The Causes And Complications Of Abortion And Human Rights

Abortion is the deliberate killing of the weakest and most defenseless among us. Unfortunately, for the last few decades, the practice has been recognized as a fundamental human right by the highest court of the land. American culture has become increasingly accepting of traditional values and principles being compromised. Political correctness now replaces ethics, self-reliance is replaced by dependency, and crudeness now takes the place of knowledgeability. Today’s culture is corrupt and morally depraved, and there is no other topic that demonstrates this better than abortion.

One of the most estranging moral and politically controversial issues in the United States is the stand on abortion. By definition an abortion is the termination of a pregnancy and the expulsion of pregnancy tissue, including embryo, fetus, placenta, and membranes (Wicclair, Gosman 2005). In the recent years the debate on abortion has shifted to a different viewpoint that has reopened the conversation of abortion and has generated a healthy following for abortion control. The premise of abortion control is to implement community outreach programs that will help reduce the number of abortions. I feel this would be a healthy compromise for the abortion debate, but many citizens are wholly against the idea of abortion being an option based of various personal beliefs they each hold. Anti-abortionist believe the most effective way to reduce abortions is to make it illegal. The other side of this coin are the people representing the stance for the legalization of abortion and Pro-Choice. Pro-Choice activists believe that women should have the right to make the final decision of whether an abortion is suited for their situation or not. What anti-abortionist’s seem to ignore is the large number of deaths resulting from women participating in unsafe abortion practices out of desperation. The running estimate totals over seventy thousand women each year falling victim to these malpractices with many of them sustaining lifelong injuries (xxx). Even with these consequences looming

Many individuals fail to understand the sheer magnitude of bloodshed, tribulation, and despair legalized abortion has initiated into the human experience – both in the United States and worldwide. Far more human lives have been violently ended by this immoral decision than any other war or genocide in history. It is one of the most controversial issues in today’s society. Abortion is the intentional decision to murder a human fetus by chemical, medical or surgical procedures. Those who support the rights of abortion argue that women should be able to decide what can be done to their bodies, yet the unborn baby inside a woman is a living being, and terminating that pregnancy is the equivalent of murder. These innocent children should not be held responsible for your mistakes. Don’t terminate pregnancy now, because you may not have children in the future at all.

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)

The issue of abortion is one of the most controversial topics of our time, but recently the amount of public interest has grown exponentially. A number of bills regarding this policy issue such as Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 and Child Interstate Notification Act have both greatly influenced the public’s opinion of abortion. Although, the issue of abortion hasn’t always been like this; according to Timeline of Abortion Laws and Events, an article from the Chicago Tribune, “The earliest anti-abortion laws were intended to protect women from untrained abortionists.” (Timeline) Since the 1973 passing of the Supreme Court Case, Roe V Wade, women have been able to obtain the abortion procedure in all 50 states, 46 of which were

Forty-five years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States infamously declared in the case Roe v. Wade that abortion was a women’s right for the “entirety of the pregnancy.”1 This case also limited the states’ ability to regulate abortions performed in the three trimesters of pregnancy. Since this decision, over 60 million unborn children have been killed by abortion.2 By contrast, 1.1 million soldiers have died in all the U.S. wars combined.3 In a country founded upon the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, abortion is one of the greatest downfalls of those principles. It must be eliminated.

The topic of aborting an innocent fetus has been overwhelmingly controversial in the United States. The two sides to this ongoing debate is pro-life advocates and pro-choice advocates. Abortion is the ending of a pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo before it can survive outside the uterus; whether it is an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. Abortions are most often performed during the first twenty-eight weeks of pregnancy and can be performed as a medical or surgical procedure. Medical abortions include two types of abortion pills; while the surgical procedures include vacuum aspiration and dilation and evacuation. Ultimately, I am one of the many “pro-lifers”, and I strongly agree that abortion should be illegal because it negatively affects our people. Women across the nation are becoming impregnated and following a short amount of judgement time, turn to abortion to solve their problems but in the end hurt themselves with this decision. Abortions should be illegal because it is immoral and unconstitutional, causes severe mental and physical issues, and negatively impacts the economy. “During the ancient Roman times it has been supposed that abortion and the destruction of unwanted children was permissible, but as our civilization has aged, it seems that such acts were no longer acceptable by rational human beings, so that in 1948, Canada along with most other nations in the world signed a declaration of the United Nations promising every human being the right to life”

