Abortion Report: Both Sides of a Personal Issue
I have chosen for my topic Abortion. I think that it is a topic that is very important
in today's society however it is often dodged or avoided. Different Presidents say
different things and have different stances about it, and often it is had to know what to
think about it. Basically there are two different ways of looking at it: Pro-Choice,
which takes the stance of saying that it is the woman's choice if she wants to have an
abortion and that it is only her business. So basically they want it to remain legal.
Then there is the other stance of Pro-Life which says that it should not remain legal and
that it is just about as bad as cold-blooded murder. I happen to agree with this. This
is what I will be focusing on for the rest of my report.
I will first talk about Pro-Choice. Through the years this has obviously been the
thinking of our nation because abortion remains legal (Bill Clinton is Pro-Choice). This
is also the thinking of many woman's rights movements and organizations. From reading a
paper on Pro-Choice it states as its heading that abortion should be a woman's right to
choose what she does with her body, and it should not be altered or influenced by anyone
else. This right is guaranteed by the ninth amendment, which contains the right to
privacy. This brings up a very interesting point, which is that the ninth amendment is a
strong argument in the fight for Pro-Choice. It states that "The enumeration in the
Constitution, of certain rights, shall not construed to deny or disparage others retained
by the people." This right guarantees the right to women, if they so choose, to have an
abortion, up to the end of the first trimester. Several cases have been fought for the
right to choose. Many of these have been hard cases but they stuck with it, and many
people believe that that is why we have some of the rights we do today. Here are some
important cases:
1. 1965 - Griswold vs. Connecticut. Upheld the right to privacy and ended the ban on
birth control. Eight years later, the Supreme Court ruled the right to privacy included
abortions.
2. 1973 - Roe vs. Wade. The state of Texas had outlawed abortions. The Supreme Court
declared the law unconstitutional, bur refused to order an injunction against the state.
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court voted the right to privacy included abortions.
3. 1976 - Planned Parenthood vs. Danforth. Ruled that requiring consent by the husband
and the consent from a parent if a person was under 18 was unconstitutional. This case
supported a woman's control over her own body and reproductive system.
To conclude about Pro-Choice I will state what Dana Pentoney has said: Abortion deals
with one's private life and should have nothing to do with the government. However,
abortion should not be used as a means of birth control, but if a fetus will be unwanted,
it is better to be aborted than to be abused or neglected.
Now onto Pro-Life. This is what Presidential hopeful Bob Dole believed in, and to start
it off I will give some interesting facts on how our views on Abortion have changed
throughout the years.
Asking the simple question What is Abortion? Here are the answers that you would have
gotten:
1859 - The slaughter of countless children; no mere misdemeanor or no mere attempt upon
the life of the mother, but the wanton and murderous destruction of her child; such
unwarrantable destruction of human life.
1871 - The work of destruction; The wholesale destruction of unborn infants.
1967 - The interruption of an unwanted pregnancy.
1970 - A medical procedure.
There are many different methods of abortion each one more horrible than the last. Some
of them include:
-Suction Abortion
-Dilation and Curettage (D&C)
-Dilation and Evacuation (D&E)
-Salt Poisoning (Saline Injection)
-Hysterotomy
-Prostaglandin Abortion
There are also many risks and complications caused by having an abortion.
Some of the more widely known one's are:
1. Breast Cancer
2. Complications in future pregnancies, including excessive bleeding, premature
delivery, cervical damage, and sterility.
3. Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
4. Uterine perforations.
5. Tubal pregnancy.
6. Placenta previa, which is extremely severe, life threatening bleeding in future
pregnancies.
7. Retention of placenta
As you can see there are many different factors that contribute to abortion, and many
different risks that you take in having one. I think that abortion will remain a huge
topic that's not going to go away easily. I believe that they should be illegal however
through doing this report I have been shown the other side of the story, the Pro-Choice
side, and I have began to see there standpoint-even though I might not agree with it.
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