End Of The Century Abortions example essay topic

Abortion From being legal to illegal and back again, abortion has been through a long and tough struggle around the world and especially in the United States. Many people see abortion as different kinds of procedures and operations, but there can only be one scientific explanation for the procedure that has been on the minds of millions. Abortion has been around ever since people have been able to write about it. In the early 12th century it was a crime under the Assyrian code. Women that chose to have an abortion where tried, and if convicted, impaled on a stake and denied the dignity of a proper burial.

During the Classical Era (6th - 4th century BC), Greece allowed abortion. An abortionist's failure to inform the father was criminally punishable and most of the women were sent to death. In Ancient Rome the father also had the right to know that his wife was going to have an abortion. The women had to tell the father that she was going to have the abortion or face the possibility of death without proper burial.

(Flanders 4) By the end of the 1st century AD the Christian church had declared that abortion was a sin and was punishable with death. In 1588, Pope Sixtus the 5th called abortion the same as murder, and thus subject to the same penalties. Three years later Pope Gregory the 16th eliminated any penalties until ensoul ment - which was forty days after conception. In 1869 Pope Pius the 9th removed any distinction between formed and unformed fetus's and made it a sin. (Flanders 5) In the United States abortion was not an issue until 1812 when Massachusetts's up reme Court declared that abortion was legal before fetal movement. Until 1821 abortion was legal before fetal movement but Connecticut passed a statute that made it a crime to give a women "quick with a child" a poison meant to cause her to miscarry.

Between 1821 and 1841, ten states followed Connecticut's statute and made abortion a crime unless the mothers life was at stake. (Flanders 5-6) Although abortion was illegal in ten states, the women that where having the abortions where not being put on trial or incarcerated. But in 1845 New York became the first state to punish the women and did place them in prison. In 1859 the American Medical Association passed a resolution condemning abortion and by the end of the century abortions where illegal in all states. (Flanders 5-6) The laws that made abortion illegal held up in the United States until 1967. Three main reasons that abortion was to become legal in all states where (1) infanticide and high maternal death rate associated with illegal abortions, (2) a rapidly expanding world population and (3) the growing feminist movement.

Women where fighting for freedom and equality and part of this was the their ability to control their reproductive lives. Colorado, California and North Carolina became the first states to liberalize their statutes. By 1973, thirteen states had enacted similar measures. The states were coming closer to making abortion legal in all cases up to a designated time proclaimed by the state, and by the early 1970's four states had taken that step and made abortion legal.

(Flanders 8, Encarta '97) The courts now needed to set up a designated time that abortion would be legal and they formed the trimester rule. It stated: In the 1st trimester of pregnancy the government could not interfere with abortion except to insist a licensed physician perform it. In the 2nd trimester the government could regulate abortion to protect a women's health and welfare. In the 3rd trimester the government could act to preserve the fetal life only if it's primary concern was to protect the mother. (Whitney 75) Today abortion is legal in all states although some states have their own regulations set. Some states regulations include a twenty-four hour waiting period, a doctor obtaining a woman's informed consent and hospitalization for abortions after the first trimester of pregnancy.

A woman under the age of eighteen is required to tell her parents of the abortion and have parental consent. A woman over twenty weeks pregnant must have the child tested to see if the child is able to survive outside the womb and if able, the abortion is not to take place. (Encarta '97) In the United States today, one of every three pregnancies never comes to term because a woman chooses to have an abortion. This translates to 1.5 million in one year. When you include the rest of the world this number rises to something in the order of 50 to 60 million. (Flanders 3) Of the 50 to 60 million woman having abortions in the year 50 to 60 percent of the pregnancies are unintended.

Half of all the abortions could have been avoided through the use of contraceptives. The majority of American women obtaining abortions are single, young and white. The highest abortion ratios are found among unmarried women, women over forty and non-white women. Young women have the greatest number of pregnancies and therefor the greatest ratio of abortions. One out of every twenty will abort. But the fact is that women over the age of forty have more abortions when compared to the number of pregnancies.

