History Of Abortion: The Sanctity Of Life

882 Words2 Pages

Abortion: The Sanctity of Life Since the 18th century America has pride herself on being a nation that actively works to maintain the freedom and liberty of her people. However, limits have been cast within that freedom; limits that have caused a great debate and uproar from coast to coast. Abortion, and its legality, in the United States of America has been an issue since the start of this great nation. Along with it come many varying opinions and beliefs on whether or not women have the legal right to terminate a pregnancy, especially among political candidates of differing parties. One thing that both parties, the Democratic and Republican, can agree on is that abortion is, and always will be, a prominent topic in America. The story …show more content…

When a young woman from Dallas, Texas, publicly known by her fictitious name “Jane Roe”, learned of her pregnancy out of wedlock she wished to terminate the pregnancy, however an 1854 law banned the medical procedure in the state of Texas. Roe wished to challenge the 1854 law, and with that Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, two young lawyers, filed a class action lawsuit in support of pregnant women seeking abortions in Texas. After the Federal Court ruled that the Texas anti-abortion law did in fact violate the constitution however did nothing to block its enforcement, Weddington & Coffee appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1973, the Court overruled states’ laws banning abortion. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of liberty is “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision” regarding the termination of her pregnancy. However, the Court allowed the states to make restrictions on abortion, recognizing their interests and concerns in protecting the possibility of human life after the first trimester of the pregnancy. Since then, other cases and acts have altered the restrictions on abortion and given the states more power to set limits. Nonetheless, abortion is still one of the most highly debated topics amongst the people of the United States of …show more content…

In the Republican Party, Dr. Ben Carson and Senator Rand Paul have stated in the words of Senator Paul, “As a physician, one of the first things we learn is to 'Do no harm.’” Senator Paul has continued to state that as President, he believes America would save hundreds of thousands of lives by giving the power to the states to make their own anti-abortion laws, should they choose. Donald Trump recently explained how years ago friends of his planned to abort their child, but never went through with it and that allowed him the opportunity to watch their child grow up into a “superstar”. With that, Trump continued to clarify his stance on abortion with, “And I am very, very proud to say that I am pro-life.” Many Republican Candidates including John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, and George Pataki have declared similar opinions, in the sense that they would ban abortions at the state and federal level 20 weeks after fertilization. Several of these candidates have further explained that they would ban it with the exception of cases of rape, incest, or the mother’s life at

