Abortion

Abortion Patricia Johnson PHI 107 Instructor Zuniga y Postigo March 21, 2011 I have decided to do my reflective paper on abortion. Pro Choice advocates say that the fetuses cannot feel pain. Pro Life says that they can feel pain. If you are Pro Choice, then you believe that women have the right to do what they want to their bodies. Pro Life says that women have the right to do what they want, but killing an innocent baby is immoral and wrong. Both sides make very good compiling arguments. There are many women that want children and cannot have them. Why anyone would chose to kill an innocent child is still unreal to me. I believe abortion is immoral and should be outlawed. As you read on, you will read why I feel the way I do. Abortion is referred to as voluntary or induced termination of pregnancy, generally using surgical procedures or drugs. Medically, this term refers to termination of a pregnancy by natural causes for example, “spontaneous abortion” or miscarriage, which ends the pregnancy naturally. This usually happens in the first thirteen weeks or to the cessation of normal growth of a body part. A major abortion case that took place in the United States was Roe v. Wade. This case took place in the January 22, 1973. It also made people very unhappy and affected everyone. Making abortion is very wrong; people can make decisions for themselves. This case was about protecting a person’s right to privacy, as stated in the ninth amendment of the United States Constitution which is part of the Bill of Rights. Who is Roe V Wade really; well “Jane Roe” was Norma McCorvey. The district attorney was Henry Wade. Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee were the plaintiff’s lawyers. The defendant’s lawyers were John Tolle, Jay Floyd and Robert Flowers. Those who voted for abortion were Harry Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Chief Justice Warren Burger, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis Powell and Potter Stewart. Those who oppose this decision were William Rehnquist and Byron White. More people vote for it then against it and could be why it was passed. Don Marquis believes abortion is immoral and should not be done. You are killing a Human being. How can this are justified as morally right' How can you get away with killing unborn baby' When you are calling a baby a fetus, or an embryo, they will not be immediately recognized a living person. Animals have more rights than a baby, why' That baby that was taken could have been someone very special and made a huge difference in others’ lives (Waller pg.263). This unborn child is a human being. Life begins after conception not three months later. Abortion is not safe and there are many complications that do, can or will develop after an abortion. When the Supreme Court made decisions in Roe V Wade to legalize abortion they just made the decisions to make murder legal. Why can’t the unborn have equal protection just like the living' If the abortion clinics want the violence to stop on the outside then the violence needs to stop on the inside. If someone was rape or incest happened that crime should punished not the unborn baby. Someone would love to adopt that baby. The government should not fund abortions, and all Planned Parenthood clinics needs to be closed downed. After an abortion you can have many complications. Some of the complications would include bladder, bowel, and breast cancer. Breast cancer has risen by fifty percent since abortion became legal in 1973. Other complications would include ectopic pregnancy which increased thirty percent after one abortion and hundred and sixty percent after two or more abortions. You can hemorrhage, get hepatitis infections. Your cervix can lacerate. You can also have miscarriages later. Then your uterus can perforate. Some women can get placenta previa. Others get post-abortion syndrome. Women can retain products of conception that want pieces of the baby left inside of them and then have to have more surgery. Doctors have to make sure that you are RH incompatibility which would be needed for future babies. Women can have severe or rapid bleeding, you can become sterile. Women can have unrecognized ectopic pregnancy. Why would anyone want these problems' If someone wants an abortion then they should pay for it themselves and the clinics should come out of their pockets if they want to perform these horrendous acts. “From October 2007 to February 2008 semi structured in depth interviews about experiences with Medicaid reimbursement for qualifying abortions were conducted with twenty-five respondents representing abortions provided in six states. More than half of Medicaid- eligible cases reported by respondents in the past year were not reimbursed- I think that is good. The governing policy of abortion is inconsistently implemented (perspectives p. 79-86). In the case of Gonzales v Carhart (Supreme Court Case), this is the case that needs to be followed and input into law. Abortion is bad for women and the baby. This is one of the cases you don’t hear about unlike Roe v Wade. I wonder why' Who really benefits from this, certainly not the woman or baby' The fetus as they call the baby is part of the mother. If the baby needs food, oxygen, blood supply from the mother, how is it not a human being' These babies are living, breathing humans, so why aren’t these people charged with murder' Then in that case Dr. Kravakian should not have been put in prison for giving cancer stricken patients what they wanted, “death”. They no longer want to suffer. This is the same thing, giving people what they wanted. Abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States. With everything going on there is a straight split down the middle. Democrats equal “pro-choice” and Republicans equal “pro-life”. If the government can’t stand strong on this issue, how can they make great decisions on anything else' “Legal abortion in 2003 is as American as us eating “apple pie”. Something is wrong with this picture. We now had a president who had said that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare and he also vetoed the ban on “partial –birth abortion”. What is wrong with “Bill”' On the bright side abortion is down from one point six million in 1990 to one point three million in 2000. That is something to be proud of. Now let’s look at some statistics. At least eighty percent of all abortions are performed on unmarried women. Women between the ages of twenty to twenty –four account for thirty- three percent of all abortions. Fifty percent of US women obtaining abortions are younger than twenty- five, and teenagers obtain seventeen percent. Adolescents under fifteen obtain less than one percent of abortions, the highest abortion ratio, seven hundred seventy- three abortions for every thousand live births. Forty-seven percent of women who have abortions had at least one previous abortion. Black women are more than four point eight times more likely than non-Hispanic white women to have an abortion and Hispanic women are two point seven times as likely. Forty three percent of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant and twenty-seven percent identify themselves as Catholic. The abortion ration for unmarried women is five