One out of every two will abort. Women twenty-five to twenty-nine are the least likely to abort with only twenty-two percent. (Flanders 3, 13-14) At about seven to nine days after conception, contact of the egg to the uterus is made. Blood cells begin to grow at seven-teen days and the heart at eight-teen.

The embryonic heart begins pulsating at twenty-four days. At seven and a half weeks a functionally complete cardiac system is in existence. At the nineteenth day the eyes form. By the end of the twentieth day the function of the child's brain, spinal cord and entire nervous system has been established. By twenty- eight days the embryo has forty pairs of muscles. By the end of the first month the fetus is ten thousand times larger than the fertilized egg.

By the end of the seventh week we see a well - proportioned small-scale body. The body has became nicely rounded, padded with muscles and covered by a thin layer of skin. After the eighth week no further primordial will form; everything is already present that will be found in the full term baby. (Schwarz 35-37) In the United States in the ninetieth century many different types of abortions were used. They ranged from the use of toxic substances and injurious methods such as hot baths to ingestion of poisons and unsanitary surgery. (Flanders 5) Today there are several types of abortions that take place at different stages of pregnancy.

The vast majority of abortions take place by the eighth week. Instrumental evacuation entails dilating the cervix, or opening of the uterus, and removing the fetus and placenta. This procedure is used ninety-eight percent of the time. (Flanders 9) Another early method is the new controversial drug RU-486. It is an anti-hormone, a muscular little molecule that interferes with hormonal messages. RU-486 breaks down the embryo's bond to the uterine wall.

Without progesterone to calm the uterine muscle, contractions begin, and the cervix softens and widens. Menstrual-like blood flows, and the pea-sized embryo is washed from the body. The expulsion is aided by another natural hormone in the uterus, prostaglandin. When a woman is given a small dose of synthetic prostaglandin after RU-486, the process is more than ninety-five percent effective up to five weeks after r a missed period. Headline writers labeled RU-486 the "abortion pill".

But there is no surgical invasion, no traumatic shock to the unwilling mother. More accurately, RU-486 is what I call a. Contraception prevents fertilization. Abortion excises a fetus. Contra gestion works a middle range, countering gestation before implantation or in pregnancy's earliest stages. When used after implantation, RU-486 interrupts pregnancy.

If taken earlier, it has the same effect as a morning-after pill. In a sense, RU-486 is an un pregnancy pill. To date more than 80,000 women have used RU-486 in France. Britain and China have approved it, and other countries will follow.

(Beaulieu 17-18) Saline Solution or Salt Poisoning is generally used after the thirteenth week of pregnancy. A long needle is inserted through the mother's abdomen and the salt solution is injected into the amniotic fluid that surrounds the child. The salt is swallowed and slowly poisons the child. The mother then expels the dead child. (Flanders 40) Prostaglandin Chemical abortion uses chemicals that are injected into the muscle of the uterus, causing it to contract and push the child out. With it is possible for the fetus to be born alive.

Under law, doctors must do everything they can to protect the child's life. The mother can be prosecuted. (Flanders 10-11, Schwarz 40-41) A late procedure that is done between the thirteenth and fifteenth week is Dilation and Evacuation. By the 2nd trimester, the fetus is too large to pass through the cannula and therefor must be dismembered with surgical instruments before suction removal. (Flanders 10) Hysterectomy or Cesarean section abortion is used in the last trimester of pregnancy. The womb is entered by surgery through the wall of the abdomen and the tiny child is removed and allowed to die by neglect.

(Schwarz 41) There are several complications with having an abortion. The most common complications include infection, blood clots, excessive bleeding and tears in the uterine wall. Another complication is known as Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS). The cardinal feature of PAS is denial and suppression. Other symptoms are guilt, lowered self-esteem, depression, insomnia, sorrow, hopelessness, anniversary reactions, dreams, nightmares and considering suicide. (Flanders 11, Will ke 38) Abortion costs on the average roughly 200 dollars although prices may range from 75 dollars to 900 dollars.

