Analysis-Abortion Behind The Scenes

Every society, that can be dated back thousands of years ago, has had some sort of abortion procedure. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal of a fetus from a woman's uterus. In the 1800's some states in the U.S. began to pass laws making abortion illegal. Many women still sought illegal abortions in illegal clinics or "back-alleys." In 1973 the Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade held that a woman could terminate her pregnancy up until the point of viability. Viability was defined in this case as being the point in which a fetus could live outside of its mother's womb. Since this case, abortion has become a huge topic of political controversy. The nation was split into "pro-life" and "pro-choice" supporters. The issues between pro-life and pro-choice supporters include: to what extent abortion should be legal, who should decide if abortion is legal, when does life begin, and what roles, if any, should religion and morals have in this debate.



In the political spectrum, pro-choice supporters can most commonly be associated with the Democratic party. The pro-choice stance is that women should have complete rights over her own body and that she has the choice to terminate her pregnancy or not. Many of the pro-choice supporters really only support abortion if rape, incest, harm to the mother, or other medical issues are involved. They believe that a woman who has been raped will be more traumatized if she keeps the child of her rapist than if she has an abortion. Therefore, their argument is that we will not be able to create a law that would include all of the scenarios involved in these situations. Therefore, we should just let the woman decide if she wants an abortion or not. Extremely liberal pro-choice supporters believe that abortion is another birth control method and that it is a way to control the population. Also, they believe that every child should be a "wanted" child, and they argue that the children might have been born into a bad living environment otherwise.



In contrast to this position, Republicans are associated with being pro-life supporters. These supporters believe that life begins at conception and that the unborn human life should have rights. Since this belief has not been proved medically, most pro-life supporters take this stance based on their religion and morals. They advocate adoption if the child is unwanted. These supporters did gain some support with the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, in which partial birth abortion was found to be morally wrong. Pro-life supporters hold many rallys for their cause including the March for Life every year. Many people show up for this march advocating the protection of embryos and opposing embryonic stem cell research. These supporters also try to educate the general public on the "facts" about abortion such as medical issues after abortion, and the procedure itself.



Currently President Obama and many Democratic Congressional Leaders are pushing for health care bills that would allow federal funding for abortion. Even though the number of abortions has been declining, this bill would most likely dramatically increase the number of abortions that are being performed. Personally, I am a pro-life supporter. I was adopted so I advocate the right to life. However, seeing as these healthcare bills are just going to further support the pro-choice stance, I do not believe that abortion will become illegal. I do believe that pro-life and pro-choice supporters can compromise on some issues to ensure that the number of abortions does not incline dramatically. As I have previously suggested, there are many ways that this can happen. Pro-life supporters should support the use of IUDs, birth control pills, and other contraceptives. In my future posts I will be discussing how adoption could be a better choice economically and how post-abortion medical issues could change the minds of women wanting abortions if they were educated in the topic better.

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