The Abortion Debate In The United States
Abortion is an on-going debate throughout the United States. Americans divide 50% as pro-choice and 44% on pro-life. (Saad, 2015) Majority of women side with pro-choice, and being a woman myself, I stand with pro-choice. I believe that it’s an individual’s right to decide what they’re doing to their bodies, and no one else should be allowed to deny them of said right. There are many different reasons as to why someone would get an abortion. Whether it be from results of rape, birth control failure, teen pregnancy, or whatever the case may be, every abortion is thought out and no option is an easy option. Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, it was even once legal in the United States. Around the time the Constitution was adopted,
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abortions were commonly performed and openly advertised. (National abortion federation, n.d.) It wasn’t until the mid-to-late 1800’s that states began passing laws to make abortion illegal. Majority of surgical procedures in the 1800’s were extremely risky due to the lack of technology and knowledge at the time. With abortion being illegal it gave women who needed abortions no option other than to get back alley abortions. Women were mutilating themselves to rid themselves of unplanned pregnancies, between clothes hanger abortions to pumping toxic chemicals into the female’s body. Many women either died or suffered serious medical problems after attempting to self-induce their abortions or getting back alley abortions. The defunding of plan parenthood could make women have to again resort back to these methods. According to a World Health Organization estimate, 111,000 women worldwide die each year from illegal abortions and up to six times as many suffer injury from them. If you’re looking from the pro-lifers point of view, then you’re seeing an abortion as a bloody massacre killing an unborn and innocent baby. Now from a scientific and logical view point, that isn’t true. A fertilized egg has zero consciousness, and no history of consciousness. Even with a later presence of a heartbeat and primitive neural activity, it does not mean consciousness. What is needed is higher brain activity and self-awareness. Scientists have made it clear that consciousness doesn’t appear full-grown and instantly after conception, therefore consciousness emerges with the gradual development of the nervous system. One might say that an embryo is a potential person, but so are sperm and unfertilized eggs. It’s still not yet a conscious person not making it some precious life. You use the words “human” and “baby” to refer to a being that feels and thinks. When you call an embryo an “unborn baby”, it isn’t logical. It hides the distinctions between a conscious child, and an unconscious embryo. Therefore, killing the theory of it being a bloody massacre of an innocent baby. Abortion is not murder until there is a mature nervous system. Often the same people who are against abortion are also against contraception. Most of them come from religious backgrounds, so they stay to the belief of no sex until after marriage, which in this era is pretty impractical. Instead of educating their youth on contraception, they just preach the old slogan of “no sex until after marriage” and their kids end up with unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. If the anti-abortionists used their funds and power to promote and educate contraception and sex education instead of fighting against abortion legalization, they could likely cut the abortion rate in half. Why get an abortion when you can just give the baby up for adoption?
Imagine replacing all abortions with adoption. There would be thousands of children sitting in foster care waiting for a family to adopt them, while wondering why their biological family didn’t want them. Not to mention the foster care system would be more flooded than it already is. Studies find that one in five kids who were in foster care will become homeless after 18; at 24 only half will be employed; less than 3% would have earned a college degree; 71% of women will be pregnant by 21; and one in four will have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of United States war veterans. And often many are at risk of moving back into government systems – from juvenile centers to prison. (Soronen, 2014) The foster care system in America isn’t the most appealing. Most stories you hear from children who have lived through it often are about abuse and neglect in their foster care homes. Not to forget how adoption can negatively affect the biological parents. Most go through an immense grieving process that may last for decades. In one study by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, three-quarters of birth mothers still experience feelings of loss 12 to 20 years after placing their newborns. With carrying the baby for nine months you grow an attachment and bond. Many women are put in a position where they can’t provide for their baby or give them a good life, so they selflessly give them up for adoption hoping for the baby to have a better life than what they could have given them. There is a big chance that their baby doesn’t get that better life, and they end up staying in the foster care system, getting all of the downfalls of it. The way the foster care system is today it would be more selfish to put your child through that than to abort
them. In a perfect world, all babies would be born into a finically stable and loving home to people that are capable of taking care of them. However, we live in an imperfect world where babies are created from misuse of contraception, rape, and other circumstances. Many women are faced with unplanned pregnancies, and shouldn’t have to be forced to go through it because an outer party believes that abortion is wrong. Forcing women to go through a pregnancy that they didn’t plan to go through, nor wanted is downright cruel. Every woman should legally have the right to decide to have an abortion. It’s their body, not anyone else’s.
