According to Google, abortion is defined as, “the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy. This is not the only definition of abortion. This eight letter word can have a range of one word definitions, such as, “illegal”, “disgusting”, it is even defined as “therapeutic”. With each adjective of abortion comes a reasoning as to why one calls it that. Although abortion can be detected as “therapeutic”, the fact of it is that it is completely and utterly wrong to have abortions.
With that being said, abortions should become illegal for multiple reasons, as it is a horrible act, it is the worst thing a person could ever do. Not only is it just a horrible act, but with its controversial stories and incredible statistics, it truly recognizes how bad the act of abortion is. For instance, when one who is anti-abortion is asked, “Why should abortion be illegal? ” there is a high chance the answer will be one simple word: murder. It does not always take statistics to prove that abortion is a awful thing. A innocent human being is being killed, which is a very upsetting thing to hear or see.
Women and people in general need to consider that unborn babies are human beings. The United States government clearly recognizes it. The federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which was enacted “to protect unborn children from assault and murder,” states that under federal law, anybody who does intentional killing or attempting to kill an unborn child should automatically, “be punished… for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being (Abortion ProCon). The federal law sums up the main reason as to why abortion should be illegal.
Unfortunately, it is a merciless action that does happen, but it does not deserve to be left unpunished. This powerful law by the United States government has such an important idea stressed that 38 states have proceeded to pass similar fetal homicide laws (Abortion ProCon). There is hope that since the time being, more states have done the correct thing by passing similar laws of the correct thing, which is that killing a newborn makes you a murderer. Throughout the course of history, it is visible that abortion has always been a controversial topic, as it always will be.
In the past 40 plus years, the rate of abortions has steadily decreased. According to recent statistics and studies, from 1973 to 2011, there were 53 million legal abortions in the United States alone (U. S. Abortion Statistics). Ever since 2011, there has been a decline in abortions, with 1. 06 million in 2011, 926,240 abortions in 2014, and 906,000 occurring in 2015 (U. S. Abortion Statistics). With the steady decrease in abortions, there are predictions that in the upcoming years, that there unfortunately be abortions, but at a much smaller rate.
Further into time, people truly realize that abortion is an awful action to take. The time that women realize that abortion should be illegal is when they will be either in a hospital bed or taking antidepressants. To elaborate, abortion can cause future medical issues for the mother, such as psychological damage. Several studies have conducted research into belief that abortion can lead to mental illness of a woman post-abortion. For example, a 2008 study featured in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health had found some interesting information concerning mental health and abortions. Young adult women who undergo… abortion may be at increased risk for subsequent depression. ” (Abortion ProCon). To go more into depth of the topic of depression, it is the Southern Medical Journal peer-reviewed study of 2002 that is ultimately an eye opener as to why abortion should be illegal.
They went on to claim,”.. of more than 173,000 American women found that women who aborted were 154% more likely to commit suicide than women who carried to term. ” (Abortion ProCon). It is understood that just like the word abortion, the ord suicide comes off a person’s tongue like poison. No one likes those two words, with exception of those who are prochoice. No person deserves to take their own life, as they should not take someone else’s, especially an unborn child. Abortions controversial aspects have been in the media for multiple occasions. One of the biggest media issues concerning abortion was the famous case better known as, Roe v. Wade. To summarize, Norma McCorvey, known as Jane Roe, was a Texan resident seeking for an abortion.
Jane had filed a case against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County from 1951 to 1987 due to the fact that he prohibited abortion, besides the one exception that it helped to save a woman’s life. To further analyze, CNN stated that, the Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman a right to abortion during the entirety of the pregnancy and defined different levels of state interest for regulating abortion in the second and third trimesters. ” (Roe V. Wade Fast Facts).
With this change due to one woman, according to CNN, this ruling had affected laws in 46 states. However, this may seem to be the end of this controversial event, that is not until 20 years later that Norma, or Jane contradicts everything she previously said. It is June of 2003 when McCorvey files a motion with the US District Court of Dallas to have the whole case overturned. Her new evidence was the factor that abortions do in fact hurt women and to back this statement up, CNN provides that there were 1,000 affidavits from women who say they regret their abortion (Roe V. Wade Fast Facts).
Although this case was unfortunately overturned, it lightly proves that everyone can change their mind for the better of not only themselves, but for others. They do say one man can change the world, so being far, one woman can as well change the world. Although there is pinpoint evidence as to why abortion should be recognized as an illegal act of humanity, abortion can be portrayed as a legal act due to self interest. When saying self interest, this means the self interest of a woman, one who has e o do what she pleases with her body.
With every woman comes a different case, a different scenario. For example, according to the Guttmacher Institute in 2004, they anonymously surveyed 1,209 post-abortive women from across the country, Out of those women, 957 provided a reason as to why they got an abortion. The two highest percentages, 25% and 23% were the factors of not being ready for a child and not being capable of affording a baby (U. S. Abortion Statistics). According to this same survey presented by the U. S. Abortion Statistics, the lowest percentage coming in at <0. 5% was rape.
Less then 0. 5% of women get abortions due to rape, which might be a small amount of women but it still happens. Women are their own control and have the right to choose what is best for them, not for their family, their friends, no one. Aside from getting an abortion for their own self-interest, abortion should be legalized as its procedures are handled more professionally and carefully. This was proven by Daniel R. Mishell, Jr. , MD, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Keck School of Medicine, at the University of California.
According to Mishell Jr, he proceeds to claim that illegal abortions were completed by using objects such as coat hangers, knitting needles or even radiator flush (Abortion ProCon). Additionally, Mishell Jr. and the publishers of Abortion ProCon explain how, “In 1972, there were 39 maternal deaths from illegal abortions. By 1976, after Roe v. Wade had legalized abortion nationwide, this number dropped to two. Automatically, it can be visible that abortion is not a horrible thing, as there have not been recent maternal deaths due to the access of legal abortions that are clean and sanitized.
In short, it is evident that the word abortion is nothing but a heinous act of humanity as it can be proven by statistics and scenarios in the media. With that being said, the only way to go is to go pro-life, which dictates that abortion should be an illegal act. There are different cases in which a decision must be made, although, killing an unborn child is simply a cruel act. It only makes sense that abortions should be illegal as it is the humane thing, not a “spontaneous” thing. Not having an abortion is “soothing”, or just overall “amazing” because one is giving birth to the greatest gift on Earth.