An estimated cost to keep an abortion clinic open is roughly 516,000. These costs include staff payroll of $151,000, Abortionists salary of $146,500, medical malpractice insurance of $24,000, legal costs of $23,000, security of $11,000 and advertising of $48,000. Advertising is done in places such as the Yellow Pages, ads in college newspapers and commercials on MTV. The abortionist's salary is so large because in some states there are no doctors that are willing to perform an abortion and a doctor must be flown in. (Flanders 15, web) There are two main sides to the abortion issue, Pro-Choice and Pro-Life:" Extending full person hood to an individual cell that is barely visible makes no more sense than declaring acorns to be oak trees and selling them at oak tree prices". This is what many people like Clifford Arobstein feel about abortion.

Fewer than one in five persons believe abortion is morally wrong. Between a fifth and a quarter believe a woman is entitled to choose an abortion. Supporters of abortion generally dismiss the idea that a fetus is a biological or legal "person". They believe women should be free choose whether or not to end their pregnancies as the circumstances of there lives may dictate. Poverty, illegitimacy, poor timing, and inconvenience arise in situations where only the pregnant women can judge whether or not to have the abortion. Some contend that it is morally wrong to bring an unwanted child into the world.

These children are often abused or abandoned, or end up leading lives of poverty and limited opportunity. Groups that support abortion do not see adoption as an alternative. Ninety-five percent of women when confronted with an unexpected pregnancy consider only two options: keeping the child or aborting. (Flanders 15-18) Pro-choice partisans feel that the government should not be empowered to force a woman to bear a child the woman herself does not care to have. Human life begins at conception is an article of Christian doctrine and cannot be made basis for establishing public policy in a pluralist and religiously mixed society such as the United States. A man of the Democratic Party, Mario Cuomo, believed personal moral beliefs should not stand against the law.

He said, "The hard truth is that abortion isn't a failure of he government. No agency or department of government forces women to have abortions... Are we asking government to be sinful because we ourselves can't stop committing the sin?" (Flanders 15-18, Whitney 155,198) All human life, including that of the unborn, should be protected. Sixty percent of people believe to some degree that the life of an unborn should be protected. Pro-life partisans oppose abortion because they believe a fetus is a person and that forcing it from the womb and disposing of it is murder. They peg the beginning of human life at the very least, the point at which the inseminated egg implants in the uterine wall.

Abortion opponents maintain that, as a person, the fetus is entitled to full rights under the constitution, including the right to live. The unborn's' right to live is said to outweigh whatever prerogative a woman might claim when deciding whether or not to have a child. A woman choosing to have an abortion makes the child a non-person, and a woman choosing to have the child makes it a person. (Flanders 19) They criticize the feminist rhetoric about abortion being a symbol of a woman's empowerment and her hedge against the male oppression, calling this idea an indictment of other women who choose to assume traditional roles of housewife or homemaker. Preservation of a long-standing family values and promotions of a fundamental regard for human life are important aims of their movement. Wanton murder of 1.5 million fetuses yearly in the United States is said to desensitize the public to the sacredness of life or potential life.

(Green 58, Rosenblatt 188) If back-alley abortions are also devastating to women, then that is an additional reason for not choosing them. This argument shows that some abortions are worse than others, namely those that destroy women. Encouraging the choice for life is something that Pro-life partisans believe in strongly. They say that one should, first, fight isolation with friendships. Become a friend to a woman so that the woman does not feel that she is alone. Second, encourage natural bonds.

Help repair the bonds between a woman and lover and a woman and parents. Third, promote adoption. Let her know that there are other alternatives. "We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide". Ronald Regan. (Schwarz 72, Whitney 83) Sometimes the choice that grabs at our hearts is between two wrongs, and in these cases we long to hear the legal and moral voice that tells us absolutely how to choose.

But ultimately those voices rest in our own consciences and we struggle on. (Whitney 172).