she thinks it’s best for her to have a child and if she becomes pregnant she shouldn’t be required to care for the child if she cannot care for it the way she wishes to. Pregnancy should not be used as a form of punishment towards those who cannot bring happiness to a child. Not allowing the woman to legally obtain an abortion could do more harm than good to those who are linked with both the mother and the fetus. Yes the mother has the option of putting up the child for adoption but, again, foster care systems may not always be an ideal. The mother who wished to obtain an abortion in the first place and cannot get one is now with a child whom she may not be able to support. She may not have an option of adoption based on her living arrangements or locations so she’s required to take care of it. The problem is she can’t take care of the child because she is one of the many women living under the poverty line. This is something that can result from woman not being able to have a choice in whether or not they wish to have a child. As bad as it may sound, abortion is way of population control. Instead of having an enormous amount of unwanted children in foster cares who may never find a family there will be a more manageable amount of children in the system and can have a higher chance of finding a family before they become of legal age. Having all these children who need families and help is upsetting, making abortion illegal can increase the number of amount of children who also need families and help is only more upsetting. These children need helping and putting others in their position doesn’t help things at all, it only makes them worse.
From the medical point of an abortion, it’s much less riskier than it was eighty years ago both physically and mentally. Back alley abortions that took place in the 1920’s and 1930’s could result in a woman’s death because they were not performed properly or even by real physicians. Today that likely hood of that a woman is to die during an abortion is so little. Both sides argue whether or not the fetus can feel pain. What I believe is that once the fetus is viable and has been for a few weeks it does begin to feel pain. The thing is most abortions take place in the first and second trimester so the fetus is less likely to feel the pain then. When a fetus is that viable in the third trimester and a woman does get an abortion, usually the partial-birth abortion (Illegal in most states), the fetus can most likely feel the pain. The woman may feel it emotionally as well. The emotional effect an abortion can have on someone may vary. Depending on the circumstances the woman may be more willing to give up the child and there for she may not be feeling as much emotional pain as someone who is not as wanting to give up the child. Thing like PTSD and depression can show up in someone who has had an abortion before but it is usually how the woman who got the abortion took it. I don’t think that there is as much as an emotional stressor that people may say that comes with having an abortion; it just depends on the woman’s ability to handle what she is going through.
These aren’t the only reason I am pro-choice but they are defiantly some of the controversial ideas that can be found when exploring the Right to choose topic inside of today’s society. I feel what the government has set for woman who wish to obtain an abortion are respectable laws and restrictions. It was a challenge enough to get the government just to legalize abortion so going for diminishing the restrictions on a national level is unreasonable and the state to state setting for restrictions is a good compromise. The state restrictions or requirements for obtaining an abortion are reasonable, under some circumstances though there should be an exception for woman for example if a woman is abused by her spouse she should not have to inform them of the abortion. At the moment I believe the abortion laws are fully reasonable and should not be changed.
