Running head: ABORTION 1

Abortion

Student’s Name

College Affiliation
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Abortion

Abortion topic has been reigning big in the public domains for centuries. There have

always been two sides to the story with one despite the legal definitions and take on the

matter talking about how it is illegal. The other camp talks of a choice to make. Since 1973,

the landscape of the argument has been changing as religious groups, and other pro-life

groups have held on to the sanctity of life, while the countries all over have been going ahead

to give the citizens the right to abort at will. Well, there are countries that abortion is legal

and is only allowed after a determination that the life of the mother is in danger. However,

other cases do not call for such. As it stands, many back-alley abortions take place every day

in the countries that abortion is illegal. The protection of life, the legal predispositions, and

the dangers that come with not allowing abortion have eaten much into the need to have a

legal system where lives of the mothers and those of the children are protected alike (Thapa

& Sharma, 2015; Lazarus, 2003).

Overview of the Abortion Dilemma

In the United States, since 1973, the position of the judges in the Roe v. Wade ruling

was the main point that shaped the landscape of the United States discussion on abortion. One

thing that came out visibly was the right of the woman to privacy. The same case ensured that

it looked at the welfare of the woman noting that after the first trimester they are prone to

more complications during this period. As such, the court realizing the complications that

may arise given the ever growing size of the fetus divided the nine months to three trimesters

of 12 weeks making the first trimester a viable one for the woman to decide and the rest put

under regulation by the State. At the time, the State of Texas had outlawed abortion

outrightly, and her suing was the only way out for the lady (Norma McCorney) (Thapa &

Sharma, 2015).
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What comes out is the fact that the court considered the liberty due to the woman. The

14th Amendment gives a woman, just like any other person a right to privacy. At the time,

Dallas allowed abortion for cases where the life of the woman was in danger. At the time, the

pregnancy was in no way threatening the life of the lady something that made abortion illegal

in Dallas. Other cases that allowed for abortion were a serious deformation of the baby since

even giving birth would render as objects of ridicule by other children and their lives will

merely be miserable. The judges pointed out various facets that must come to focus when it

comes to the health of the mother, which were not limited to the physical well-being of the

mother. These are, emotional, physical, psychological, and familial. These made it quite easy

to terminate a pregnancy at whichever trimester on a condition that any physician could

determine that there was a level of stress on the woman. Planned Parenthood v. Danforth

(1976) lead to throwing out of the spousal consent when it comes to abortion. The other

landmark law that was passed in 1986 regarded the various educations that a woman would

receive when she went for an abortion. Thornburg v. American College of Obstetricians and

Gynecologists (1986) threw out the education given whenever women sought to procure an

abortion. Such include the abortion alternatives, prenatal development education, informing

women of the potential risk of abortion, keeping records of abortion, and finally a

requirement that the third-trimester abortion is carried out in a way that would preserve the

life of the child if viable. These were taken as violations of the right to privacy. Later on, a

law passed in Missouri in 1989 defined life to begin at conception, which was a blow to

Roe’s case on privacy. Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) was another case that set a

particular milestone albeit with caution. The Milestone was that various regulations have to

be adhered to such as informed consent, parental consent for minors, and record keeping.

The law in 1992 could allow the various state a bit of control, and at the time allow

legal abortion. Constraints from the Supreme Court could lead the State to run rampant in
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objection of the views of the Supreme Court regarding abortion such as the one’s placed by

Missouri and Ohio. The last contention on abortion to reach the Supreme Court regarded the

banned dilation extraction, or partial-birth terming it an undue burden to a woman who

reserved the right to abortion.

Looking at all these rows and wrangling on abortion, none of the laws challenge

whether it should happen or should not occur. The Roe case was the gate towards legalizing

abortion in the USA, and to date, the law seems almost unchanged ever since it was agreed

upon by the Supreme Court. However, the technicalities and the language applied in

explaining legal abortions lies mostly on the precedence of Planned Parenthood v. Casey

(Thapa & Sharma, 2015; Duraski, 1993).

Pro-Choice Debate

One of the ideas that come out from the debate is the right that every person has over

their bodies. Well, apart from committing suicide that is illegal. The pro-choice brigade

argues that men and women alike have been accorded an inherent right to choose. Choices

may come with consequences, such as regret and emotional breakdown after one has

successfully procured an abortion. However, it is clearly revealed that people need to be

allowed a choice over the things accorded to them when it comes to privacy, the court did not

find the state interest in protecting morality and protecting the women from hazards of the

medical procedures that occur during an abortion as compelling enough (Finer & Fine, 2015).

The natural right to privacy by everyone holds much ground even through the interest of the

State to Safeguard the child’s life becomes greater as pregnancy advances and still, the need

to safeguard the life of the woman increases as the pregnancy grows. As such, the regulations

increased as pregnancy came close to term.

