Anti Abortion View example essay topic

Abortion is defined as the premature expulsion of a fetus so that it does not live. Abortions can happen as a result of natural occurrences, but the interest of this paper is abortion that is induced. Abortion has been the topic of heated debates in many places. Nicole Miller went through an abortion at the age of 18, now 20 and is attempting to talk about the esperance that it put her through. The government has had long difficult battles over the aspects of abortion.

Legal cases have set benchmarks that are somewhat vulnerable. The church has had to analyze doctrines to decide whether abortion is right or wrong. There has also been violence in the way of abortion clinic bombings, assassinations, and political protest. For over two hundred years, abortion has been apart of the United States culture. During the 1700's, Americans viewed abortion merely as a means of ridding women of pregnancies that resulted from illicit relationships. Birthrates in the U.S. were extremely high at the end of the eighteenth century, so consequently the Americans wanted to lower birth rates.

This social trend is best cited as "induced abortions became such a popular method of fertility control that it becomes a kind of epidemic" (qt d in Omr an). Abortion went from a marginal practice of the desperate few to being a significant factor in the effort of American women to regulate their own fertility. In the 1830's the use of new contraceptive techniques became available, but for a short while, the abortion rate increases with the new introduction to contraceptives. This is due to the idea that people thought that they could have more sex, which they did, but most of the general public did not master the use of contraceptives, so many "mistakes" occurred.

Even when contraceptives were used correctly, the quality of contraceptive devices was not very good. After contraception devices became more mainstream, the abortion rate lowered (Sachdev 150-151). There are two important factors in the 19th centuries that are underlying the increased practice of abortion. The first is the common law notion of quickening. Most women in America at this time did not consider a pre-quickened fetus a "distinct human being with a separate existence of its own". Quicken means a fetus show signs of life.

The second was the legal status of abortion in the U.S. It was never outlawed, only condoned to help slow the declining birth rates. With ideas about the quickening changing, abortion rates seem to level themselves for the rest of the century, but many demographers believe this is inaccurate because lower-class immigrant women in the late 1800's and early 1900's caused the abortion rate to rise, and not many were ever reported. The legal status of abortion began to change in the U.S., with stricter advertising laws and a newly founded belief in scientific research by doctors. The leader of this change was the American Medical Association. For most of the early 1900's, medical personnel and politicians tried to destroy abortion, but it only made abortion more of a private procedure and not one that was often made public (Sachdev 3-7).

During the 1930's, there was an estimated "1 abortion for every 4 pregnancies, and 90% of those abortions were made by married women. This was due to the struggling times of the Great Depression. Frederick Taussig said "Two of the underlying historical patterns that would help produce a shift in official policy during the 1960's and 1970's were the renewed importance of abortion as a method of fertility control and the desire of women to determine for themselves without the states interference when they wished to carry pregnancy to term. ' Taussig was correct about this, and in 1973 came the landmark Supreme Court case of Roe vs. Wade that decided the legality of abortion and fundamentally started the groups of either pro-choice or pro-life advocates (Taussig 1936)". There is much more to abortion than abortion. It has numbed, as if with novocaine, a respect for life in American society...

Once killing of any kind is legal, it becomes easier, with time, for the harvest of death to increase. And once anything is legal, most people believe that it is moral... My reason for opposing abortion to a desire to stop mass killing-is that it is anesthetizing the society" (Nat 2-3, 5) Pro-life is essentially the belief that abortion is the same as murder. With today's modern medicine and technology we are able to understand what occurs from the time of conception to the actual birth. The problem with this is the same essential question every time.

At what point does a fertilized egg become a human? According to pro-life activists, the beginning of conception means the beginning of human life, and therefore abortion is murder. The anti-abortion view had a very strong backing from many key areas of society. The first is the political support from the Republican Party and eventually Ronald Reagan in the early eighties. Reagan was the first president to make abortion a major political topic. He often used anti-abortion ideas to win votes and the confidence of the general public.

During a speech in 1980, President Reagan said, "We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion and infanticide". Another key figure was Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (Whitney 83-5). His view included the idea that abortion was a new holocaust and would inevitably become a selective birth process. He also believed abortion was away to eliminate defectives humans from society and create a master race. I personally believe these views are irrational and have limited basis. I believe the backbone of the anti-abortion movement is religion in the United States; particularly the Catholic Church.

