U.S. Legal Induced Abortion example essay topic

Abortion On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion and in turn the termination of pregnancy had become the most frequently performed operation on adults in the United States. An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by loss or destruction of the fetus before birth. An abortion may be spontaneous or induced. The latter is an act with ethical and legal ramifications. Where I stand on the issue of abortion is somewhat confusing to me even sometimes.

I do not think that it is right to kill a baby, but on the other hand I would rather see a child be aborted than it thrown in the trash after birth or abused and neglected by the parents. I believe that there are many situations that can occur that will factor into whether this procedure is just or not. Abortions can occur in several different ways. Spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, occurs when the embryo fails to develop, when there is complete or incomplete expulsion of the procedures of conception - the embryo or fetus, and placenta - or when the fetus dies prior to 20 weeks from the woman's last period. Induced abortion is a procedure intended to terminate a pregnancy and to produce a nonviable fetus at any gestational age. Most induced abortions in the United States are performed in the first trimester, within 12 weeks of the last missed period (LMP).

Statistics say that one baby is aborted every 20 seconds. There are many different ways to induce abortions. The suction abortion is when a powerful vacuum tears the placenta from the uterus and dismembers the body of the developing child, sucking the pieces into an attached jar. The second method is dilation and curettage or D&C. This is usually performed between the seven and twelve weeks of pregnancy; the doctor inserts a curette, a loop-shaped steel knife, into the womb through the dilated cervix. As the curette scrapes the wall of the uterus, the baby is cut into pieces. The third method is dilation and evacuation, D&E. This method is similar to D&C except that forceps must be used to grasp the baby's body because the child's advanced development.

The baby is dismembered as the abortionist twists and tears the parts of the body and slices the placenta away from the uterus. Another method is done using a Saline Solution called "salting out". The doctors insert a long needle through the mother's abdomen and inject a saline solution into the sac of amniotic fluid surrounding the baby. The baby is poisoned by swallowing the salt and his skin is completely burned away. It takes about an hour to kill the baby.

After the child dies, the mother goes not labor and expels the dead baby. In spite of the horrible burning effect, some babies have survived and been born alive. Another method is hysterectomy and is a surgical procedure whereby the baby is removed from the mother's womb and allowed to die by neglect or killed by a direct act. The last method is done with a chemical called prostaglandin. This induces violent labor and premature birth when injection into the amniotic sac. Pro-life is the first side to this controversial issue.

Why do most people think that murder is wrong, but do not agree that abortion is murder? According to the law no one has the right to take way another's' life. This is a question posed by a lot of people who think that abortion is wrong. This issue caught the activists off-guard because the had a specific meaning to embryonic life, not a lot of experience with "immorality" of abortion, had a lack of exposure to the ambiguities that motivated pro-choice people and they could not believe that a movement as this would go very far. They believed "the unsavory connotation of abortion rested on a deep belief in the sacredness of embryonic life, and they found it hard to understand how this belief could be changed so quickly".

They also believe that human life begins at conception and abortion is the intentional killing of a human being. "I think abortions is a horrible thing, it's like killing your unborn child. When I went to medical school, that was the accepted view within the profession. The respectable, acceptable view was that abortion was not something you did unless you really had a problem. When I trained at the county hospital, the number of abortions per live births, I think was one in 10,000 or something like that; it was pretty rare. As what are more, the Seventh-Day Adventists were there, competed with the university service, which had a lot of Catholic obstetricians, to see who could do the fewest abortions.

That was the challenge, to bring a women through without needing to resort to this drastic thing (p. 129)". The increased availability of safe, legal abortions has had other positive social consequences. These more lasting effects are difficult to measure, but some conclusions can be drawn. A series of studies show how legal abortion has led to a reduction in out-of-wedlock births; many of these births are to teenagers. And the greater health risks to mother and infant resulting from early childbearing have been well documented.