Abortion is a controversial topic that has plagued the country for decades. Even after the 7-2 Supreme Court trial (Roe vs. Wade) made it legal for women to choose to get abortions. This decision was based off the right of privacy coupled with the agreement between the woman and the state. Due to this decision abortion rights vary from state to state, in fact, about 85% of United States counties do not provide abortion services. Even though, abortion is ten times safer than the actual process of giving birth and 68,000 women died from resorting to “back-alley abortions.” Knowing all this, there are still two main groups arguing

Leslie R. Reagan a professor of history, medicine, and women’s studies at the University of Illinois, brings attention and helps articulate the myth, that if abortion is made illegal then we could end all abortions. Reagan traced the history of abortion in her book, and reminds individuals that the law is not fixed, but, rather fluid. She mentions that in the early history of abortion, abortions were widely accepted and done in homes and offices of physicians and midwives. During the 1930’s this begin to shift and abortions were often done, in hospitals and clinics rather than homes and offices. However, in the 1940s, the acceptance of abortion began to decline and new methods and ways of controlling abortion were put into place. She mentions that, “As authorities prosecuted abortion with the same urgency as communism, prosecutors and the police systematically raided abortion clinics, publicly interrogated women who had sought abortions, and humiliated both clients and abortion providers in the courtroom” (Joffe, et al., 2000). When abortion become

Every 3 minutes, 9 innocent babies will have been aborted in the U.S. alone. Approximately 93% of women state they have abortions due to ‘social reasons’(inconvenient, unwanted), and less than 1% of abortions occur due to rape/incest. On behalf of the decision of the Roe v. Wade ruling, which made abortion legal during all nine months of pregnancy in 1973, there have been 56,993,299 documented abortions. “In 2000 [alone], more children died from abortion than Americans died in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars combined” (“Abortion Statistics”). Being pro-life should be the only option for women due to homicide, health risks, and the violation of civil and human rights.

The United States has been divided now over the issue of abortion for thirty-three years since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973. As of today, over 45 million legal abortions have been performed in the United States. Pro-choice advocates hold these 45 million abortions as being 45 million times women have exercised their right to choose to get pregnant and to choose to control their own bodies. To pro-life, or anti-abortion, advocates these 45 million abortions constitute 45 million murders, a genocide of human life in the United States propagated by the court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. The debate over abortion in the United States is thus a debate of two extremes. One side argues from the personal liberty of the mother. The

In the United States there are more than a billion abortions performed each year. Since the court case Roe vs Wade in 1973 more than 56 million babies have been murdered in the United States before they had the chance to take their first breath (Snyder, Michael). These statics along with many more show the huge injustice that is happening in the country I call home.

One thing that is overlooked is the use of back alley abortions. Back alley abortion is a term used for an abortion that is performed illegally and out of site from their government. There was a back alley abortion case in 1969 involving a 20 year old women named Karen Hulsey that lived in Dallas. Karen’s birth control stopped working and she became pregnant (Bassett). Her boyfriend refused to support or raise the child so she decided to go to Mexico to get an abortion from a clandestine abortion provider. Karen was raped by her doctor while she was sedated, was given the procedure and sent back to Texas with no care afterwards. This case occurred in 1969 when abortion was not legal unless it was for medical reasons. The criminalization of abortion will never reduce the amount of women that need or want an abortion. Before 1973 there were 1.2 million illegal abortions per year. Many people ignore or don’t realize that abortions that are self induced or performed by untrained doctors may lead to a woman's death or serious medical problems. It seems ridiculous that people would ignore the fact that thousands of women were harmed by these procedure. But people were obviously not going to document the illegal procedures. This is when people decided that since there are no records of the harm against women, that it didn’t happen. Abortion is an emotionally and physically straining decision for women

In 1973, the United States Supreme Court voted to uphold the legality of abortion. In the period immediately after the decision, small steps were staring to be made to make basic women’s healthcare available to all women in the country; regardless of race, religion, or income bracket. The role of pro-choice activists, however, quickly began to need to shape itself around countering antiabortion initiatives. At the front of the conservative agenda is the restriction of affordable contraception and pregnancy care. In the current political climate, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, for many women of all backgrounds, it is hard to receive an abortion safely and privately. Modern laws and policies have so greatly

Of all the legal, ethical, and moral issues we Americans continuously fight for or against, abortion may very well be the issue that Americans are most passionate about. The abortion issue is in the forefront of political races. Most recently the “no taxpayer funding for abortion act”, has abortion advocates reeling. Even though abortion has been legal in every state in the United States since the monumental Supreme Court decision, “Roe v Wade”, on January 22, 1973; there are fewer physicians willing to perform abortions today than in 2008. (Kraft) At the heart of the ethical dilemma for many in the medical profession is the viability of the fetus. And just to make this whole dilemma more confusing, according to the United States