In the two decades before Roe v. Wade, it has been “estimated that 200,000 to 1.2 million women sought out illegal abortions with approximately 5,000 women, resulting in death” due to dangerous abortion procedures performed by underground abortion clinics. The statistics indicate that prohibiting abortion does not stop women from seeking abortion. Making abortion illegal increases the risk of fatality as well as jeopardizing women’s health because having an abortion without proper medical care and procedure will most likely cause infection, infertility, or even death. Legalizing abortion will allow women to receive proper care and a safe abortion, which decreases the risk of death. For example, “the mortality rate related to induced abortion …show more content…
However, the right to life does not mean it has the right to use the body of another human being. People are not obligated by the law to risk their lives in order to save others. For example, if there is a person who is drowning in the ocean, I am not required to risk my life to save the drowning person. Therefore, even if the fetus has the rights, women are not required to save the fetus. It has come to a conclusion that many “anti-abortion activists believe that abortion is justified when a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest.” This violates their definition of the right to life because it clearly indicates that pro-life supporters believe that the right to life of a fetus is negotiable. Therefore, pro-life activists are contradicting themselves when they compromise their definition of right to life because it means that pro-life supporters are acknowledging that women’s rights are more important than the life of fetuses. Ultimately, right to life requires that an individual must be capable of living independently. Before one has a right to life, they must have a life. The fact that a fetus is not a separate individual and it lives and depends on the pregnant woman for growth, it fits in the biological definition of a parasite. A parasite in a human body feeds on the host and cause problems and illness to the host. My intention is not disparaging the fetus with negative connotation with the parasite. In fact, parasites and the host can have supportive relationship just like most pregnancies. I used the comparison to provide the relationship between a fetus and a parasite to state that if women continues the pregnancy unwillingly, her rights and bodily integrity are
Legal abortions can and has saved the lives of many women, or at least that is what Terry O’Neill’s central argument is. She argues that legal abortion the
Abortion, which is defined as a deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, is one of the most controversial issues in society. Many people believe that abortion is unethical and morally wrong, while others believe that it is a woman’s right to decide what to do with her body. According to www.census.gov, “the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. has leveled off at 1.2 million a year” (1). This statistic supports how many women are choosing abortion. Although abortion is legal in the United States, many people continue to voice their opinions on how it is a human rights violation and should be illegal everywhere. The practice of abortion should be banned in society because it terminates the life of an innocent unborn child, causes long-term emotional effects, as well as major health risks for women who opt for abortion.
In a 2006 study conducted by the CDC, it was reported that 53-56% of abortions were performed on white women between the ages of 20 and 29. Among the 46 states that provided data consistently during 1996--2006, a total of 835,134 abortions (98.7% of the total) were reported; the abortion rate was 16.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years, and the abortion ratio was 236 abortions per 1,000 live births. During the previous decade (1997--2006), reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 5.7%, 8.8%, and 14.8%, respectively; most of these declines occurred before 2001. During the previous year (2005--2006), the total number of abortions increased 3.1%, and the abortion rate increased 3.2%; the abortion ratio was stable. (CDC, 2009)
Roe v. Wade decriminalized abortion with a landmark court ruling in 1973, yet abortion remains one of the most controversial debates due to the myriad of political and moral issues. Somehow, woman still face many of the issues that the roe v wade ruling was supposed to prevent. Carrying an unintended pregnancy to term can be very problematic to a woman’s mental and physical well-being whether it was a rape or not. The magnitude of damage an unwanted pregnancy can be catastrophic to the child as well. Extreme cases, newborns are killed because a woman could not afford an abortion. Most Americans agree that abortion is okay under dire circumstances like rape. There are countless other circumstances in which a pregnancy can be devastating to a woman, but rape is singled out as socially acceptable because on the surface, it appears to be a definitive, black and white reason. Finding a middle ground that allows woman to decide for themselves what constitutes a dire circumstance might be a more realistic and compassionate choice. The option to have tax-funded, safe, legal abortions is choosing to improve the quality of lives that already exist and is a realistic approach to an emotional issue.
The number of abortions and abortion providers have slowly declined since the 1980’s. The article provides facts about the amount of providers available and the amount of abortions that take place. Therefore, with the amount of abortion providers declining, many women have limited access to this procedure and cannot exert their right to have an abortion.
The Supreme Court has made a law that gives the woman the right to choose abortion if needed. If a government sponsored healthcare plan does not follow this law and does not cover the abortion, then the woman herself will be penalized if she is low income.(Susan Dudley Ph.D.) In many cases, women can not afford the abortion but will sacrifice many things and still get one. It is not just an economic problem but can also be a social problem in many cases. There has been some cases of women who can not afford the abortion to try and induce it themselves then seek emergency medical help soon after to then have surgery to fully abort the fetus. (Susan Dudley Ph.D.) There is many arguments on this topic and whether abortions should be covered fully by health care. Due to the fact that low- income women and young women will be penalized because of health care plans not covering their abortions, the procedure will always be a difficult decision for these struggling women. (Susan Dudley
Today, an abortion is done by a professional in the field that has had the specialized training to carry out the procedure. Before abortion became legal and easily accessible to women, many women were using back-alley or self induced abortions to get rid of unwanted pregnancies. The result of these unsafe procedures can be very devastating for both the women and the baby. Back in the early to mid 1900’s, wealthy women requiring an abortion because of severe medical reasons were generally able to find a physician who could perform an abortion. However, the poor women had to turn towards illegal and unsafe abortions, which ended in countless deaths and mutilations. Between the years of the 1950s to 1960s, it has been estimated that there were around 200,000 to 1,200,000 illegal abortions performed each year in the United States. Up to about 5,000 of these abortions ended with the death of the women having the procedure done. Because of abortion now being legal and accessible to all women in the United States, the death rate from getting one is extremely low, about 0.6 per 100,000 abortion procedures. Having a safe, legal, and effective place and way to get an abortion has overall been safer for the women getting an
“Back-alley abortions cause 68,000 of maternal deaths each year in the 33 countries where abortion is not legal or available, according to the World Health Organization” (abortion procon 1). Back-alley abortions are typically done not by a professional, but by anyone whom the idea comes to and dares to take action. The process stems with a coat hanger instead of legit medical supplies. Unfortunately, many women die during the process.
Illegal abortions performed in unsafe conditions contribute to a great number of deaths every year. According to Wendy Wanlund, “In 1930, illegal abortion was the official cause of death for nearly 2,700 women, or 18 percent of childbirth-related deaths recorded that year” (Abortion Debates). In the more than four decades since Roe v. Wade was decided, thousands of American women’s lives have been saved by access to legal abortion care. Furthermore, making abortions illegal would force women to go about terminating their unwanted pregnancies with unsafe procedures. Every year, millions of women in the developing world are treated for complications from unsafe pregnancy termination. These complications can include heavy bleeding, infection and sepsis, as well as more severe conditions, such as lacerations or uterine perforation, that can put a woman 's life at risk. Lack of access to abortion clinics does not result in fewer abortions, it results in unsafe and illegal abortions.
Abortion is a sensitive topic globally, culturally, and socially. There’s more than forty percent of women that end their pregnancy by abortion. In every nation of the world a woman makes the choice for an abortion. Abortion is a procedure that allows a woman to end the life from her pregnancy. There was a time when unsafe abortion was one of the many causes of maternal death. Unsafe abortion went down over the last two decades. When abortion became legal the tragic health issues for women reduced as well as death. There are thirty-six countries willing to allow a woman 's abortion if the female 's life is threatened. Those few countries make the exception depending on her situation of rape, incest, and fetal damage. Now abortion is known as a safe and legal way for a woman to end an unwanted pregnancy. In a woman’s first trimester
The permissibility of abortion has been a crucial topic for debates for many years. People have yet to agree upon a stance on whether abortion is morally just. This country is divided into two groups, believers in a woman’s choice to have an abortion and those who stand for the fetus’s right to live. More commonly these stances are labeled as pro-choice and pro-life. The traditional argument for each side is based upon whether a fetus has a right to life. Complications occur because the qualifications of what gives something a right to life is not agreed upon. The pro-choice argument asserts that only people, not fetuses, have a right to life. The pro-life argument claims that fetuses are human beings and therefore they have a right to life. Philosopher, Judith Jarvis Thomson, rejects this traditional reasoning because the right of the mother is not brought into consideration. Thomson prepares two theses to explain her reasoning for being pro-choice; “A right to life does not entail the right to use your body to stay alive” and “In the majority of cases it is not morally required that you carry a fetus to term.”
According to the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System issued by the CDC, “the number of reported pregnancy-related deaths in the United States steadily increased from 7.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to a high of 17.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2009 and 2011.” The CDC Abortion Surveillance System, found that the mortality rate for women who had abortions was 0.7 deaths per 100,000 procedures. This shows how safe legal abortions can be when done professionally. When the procedure is done by someone who is not a trained professional then it becomes detrimental to women. If abortion was illegal more of these procedures would occur and can possibly risk more lives. It’s better for it to be legal and safely done than illegal and done
Expecting to completely eliminate abortions from the face of the earth by making them illegal and getting rid of the facilities that provide them is an awfully absurd idea due to the fact that abortions will never cease to exist. Induced abortions have taken place all over the world, and “societies have [been struggling with] the issue of abortion for millennia” (Abortion). Within countries where abortions are essentially illegal, many turn to unsafe abortion methods, usually performed by unskilled practitioners (Chapter 5). These procedures are “often unsanitary… and [result] in the death or mutilation of many women” (Abortion). In areas where these services are not attainable, many women are prompted to seek out specialists to assist them in dangerous and surreptitious methods of abortion such as repeated blows to the stomach and the insertion of bizarre objects in the vagina and cervix. However, abortion-related deaths are usually quite rare in developed countries where the service is both legal and accessible. It is estimated...
Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)
On the same note, the prohibition of abortion often results in deaths of women. Scholars have noted that the prohibition of abortion would not essentially stop women from undergoing the procedures. In instances where they feel that it is imperative that they go through the procedure, they always undertake it albeit in secret and dangerous circumstances where they cannot access medical care (Boonin, 20...