Abortion: Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life

Abortion: Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life
According to BPAS (2010), which is Britain's largest single abortion provider caring for over 55,000 women each year, abortion is a process of ending a pregnancy in early month. Most of the times, a woman can take medicine or having surgery to end her pregnancy and the abortion using this two types of methods are usually done in the first three months of the pregnancy. Abortion is usually done by a doctor and other health care professionals in the hospital, doctor’s office or health center. As mentioned before, there are two types of abortion. A medical abortion is an abortion caused by medicine and it could only be done in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The most common type of medical abortion uses a medicine called mifepristone in the process of abortion. The function of this pill is to block progesterone which is a hormone needed for pregnancy. It causes the lining of the womb to become thin. However, a woman may try a surgery abortion when medical abortion does not work. A doctor removes the lining of the womb in a surgical abortion. The abortion debate has been on going over the last three decades. People argue about the conflict of the rights for the human rights and the reproductive rights of women or the human right advocates. As a human, we have to stand on the pro-life position which we have to respect the unborn child or we should stand on the pro-choice or pro-abortion position which we have to respect the parents’ decisions whether they want to give birth to the unborn child due to some valid reasons?
The first argument and the most basic question on any discussion of abortion is whether the fetus, or unborn child, is a human person or not. On the pro-life side, people argue that the fetus is "a human within a human". In the context of biology, a fetus is “alive” as it grows in the mother’s womb by time to time due to the cell division. On the pro-choice side people tend to argue that a child can only be consider as a human person only after it emerges from the womb. It is just simply a part of the mother's body before the child born because the fetus relies on woman’s body to survive as we learnt in biology. The fetus gains the nutrients from the mother’s body to survive. If the fetus enables to gain the nutrients by its own, it still cannot be able to be considered as a human person. Thus, according to the pro-life view, abortion has to be prohibited as the unborn child is a human person. For our knowledge, murdering is illegal in every society no matter how old is the individual. Abortion is the process which taking away the life of an unborn child and this act is nothing different to the murder. So, there are no differences between killing a baby inside a mother’s womb and killing a baby after birth. According to the pro-choice view, abortion is permitted as every human has their rights to choose as long as they do not harm others base on human right advocates. Parents have their right to choose whether they wanted their “children” to be born or not to be born under the consideration of the economic, sex of the fetus, religion, cultural and custom.
For the next argument, people argue about the health condition of the mother and the unborn child. For those who accept the pro-life view, that the unborn child is a human, there is still an exemption in the situations that when the life of the mother and the unborn child are in danger, we should choose to save the mother life due to the moral obligation. This view sounds like a pro-choice view than a pro-life view as we need to choose between the mother and the unborn child. But as we make our stand on pro-life view, mother’s life is always more immediate than the unborn child within her body. For example, if the mother would be dead after giving birth to the child who the child has been examined that he or she has some critical disability either physical or mental, abortion is permitted. But, if there are no direct threat to the mother’s body no matter physical or mental health, abortion is then prohibited. However, some people who take a stand on pro-choice would argue that we should respect the rights of the mother who decided to give birth to the child or with disability due to the human rights advocates or choose to get abortion. No matter the direct threat to the mother is occur or not, women can choose to get abortion or not due to their consideration and decision.
Furthermore, there is argument within the standpoint of feminist in the context of abortion. From the pro-choice feminism standpoint, women have their right to choose to get abortion. This is because without abortion, women have to become mother unjustly. If abortion is prohibited, it means that women have to follow the traditional of the society role and it is differ than the theory of equality of the sexes. In most of the society, mothers are considered as second class citizens. A woman has less education, employment, and health care opportunity after become a mother. Nowadays, abortion is legal and safe. It gives the rights to women to control their own body. Women can choose an illegal and unsafe abortion. But it would not only put women in risk, it would also put the unborn baby in risk as well. While in the pro-life point of view, giving birth to children is a mother’s duty. Mothers’ duties towards children are breast feeding them, take care of them, and make sure that children are physically and mentally healthy. However, some of the women want to keep their body slim as society definition for women’s beauty is slim. In order to maintain the slimness of their body after they have pregnant, they choose to get abortion. This act is different from the women who take a stand on pro-life view. In the pro-life women point of view, women in pregnancy are the moment when women are most beautiful with her body and life. Moreover, abortion should be prohibited in religion’s view as well as children are the present from the God to the parents and parents should grow them with love and patient.
As a conclusion, after a series of arguments stated, I tend to agree with the perspective of pro-life view. According to surveys by the Alan Guttmacher Institute and data from seven state health/statistics agencies that report the statistics regarding reasons given for obtaining abortions in the United States (as cited in Johnston, 2008), there are many reasons for the women to take away their children life such as 0.3% on being raped, 1% due to maternal health or life of the mother; and 0.5% on fetal abnormality,. About 98% of abortions in the United States are elective, including socio-economic reasons or for birth control. This includes perhaps 30% for primarily economic reasons. As the statistic shown, abortion can be avoided. For example, for the women who get raped, they could send their children to the orphanage instead of abortion. Hence, we should respect all kind of living organism include unborn child as every live is only given once and valuable.