abortions were commonly performed and openly advertised. (National abortion federation, n.d.) It wasn’t until the mid-to-late 1800’s that states began passing laws to make abortion illegal. Majority of surgical procedures in the 1800’s were extremely risky due to the lack of technology and knowledge at the time. With abortion being illegal it gave women who needed abortions no option other than to get back alley abortions. Women were mutilating themselves to rid themselves of unplanned pregnancies, between clothes hanger abortions to pumping toxic chemicals into the female’s body. Many women either died or suffered serious medical problems after attempting to self-induce their abortions or getting back alley abortions. The defunding of plan parenthood could make women have to again resort back to these methods. According to a World Health Organization estimate, 111,000 women worldwide die each year from illegal abortions and up to six times as many suffer injury from them. If you’re looking from the pro-lifers point of view, then you’re seeing an abortion as a bloody massacre killing an unborn and innocent baby. Now from a scientific and logical view point, that isn’t true. A fertilized egg has zero consciousness, and no history of consciousness. Even with a later presence of a heartbeat and primitive neural activity, it does not mean consciousness. What is needed is higher brain activity and self-awareness. Scientists have made it clear that consciousness doesn’t appear full-grown and instantly after conception, therefore consciousness emerges with the gradual development of the nervous system. One might say that an embryo is a potential person, but so are sperm and unfertilized eggs. It’s still not yet a conscious person not making it some precious life. You use the words “human” and “baby” to refer to a being that feels and thinks. When you call an embryo an “unborn baby”, it isn’t logical. It hides the distinctions between a conscious child, and an unconscious embryo. Therefore, killing the theory of it being a bloody massacre of an innocent baby. Abortion is not murder until there is a mature nervous system. Often the same people who are against abortion are also against contraception. Most of them come from religious backgrounds, so they stay to the belief of no sex until after marriage, which in this era is pretty impractical. Instead of educating their youth on contraception, they just preach the old slogan of “no sex until after marriage” and their kids end up with unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. If the anti-abortionists used their funds and power to promote and educate contraception and sex education instead of fighting against abortion legalization, they could likely cut the abortion rate in half. Why get an abortion when you can just give the baby up for adoption?
Imagine replacing all abortions with adoption. There would be thousands of children sitting in foster care waiting for a family to adopt them, while wondering why their biological family didn’t want them. Not to mention the foster care system would be more flooded than it already is. Studies find that one in five kids who were in foster care will become homeless after 18; at 24 only half will be employed; less than 3% would have earned a college degree; 71% of women will be pregnant by 21; and one in four will have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of United States war veterans. And often many are at risk of moving back into government systems – from juvenile centers to prison. (Soronen, 2014) The foster care system in America isn’t the most appealing. Most stories you hear from children who have lived through it often are about abuse and neglect in their foster care homes. Not to forget how adoption can negatively affect the biological parents. Most go through an immense grieving process that may last for decades. In one study by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, three-quarters of birth mothers still experience feelings of loss 12 to 20 years after placing their newborns. With carrying the baby for nine months you grow an attachment and bond. Many women are put in a position where they can’t provide for their baby or give them a good life, so they selflessly give them up for adoption hoping for the baby to have a better life than what they could have given them. There is a big chance that their baby doesn’t get that better life, and they end up staying in the foster care system, getting all of the downfalls of it. The way the foster care system is today it would be more selfish to put your child through that than to abort
them. In a perfect world, all babies would be born into a finically stable and loving home to people that are capable of taking care of them. However, we live in an imperfect world where babies are created from misuse of contraception, rape, and other circumstances. Many women are faced with unplanned pregnancies, and shouldn’t have to be forced to go through it because an outer party believes that abortion is wrong. Forcing women to go through a pregnancy that they didn’t plan to go through, nor wanted is downright cruel. Every woman should legally have the right to decide to have an abortion. It’s their body, not anyone else’s.