Abortion Pro-Choice Persuasive Paper

Colby Glass

Mrs. Lane Honors English 3

Colby Glass

Mrs. Lane Honors English 3

Abortion Pro-Choice Persuasive Paper

9-23-03

In the last few decades, abortion has become a much-discussed subject. It has been a central point in many political affairs as in; selecting justices for the Supreme Court, it has also become an issue for candidates for state and local offices as well as for the U.S. Presidency. What exactly is abortion anyway? Depending on who you ask one will always get different answers, but the dictionary defines abortion as the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. The moral question has always been whether or not it should be a woman's decision to get an abortion. The other side of that question is whether the government should have control over a woman's body and forbid her to get an abortion. Pro-Choice, though it does take the side of legalizing abortion, it does not mean Pro-abortion. Pro-choice is the right in choosing whether to reproduce, adopt, or abort. I believe a woman should have the right to choose whether to keep the baby if she knows that she is willing to take up such a huge responsibility.

The fundamental issue that Pro-choice focuses on is whether anyone-including the government, the church, and pro-life protesters- can tell a woman what to do with their bodies. Pregnancy carries many obligations, and one will lose many privileges. One of those privileges is the right to pursue happiness. A baby can sometimes disrupt a woman's pursuit of happiness. Having the option to perform an abortion can solve that obstacle. Most of the time the mother of the unwanted child is very young and inexperienced or too poor to take care of the child. The child is usually malnourished, has no medical care, and gets very little attention or love.

When talking about abortion, there are many different ethical questions involved. Ethics is what one uses to distinguish what is right from wrong, good from bad, etc. Since people come from different backgrounds, they have a different code of ethics, therefore answering the question of right and wrong can not be easily answered, and who knows if it can ever be answered? There is no correct ethical or moral code for one specific time period, or group of people, so one must decide what they believe on the issue of abortion, by examining there own code of ethics.

Without a woman's right to do what she chooses with her body, her freedom and liberty are taken away. If for personal reasons, a woman wants an abortion, as is, currently, her constitutional right, she has the freedom to do so. A child needs to be loved and wanted. A baby, whose mother resents his birth, will not receive the proper care and nurturing he deserves. Perhaps, he would be better off not to have been born. For these reasons, I support the Pro-Choice movement.

A fetus is tissue growing inside the body of a woman. Since a fetus has no right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it has no right to be inside the body of another human being that does not want it. However, the fetus needs to be inside a woman's body to exist. To give the fetus the right to exist in a woman's body would make the woman a slave. Slavery is not a right. It is not morally or legally a right. In fact slavery is a horrible act that was outlawed due to the Civil War. "Abortion is a moral right--which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered." Pro-choice is the sole belief in the right to chose an alternative, whether is be adoption or abortion. It is not the belief in murder, since abortion does not take the life of a human being. Asking a woman to give up her life for something that is not even a human being, is asking her to make herself a slave. Abortion is an issue of women, and so it should be the woman's right to choose. She has the free will to consider others views and morals such but it is her ultimate decision.

In 1973 the American Supreme Court ruled that Americans' right to privacy included: "the right of a woman to decide whether to have children, and the right of a woman and her doctor to make that decision without state interference" ("abortion"). The Constitution says we have a right to privacy; so taking away a woman's chance to make decisions about her own body violates that right. The closure of abortion clinics will be done with the purpose to reduce the number of abortions. This raises the question whether this will be an effective method or not. Before 1973 abortions were illegal yet the number of women who sought abortions did not decrease.

There have been many studies done on smaller groups that expressed the exact same reasons for having an abortion. Older women were more likely to say that their families were complete while younger women said that a baby would interfere with education, career, and personal freedom. At any age women say they have too many responsibilities and not enough money to take care of a baby. The reason for which the public is approving of abortions is not always the reason of the person who wants to have an abortion. Women do not have abortions because of rape, incest, deformed fetuses, or because they're physical life is in danger. But these are the best reasons accepted by the public. Being poor, too young, unmarried, and not wanting a baby are the most unpopular reasons for having an abortion and are looked down upon by the public. Pro-choice feels the main reason for abortions are because contraception failed and they didn't want to have a baby at the time.

Abortion clinics are not a "butcher's place" where young babies are murdered. They provide a choice for women whether or not to bring a child into this world. What is worse: taking away the life of an unborn child that is not even aware of life itself yet, or a mother bringing an unwanted child into this world, knowing that she will not be able to take care of it, and that her child will have to suffer from the poor circumstances in which she lives. As of now the woman has the ability to make that choice and save the child from poor, possibly abusive or hate filled environment.

Personally I feel that living in a circumstance such as abuse is worse than the abortion of the fetus. Rape victims should also be able to have an abortion because they know