The Pros And Cons Of Abortion

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Recommended: Religion on abortion

In class, we have been discussing how our society has been creating policies with the sole purpose of criminalizing pregnant woman and abortion. Abortion is currently a highly debated societal topic which many individuals have very strong opinions. Religious individuals fight to protect the rights of the fetus while taking away the rights of the mother. Basically, individuals are blaming mothers for birth complications and slowly stripping away the rights of women after they become pregnant. Many of these individuals view the mother and the fetus as competing interests and believe women cannot make a morally adequate choice of their own free will. Consequently, there has been an increased effort to create legal personhood rights for the fetus, …show more content…

Paltrow stated, “I believe the attacks on Roe v. Wade establish a system of in which women who have abortions will go to jail.” Furthermore, she explained that this increase in incarceration of women due to these attacks will decline their social status to second class citizens and “strip them of their status as full constitutional persons.” The author makes a great point here by comparing this situation with the drug war being used to target and incarcerate African Americans. This comparison shows how detrimental these attacks on Roe v. Wade can be and how it could affect woman’s …show more content…

Wade for having abortions and she provides a story of a woman who was charged with manslaughter for having an abortion. After painting a vivid picture of how life was for woman having abortions before Roe v. Wade, she attempted to demonstrate to the audience how drastically different and extreme it would be if Roe v. Wade was dismantled in our current society of mass incarceration. Paltrow explained, “In 1977, there were 11,212 women in prison and in 2009 there were 105,197, which is an increase of 938%.” Obviously, if women were being arrested for abortions during the 1970s, the rate of incarceration for woman in today’s society would be devastating to women’s rights and social mobility. Additionally, she explains how these policies attacking Roe v. Wade will not only impact women wanting to have abortions, but it will impact women who suffered miscarriages, stillbirths, or any other situations resulting in the death of a newborn. The author describes the story of Ms. Carder who was twenty-seven years old and was forced to have a cesarean surgery even though it risked her life. This decision was determined by a court, because the rights of the fetus were seen as independent and more important than the rights of the mother, who objected having the procedure. According to the author, the new born and the mother ended up dying from the procedure. This woman lost her life, because she was pregnant and her

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