Abortion And Women Rights

Abortion? With being a woman come a great responsibility, the responsibility of motherhood. The role women have as mothers in society is substantial and dangerous. The choice of being a mother is not a choice that is in full power of the woman, this choice is shared with men. Throughout history the debate over abortion has not reached a definite decision regarding its legitimacy. The choice in giving birth to a child is no choice for many if not most women in America.

The Right to choose to have a child has been taken away from women as individuals and has been placed at the hand of the population at large. Wether abortion is right or wrong it is an option not accessible to many women and therefore deprives them from having a full sense of freedom. Women cannot share the right to choose to give birth or not with a crowd in which most of it’s participants (men) can’t assimilate the responsibility and sacrifice childcare requires. As mothers, women are the only ones to suffer full mental and physical hardship the choice of childbirth brings.

If this is the case, how is it that both men and women hold equal rights on the legal standing of abortion? Abortion is a choice, whom only affects women physically and therefore should only be a choice taken by the woman. Besides the physical implications pregnancy brings, the mother as well has a responsibility in the future of that fetus. This is where, the access to abortion becomes crucial. If a woman chooses to have an abortion she and the fetus are the only ones affected. Abortion isn’t a choice that is taken lightly by women, women seek abortion as means of a last resort.

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Usually when abortion is chosen it is due to the fact that the supposed mother has concluded that the life of the fetus if bourn will not be adequate and it is not guaranteed the safety and well being of the child in the future. If the option of abortion is taken from women it poses a large issue, according to the European Journal of Social Sciences “When an adult, either a woman or a man, states that they are not ready or interested in having a child, it might have a disproportionate future implication.

There are several cases of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, self-mutilation, psychosis, and finally suicide, among people who know they were unwanted babies. Several parents even say that openly to their children, causing disproportional trauma and an eternal feeling of not belonging and poor self-esteem. ” Un wanted pregnancies can have lots of negative outcomes, more often involving the future of the child. The right to choose to have a child or not is slowly slipping away from the hands of women.

In the debate over abortion there are two opposing stand points, which are pro-choice and pro-life. Pro-choice is a stand point that advocates abortion and is pushing for a abortion to become legal in all states. Pro-choice argues that when abortion is illegal women cannot experience full freedom. Abortion, provides an option to women who’s life of their own and of their offspring is not fully guaranteed to work out, to instead not have an unwanted child and save the mother from then having to give that child up, saving the child from an unknown future.

As well, it saves the mother from and the child if it comes from an unwanted pregnancy from having to abruptly change her life to respond to the child, which in most cases forces young teens of school and thus not letting them progress in life individually and for the child. The child then also suffers from not having the full parental support and attention since the parent is either unfit or unable to provide this care.

Pro-choice not only focuses on the choice women deserve as birth givers to choose whether they are capable of performing the required task and from taking the responsibility of bringing new life into the world, they also advocate for women’s reproductive rights at a large overview. In the concerns regarding politics and abortion, abortion is not the only issue women face. Besides the threat of their right to choose abortion or not, being fully annihilated, they also face the threat of have proper reproductive healthcare.

Most States in which abortion is illegal, they as well do not offer proper reproductive healthcare and prenatal care facilities that can be accessible to all social classes. The lack of reproductive healthcare, prenatal care and advisement leads to the same concurring issue of an over produced number of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. The opposing view point to pro-choice is pro-life, which advocates for the criminalization of abortion in all states. The pro-life stand point is one that can be divided in to two points of view, one taking its view from a moral perspective and the other one initiating it’s view from a religious tand. Although this two perspectives can often times be one in the same, it is best to disregard the religious point of view, since it is bias do to the fact that it bases it’s opinions in tradition and the fact that it responds to a non physically existent being. In the European Journal of Social Sciences, it is stated that abortion is a selfish act only centered around the mother as an individual. Pro-life supporters main argument is that abortion is like murder, killing an unborn baby is the same a killing one that is already born.

Ironically many pro-life supporters also approve of war, this creates an ethical contradiction to their original beliefs against abortion. Pro-life supporters who advocate against abortion but at the same time support war present a rather hypocritical view point. They see abortion as murder but they do not see war the same way. If any thing war causes more fatalities than abortion. Pro-life supporters who are truly pro-life consider war and abortion the same way, both as wrongful acts of humanity.

