Defending Abortion and the Law Behind It

Abortion has been and still is one of the most controversial topics in American culture. The reason for the controversy is the different viewpoints of this very personal matter. Some believe that abortion is the same as murder. Others believe it’s a personal choice which only they have the right to make. Due to the nature of the procedure and the concerns associated with ending a pregnancy, abortion will continue to top the list of “touchy” subjects in American politics and culture. As a pro-choice advocate, it is important for the right to have an abortion to be established and protected.

Attention Getter: “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” –Margaret Sanger

One of the most controversy issues that have had many Americans debating over the years is abortion. But why so much controversy? Well to start with we have to understand what abortion is. According to the Oxford dictionary, abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy. There are also 2 types of abortions. The first one is Therapeutic abortion, which the baby is aborted for the safety of the mother, and elective abortion, in which the abortion is performed due to a choice that the mother has made for an unborn child. In other words, abortion is the end or the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus by natural causes or by clinical methods before it is able to survive independently.

Abortion has always been an exceptionally debatable topic, since so many people each have their own ideas and beliefs. Even today in America, normal people as well as politicians are still discussing and arguing over this very controversial topic. One Supreme Court case, known as Roe v. Wade, dealt with a Texas law outlawing abortions except in certain cases. A woman named Jane Roe wanted an abortion and eventually made her way up to the Supreme Court, where the judges essentially set down the rules for abortions. Roe argued that the Texas law violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. The Supreme Court agreed and ruled in favor of Roe, making the Texas law unconstitutional. Roe v. Wade is an exceedingly controversial case about abortion, but the judges undoubtedly made the proper decision in allowing abortion to be up to the woman and her doctor in the first trimester of pregnancy.

"No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother." Quoted by a women’s rights activist Margaret Sanger. Sanger is responsible for the word birth control and fighting to make it legal.

In the Roe V. Wade case a lot of people didn't know what it was really about or don't know about it at all nowadays. This case went down in Texas during 1973 and was between Norma McCorvey (aka Jane Roe) and Sarah Weddington, The lawyer. The case was challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws. The case also went against ones privacy that was protected by the 14 amendment. The case was fighting the fact that you could only get an abortion if the mother's life was at danger. That's the part that was going against your privacy as an american citizen. The law now states that you may not get one after the baby has passed the fetus stage. The only way you will get an abortion after the fetus stage is if the mothers life is at stake. The reason they won't do it after the fetus stage is because that's when it is considered a living

In “A Defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thompson, Thompson works to argue that even if a human fetus is considered a person, abortion is still often morally permissible. This paper will work to explain Thompson’s positions on the different accounts of the right to life, and to provide an evaluation of them and explain why they are not plausible, specifically regarding three of the analogies on-which she based her entire argument: the violinist, the coat, and the case of Kitty Genovese, as well as to explore a logical counterargument and explain why it’s stance is impermissible.

So, based on the information above, one can safely conclude that abortion shouldn’t be legal. It takes the lives of millions of children a year, at the legal point of abortion the fetus is no longer tissue, mothers should be held to the same standard as the fathers and either accept the consequences for their actions or plan ahead of time, and everything that allowed for Roe V Wade contradicts it. Except in the unfortunate event of a rape or when the mother’s life is at risk, abortion needs to be illegalized in

In her article, A Defense of Abortion, American moral philosopher and metaphysician Judith Jarvis Thomson uses analogies to explain scenarios in which abortion is morally permissible, even when the fetus is granted personhood at conception. She addresses the argument that every person has a right to life, the fetus is a person, and therefore the fetus has a right to life; and the mother has a right to choose what happens with her body, but the mother’s right to decide what happens is not as strong as a person’s right to life and therefore, abortion is morally impermissible. She believes this to be incorrect based on the definition of the right to life-which she defines as the right

“No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”

Yet, it is your duty to look after your baby. As Kant suggests, if you

“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body; No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” – Margaret Sanger, WAR (223).

Abortion has always been a controversial topic in the United States for decades. Abortion is like taking the life of someone without their permission so it is technically “murder”. There is no such thing as an unwanted child, millions of families in the United States are always willing to adopt. On the other hand, there are circumstances where a woman can barely care and sustain herself so chances are that she will not be able to take care of her child. Or when a rape occurs, having an abortion is not as bad as when a woman has sex without protection and knows she has the chance to get pregnant.

We all live our lives as we please all in accordance to the law, but when it comes to abortion people start to judge and try to regulate how others live and interfere in their personal choices. We live in a country based on freedoms, and women have and should continue to have the freedom to the choice of an abortion. A woman’s right to choose abortion is a fundamental right recognized by the US Supreme Court. The courts also have a category of classes called the ‘near-suspect’ classes, which include gender. Gender deserves protection from possible discrimination at the hands of the majority. Women constitute a majority of American’s and have been discriminated in the past. The Landmark case Roe v. Wade was decided and remains the law of the land. Making laws against abortions don’t stop abortions from happening; they just make it less safe, which in many cases leads to death. Therefore idea of supporting pro-life is contradictory, this is why the nation should be pro-choice. No child should be brought into this world where they are not wanted or are not able to live a normal life. Most people who are against abortion will never even become pregnant, so they should not be making laws against it. Pregnancy is a private and personal matter. Outlawing abortion is discriminatory and unfortunately abortions are being transformed from a right to a privilege for most women.

Does a women’s right to choose to have an abortion outweigh a baby’s right to be born? The controversy at hand is whether the rights of a women outweigh the rights of a baby, and whether a mother should be given the rights to pursue a procedure like an abortion. To clarify an abortion is a medical procedure that ends a pregnancy in which a doctor uses a vacuum and suction to suck out a fetus from the uterus. The issue is whether the fetus who has the potential to be a rational, productive human being has the unequivocal rights of any other human being and whether he or she should be protected from, in every sense of the word, murder. The argument made by abortionfacts.com a nonprofit Christian pro-life education organization, is that