Abortion Is Immoral And Unethical

Before Roe v. Wade, women lived in consistent angst and fear of their own bodies, the consequences that were brought by unwanted pregnancies, and the very dangerous back-alley abortions. Preceding 1973, unwed women who got pregnant were fired from their employments. The younger women were sent to maternity homes for mothers who were unwed, and their children were put up for adoption (Gielow). Pregnant women who were married had no choice but to continue to carry their pregnancies to term, nevermind their situations and circumstances. They were forced to carry the unborn child if even if they had many other children to care for and couldn’t possibly afford caring for another child. The women were forced to continue carrying their pregnancies, even if they had cancer, or the fetuses couldn’t survive outside the mother’s womb (Gielow). Roe v. Wade was a dark time. Women were desperate to find an abortion. The methods that were used were both dangerous, and many times, not effective. Desperate women were driven into the back alley, where they endured danger and abuse, sometimes sexual. The “They jabbed into their uteruses with knitting needles and coat hangers. They 'd try to insert chemicals, drain cleaner, fertilizer, radiator-flush, and miss the cervix, corrode an artery and bleed to death” ("Abortion ProCon.org."). Regardless of the legal status of abortion, its fundamental underlying cause, unintended pregnancy, has been a continuing reality for American

Prior to the landmark case of Roe vs. Wade, abortion was legal in the United States under common law and with several stipulations. It was legal under the advice of medical personnel or in the attempt to save a mother’s life. Though abortion were widely available it was considered a secretive and “back alley” procedure that threatened the life of the patient and the persons conducting the abortion. In 1965, illegal abortions made up one-sixth of all pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths. A survey conducted between 1965 and 1967 found that 8 in 10 low-income women in New York City who had an abortion attempted a dangerous self-induced procedure (planedparenthood.com).

This indicate how women still had abortions to abort unplanned pregnancy but the outcome was negative. Women could not bear the pain and health issues that pregnancy caused them so therefore, they took it amongst themselves. In this period of time abortions were illegal and there was no way around it but to deal with the situation. In comparison, “after Roe, death and injuries from abortion declined dramatically, and today, only a handful of women in the United States die each year from complications of legal abortion” (Joffe 2013, 54). In theory, allowing abortion to be a legal procedure has change the outlook of women’s rights. Not only have it decrease the number of women dying but it also gave them the freedom to live. Legal abortions have allowed women to receive the proper conditioning that they

Historically, abortion was not regulated in the United States until the 20th century. Prior to the 1900s, abortion occurred regularly and was performed by midwives, along with other reproductive health care procedures (Ehrenreich & English, 2010). The rise of the medical industry and a growing immigrant population led to more interest amongst doctors in restricting abortion (Davis, 1983; Solinger, 2015). The American Medical Association began to lobby for the criminalization of abortion and the medicalization of birth, claiming to be interested in protecting women from the harsh chemicals used to induce abortion (Solinger, 2015). Solinger (2015) writes:

In the mid-1800’s, abortion was made illegal under most circumstances in most states. For decades following that decision, illegal abortions became the cause of death for many women in the United States. In 1930, 1940, 1950, and 1965, illegal abortions were the official cause of death for 2,700, 1,700, 300, and just under 200 women, respectively. Between 1950 and 1960, illegal abortion ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. Leading up to the court case Roe v. Wade, the only circumstance to get an

Abortion has been a heated topic of discussion from as far back as the 1800’s. There are many moral disputes about whether it is right or wrong and there are also disputes that state it is only “right” in certain situations. In the United States abortion had been practiced until about 1880 which was about the time most states had banned it unless it was going to be used to save the life of a woman according to the laws back in this era. A woman’s sole purpose in life during this point in time was the traditional child bearing role and so the anti-abortion legislation worked against the growing movements for suffrage and birth control in order to confine women. Because abortion during the 1800’s wasn’t a simple pill, nor it is today, the ability of a woman to obtain an abortion, and a reliable one at that, depended on her economic situation, her race, and where she lived. Those women who were poor and of color however often turned to dangerous self-abortions or “back-alley” abortions. Two most comment ways to do self-abortions was bleach douche and inserting sharp objects such as a coat hanger into her cervix. The hanger later on became the symbol of abortion right movement. Before 1973 when the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion, well trained physicians risked jail and the loss of their medical licenses in order to provide safer and more effective abortions.

