Phoebe Zerwick’s article, “The Rise of DIY Abortions” covers the fact that women will do just about anything to receive an abortion. Her article talks about a young woman who goes to the black market to receive an abortion pill that has become illegal (Zerwick). This pill was once a legal part of medical abortions. As legislators tried to ban abortion, they banned on of the two parts of these medical abortions to discourage women from getting abortions at all. In doing this, women began to risk their lives by going to the black market, knowing that they can be sent to jail or receive a fake pill, which are both high risk consequences (Zerwick). Zerwick’s article does not disclose which state this young woman lives in for privacy reasons (Zerwick). …show more content…
To clarify, by providing a patient a pill dosage, with the intent to cause an abortion, a person is “performing” an abortion. By enforcing that abortions must be performed by a licensed physician, clinics like Planned Parenthood are not able to legally perform any kind of abortion (“Should I Get”). By doing this, the possibility of a woman receiving an abortion decreases. Even though their hospital may offer the service, it would be more expensive than receiving the pill at a clinic and 42 states allow hospitals to refuse to perform abortions (“An Overview”) so a women could end up having no options to receive an abortion that are safe, affordable and legal. These articles show how laws that restrict abortion are leading women to seek out methods that are possibly unsafe for their bodies or even in their day to day
In her essay “A Feminist Defense of Abortion” Sally Markowitz addresses the Autonomy defense as not being feminist in nature. She comes to this conclusion by recognizing that the right to bodily autonomy is not just a female right but a right that is innate for every person, male or female. Markowitz then asserts that the human right to bodily autonomy in regard to abortion should not be a gender neutral defense. Many feminists have come to the conclusion that the Autonomy Defense works against women in the courts as it shifts the focus away from gender inequality. Feminists have adopted the belief that sometimes gender should be relevant in claiming rights. To fail to claim a right on the basis of gender in the situation of abortion would obscure the relationship between reproductive practices and their oppression.
The topic of my paper is abortion. In Judith Jarvis Thomson's paper, “A Defense of Abortion,” she presented a typical anti-abortion argument and tried to prove it false. I believe there is good reason to agree that the argument is sound and Thompson's criticisms of it are false.
To women and some men, she is a hero, and to anti-feminists she is a villain. Moreover, there are still many people who do not applaud Ruth on the wonderful changes Ruth has made to American society. For growing up in the mid 90s, it is shocking to some that Ruth is not against abortion. After fighting for women to have the freedom to decide for themselves, Ruth said, “Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.” However, Ruth is not against nor for abortion rather she is wants people to be able to make their own choices. She said, “The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.” Also, Ruth is an advocate of same sex marriage. She wants freedom for everyone and for every one to be allowed to make their own decisions. She said, “In recent years, people have said, ‘This is the way I am.’ And others looked around, and we discovered it’s our next-door
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).
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)
In 1900 a law was passed banning women from having an abortion. Before 1900, abortions were a common practice and usually performed by a midwife, but doctors saw this as a financial threat and pushed for a law making abortions illegal. From 1900 until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a women’s right to have an abortion, women who wanted to have an abortion did so secretly. These secret abortions were performed
The subject of abortion has created some of the most controversial, social, and moral debates in United States history. On Jan. 22, 1973, in the case Roe Vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that it was a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion during the first trimester of the pregnancy (The Ruling). Still other interest groups argue that human life begins at conception and having an abortion is murder to an unborn child. These opposing viewpoints create a delicate political and social debate in which the lives of unborn children are placed in the center. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the RU 486 “abortion pill”, citing that the “overall safety of the pill is excellent”(Food and Drug). This scientific development has the potential to make abortions much more accessible and private to American women. I believe that the abortion pill harbors great qualities for women who choose abortion, yet is an enormous medical setback because it will cost the lives of so many more unborn children.
Advertisements about birth control pills and abortion clinics are never seen on television or even on billboards, but somehow people discover ways of acquiring birth control pills and finding abortion clinics. In a country where we can acquire certain items for free we tend to not think about who supplies or pay’s for these items. In every single state of the United States, birth control pills and abortion clinics can be found just around the corner. Based on “Pro Life Actions,” there are approximately 750 abortion clinics all over the United States. Also, with the help of “Planned Parent Hood,” bir...
To conclude, in the United States the right to an abortion is being restricted by various factors. These factors include the limitation to services or not allowing the women to make the decision on their own. Other factors include the importance the states holds on a woman’s right this is important because if a particular state believes that a women’s right to privacy is necessary then they will ensure that there exist access to service or the other way around if they don’t see it as something that is right they will restrict it. If the United States does not enforce a change then the right to an abortion will continue to decrease and be limited until there is no right at all.
In the Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper, “A Defense of Abortion”, the author argues that even though the fetus has a right to life, there are morally permissible reasons to have an abortion. Of course there are impermissible reasons to have an abortion, but she points out her reasoning why an abortion would be morally permissible. She believes that a woman should have control of her body and what is inside of her body. A person and a fetus’ right to life have a strong role in whether an abortion would be okay. Thomson continuously uses the story of a violinist to get the reader to understand her point of view.
In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
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.
The aftermath of Roe vs. Wade, when Jane Roe successfully had abortion legalized in various places, many abortion clinics all over the country sprung up. Clinics like Planned Parenthood and NARAL “sought to give the right meaning by ensuring both the newly legal abortion would be accessible and that women seeking abortions would not be victimized by inflated prices or untrained doctors performing unsafe office abortions” (Tribe 142). There are many reasons women seek abortion. Many pro-choice people say that a rape victim should not have to give birth to her attacker’s child, and to do so is attacking ...
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)
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...