Sunday, May 16, 2010

Abortion

First off, I have to say that there is no definite way of knowing when something has a conscience. Therefore, I think that trying to persuade the other side about when a fetus is living is unnecessary. Instead, my argument will focus mainly on how much influence society and government should have on the decision-making of mothers.

Many are advocating Medicaid-funded abortions. They believe that abortion is acceptable and that the government should be held responsible for the well-being of pregnant women. Some believe that the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment should be justification for this action. This is preposterous. The Equal Protection Clause is there to ensure that people are equally protected against the government. Handing out free abortion would not be in line with the thesis of the Equal Protection Clause. The Equal Protection Clause does not give out rights. Forcing the government to pay for abortion could backfire. If people have the right to be protected from the chore of parenthood, then don’t people have the right to be protected from illnesses like AIDS and cancer? Not only that, but this policy would also define fetuses as something akin to a disease. Even if one believed that abortions should be completely legal, they should not represent an unborn baby as a sickness. Some people argue that abortion is inevitable. Even if there are no abortion clinics, there is always a ready supply of coat hangers. They argue that abortion should be government funded because that would at least allow women to have safe abortions. Even if that is true, that still does not evade the right’s moral issues with government-funded abortion. Also, there is sure to be an outrage from the conservative citizens, and they will argue that their tax money should not go into this. Allowing Medicaid-funded abortions would definitely be opening Pandora’s Box.

Let’s look at a case of no government intervention. Roe v. Wade held a women’s right to get an abortion during a certain period in her pregnancy. This seems like a decent compromise. The government would not support abortion, but it would not be against it. Some people on the far right would argue that this still legalizes abortion, which is a terrible sin because it is the exact same as murder. Some people on the far left would argue that Roe v. Wade is nowhere near close enough to the rights that a woman should have, and that this is just a governmental ploy to quiet the liberal women. Both sides might be right. After all, I already said, there is no definite, concrete way of knowing which side is correct. However, the key word here is might. Since there is no real way to know which side is right, the government should take a neutral stance. It should not interfere with the activities of the citizens if there are too many people on both sides of an issue. Like mentioned earlier, if there are many people who are against it, it is not the government’s job to use their tax money against them.

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