Abortion Is Inhumane and Should Be Banned

Abortion is inhumane and should be banned. Aborting a baby is murder whether the procedure is done by a competent, licensed physician under safe clinical conditions or done in a back alley. Abortion was legalized 35 years ago with the decision of the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. The case involved a single pregnant woman, a married couple, and a licensed practicing physician attacking the Texas criminal abortion statute. The Texas criminal abortion statute proscribes procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother’s life.

The District Court held that the “fundamental rights of single women and married persons to choose whether to have children is protected by the Ninth Amendment, through the Fourteenth Amendment,” and that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were void on their face because they were both unconstitutionally vague and constituted an overbroad infringement of the plaintiffs’ Ninth Amendment rights. What about moral values or that murder is a sin? Murder is a sin if committed on an aged adult, toddler, criminal, or unborn baby.

If a woman is contemplating an abortion she has a choice of two methods, the abortion pill or with medical instruments used by a health care provider. The abortion pill is a medicine that ends an early pregnancy. In general, it can be used up to 63 days after the first day of a woman’s last period. The name for the “abortion pill” is mifepristone. It was called RU-486 when it was being developed. Abortion can be performed several different ways with medical instruments. There is the aspiration procedure where the fetus is vacuumed out of the cervix; this procedure is usually performed up to 16 weeks after a woman’s last period.

There is the D&E-dilation and evacuation procedure usually performed after 16 weeks of pregnancy. D&X-dilation and extraction (partial birth) is usually performed from 20 weeks after a woman’s last period. No matter which procedure is chosen they are all gruesome and in-humane. During the D and D procedure depending on the term of the pregnancy the fetus is literally dismembered in order to fit through the opening of the dilated cervix, it is horrible. Please see the illustrations below showing the horrible procedures. [pic][pic][pic]

SUCTION & CURETTAGE ABORTION OF 9 WEEK OLD FETUS [pic][pic][pic] [pic] DILATION AND EVACUATION ABORTION OF 23 WEEK OLD FETUS There are of course risks and side effects associated with any method or procedure of abortion. “Some of the medicines used in medication abortion may cause serious birth defects if the pregnancy continues. ” www. plannedparenthood. org. Other risks could be an allergic reaction to the pill, incomplete abortion-part of the pregnancy is left inside the uterus, infection, undetected ectopic pregnancy, and very heavy bleeding resulting in hemorrhaging.

Some serious risks associated with the aspiration, D and/or D methods are damage to the cervix, scarring of the uterine lining, perforation of the uterus, damage to internal organs, or even death. There is also emotional and psychological impacts associated with abortion. The psychological response is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder which could include the listed symptoms: • eating disorders • relationship problems • guilt • depression • flashbacks of abortion • suicidal thoughts • sexual dysfunction • alcohol and drug abuse

Now that the methods, procedures, and risks of abortion are understood I would like to offer my position on abortion. I would call myself pro-life. There is still controversy today about when human-life begins. Pro-lifers believe that human life starts at the point of conception and pro-choicers believe that human life starts later in gestation or at birth. Pro-choicers note “that a pre-embryo-a just fertilized ovum-consists of a simple grouping of undifferentiated cells. The pre-embryo has no human shape, skin, brain, or other organs; it cannot sense the environment; it has no brain, it is not sentient; it is not conscious. (religioustolarence. org). Pro-lifers and pro-choicers agree on the fact that abortion should not be performed after human life begins, they both believe the government should intervene at that point. Pro-lifers feel that abortion access should be restricted to special cases, or prohibited completely. Pro-choicers believe that each woman should be relatively free to follow their own ethical beliefs concerning the termination or continuation of a pregnancy. Many recognize that there is a diversity of beliefs about abortion access, and that the state should not attempt to enforce a common belief system on all pregnant women. religioustolerance. org). Both groups would like to see a reduction in the number of abortions performed, so pro-lifers promote support services for women in crisis pregnancies and/or seek legal restrictions on abortion access. Many pro-choicers promote better comprehensive birth control education in schools and greater access to contraceptives. (religioustolerance. org). A poll completed by the Gallup Organization during 2005 reported between 23 and 41% of American adults hold this position. A minority of the public believes that a woman should be free to terminate her pregnancy at any stage and for any reason that she feels valid.

Some feel that she should be able to choose to terminate the life of the pre-embryo, embryo or fetus for any reason up to a certain point in gestation, but not afterwards. Some would only allow legal abortions in one or more of the following situations: • If an abortion is needed to save the life of the woman, or • To prevent the woman from experiencing permanent disability, or • To prevent the woman having serious health problems. • When the fetus is so malformed that it will only live a matter of hours after birth. • When the fetus has a chromosome abnormality—e. g. hose that cause Down Syndrome. • Where the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. A small minority believe that all abortions should be banned, even if needed to save the life of the mother. (religioustolerance. org). Below is a pie chart showing the numbers just mentioned. [pic] I am with the group of 16%, ban all abortions. I would like to tell a personal story, I have not always been pro-life. At the age of fifteen I had a baby girl and my mother tried to encourage me to have an abortion. My father has always been pro-life, he is a firm believer that under any circumstance abortion should not be an option.