True pro-life supporters have the shared belief that all life is sacred and that when it comes to the issue of abortion, the argument is that life begins at conception. In the continuing resistance between pro-choice and pro-life, the question of when does life start is the major counter point in this opposing view points. As stated before pro-life argues that life begins at conception, in the other hand the opposing view point of pro-choice, relies on fertile viability. Pro-life has present the argument that life begins at conception because it is only within a few weeks that the embryo develops a beating heart.

On the contrary, pro-choice argues that the embryo cannot be consider life or an individual until it can sustain its own life, this happens when the embryo reaches the first trimester. At the first trimester the embryo begins to support it’s own life and is therefor not considered a part of the mother any longer. Pro-choice supporters believe that up until the first trimester, women should obtain the right to choose whether they want to continue with their pregnancy or if they choose to terminate it. What can truly be considered the starting point of life can only be determined by the individual.

Both sides pro-choice and pro-life are neither right or wrong, it is a dilemma with too many factors involved to reach a conclusion. The answer to wether abortion is morally incorrect can’t be answered, do to the fact that morality is an individual perception. One argument that can be conclude is wether abortion should be legal or not. Passing all other factors in the argument of abortion, the legal matter is that legal abortion is a choice it is not a forceful act upon which all women must abide by but illegal abortion limits women’s rights as mothers and all women must abide by it.

The standing the United States has on abortion is one that is not fully pro-choice or pro-life, according to the Women’s Choice and Reproductive Health Protection Act of 1995 “The 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade established constitutionally based limits on the power of States to restrict the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy. Under the strict scrutiny standard enunciated in Roe v. Wade, States were required to demonstrate that laws restricting the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy were the least restrictive means available to achieve a compelling State interest.

Since 1989, the Supreme Court has no longer applied the strict scrutiny standard in reviewing challenges to the constitutionality of State laws restricting such rights. ” The nations political standing on abortion is one that only presents problems rather than any benefits to both opposing parties. Do to the fact that abortion and reproductive health rights are decided by the states rather than the federal government, has caused many states to deprive women from any abortion or reproductive health care rights such as various forms of contraception. This legal standing has also brought up a conflict among states.

The Women’s Choice and Reproductive Health Protection Act of 1995 also informs that “restrictions operate cumulatively to increase the number of illegal or medically less safe abortions, often resulting in physical impairment, loss of reproductive capacity or death to the women involved burden interstate commerce by forcing women to travel from States in which legal barriers render contraception or abortion unavailable or unsafe to other States or foreign nations interfere with freedom of travel between and among the various States burden the medical and economic resources of States that continue to provide women with access to safe and legal abortion; and interfere with the ability of medical professionals to provide health services; obstruct access to and use of contraceptive and other medical techniques that are part of interstate and international commerce; discriminate between women who are able to afford interstate and international travel and women who are not, a disproportionate number of whom belong to racial or ethnic minorities; and infringe upon women’s ability to exercise full enjoyment of rights secured to them by Federal and State law, both statutory and constitutional. ” All the issues that come with the legal standing of abortion can only and need to be compromised at a federal level. No state should have individual rules for an issue that is nation wide and of top national concern.

This disagreements can only be broken through a middle ground, both pro-choice and pro-life have a good opinion, but in the case of the argument of pro-choice which wins over pro-life, is that you can’t implant one persons moral ethics to another. Moral ethics come from an individual point of view and should only be addressed individually, like in the case of abortion, abortion is a one side choice which only affects one person and that person only, the woman. Therefore, the woman should be ultimate keeper in the choice of what she is able to accomplish physical and mentally.

Works Cited

1. The Women’s Choice and Reproductive Health Protection Act of 1995. In the House of Representatives.
2. Smith, Andrea. “Beyond Pro-Choice versus Pro-Life: Women of Color and Reproductive Justice. ” NWSA Journal 17 (2005): 119-140
3. Berer, Marge. “Whatever Happened to 'A Woman's Right to Choose'? ” Feminist Review 29 (1988): 24-37
4. Lopez, Raquel. “Perspectives on Abortion: Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, and What Lies in between. ” European Journal of Social Sciences 27 (2012): 511-517
5. Sweet, Ellen. “REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND THE SUPREME COURT: WHEN ‘ACTIVISM” GOES WRONG” Women’s Studies Quarterly 35 (2007): 338-343
6. Lieberman, Alice. , Davis, Liane V. “The Role of Social Work in the Defense of Reproductive Rights. ” Social Work 37 (1992): 365-370

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