Abortion -- The Humane choice
During the past century, abortion has been one of the most passionately debated subjects of controversy in the US. Since the early decades of the 20th century, abortion was used as a measure of limiting families to a manageable size. In the old times, a poor man's only luxury was sex, and he was not about to "mar his instant pleasure [by using condoms or withdrawal] with prudence for the future" (Douglas, 30). Abortion was abused in early times as an extreme measure of birth control to avoid further poverty to families. Today, more than 50% of all abortions are given to women under the age of 22. Only half of the teenage girls who have sex use protection the first time. The average time between when a woman first has sex and the times she consults a clinician is six months (Shapiro, 172). Impulsive, ignorant, and irresponsible behavior often lead to unwanted pregnancy. Forcing a woman to raise an unwanted child is the ultimate form of child abuse, for the child will receive less of the loving maternal relationship she or he deserves. We cannot consider ourselves to be a humane culture and let our children be raised in a hostile environment. Abortion is a sad but necessary part of today's society.
for another pregnancy test. If the test is positive, she must see a gynecologist to rule out an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy outside the uterus). This simple procedure can be performed up to seven weeks after conception. Many physicians prefer surgical abortion because it is 100% successful and has a very low occurrence of adverse side effects. Some women have learned to do this on their own, but self induced abortions are heavily discouraged. Separate 2nd term and third term abortions Abortion has been debated in the courts, resulting in two significant court decisions. On January 22, 1973, a very controversial Supreme Court decision was made that struck down the states' ability to prohibit an abortion during the first trimester. A pregnant, single woman, Ms. Roe, brought suit against the constitutionality of Texas Criminal Abortion Laws. These laws allowed an abortion only if it was to save the mother's life. It was ruled that an abortion was a private matter and protected by the 9th and 15th Amendment rights. Just one year following this decision, the maternal-mortality rate dropped 45% (www.theatlantic.com). In the years 1946-1972, anywhere form 11 to 34 million abortions were performed which resulted in 7000 reported deaths. We acknowledge that no accurate and comprehensive records were kept. The total number of deaths could very well triple the number reported (www.prochoice.org). In the years 1973-1999 after the Roe vs. Wade decision, about 34 million abortions were performed resulting in fewer than 500 deaths. A large portion of these deaths were from illegal abortions performed in states who would not comply with the Supreme Court ( ).The facts show that while abortion was illegal, the attempt to save some fetuses only killed women. Besides the many physical lives that were saved were hopes, dreams, plans for the future, and dignity as well. Another controversial court decision was made in 1976 when the Supreme Court ruled that no public money, such as Medicaid, would go toward abortion fees. Criticisms for this ridiculous law are backed by research. The Alan Guttenmacher Institute proved that every dollar spent toward an abortion would save at least four more in medical and welfare expenses. This would save hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding (www.ama-assn.com page 4). Howard I. Shapiro, MD, states, "It is ironic that those who speak most vociferously about 'all those welfare mothers' are often the same individuals who oppose public funding (173)." By not providing low-cost abortions for those most in financial need, we are pushing them further into poverty. This law does no good. Control, the risk of dying from childbirth is thirteen times that of death from abortion. "Abortion makes women sterile." Wrong again! Only eight out of 600,000 women who have abortions report becoming sterile later in life. In these cases, there is no evidence that the abortion was the cause of infertility. "The baby feels pain during an abortion." Brain waves don't show consciousness of pain until after thirty weeks of gestation. Abortions are never done after twenty-four weeks unless it is to save the mother's life. "Doctors profit from legal abortions." Doctors make a lot more money from childbirth. When abortions were illegal, back-alley doctors extracted huge profits from desperate women. "The abortion mentality leads to infanticide and the killing of the retarded and elderly." In countries where abortion has been legal for years, there is no evidence that respect for life has been diminished (www.wcla.org page 2). In other countries where abortion is illegal, the poor are often reduced to infanticide to help limit their family sizes. Finally, the most common ignorant argument against an abortion is: "Abortion destroys the American family." On the contrary, abortion enables parents to limit their families to the number of children that they can afford both financially and
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Approximate Word count = 2825
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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