Abortion has become a serious topic in American culture today. If you were to ask someone on their street whether they were Pro-Life or Pro-Choice odds are they would know exactly what you were talking about and then be able to give a clear statement of their opinion on the matter. This issue has provoked many strong opinions in people around the country, so much so that the act of abortion has been petitioned to become an illegal procedure. There are many reasons to support abortion along with hate it, but when it all comes down to it the real issue is not in regards to science but rather to morals. Abortion is morally wrong and should be illegal.

Although abortions in America today are both effective and accessible procedures, it has not always been that way. Precedent to the 1860s abortions were legal, but also very dangerous. However, during the nineteenth century when new procedures were invented and more people became educated in the medical field, abortions could, for the first time ever, be performed safely. What instead came along was the criminalization of abortion. The procedure was now seen as the unethical taking of another person’s life.

There were many risks initially and abortion was legal until around 1880, which was when most states had banned it unless in a life-threatening situation. (Dellapenna 89) An anti-abortion legislation started to appear at this time, attempting to ban any form of birth control and keep women’s suffrage from occurring as a way of controlling women. Abortion was soon made illegal, with medical professionals stating that they needed women to reproduce due to declining birth rates. Regardless of the law, women still had abortions. Since they were illegal, women who chose to have abortions were in much more unsanitary conditions and many gained infections or other things as such. (“History of Abortion in the

In every society whether it was legal or legal, abortions were used to control fertility. In the United States it was practiced legally until about 1880, by then most states had banned it except to save a woman's life. It was widely practiced through the entire period it was illegal. In the 1890’s there were an estimate of two million abortions per year and, one to two million annually during the 1920’s-30’s. Whether a

Typically performed by the end of the second trimester, abortion is the intentional termination of a pregnancy. Although abortion is a modern controversy, it has a long history. In the 1880s abortion was made illegal. Even though abortion was illegal from the 1880s up until Roe v. Wade in 1973, the estimates of illegal abortions ranged as high as 1.2 million per year (Tietze and Henshaw). In 1971, Jane Roe, a 21 year old pregnant woman living in Texas, fought to eradicate the prohibition on abortion. The law in Texas, as in many other states at the time, prohibited abortion with the exception of life endangerment. Henry Wade was the Texas Attorney General who defended the law that made abortions illegal. After hearing the case, the Supreme

Abortions being made illegal in the late 1880’s created a lot of “underground” abortion procedures. The abortions performed were not safe, they were expensive, and often time’s male doctors would force women to have intimate relations with them before the procedure. In the 1950s, about a million illegal abortions a year were performed in the U.S., and over a thousand of those women died each year as a result. It wasn’t until the civil rights and antiwar movements in the 1960’s that women began to fight more actively for their rights. One of these rights was the freedom to do as they wish with their bodies. By fighting for the freedom of choice, women were also fighting for a safe medical procedure that would abort their pregnancy with a lower death rate.

Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the world - Planned Parenthood- argued as far back as 1997 that everyone already knows that abortion kills. She proclaims the following in an interview with Ms. Magazine:

In the 1960’s, women marched and lobbied for their abortion rights. Abortion in the U.S. was practiced until about the 1800’s when most states banned it unless it was fatal , The banning of abortion took a great toll on a lot of women (Our bodies ourselves”). Since 1954 American women have been risking illegal abortion (Swanson, Kara W.) and doctors have put their lives on the line to perform this life saving procedure (Kellogg, Cecily). In 1992, the Supreme Court required Physicians to provide true information on abortion so that women would rethink their decision ( Mariner, Wendy K). There were laws made that doctors and physicians had to follow, such laws told the physicians exactly what to say no matter the patient’s health or needs (Mariner, Wendy K) Doctors have an oath to care for their patients and their responsibility is to take care of their patients and treat them to their specific needs ( Swanson, Kara W). Women can endure a lot of physical and mental pain while they are pregnant. During pregnancy the mother may endure back pain, breast enlargement, body pain, constipation, hemorrhoids, and morning sickness ("Pregnancy." Body). A mother as a responsibility to love and care for her child, unless the mother was raped and conceved the baby through the tragic event or the mother is put in a fatal state due to her pregnancy and many

In my paper I will argue on why I feel that abortions are unethical and why they should not be allowed. As you are reading this paper I really hope that I don’t start to contradict myself. Let me begin by saying there are several different reasons why abortions should be prohibited. The first reason why I feel that abortions should be prohibited is because of religious laws. The bible says that “thou shall not kill”. By aborting babies we are disobeying god and we are breaking the six of his ten commandments.