Abortion should not be Legalized: Examining Ethical and Social Concerns

Abortion is ending a pregnancy so that one may not have a child if they choose not to. Dated way back, abortion has always existed, and people's views on it started to form after the Supreme Court case of Roe vs. Wade in 1973.

Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life Perspectives

These two views are pro-choice and pro-life. Pro-choice believe that choosing abortion is a woman's right that shouldn't be limited by governmental or religious authorities, and that there should be a safe place for women to resort to if they choose to end a pregnancy.

Opponents of this, known as pro-life, believe that individual human life begins at fertilization and, therefore, abortion is the immoral killing of an innocent human being.

Evolution of Abortion Practices

Abortion went from being done in secrecy to being done in a safe environment. Overall, women should be allowed to choose if they want to end a pregnancy or not because it's their body. If abortion weren't legalized, women would still find a place to end a pregnancy, and it's better to have a safe place rather than a harmful place that may harm their life. Abortion should be legalized so that women aren't getting injured from unsafe procedures.

Legal Landmark: Roe vs. Wade

In Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that Americans' right to privacy included the right of a woman to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy. The case arose out of Texas Law that prohibited legal abortion except to save a woman's life. Laws like the one Texas had exited in other states also caused women to resort to illegal abortions. Jane Roe was 21 years old at the time and was pregnant but didn't want to keep the child. Henry Wade was a Texas attorney general who defended the law that made abortion illegal.

After the ruling was made, supporters of legal abortion rejoiced, especially women who were in Roes's shoes. Those who opposed the ruling started to work on preventing federal or state funding for abortion. Some tactics used were harassing people trying to enter abortion clinics, vandalizing clinics, etc. As time passed, the two views only grew stronger, separating Americans.

Changing Views Over Time

In the modern era, people are now more accepting of abortion being legal, but there's still a group of other people who don't agree on the matter, and here are some examples. Religion was/is still one of the main reasons why people don't believe in abortion, but now modern-day Catholics (51%) and white mainline Protestants (67%) are more accepting of legalizing abortion in all/most cases in 2018.

In 2018 61% of White evangelical Protestants believed abortion should be illegal in all/most cases, showing the separations within different religious affiliations. Now conservative Republicans are more likely to say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases than it being legalized by 66% vs. 29%.

Modern and liberal Republicans agree otherwise, with 58% saying abortion should be legal, with only 37% saying it should be illegal. As can see, the view on the issue is very different between someone who's conservative and someone whose moderate/liberal Republican. The same can't be said for the Democrats, though, because both conservative and moderate, and liberal Democrats all support legal abortion by more than 50%. Another fundamental ideal that has shaped people's views on abortion is their level of education.

Those who have some level of college education or are college grads or more are 60-71% more likely to say abortion should be legalized. This shows that the more a person is educated on the matter, the less judgmental they would be on the matter, and also shows that people who don't want abortion legalized don't understand fully why that is. There are many misconceptions about abortion being a terrifying, bad thing that the public needs to be educated/re-educated on, which is what this percentage shows.

The Rationale for Legalizing Abortion

After viewing the different sides of the issue, it's obvious that abortion should be legalized. A woman's right to choose abortion is a "fundamental right," as learned in the Supreme Court Roe vs Wade. The anti-abortion position is mainly based on religious beliefs and subjected to personal interpretations, and this ideology shouldn't be a foundation for laws and legislation.

What is not realized by some people is that abortion prevents unwanted/unplanned pregnancies, which prevents child neglect. Raising a child is not easy, and children are very expensive to take care of. This might sound crazy to some, but the average cost of raising a child in the U.S. surpasses $200,000, which is a lot for low-income people. If a child isn't wanted and there's no financial stability for that child, then the child will grow up in a non-conductive & destructive environment without the love, care, and stability it needs.

Changing Views Over Time

Everyone has the right to life, liberty & pursuit of happiness when they're born, but the fetus does not have these rights until it is born, in which case abortion is not murder & abortion does not go against the rights of a fetus since it does not have any until born. Just like organs from the deceased is illegal to take without them signing off on it, why wouldn't those same rights be given to someone that's alive? A woman is not legally obligated to keep a baby and tend to it. Women have been denied economic and political equality in the past, and this inequality still goes on today. If changes want to be made by the government, then one step toward equality would be allowing a woman to end a pregnancy if she chooses to.

Fetal Rights and Equality

Legal abortions protect women's health. Modern abortion procedures are safer for a woman, and the risk of death is less than one in 100,000. The risk of a woman dying from giving birth is 13.3 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies. Even if abortion isn't legalized, just like in the past, women would find other ways to get rid of what's growing inside of them, and those ways weren't safe for their health and led to their deaths.

Conclusion: Towards Comprehensive Abortion Legislation

In conclusion, abortion still remains one of the main issues in American politics. Over time though, more and more people are supporting abortion, and eventually, there will be a law passed that would finally allow for abortion to be something that can be done in any state and at any time a woman chooses to have it.

They're different ways to have an abortion, like the abortion pill, which works up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and can be done at home so that a woman wouldn't have to worry about the public's opinion because they have that privacy in their home. The other way to have an abortion is heading out to an In-Clinic Abortion, which is a safe environment with doctors and nurses that would help the women. It's better to have a safe living woman than an injured or even dead woman, all because they didn't have a safe place to turn to when they couldn't have an unplanned baby they can't take care of whatsoever.

Reference

1. Catholic Archbishops of Great Britain. (1980). Abortion and Rape.
2. Finnis, J. (1994). Human Embryos: Abortion and Judicial Reasoning. The Monist, 77(4), 571-590.
3. Roe v. Wade: US Supreme Court. (1973). Roe v. Wade: The Constitutional Right to Access Safe, Legal Abortion
4. Wisniewski, L. (2011).Fetal Pain.
5. Kuhse, H., & Singer, P. (2013). A Companion to Bioethics. John Wiley & Sons.

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