The Debate Over Abortion: Dying at Birth Or End The Pregnancy

The debate over abortion gets tricky as it is hard to make something legal or illegal due to everyone’s opinions about the very—touchy, heated—subject. Either way, some feelings will be hurt. Since there are millions of children in the foster care system who need caring and loving families to take care of them and bringing another child in this world just to suffer until they get adopted (if they do), women who get pregnant because of rape, abortion should be legal for women.

Anyone who believes that adoption or foster care is a real solution to abortion is wrong. Currently, there are almost 500,000 children currently in foster care in the U.S. This number will increase if abortion becomes illegal. Women who end up giving birth but do not think they can either take care of their newborn or other reasons put it up for adoption. If the baby does not get adopted then it goes right into the foster care system. The child will now have to grow up in different households, maybe even get separated from siblings until adopted into a —hopefully—loving family. Abortion could stop putting kids into the foster care system. If a woman is not ready to become a mother then it should be her right to decide what she wants to do with her body. She has the choice along with the father (if he would be in the child's life if born) and they are the only ones who can say yes or no to this hard decision.

Abortion does not erase the memory. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is rarely an easy one, and it is not always the first or preferred choice. Some women usually deal with some depression or anxiety after receiving an abortion but then again the responses vary.

If there was no access to a safe and legal abortion women would find ways to still do it. It would be very unsafe, and unsanitary. If a woman chooses (or tries) to have an abortion at home it could result in the woman dying to unfair conditions all because she did not have access to safe abortion. Unsafe abortion is the cause of 70,000 maternal deaths per year.

The opposing side —pro-life— might argue that life starts at conception; that abortion is the act of taking a human life, and that whoever is involved in it is a murderer. New York Times on abortion “Language like this ignores the fact that each of us once existed as “clusters of cells that have not yet developed into viable human beings.” 

“The question of whether the embryo or fetus is a person … is not answerable by science,” said Daniel Sulmasy, a professor of biomedical ethics at Georgetown University and former Franciscan friar. They might also argue that the fetus has no say in abortion and so it should be illegal since the woman should not make the choice for the fetus. Timesunion talks about the science of abortion “A preimplantation embryo has the theoretical potential to become a human life, but it cannot be considered on the same moral plane as a human life.” I can understand their arguments against abortion but pregnancy doesn't start the day that partners have sex. It can take up to six days after intercourse for the sperm and egg to join and form a fertilized egg. Also, women should not be able to carry their rapist’s baby if they do not want to whether or not the perpetrator is in jail. Punishing both of them when it was only the rapist’s decision to commit a tragic crime is not okay. Adoption should not and is not always an alternative to abortion. Some women will die or there is a chance of them dying during birth so they need to end the pregnancy before the complications get worse. If that is the case, women will have to choose to live or die giving birth and that does not mean the baby will survive either. I also hear “If they chose to have sex then they can raise a child.” Yes, a lot of teens might have sex and sometimes it may be unprotected but there are a lot of other reasons the woman gets pregnant. Condoms are 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. But people aren't perfect, so in real life, condoms are about 85% effective. Fifteen out of one hundred people get pregnant each year if they use condoms. Birth control isn't perfect either. Women could have complications with that too, or she could simply forget to take a pill one day. Nine out of one hundred women get pregnant each year while on a birth control pill.

LiveScience targets fetus and pain ‘The science shows that based on gestational age, the fetus is not capable of feeling pain until the third trimester'. If the fetus cannot feel pain up until the third trimester, then it should not be considered murder if the woman gets one before then. The fetus is not fully developed, and most of the time when women get abortions the fetus is still a sack of cells. That is why the fetus does not get a say also given the fact that it physically can not.

I know everyone has a say with the debate over abortion but why do we ignore the actual person who wants one? The woman who should have control over her body and life regardless of the reasons and situations. The woman who has to make the hard choice of bringing a child into this world with the chance of not giving it the best life it could possibly have whether that be with her or an adoptive family. The woman who has to choose dying at birth or making the choice to end the pregnancy hopefully as early as she can and dealing with the emotions that come with that.

The emotions could be everything: depression, anxiety, guilt. She might feel that she did the wrong thing. She could go into a depression since she just ended her pregnancy with the hormones that already came with that. The woman might also get a lot of backlashes if she took it to social media or told family members. She would also have to deal with the damage it could do to her body.

A ban on abortion won’t prevent abortions. It will just increase the number of unsafe ones that are worse. It also will not allow numerous women to control of their own bodies and lives. The rights to their own bodies. Abortion should be legal, no one should be able to tell another person what they can and can not do with their own body.

Works Cited

1. Camosy, Charles C. New York Times, 9 Jan. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/opinion/abortion-pro-life.html.
2. Green, Emma. 'Science Is Giving the Pro-Life Movement a Boost.' The Atlantic, 18 Jan. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/pro-life-pro-science/549308/.
3. Miller, Sara G. 'Do Fetuses Feel Pain? What the Science Says.' LiveScience, 16 May 2016, www.livescience.com/54774-fetal-pain-anesthesia.html.
4. Paulson, Richard. ' Why life doesn't begin at conception.' Timesunion, 31 Oct, 2017 www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Why-life-doesn-t-begin-at-conception-12320582.p