Abortion Thesis Paper

In the year 2008 1.21 million innocent lives were lost. These lives were not lost due to disease, a natural disaster or worldwide epidemic but by choice. 23% of pregnant women will make the choice to end their pregnancy by having an abortion. By having an abortion a mother is choosing to end their own child’s life. The majority of society will agree that any kind of murder is inhumane so why is it that you can end the life of an unborn baby but it is against the law to take away the life of another human being?
If women are able to choose whether their unborn child lives or not then what is the difference between abortion and murder? Murder is the intentional death of another person and abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. Both are choices that human beings decide for one another. A baby does not choose to die and neither is a human being that is killed on purpose. A woman could kill a baby and be charged with murder but the very same woman could have an abortion and terminate their baby legally. Everyone deserves a chance at life even a baby at no fault that cannot make decisions for itself. Abortions are mainly performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. In the first trimester the eyes, mouth, throat and circulation take form only by the first month. With working organs, limbs, and a heart how is the death of an unborn child any different to the death of a human being? By the third month, the baby is fully formed with hands, feet, and ears, reproductive organs, with a working circulatory and urinary system. At this point the baby has a heartbeat that already began 5-7 weeks into the pregnancy. The resemblance of the fetus is very similar to a new born baby and has every right to live.
Approximately 3,700 abortions occur each day meaning 3,700 babies are terminated every 95 seconds. 98% of abortions are related to personal choices. Three out of four women that go through with abortions make their choice solely on the fact that having a baby would interfere with work and school ethics. Statistics show that three out of four women choose abortion because they cannot afford the child and one out of two women resort to abortion because they do not want to be a single parent. Whether it is because of work, financial or personal issues abortion is not the last resort. There are other options for a baby that is unwanted or that cannot be supported such as adoption. With women out there who cannot have babies and close to 1.5 million families out there willing to adopt, every baby should be given a chance. By giving the child up for adoption it is given a chance at a better life and is also a given blessing to families looking to adopt rather than being terminated with no chance to live at all.
No person should be given the right to take away a life of another with no given punishment while others are charged with death sentences or time in prison for the same intention. In the case of Roe vs. Wade, Jane Roe was a woman who decided that she did not want to follow through with her pregnancy and took on the state of Texas that also took her case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1973 the Supreme Court made abortion legal with the only legal restrictions being that the operation had to be done during the first trimester. Recently a woman by the name of Katrina Effert strangled and kills her newborn baby but was freed by the pro-abortion law. By allowing this law people are finding their way through the cracks of the justice system and getting away with unlawful actions.
The government argues that a woman’s body is her own and that she should have control of it but when do these civil rights cross the line of another person’s privilege to live? Others will argue that since a fetus is not a baby until it is born then the act of abortion is not technically taking a life because the baby does not exist until it is of the mother’s womb. Another motive to have an abortion is getting pregnant from rape or incest. These types of cases are rare but less than 1% of women go through it every day of their lives.
Even though these arguments for abortion are true, the act is still intentionally taking away a life. Whether the fetus is not yet a baby, it is still in the process of becoming one and by stopping that process you are prohibiting that baby from living. Abortion punishes the child of rape or incest even though it has committed no crime. Rape is an act of violence against an innocent victim as well as abortion is against an innocent child. Under any circumstances, abortion is never okay when there are other options. A person should not be allowed to control the decision of whether another human being lives or not and abortion is no different from this. A murder is looked down upon in a moral society and abortions are a given right that can be done with no legal consequences. A death is a life lost forever and by supporting abortion you are supporting a person’s right to take away a life. However small the fetus is and whether it is considered a human being or not, that chance is eliminated by having an abortion. The baby has not been given a chance to live and no person should have the right to end that.