Abortion
PRO Legal Abortion
A woman's right to choose abortion is a "fundamental right" recognized by the US Supreme Court. The landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade was decided on Jan. 22, 1973, and remains the law of the land. [49]
Personhood begins at birth, not at conception. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, not a baby. Personhood at conception is not a proven biological fact.
Fetuses are incapable of feeling pain when an abortion is performed. According to Stuart W. G. Derbyshire, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham (England), "[n]ot only has the biological development not yet occurred to support pain experience, but the environment after birth, so necessary to the development of pain experience, is also yet to occur." [10]
Access to legal, professionally-performed abortions reduces injury and death caused by unsafe, illegal abortions. The World Health Organization estimated in 2006 that "back-alley" abortions cause 68,000 maternal deaths each year in countries where abortion is not legal. [11]
The anti-abortion position is usually based on religious beliefs and threatens the vital separation of church and state. Religious ideology should not be a foundation for law in the United States.
Modern abortion procedures are safe. The risk of a woman’s death from abortion is less than one in 100,000, [12] whereas the risk of a woman dying from giving birth is 13.3 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies. [13] Furthermore, a 1993 fertility investigation of 10,767 women by the Joint Royal College of General Practitioners and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that women who had at least two abortions experienced the same future fertility as those who had at least two natural pregnancies. [14]
Access to abortion is necessary because contraceptives are not always readily available. Women need a doctor's prescription to obtain many birth control methods, such as the pill, the patch, the shot, and the diaphragm.
A woman's right to choose abortion is a "fundamental right" recognized by the US Supreme Court. The landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade was decided on Jan. 22, 1973, and remains the law of the land. [49]
Personhood begins at birth, not at conception. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, not a baby. Personhood at conception is not a proven biological fact.
Fetuses are incapable of feeling pain when an abortion is performed. According to Stuart W. G. Derbyshire, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham (England), "[n]ot only has the biological development not yet occurred to support pain experience, but the environment after birth, so necessary to the development of pain experience, is also yet to occur." [10]
Access to legal, professionally-performed abortions reduces injury and death caused by unsafe, illegal abortions. The World Health Organization estimated in 2006 that "back-alley" abortions cause 68,000 maternal deaths each year in countries where abortion is not legal. [11]
The anti-abortion position is usually based on religious beliefs and threatens the vital separation of church and state. Religious ideology should not be a foundation for law in the United States.
Modern abortion procedures are safe. The risk of a woman’s death from abortion is less than one in 100,000, [12] whereas the risk of a woman dying from giving birth is 13.3 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies. [13] Furthermore, a 1993 fertility investigation of 10,767 women by the Joint Royal College of General Practitioners and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that women who had at least two abortions experienced the same future fertility as those who had at least two natural pregnancies. [14]
Access to abortion is necessary because contraceptives are not always readily available. Women need a doctor's prescription to obtain many birth control methods, such as the pill, the patch, the shot, and the diaphragm.