Abortion Should Be Restricted

The number of abortions today is almost 1.5 million a year, which is about 30% of all pregnancies (McConnell). Too many women are getting abortions as a means of birth control. The Supreme Court needs to restrict abortions to women who have been raped, been victims of incest, if the child will die at a young age, or if the woman's health is in danger. By reading this paper, the reader will gain an understanding of why abortions need to be restricted. Although abortions are necessary they need to be limited.

Too many women are getting abortions as a way of birth control. In 1967 Colorado and California legalized abortion. By June, 1970, when the State of New York passed the first Abortion on Demand Law, which was a law stating no woman can get an abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy, it became the 16th state to allow abortion. Alaska and Hawaii had liberal, or unrestricted, laws. Laws in the other 12 states, which included Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina and Virginia, were very restrictive. They usually allowed abortions to be performed only for pregnancies due to rape, incest; or if the life of the mother is endangered, as well as for severe fetal handicap. Today, of all the pregnancies, 30% are aborted. Of the 1.5 million abortions a year, 18,000 of which, were 22 weeks or older when aborted. Less then 10% were between 13 and 20 weeks, and 88.8% were 12 weeks and under. Unbelievably, about 45% of all abortions are repeats, or abortions by a women who has already had at least one abortion prior (Willke,17).

The effects of abortion on the mother are horrendous. In a study of post-abortion patients only 8 weeks after their abortion, researchers found that 44% complained of nervous disorders, 36% experienced sleep disturbances, 31% had regrets about their decision, and 11% had been prescribed psychotropic medicine by their family doctor (Willke). Unfortunately, these women don't know about these effects before-hand. They are in the mind-set that, since this procedure is performed all the time, on women who just don't want their child, that it won't be that big of a deal if they were to get an abortion. If the state were to restrict abortions, women wouldn't have think the procedure is just a walk in the park.

Aborting a child as a way of birth control is immoral. The child is a living, breathing human. If one defines alive, it means a being is growing, developing, maturing, and replacing it's own dying cells. It means not being dead. Also, the definition of human is: one of the biological beings who be-longs to the species Homo Sapiens. Such beings are unique from all other beings in that they have 46 human chromosomes in every cell. Such beings do not belong to the rabbit family, the carrot family, etc. (Willke, 2). The fetus' heart beat is detected between the eighteenth and twenty-fifth day of pregnancy. The brain begins to function at forty days. The child is very much a living human being who doesn't deserve to be killed.

Conversely, there are exceptions to the moral aspect of abortions. One of them being, if the mothers health is at risk. If the mother's health is at risk the child should be able to be aborted. Although the child is alive, the theoretical interests of it do not outweigh the real rights of the woman (Bradley). Either abort something that hasn't even been a part of your life yet, or go on with the birth and lose the women you've devoted your life to. The truth of the matter is, it's impossible to separate the interest of the fetus from those of the pregnant woman because any decisions taken in respect of the fetus will affect her. Another exception is if the baby was conceived by rape or incest. In this case, a woman forced to bear a child conceived in rape or incest is violated twice, once by the criminal and then again by an uncaring state that forces her to carry and give birth to the incarnation of her assailant (Bradley). If the woman were to give birth to the child, she would have to watch that child grow up, knowing that it's father was a rapist that she may or may not know. The fact that her baby was conceived by a means of rape or incest would haunt her for the rest of her life. Furthermore, what are incest victims supposed to do once they give birth? She would, potentially, have to see the man who impregnated her, almost, on a daily basis, at least until she's old enough to move out of the house. Even then, she may still have to see her dad, or her uncle, or whoever the assailant was, in the future. Incest pregnancies are not common, but they do happen hundreds of times a year in the United States, and therefore they are something that need to be recognized by the media better. Congressman George Miller once said " Don't turn the disgusting, violent, solitary acts of rape into a gang rape by the congress of the U.S." The third exception to a child being aborted is if the child has a disease which involves an early death or absence of cognitive developmental capacity. Detection of certain diseases can be obtained as early as ten weeks. The parents with a disease-stricken baby usually wish to spare the baby a life of hardship rather then prolonging the child's ill-fated life. If the child will die at a young age, why not save it the agony by ending his life before it begins? The idea is that certain disorders are so serious that there is no point attempting to prolong the child's life (Cunningham). "The overwhelming majority of women who discover they're carrying a fetus affected by down's syndrome choose to have an abortion" (Bradley). Some women have financial problems which would just be added to with the birth of a baby requiring thousands of dollars in medical bills. "Because the woman would be responsible for raising the handicapped child, only she can decide whether to bring the pregnancy to term" (Bradley).