hundred ten abortions for every thousand live births. For married women it is sixty –one abortions for every thousand live births. These statistics are very scary and something needs to be done about murdering innocent babies. After looking at these statistics, women still have second trimester abortions. In one hundred ninety one countries around the world this is still legal. They use the reasons of sex offense, fetal impairment, and socio-economic reasons and upon request. This is much more dangerous than first trimester and doctors still perform them. These women and doctors have no moral or ethical values what so ever. How can anyone ensure that this is safe and not decriminalize all abortions' These people want to remove necessary legal and regulatory restrictions. The government needs to change the laws and make abortion illegal. After all the facts presented, this is why I am totally against abortions. Abortions to me are just a “legal” way of killing an innocent human being. These babies did not ask to be conceived, so why kill someone who did not ask to be here' Even with abortion being legal there are still a large number of women having and or performing backstreet abortions. Pro-choice advocates claim that by making abortion legal, there are not as many backstreet abortions happening. Backstreet also abortions have more complications than going to a legal abortion clinic. Just as many women die from both. Backstreet abortion is just a little more dangerous than the clinics but, the women still have complications or even death. Other crimes like murder, rape, domestic abuse, robbery etc. happens every day so should we make these crimes legal as well' Abortion is a violent crime in of itself. Just because someone’s biological father was a rapist does not mean that, that the unborn child should be murdered, because the women does not want that baby. These women have to realize that these unwanted actions that happened to them could turn into something beautiful and wonderful. I have read about three women that were raped and kept their child. These women still feel violated because people are still trying to push and keep abortion legal and not asking these victims for their views. Some of these victims say that the baby is also a victim, so why would they kill another victim' The person that should be murdered should be the rapist. You cannot hold the child responsible for you becoming pregnant after being raped. It is not the child’s fault; it’s the rapist’s fault and he should be held responsible. When a woman finds out that their child will be disabled or have a disability they want to get an abortion and the doctors don’t ask questions why or if they do, they still perform the procedure. They too should be held accountable for the killings on the grounds of discrimination. Abortion should not be performed on the grounds of discrimination. That means the world should have only half the population as it does now, because we know that the majority of parents wanted only a certain sex, with certain hair and eye color, and who knows what else they wanted, and they didn’t abort their child. Do these people really think they are doing the baby justice by killing it or are it in the best interest of the parents' Aborting a baby just because of a disability is wrong and women should be held accountable for these actions. Many women have abortion because of poverty. They know that they cannot afford to raise or care for a baby, but they insist on having sex unprotected and just keep having abortions. The laws are really screwed up when it come abortion. Plan Parenthood told the government that they are saving them one dollar for abortion done for poor women, and that is about four dollars saved in public medical and welfare. The government would rather pay for abortions than housing and medical assistance. In this case the child is better off aborted, because they don’t have a chance living in our society. Plan Parenthood also stated that “all our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working classes”. There are support groups out there to help women rather than have them abort their baby. Women should not use abortion as an easy way out. They need to have help and support to care for these babies. We all know how hard it is to take care of children, but we find ways to get help and support. So why can’t the government or Planned Parenthood help the poor' They need help, not to abort their baby. All religions say the same thing “Thou shalt not kill”. Abortion is killing and we are breaking on of the golden rules. They also teach that life begins at conception and created by God. If atheists are against abortion, why is the government for it' Hinduism says that abortion is “womb killing” and should be a crime. Buddhism say only on certain circumstances are allowed. Judaism forbids the taking of innocent life and stresses that human beings are made in the image of God. Islam says that abortion on any grounds is forbidden. “Do not kill or take a human life which God has declared to be sacred. Many Protestant and Evangelical Christians are against abortion. The Orthodox Churches forbid abortions and condemned them. The Catholic Churches opposes abortion because it believes that life is sacred and inviolable. The early teachings of the Christians is said to be, “You shall not kill the child in the womb or murder a new-born infant”. With all of these moral values floating around abortion should be banned. There is no wonder why they took out prayer in the schools, the court rooms have changed with the décor. With all of God rules taken out of the courts and schools, this is why abortion is legal. They are giving us the right to kill innocent human beings. No one stated that fetuses can feel pain. They can feel pain, why else when they are born they start crying. Any living human being can feel pain; have feelings, nerve endings, a beating heart etc. So how can anyone say that these babies are not human and cannot feel' The facts that I have stated in this paper is the reason I am pro-life and feel that abortion should be illegal and unethical. Abortion should be outlawed. This is why I am totally against abortion. References: Waller B.N. (2008). Consider Ethics: Theory, Readings, and Contemporary Issues (2nd Ed.). Pearson Education, Inc. Womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/p/roev.wade.htm. Abort73.comabortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/. Joe Feuerherd. National Catholic Reporter. Kansas City: January 17, 2003: Politics and the pro-life movement vol.39, issue 11; pg.3, 4. Kacanek, D.; Dennis, A.; Miller, K.; Blanchard. K.; Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health; June 2010, vol. 42 issue. 2, pg. 79-86,8p.1ct. Hern, warren Dr. Abortion in the USA (2006). Heritage House ’76, Inc. Anonymous, Abortion in the USA. (2011). the Lancet, 377(9763). 354, Research Library. Albert, Tanya. (2003, June). Fetus determined to be part of mother’s body. American Medical News, research Library. Lewis, Johnson Jone. About.com guide women’s history. Reed, Boland. (Nov. 2010). Reproductive Health Matters; vol. 18 issue 36, pg.67-89, 23p. Research Associate, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston Ma, USA.