Pro’s and Con’s on Abortion In America
893 Words | 2 Pages
America is synonymous with freedom. The pursuit of freedom is a journey that we as American’s find ourselves challenged by with each growing generation. Ideological challenges such as the issue of abortion define today’s journey as Americans. There are different issues that come up when the subject abortion is mentioned. the arguments of being “pro-life” vs “pro-choice”. Before reviewing the main debates on abortion, one should understand the accepted definition by both sides of the debate. Abortion is the act of the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. Pro-choice is favoring or supporting the legal right of women and girls to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term. Pro-life is supporting the right to life of the unborn or against abortion. The debate of “pro-life” and “pro-choice” has clearly become more complex within the last 30 to 40 years. When examining the issues on abortion, one has to look at its history and main issues that surround the subject matters of abortion, whether religion is a factor and if the government should have a say in a woman’s choice.
Read More
The Pros And Cons Of Abortion And The Hyde Amendment
1464 Words | 3 Pages
Abortion, is a safe and legal way to terminate a pregnancy. According to the Guttmatcher Institute (2015), abortions are common, and approximately three in ten American women have an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. Additionally, a broad array of women in the United States have abortions. Yet, abortion is a controversial issue and has been for decades. It is a topic that many people hold strong feelings for or against. The conversations surrounding the topic of abortion has resulted in protests, dangerous, unfair policies, and violence. The abortion debate heightened in 1973, when the U.S. Supreme court overturned state laws that banned or restricted women’s rights to obtain an abortion during the
Read More
Essay On Abortion In The 1800s
592 Words | 2 Pages
Abortions have been performed for thousands of years. In the 1800s abortions began to be outlawed. The reasons for anti-abortion laws varied for each state. Some people did not want the world to be dominated by newly arrived immigrants. Abortion in the 1800s were very unsafe due to the fact that the doctors had a limited educations and hospitals were not common. The outlawing of abortions from 1880 to 1973 led to many woman attempting illgeal abortions. (add author). Almost two hundred women died from attempting illegal abortions in 1965. Between two hundred thousand and one million illegal abortions were given each year. In states where local laws restrict the availability of abortion, women tend to have the lowest level of education and income. Additionally, in those states, less money goes toawrds education, welfare, fostercare programs, and adoption services. (Anderson, 5).
Read More
History of Abortion
524 Words | 2 Pages
Ever since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, abortion has changed its course in society. With the new decision made by the United States, abortion is now legal. Many abortions were performed before the Supreme Court decision, but the settlement made it less risky for the doctors involved. Abortion has caused society to be divided between a pro-choice group and pro-life group. Two groups with struggles that will never end.
Read More
The Reproductive Right Debate
2552 Words | 6 Pages
No other element of the Women’s Rights Movement has generated as much controversy as the debate over reproductive rights. As the movement gained momentum so did the demand for birth control, sex education, family planning and the repeal of all abortion laws. On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision which declared abortion "fundamental right.” The ruling recognized the right of the individual “to be free from unwanted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” (US Supreme Court, 1973) This federal-level ruling took effect, legalizing abortion for all women nationwide.
Read More
Abortion, Public Policy, & Texas
1028 Words | 3 Pages
In 1973, in what has become a landmark ruling for women’s rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a woman’s right to an abortion. Ever since, individual states have adopted, altered, and/or mutilated the edict to fit their agendas – Texas included. However, the decision made by the justices in Roe v. Wade didn’t set clear cut, inarguable demarcation lines, which has allowed the fiery debate to consume the nation. Rather than establishing a legal ruling of what life is, or is not, the Supreme Court has remained silent on the issue.
Read More
Roe And Wade's Case: Roe V. Wade
1049 Words | 3 Pages
The landmark case on abortion was Roe vs Wade. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a historic case in which the United States supreme court overturned Texas interpretation of abortion laws. This decision legalized abortion in all 50 states. The Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy before the fetus acquires viability and that a fetus is not a person under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, two young and ambitious attorneys, filed the suit on behalf of Norma McCovery using the alias of Jane Roe. The suit alleged that the abortion law in Texas violated her constitutional rights and the rights of all women. The current state law at the time of this
Read More
Roe v. Wade
590 Words | 2 Pages
The facts of this case show that Roe, who at the time was a single woman, decided to challenge the State of Texas’s abortions laws. The law in that state stated that it was a felony to obtain or attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 1973). At the time many illegal abortions were being performed in back alleys and in very unsanitary conditions. Therefore, some states began to loosen up on abortion restrictions, in which some women found it easy to travel to another state where the abortion laws were less restrictive and they could find a doctor was willing to endorse the medical requirement for an abortion. Unfortunately, less fortunate or poor women could seldom travel outside their own state to get the treatment, which started to raise questions of fairness. Also, many of the laws were vague; therefore many doctors really didn’t know whether they were committing ...