I did not have the abortion that was encouraged by my mother, I had a lovely baby girl in 1988. A mere six months later I was pregnant again. This time I told my mother and we agreed on getting an abortion. My mother took me to the abortion clinic and everything was explained to me, from abortion alternatives to how the procedure is done. I was in and out of the office in less than two hours. I thought that would be the end of that and everything would be forgotten, no one would know but me and my mother. Well, years have passed and I am still feeling the guilt of that abortion.

The guilt is so bottled up because I am still keeping the secret. I lie on medical questionnaires when asked if I have ever had an abortion. It’s about to kill me emotionally so I can relate to the aspect of the side effects and/or risks of abortion. In completing this research on abortion I definitely know I am pro-life now. “In a victory for antiabortion forces, doctors in South Dakota are now required to tell a woman seeking an abortion that the procedure “”will terminate the life of a whole, separate unique living human being””.

The law that took effect July 1 requires doctors to ask a woman seeking an abortion if she wants to see a sonogram of the fetus. Under the law, doctors must say that the woman has “an existing relationship” with the fetus that is protected by the U. S. Constitution and that “her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated”. Also, the doctor is required to say that “abortion increases the risk of suicide ideation and suicide. ” The message must be delivered no earlier than two hours before the procedure.

The woman must say in writing that she understands. (The Washington Post). Legalizing abortion is not necessary to protect women’s health, the women will just migrate to countries with legalized abortions or back alleys. Many Americans believe that abortion is immoral and are opposed to abortion. There are four myths about abortion’s effect on women’s health since the 1960’s, including the argument that making abortion illegal will result in thousands of deaths from “back-alley” abortions. They are: Myth #1: One to two million illegal abortions occurred annually before legalization.

In fact, the annual total in the few years before abortion on demand was no more that ten of thousands and most likely fewer. Myth #2: Thousands of women died annually from abortions before legalization. In fact, the U. S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics in 1972 show that 39 women died from illegal abortion and 27 died from legal abortion. Myth #3: Abortion law targeted women rather that abortionist before legalization. In fact, the nearly uniform policy of the states for nearly a century before 1973 was to treat the woman as the second victim of abortion.

Myth #4: Legalized abortion has been good for women. In fact, women still die from legal abortion, and the general impact on health has had many negative consequences, including the physical and psychological toll that many women bear, the epidemic of sexually transmitted disease, the general coarsening of male-female relationships over the past 30 years, the threefold increase in the repeat-abortion rate, and the increase in hospitalizations from ectopic pregnancies. My counterargument clearly is giving a woman the right to choose.

I understand that pro-choicers believe that women own their bodies and should be the one making the decision, not society nor the government but it still does not make it moral. Some Americans saying that abortion is a “necessary evil” supports the power of the “choice” rhetoric. “For the most committed abortion proponents, “”choice”” means moral autonomy. According to the choice rhetoric, Americans can persuade women to make another choice, but they can’t make abortion illegal, because that would mean no fewer abortions and simply push women into the back alley.

This explains why Middle America will support virtually any regulation, short of making abortions illegal, that will encourage alternatives and reduce abortions. In a sense, by supporting legal regulations but not prohibitions, many Americans may believe that they are choosing “”the lesser of two evils. “” (legal abortion is not necessary). I believe that a fetus is a human person at the point of conception so the fetus has rights just like the mother.

The government should be able to step in to protect the rights of the fetus just as the government would for the mother if her rights were violated, in any fashion. A human person has a right to live whether they are in or out of the womb. I understand the mother has to carry the baby for nine months but there are several other alternatives like adoption. A woman’s choice can derive from many situations like poverty, careers, or status but other alternatives should be considered rather than killing an innocent child.

It is not the child’s fault that an adult made in irresponsible decision or committed an irresponsible act in the result of pregnancy. This child should be given an equal opportunity to live and be a successful person to society. Who knows, this aborted child could be the countries next President if given a chance to live. It is selfish for an adult to decide on abortion for reasons other than situations like the child will be still born due to a severe birth defect. The decision of legalizing abortion by the Supreme Court in the Roe v.

Wade case should be appealed. There should be new laws put into place to protect the lives of unborn children. Irresponsible adults should not be allowed to murder an unborn child because they were simply irresponsible. If there are circumstances such as medical issues or rape, then the decision of abortion should be evaluated on a case by case basis. The courts are used to trial homicides and murder cases involving domestic disputes or a drug deal gone wrong, why can’t we use them for a case that involves an innocent baby’s life.