Abortion: The Unwinnable Argument

Maddy Glotfelty

Recently the contention regarding Roe v. Wade has reached an all-time high as resolutions to
overturn the law have reached the Supreme Court. They are looking at a Mississippi law that would
potentially nullify Roe v. Wade, and send the abortion question back to state legislatures. As a society, we
tend to classify actions as moral versus immoral. The decisions we make, and those others make, are
harshly judged within the criteria that society has raised us to believe. Rarely is there a problem that falls
so vehemently into one category or another among different groups of the same community, and yet that
is exactly what the argument over abortion has created. The debate surrounding abortion is unlikely to
ever be concluded completely due to the contrast of not just ideology but also morals. The fact that both
sides have different values, beliefs, religions, and experiences, has led to a complete disconnect in our
ability to talk about this issue, but might be our salvation from this debate as well.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.” These are the words on which America was founded, the words that are repeated throughout
history as a cry to rally, a beacon to America so that no matter how divided our country becomes we may
be united for our neighbor's rights and our own rights. Both sides of this argument are based equally on
this most critical passage in our history. On the one hand, it is the right of a baby, who has done no wrong,
to be given life, but on the other hand, it is the right of a teenage girl or rape victim to pursue a life of
happiness, without having to bear a child born of a trauma filled past.

Pro-life holds the moral belief that a human unborn is still a human, and is therefore deserving of
the same rights to life that anyone else might be. Once a child is conceived and in the case of some
pro-life advocates, once the child has a heartbeat (usually around six weeks, which is why the recent
legislation in Texas said that abortion was a viable choice up until then) it reserves all of the rights of a
human being outside of the womb. There are many arguments for this moral stance. A significant number
of people have found themselves against abortion due to a mixture of religious/ moral beliefs and
scientific data. The belief in the sanctity of life for example, or the belief in fate, or more scientifically the
belief in a heartbeat as an indicator of life. The simple, yet influential statement of Caitlin Flanagan, a
writer for The Atlantic, points out the most infallible argument that can be made between someone of
Pro-Life and someone of Pro-Choice, “The argument for abortion, if made honestly, requires many words:
It must evoke the recent past, the dire consequences to women of making a very simple medical
procedure illegal. The argument against it doesn’t take even a single word. The argument against it is a
picture.” (The Atlantic) The picture being referenced is a high-definition image of a child in the womb. To
most, the image appears humanoid, clearly like an infant.

Pro-choice believes in the choice to have an abortion and reproductive rights that should
accompany the varied situations in which a child can be conceived. There are three primary arguments in
support of pro-choice. The first revolves around the idea that the restriction or banning of abortion as a
reproductive right does not get rid of abortion just makes it more dangerous. “According to the World
Health Organization (WHO), every 8 minutes a woman in a developing nation will die of complications
arising from an unsafe abortion.” (Haddad) A restriction on reproductive rights, or a lack of accessibility
to abortion, results in outcomes such as this statistic. Banning abortions does not stop abortions, it just
makes them more dangerous to the women involved. The second revolves around the fact that we cannot
ban abortion because there are numerous ways a child is conceived and numerous scenarios that cannot be
adequately covered by a blanket law, but should rather be a decision left between a woman and her doctor,
including but not limited to rape, the likelihood of danger in conception, and birth defects that would
cause the child to be unable to live outside of the womb anyway. The third argument revolves around the
statement that an unborn fetus is a child is a personal disposition based on separate beliefs, whether or not
you recognize that the DNA in a fetus is different from both the mother and the father. Those beliefs are
generally based on a religious affiliation and/ or religious ideologies, which means that not only would
this violate our law of the separation between church and state, but also violates the First Amendment in
forcing that religion and those religious ideals upon others.

As seen above, both sides of this argument are valid, if that weren’t the case it likely would have
been resolved long ago. The resolution we must therefore search for is acceptance. We must accept that
neither side is wrong in their views or arguments, and therefore make the choice to recognize a truce.
Perhaps our truce should be a time limit on abortions, perhaps not. Maybe the answer is to further fund
more access to birth control or provide more comprehensive education regarding how to act not only
toward women but men as well, but we need to recognize that a blanket banning of abortions is no more
the answer than the use of abortion as a form of birth control. The argument regarding abortion is likely
never to be resolved in totality, but the acceptance of both sides is the first step in forgiveness and
understanding. We must recognize the morality in each other, the humanity that can span the ideological
ravines between political parties, and realize that neither side of this argument is wrong, neither group is
imbecilic for their beliefs, what is wrong is forcing your beliefs upon others without intimately
understanding their situation.
Citations:

Flanagan, C., 2021. The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate. [online] The Atlantic. Available at:
<https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/the-things-we-cant-face/600769/>
[Accessed 9 December 2021].

Lisa B Haddad, N., 2021. Unsafe Abortion: Unnecessary Maternal Mortality. [online] PubMed Central
(PMC). Available at:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/> [Accessed 9 December 2021].

The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription. National Archives, U.S. National Archives and
Records Administration, 4 May 2020,
www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript.