Abortion: A Matter of Choice, Safety, and Morality

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Abortion: A Woman’s Choice
Abortion, defined as the intentional termination of a pregnancy, is one of the most highly debated liberties of all time. Approximately one to three million abortions are performed each year. Women receive abortions for reasons such as rape, teen pregnancy, and health concerns. Unfortunately, it is a liberty that some still wish to eradicate due to religious beliefs and misconceptions. Abortion should remain a legal option for women because illegal abortions result in far more fatalities, religion does not serve as grounds for a law, and most importantly, there is no conclusive evidence that a fetus is equal to a human being.
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.
Unsafe abortion is thus a pressing issue. Both of the primary methods for preventing unsafe aborti...

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...vacy, bodily integrity, and self-determination until the child is brought forth from the woman 's body” (ACLU). Until a fetus is brought forth from a woman’s body it is only a potential person, and thus has no rights whatsoever.
The decision to abort a pregnancy improves the lives of women across the world everyday. Abortion should remain an option because many deaths are caused by unsafe abortions, individual morality should not govern society as a whole, and no scientific evidence has been presented to confirm that human life begins at conception. Moralists promote the belief that legal abortions are dangerous and that human life begins at conception, however both of these claims have been refuted. When performed legally, abortions are one of the safest surgical procedures. Women should continue to possess the right to terminate their pregnancy for any reason.

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