Abortion

Abortion is a very controversial issue in the United States. People who are pro-life usually argue that abortions kill unborn babies, so it is murder to get an abortion and it should be illegal. People who are pro-choice usually argue that it’s a woman’s choice to decide what to do with her body and what’s in it. I personally believe that abortion should be legal and that it should be an option that women have for several reasons. Abortion is necessary in certain circumstances. Sometimes, a growing fetus can hurt the woman carrying it. This circumstance can sometimes escalate to the point that the woman carrying the fetus may die if the fetus is not aborted. In situations like this, abortion is safer than childbirth. Also, I believe that abortion should be an option in other circumstances, such as rape. A woman does not choose to be raped, and if she is then it was not her choice to become pregnant. I also believe that abortion should be an option for people in regular circumstances too though. Roe vs. Wade decided that abortion was solely a woman’s choice and that the government could not interfere with that choice until after the first trimester of pregnancy. I support this decision because I do not believe that life starts at conception. I believe that it would be more accurate for people who are against abortion to state that they disagree with the termination of a potential life, not the termination of a life. This is not a matter of someone deciding who lives and who dies because in the first trimester of pregnancy, a fetus cannot be considered completely alive yet. There are no nerve cells at this point and the fetus is not a conscious human being. While there may be signs of life, the fetus cannot feel anything and the brain is not fully developed at this point. The brain is there, but it is not fully functioning. A fetus would not be able to tell if it was being aborted or not, nor would it have the brain capacity to have emotions about it. I guess what it comes down to is that since the fetus is not completely alive or conscious, abortion should not be considered murder. I also believe that abortion should be a choice for every woman because many people do not have the financial means and are not responsible enough to support a baby. Babies are expensive. If a person does not have the financial means to support a child and they keep their baby anyway, the chances of that child getting into trouble are very high. A child born into a poor family will most likely have adversity in their life, which could lead them to drugs, alcohol, depression, or crime. In Freakonomics, there is a discussion of the sharp decrease of crime in the late 1990s. This is thought to have been tied to the Roe vs. Wade decision. In the 1990s, if a fetus had been aborted soon after the Roe vs. Wade decision, the offspring would be in their late teens. This is when a new generation of criminals from poor families would have cropped up. Also, I believe that every child should be a wanted child. If a teenager becomes pregnant and is reluctant to care for her newborn baby and child during his or her developmental years, what will become of that child? A woman should be able to control her own body, and no one should have the right to impose their morals on a woman. Finally, abortion is safe and if it is not kept legal, women are still going to find ways to get abortions. These back alley abortions are not safe.