The social economic costs are staggering: teenage parents are more likely to drop out of school, to have more children, and to have more births that are closely spaced, out-of-wedlock, and unwanted than those who defer childbearing until their 20's. When they marry, teenage parents are more likely to end up in the divorce courts. Because they lack education, they are less likely to hold skilled, well-paying jobs, and their incomes and saving are permanently reduced; they are more likely to depend on public welfare. Pro-choice which stress the woman's right to choose to continue or terminate a pregnancy. Legal abortion is safer than illegal abortion and relieved the psychological unwanted child. "If I hadn't had that abortion early in my life, my life would have been a disaster.

I never would have gotten to medical school. I was married at that point to a very ill man, and it would have just been terrible to have a baby. So many times I've heard similar stories from people. I mean, people who need abortions are frequently in some sort of turmoil, and it's really a life-saving thing for many people. Women are manipulated to have babies or not to have babies by the needs of the state, and I have a lot of pent-up emoticon about that (p. 119)". By 1976, abortion, which was a crime in virtually all states in 1966 and in most states in 1972, had become the most frequently performed legal operation in the United States.

From 1967, when abortion statistics first began to be collected, to the end of 1978, about six million American women obtained legal abortions, one in every eight women of reproductive age. "Illegal but not immoral, I don't remember anyone raising that as an issue. It was dangerous, and you were a little outr'e to be looking around for one or talking about it; it was like an admission or sexuality, although I was married at the time. But I don't recall anyone saying you " re killing a baby or anything like that. I don' think I every had any moral feeling about abortion, when I was growing up, you just didn't talk about it. Nobody talked about it.

It just wasn't part of the conversation. It was a word you didn't say I in public (p. 108)". This issue did change some when the physicians began to disagree among themselves about it. Abortion was not socially expected but it also was not something that was looked at in a bad light. It was just something that was not talked about. 1976 the judge held: "A woman's conscientious decision, in consultation with her physician, to terminate her pregnancy because that is medically necessary to her heath, is an exercise of the most fundamental of rights, nearly allied to her right to be, surely part of the liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment, doubly protected when the liberty is exercised in conformity with religious belief and teaching protected by the First Amendment.

To deny necessary medical assistance for the lawful and medically necessary procedure of abortion is to violate the pregnant women's First and Fifth Amendment rights. The irreconcilable conflict of deeply and widely held views on this issue of individual conscience excludes any legislative intervention except that which protects each individual's freedom of conscientious decision and conscientious nonparticipation (p. 187)". Deaths from illegal abortions in the 1960's amounted to 1/5 of all deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. This also stimulated development of more convenient and lower-cost service. 27 out of 1000 women of childbearing age had had induced abortions each year. In 1988 the Reagan administration banned federal funding on research using fetal tissue obtained from induced abortions, but it was reversed by Clinton administration in 1993.

The Legislation to outlaw partial-birth abortion was passed by Congress in 1996, but was vetoed by President Clinton. In the United States legal induced abortion was generally unavailable until 1970, when a few states liberalized their abortion laws. The U.S. Supreme court declared most restrictive abortion laws unconstitutional because they violate a woman's right to privacy. It left the decision to have a first-trimester abortion to the woman and her physician. States could pass regulations to ensure the safety of second-trimester abortions and could prohibit third-trimester abortions. In 1990 the court ruled that states might require teen girls to notify both parents before obtaining an abortion or request a judicial hearing.

In 1991 administrative decision banned federally funded clinics from mentioning abortion as an option, but this restriction has been lifted. A number of state legislatures have voted on bills that would outlaw abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mothers life, but most have not passed or have been vetoed by the governors. States were permitted to place farther restrictions on abortions, such as parental or spousal notification and 24-hour waiting period before the procedure. Although discouraged by most major religions, induced abortion has been practiced in every culture since ancient times. During the 19th century several countries passed laws prohibiting abortion to protect women from the dangerous methods then in use. The most restrictive polices tend to be found in fundamentalist Islamic countries.

It is ultimately up to you to decide on whether you think abortion is right or not, but here are a couple more facts that may help you decide. While in the womb 18 days after conception a baby's heart is already beating. At 6 weeks, brain waves can be measured. At 8 weeks, the stomach, liver, and kidneys are functioning, and fingerprints have formed. At 9 weeks, the unborn child can feel pain. The choice is yours.