Abortion is a Woman's Right

                                                    Abortion rights demonstrators protest following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade

Abortion is a contentious issue that frequently divides people. We all know that abortion is the termination of a fetus that usually occurs within the first 28 weeks of pregnancy. The thought of aborting an unborn fetus is revolting. Abortion should be legal, but it should not be the first option. Legal because it provides women with a choice, not a first option, because there are many more effective ways to prevent pregnancy than abortion. Abortion is morality and should be legal. Abortion is all about allowing a woman to make her own choices. Abortion should be legal because it is a woman's right to determine what happens to her body. The government should not take away that right simply because a woman chooses to engage in sexual intercourse or is forced into doing so, causing her to decide to have an abortion. Illegal abortions result in more deaths and many unwanted pregnancies.

First, it is worth considering that abortion is a woman's right to decide for her body. It should be legal because it is a choice. Women should be able to choose if she wants to get an abortion. Having an abortion is also complicated and can have many physical and emotional effects, so it should not be illegal to seek help from a health professional while going through it. This justification also applies to saving the mother's life; if she was likely to pass away during the pregnancy or childbirth, she should be allowed to continue with the pregnancy or, in the alternative, of having an abortion. We must acknowledge that every situation is unique and can vary from their marital status to their financial situation to their reluctance to expand their family by having more children. 

For reasons of both public health and human rights, abortion should be accessible. History has shown that anti-abortion legislation has little or no effect on the number of abortions performed but makes them unsafe. Restricting a woman's access to safe and legal abortion will not result in fewer abortions. Instead, it becomes more dangerous. Another reason is that illegal abortions result in more deaths. Ana Angler's article " discusses how "a recent study estimated that banning abortion in the U.S. would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy related-deaths," so why make abortion illegal if we know it will not stop them? Why not make it possible for women to obtain a safe abortion? Desperate women facing financial difficulties due to unwanted pregnancy will continue to endanger their lives by having unsafe abortions.

Abortions are safer for the mother and the child than many other procedures, but no surgery or medical procedure is risk-free. There are numerous risky procedures available, and women should be able to choose one that will not endanger their lives. An unsafe abortion is the only one almost entirely preventable and is one of the leading causes of maternal deaths worldwide. According to the article "safe abortion," even if successfully terminating the pregnancy, unsafe abortion can have long-term health consequences such as infertility, chronic pain, and psychological and emotional trauma. 

The final point is that there are a lot of unwanted pregnancies. The peer-reviewed journal "New Abortion Bans Will Increase Existing Health and Economic Disparities" mentions that roughly half of the United States will try to ban abortion. “People who cannot obtain an abortion in these states are likely to face various problems, including financial ones”. For example, there are hungry, neglected, and abused children all around us and worldwide. These miserable children become sad adults who commit many of our crimes and fill many prisons. The government can try to prevent abortion, but it will never be able to prevent unloved, unwanted children from being harmed and growing up to harm others.

 A law can force unwanted children to be born into dangerous circumstances, but it can never force a child to be wanted, fed, or loved. Not all mothers wish to or are capable of caring for a child. Many young women struggle with drug or alcohol addiction, are involved in criminal activity, people are unemployed, or have no money. Some people are too preoccupied with their own lives to consider their children. As a result, they continue to have children but do not want or care for them—children placed in foster care, government homes, or jail. Also many think that adoption is always the best option but according to this article they mention that “Many foster children are adopted, but thousands remain in the system anticipating their adoption.” They quickly discover that no one wants or cares about them. There are already far too many unwanted children; anti-abortion legislation will result in thousands more. 

According to the article "Statistics of Abuse and Neglect in Foster Care," "Each year, almost 1,000,000 kids suffer from abuse or neglect" this can cause many mental issues like depression and anxiety. Some people may think that abortion is murder because "killing" a human, including newborns, is already a crime, but what if when the baby is dying or has a highly critical fetal diagnosis, the family finds out later in the pregnancy? One-size-fits-all policies don't work when people make difficult, complicated, and private medical decisions. Even though many unplanned pregnancies end happily with the mother growing to love her child, this does not mean that the government has the right to decide for a woman whether to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term if she later decides she loves the child.

Abortion should be legal because it is a woman's right, and illegal abortion leads to more deaths and unwanted pregnancies. There are many reasons people would have an abortion other than killing a "child." The worst option is to make abortion illegal. Because it will not prevent abortions; instead, it will make them more dangerous and have a higher death rate for the mother and fetus. Men, like women, must accept responsibility for their actions. Everyone engaging in sexual activity without birth control must prepare to face the consequences. Unwanted pregnancy should not happen, but it does. Abortions harm society less than undesirable, unloved children. Forcing a woman to give birth to unwanted, unloved children is neither a man's choice nor the government's responsibility.