POSITION PAPER ABOUT ABORTION, Essays (high school) of English

Download POSITION PAPER ABOUT ABORTION and more Essays (high school) English in PDF only on Docsity! Abortion Position Paper Abortion is one of the most compelling and controversial issues in American culture and politics today. Since its legalization in 1973, abortion has sparked heated rivalries between groups wanting to either restrict or increase access to the procedure. These groups are usually considered either pro-life or pro-choice. Pro-lifers generally contend that abortion is wrong because it kills human life. Those who are pro-choice believe that abortion should remain legal because a woman has the right to control what happens to her body. These same people proclaim that abortion isn’t murder because the baby has yet to be born. What they must realize is that this is a living soul they’re killing, someone who has the potential to prosper in this world. People can no longer ignore the scientific evidence that life begins at the moment of conception. They must stop denying the facts about the procedure and start hearing the silent screams of unborn children. On January 22, 1973, a pregnant single woman, using the assumed named of Roe, brought an action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas abortion laws. Roe and her lawyer claimed that the laws against abortion were constitutionally vague and infringed upon the rights guaranteed to pregnant women by the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled with a 7-2 majority, voting to strike down the law prohibiting abortions in the U.S. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of the 50 states were affected by the court’s ruling(Robinson). The issue of abortion though, and whether it is right or wrong, has been around longer than 1973. As far back as the early centuries of Christianity, Greco-Roman cultures struggled to decide whether abortion should be allowed or not. Both Plato and Aristotle believed that a child had life long before birth. Unfortunately, the welfare of society and family were more important to them than the rights of an unborn child. Christians during this time period, however, were outspoken against abortion claiming that the unborn child had the right to life. Their strong views on this won over the empire and made abortion illegal in Roman society. The values of the Greco- Romans, in which the child’s life only had meaning as the state or families granted it meaning, would not resurface for 1500 years. Even as far back as Roman times, we see Christian values of right and wrong triumphing over an issue such as abortion(Stafford). One of the most divisive arguments of the abortion debate is the question of when human life begins. Many abortion opponents argue that life begins at fertilization, where someone with unique characteristics and a genetic code is created. The pro-choice supporters say that until the baby is separated from his mother and breathing, it is not murder to have an abortion. Researchers have stated that the fetus does indeed feel pain during the operation. This begs the question that if pain is suffered, how is murder not the result of abortion? All abortions are categorized as either first, second, or third trimester abortions. First trimester abortions are the most commonly performed procedures. Almost 90% of women choose to have an abortion during this time period. Two of the most common techniques are manual vacuum aspiration and RU-486. Manual vacuum aspiration, or RVA, is becoming more available in North America. First developed in the 1960’s, the RVA procedure involves a hand held syringe that creates a tiny vacuum that removes the embryo(Robinson). The second and more up-to-date method is called RU-486. A single pill is to be taken within 49 days of the start of the last menstrual period. It causes the woman’s uterine walls to collapse and the contractions of her uterus to begin. Within four hours the embryo is expelled from the women’s body. During the first six months of its release in 2001, more than 37,000 abortions were performed with RU-486(Robinson).