The catholic position on aborting, in vito fertilization, and embryo experimentation is primarily rooted in its assessment of the nature of the fetus. The basic view of the church is that since they do not know when takes place, they assume it occurs at conception, so that they do not risk the chance of murder (Stetson 169). Since Catholicism is the largest denomination in both the U.S. and the world, there is an obviously a large potential for pro-life supporters. Religiosity plays an important role in abortion. Religiosity is stated by how involved one is to a religion, therefore the more dedicated to a religion, and the more likely a person is to be a pro-life activist. Protestants have a similar view on abortion.

In a survey conveyed in 1996, many interviewees stated that they were against abortion, because "They believed they must live up to their obligations and standards entailed in their belief". One activist believed it was his "Godly duty" (Maxwell 65) The bible condones abortion through the book of Exodus. It states", If men who are fighting hit a pregnant women and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the women's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, [and] bruise for bruise (Bible). I believe that an "Eye for an eye" is not a civilized thing to do and that it not be practiced any of today's society. In the mind of pro-life activists, there will always be two fundamental questions.

One is is the government participating and allowing infanticide in the U.S.? and Is the government valuing some lives above others? In my novice opinion, abortion and infanticide are two different concepts, and I think the vast majority of abortion is not meant to value one life over another. The final aspect of this paper will discuss Pro-choice. Pro-choice is essentially the view that women who are pregnant may terminate that development process.

In the argument about pro-life and pro-choice, many abortion supporters debate over when an embryo or fetus actually becomes a human life. A famous quote made during the Roe vs. Wade trial by Supreme Court judge states, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in their respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in the position to speculate" (Blackmun 195). This quote means that since no one can agree fully on when life begins, the court can not decide either. Do women have the right to terminate their own fetuses? Liberal pro-choice activists believe that a woman has an absolute right over the embryo at all stages of pregnancy.

Activists also believe the killing of a developing fetus is justified in order to grant her autonomy, privacy and the right to totally control her reproductive capacity. Pro-choice politics does not have the backing that the pro-life movement does. A large portion of organized religion in the U.S. condones abortions in some or all forms. One of the social groups that are known for pro-choice support is lesbians. One might think that being a minority; especially a lesbian, may discredit the pro-choice or women's rights movements.

Norma McCorvey, also known as "Jane Roe", state that she believes being a lesbian is a big part of the women's movement, and she points out that many women in the abortion movement are lesbians (McCorvey 195). An interesting point made by many pro-choice lesbians in New York was depicted on a subway poster: "77% of the anti-abortion leader are men, and 100% of them will never be pregnant". By reason one might say that 77% of outspoken pro-abortionists leaders are lesbians, which most of whom will never be pregnant. Should it matter whether sexual preference is a basis for abortion viewpoints. In my opinion, the answer is no. Despite any sexual preference groups, those supporting abortion rights were not fully unified and each group had their own primary concerns.

Eventually only a few small groups of pro-choice advocates were left after Roe vs. Wade to battle the pro-life movement. Abortion groups began to unite only after rights were being lost. Examples of this were the limiting of public funding and availability to all women was dwindling (Sachdev 49). There have been several gatherings of pro-choice activist in the United States. One of the greatest examples of this was the date of July 4, 1989. In Boston three hundred abortion rights activist clashed with police as they tried to broadcast a message to tens of thousands of people gathered at the Boston Pop concert.

In Atlanta five hundred people marched to the capital to deliver a stack of hanger, which symbolized the back-alley abortion era. Each of these demonstrations was a warning to the government was becoming to close to denying women the right to abortion through minor changes in the law. Gloria Steinem basically summed up the pro-choice movement by saying, "Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right". In conclusion, abortion is possible one of the most controversial topics in the world today. The aspects of abortion spread from religion, to ethics, to medical, to legal, and so on. I believe that there will never be any one correct or decisive answer to abortion.

I assume it will change with the changing times as it has in the past, and as it will in the future. My opinion is what some would call "Riding the fence". I believe that a woman does have control of her body to a certain extent, that extent is the beginning of the third trimester. If a child is carried for six months and beyond, I think abortion is considered murder, and anything before that is up to the person carrying that fetus..