Abortion - Surgical Termination of a Pregnancy

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Stephanie Luevano

Professor Arida

Sociology 2

5 July 2005

Abortion

Abortion is the surgical termination of a pregnancy. How odd that people are able to define something, that is such a controversial issue, so easily. There are hundreds, thousands, and even millions of things to say about abortion. When it comes to abortion, I find myself thinking like a symbolic interactionist. Abortion is a personal social issue and it needs to be seen on a micro level first. Although abortion can also be seen on a macro level, seeing abortion on a micro level lets people see the different symbols of abortion. No social condition creates the same symbol. If abortion is seen on a macro level, all the myths and stereotypes of abortion seem more realistic. For example, some of those myths and stereotypes being, most abortions are from minorities and most people who have abortions are teen girls. If abortion were seen on a micro level it would be evident that these myths and stereotypes are simply not true. Every abortion that occurs has a story behind it or a reason behind it. Many of us automatically assume that the person who had the abortion is immoral without even knowing the reason for why the abortion took place in the fist place. And this brings up a series of questions. When is an abortion considered moral or immoral? What should the legal status of abortion be? Should the father have a say if one should have an abortion or not? The answer to these questions are within a persons own mind and how they view this social condition. My

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answers to these questions are as follows.

I believe that when an abortion is considered moral or immoral all depends on the symbol. For instance, one of my family members had an abortion and I found her decision to have an abortion moral. The symbol behind my family members abortion is as follows. For the purpose of privacy I will refer to my family member as Kate and her first love as Sam. When Kate was fourteen years old, she met her first love. They both went to the same high school but Sam was two years older than Kate. Sam and Kate went out for the next two months and got closer with each passing date. Sam was one of the popular guys in school and could have any girl he wanted so Kate didn't understand why he was setting his eyes on her. Kate was extremely flattered that Sam even considered going out with her. So as one of the popular guys in school and being a jock, Sam was used to always getting what he wanted. As Sam and Kate got closer Sam started wanting to get more serious with Kate. He was persistent with moving things to the next level when finally the next level was sex. Kate knew that Sam could have sex with any other girl if she wouldn't have sex with him. So Kate, being in love with Sam and not wanting to lose him, thought it would be the right thing to do to have sex with Sam. So, she did. After, Sam was a lot nicer to Kate and treated her more as his girlfriend than just a friend. Kate saw how happy Sam was when they would have sex so as long as Sam was happy Kate was happy. About a month later, Kate noticed that she skipped her period. She told her friends about it and they told her to not worry about it. As time passed Kate still didn't get her period so she decided to take a pregnancy test. To her surprise the test came out positive. Kate couldn't believe it so she took another test to confirm. Once

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again the results came out positive. Kate was extremely scared and she didn't know what to do so she decided to tell Sam. Sam rejected Kate and the baby and abandoned them both. At this point Kate had no idea what to do. She knew she couldn't tell her mother so she confided in her friends. Looking at her situation, Kate new that their was no way that she could have a baby so as much as it hurt her, she decided to have an abortion. Luckily for Kate, one does not need parental consent to have an abortion in California, so she went through with the abortion. For the next few months Kate was depressed but she had to hide it as best she could from her mother. To this day Kate's mother has no idea that she ever had an abortion. And Kate has no idea that I know about her abortion. Although I believe it was wrong the way Kate handled the Sam situation, I believe that considering her position in that time of her life, having no money, no boyfriend, no job, not being able to support a child, and not having her mothers approval, it was moral for her to make the decision to have an abortion.

I believe that the legal status of abortion should once again depend on the symbol. For example, let's say that a woman is raped and wants to have an abortion. Considering the symbol in this situation, I believe it should be legal for this woman to have an abortion. On the other hand, let's say a married couple have three daughters. The wife becomes pregnant again and she finds out that she is going to have another girl. The couple doesn't feel like having nor do they want to have another girl so they want to have an abortion. Considering the symbol in this situation, I believe it should be illegal for this woman to have an abortion. Or another example would be if a woman became pregnant and her pregnancy was life threatening. I think it should be legal for her to have an

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abortion. What I'm basically trying to say with