Read More
Roe v Wade
2188 Words | 5 Pages
In 1970, Norma McCorvey, a single and pregnant woman in Texas wanted to get an abortion. The state laws of Texas at that time stated that it was illegal to have an abortion in Texas. Even though the state told her that she could go to one of the four states in which abortion was legal to have the procedure done, she decided that she could not afford to travel to another state to receive the procedure. Norma McCorvey decided that she would sue the state of Texas, claiming that her constitutional rights were being taken from her. She then changed her name to the pseudonym “Jane Roe” to protect her right of privacy. The district court found that Roe did have grounds to file the suit against the state of Texas. They ruled on the grounds that the abortion laws in Texas infringed on the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and fourteenth amendments of the constitution. The first amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Amend.html). The fourth amendment states that, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”
Read More
Supreme Court and Women's Rights
1470 Words | 3 Pages
In the second part of the twentieth century, women’s rights once again gained a lot of momentum. The women’s liberation movement was born out of women civil right activists who were tired of waiting for legislative change for women’s rights. Even though women are being recognized more in society, they still face difficult issues. Sexism –especially in the workforce –is becoming a major issue, birth control pills are still not popular, and abortions are frowned upon in society. The case Roe v. Wade is about a woman with the fake name of Jane Roe who wanted an abortion but the state of Texas would not let her unless her life was in danger. She sued the district attorney of Dallas County saying that it violated the right to privacy under the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments. Usually, some arguments for being against abortions are because it is like killing a life, religious reasons, and less chance of future pregnancies. Some arguments that approve abortion are the rights of privacy and the mother to make her own decision. I decided to pick the landmark case Roe v. Wade because there are many ways to argue for and against abortions, so I wanted to give it an overarching view before I personally pick a side. Roe v. Wade is a significant case because it shows how rights in the Constitution do not have to be explicitly mentioned for it to implement and the change in abortion laws that affect women.
Read More
Abortion is Woman’s Right to Choose
1524 Words | 4 Pages
With so many women choosing to have abortions, it would be expected that it would not be so greatly frowned up, yet society is still having problems with its acceptance. Every woman has the fundamental right to decide for herself, free from government interference, whether or not to have an abortion. Today, more than ever, American families do not want the government to trample on their right to privacy by mandating how they must decide on the most intimate, personal matters. That is why, even though Americans may differ on what circumstances for terminating a crisis pregnancy are consistent with their own personal moral views, on the fundamental question of who should make this personal decision, the majority of Americans agree that each woman must have the right to make this private choice for herself. Anti-choice proposals to ban abortions for “sex-selection” or “birth-control” are smokescreens designed to shift the focus of the debate away from this issue and trivialize the seriousness with which millions of women make this highly personal decision. Any government restriction on the reasons for which women may obtain legal abortions violates the core of this right and could force all women to publicly justify their reasons for seeking abortion.
Read More
Perspectives on Abortion
856 Words | 2 Pages
In the year March 1970, a woman dubbed Jane Roe took federal action against Texas abortion laws. These laws prevented Roe from terminating her pregnancy because abortions were only allowed in the scenario that the fetus was harming the life of the mother (Rosenbaum 63). Because Roe wasn’t in any way harmed by her pregnancy, she could not get an abortion. “Roe believed that TX statutes were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments” (Rosenbaum 64). She wanted an abortion done professionally in a clean and safe environment (Rosenbaum 63). Women before the legalization of abortion would resort to unsafe methods to terminate their baby (Tribe 113).
Read More
Abortion Is Morally Permissible
2044 Words | 5 Pages
It is almost unanimously agreed upon that the right to life is the most important and sacred right possessed by human beings. With this being said, it comes as no surprise that there are few issues that are more contentious than abortion. Some consider the process of abortion as immoral and consisting of the deprivation of one’s right to life. Others, on the opposite end of the spectrum, see abortion as a liberty and a simple exercise of the right to the freedom of choice.
Read More
Abortion in the United States
3510 Words | 8 Pages
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)
Read More
The Ethics Of Abortion, And Virtue Of Ethics
1210 Words | 3 Pages
Abortion “is an issue that raises questions about life and death, about what a person is and when one becomes a person, about the meaning of life, about the rights of women, and about the duties of men”(Velasquez 485). Abortion is an unresolved ethical issue that has been in doubt for many years because one can argue that you are killing an innocent person/fetus but many argue that is not person because they don’t have a conscious or the characteristics that defines a “person”. John Stuart Mill in a way justifies abortion, Mill is known to be openly speak about women’s rights and about human rights. Although, it might be immortal to end someone’s life one might argued that the individual has the right to choose and have the option. But in
Read More

Open Document

Wait a second!

History Of Abortion: The Sanctity Of Life

Pro’s and Con’s on Abortion In America

The Pros And Cons Of Abortion And The Hyde Amendment

Essay On Abortion In The 1800s