The fetus is not considered a person until a time when it can be determined that the

fetus can exist on the earth by itself without full sustenance of the woman. This is the
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determination of the viability of the fetus. Here, one can tell whether it is a person or not.

There is also the capacity to feel pain. The fetus does not feel pain owing to the lateness in

the generation and the functioning of the context making the fetus not feel what is happening

to it. Still, something worth noting is the fact that 8.8 of 1000 women die during childbirth.

This is in comparison to the 0.6 out of 1000 women during an abortion. In a funny way, birth

tends to cause more deaths than abortion making the logic of terminating a pregnancy come

out vividly. In a way, it seems that ending a pregnancy is far much safer than carrying a

pregnancy to full term given the statistical evidence (Duraski, 1993)

Also, in the United States, most of the pregnancies are unwanted with the figure

standing at close to 49%. That number itself was difficult to ignore given that most are

juniors or people who have no experience at all in life. If they carried the pregnancies to full

term, many would have to watch as their children fail to go to school, become criminals or

drug junkies and at the end, have them end up in jail. At last, one will be forced to look at the

level of risk there is in bringing to the earth a child they cannot protect as the law provides, or

risk losing the child to the unforgiving American justice system. The fact one can give birth

to a child and fail to protect him or her makes it necessary to look at the health of the mother,

not just physically, but psychologically and familial so that they can stand a chance at making

a good life for themselves and the child (Thapa & Sharma, 2015). For a child in school,

failure to evaluate situations correctly may render them unable to take care of their lives

making them drop out of school.

Finally, one point that comes in weakly but still is viable is the fact that banning legal

abortions would lead to illegal abortions causing deaths due to the existence of quacks

labeling themselves as physicians. While this point comes out when maybe someone does not

have a point to prove how moral abortion is, to ascertain legality, it is vital to look at many

things other than how moral something is In this case, being moral and ignoring deaths as a
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result of illegal abortion is uncalled for and illogical (Duraski, 1993; Lazarus, 2003;

McCarthy, 2013).

Pro-life Debate

The people that have come up in support for life and denial for the right to abort have

had various arguments to put their position forward. In book Contemporary Debates in

Applied Ethics, Robert George and Phil McCormick in the Chapter titled “The Wrong of

Abortion, argue that as early as eight weeks that the embryo typically assumes a distinct

human shape. At the time, the embryo normally has a functional heart and a brain. From the

beginning, the cells take a form different from the other cells. The cell aggregation is faster,

and the cell division is faster than the formation of cancer cells. At the time, an embryo is a

mature organism but immature and everyone, including the woman knows exactly that what

is forming is a human and not a tumor like in the cases of cancer. They argue that an embryo

is a person who has not reached the stage a point of self-expression or determination.

The technology that has recently evolved has shed more light to the development of

the child. The MRI, CT Scan can help see the development from as little as eight weeks. That

adds to the debate that at that stage, people can see the life in the embryo and if one would

follow up the development stages, he or she stands to discover that the fetus is fast

developing so that it can exist outside the mother (Thapa & Sharma, 2015; Finer & Fine,

2015; McCarthy, 2013). This again begs the question whether the knowledge of the fact that

it is a person, whether viable or not makes the abortionist wrong. Back to the technology, at

twenty weeks, scientists have documented that the heart beats so loud to the extent of being

heard through a stethoscope. Similarly, neurological scans have found out that fetuses listen

to the mother at this age. What technology is showing is that the fetuses are not as simple as

many people have viewed them. People can still see that most of the people who support

abortion do not as such support the act of abortion but the choice to have the woman given a
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leeway whenever they are pregnant to choose for herself a good plan and where the

alternatives were outlawed came out as illogical given that many could have opted to abort

for lack of these options.

Psychologically, most women who were pushed by circumstances do not forgive

themselves if by any chance they found someone in a similar situation who did not abort. It

destroys some of the women emotionally since they visualize what the child could have been

later in life whenever she sees how others have kids born in the purported birth time that their

kid would have been born. Justice Blackmun posited that “at this point in the development of

man’s knowledge...(we cannot) resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” That was

way back in 1973. The technology that has arisen over time, thus, makes the subject matter

something worth revisiting, conduction of series of tests to determine when the life begins.

This way, the Fourteenth Amendment will be applied in protecting the life of the unborn. At

that time, the question was the hardness in the determination of the personhood of the child

(Lazarus, 2003).

Conclusion

What has not been understood is whether the 14th Amendment would go on to protect

the life of the child in question if the law would define the beginning of life as conception.

One pro-life proponent named John T. Noonan has over and over been heard saying that

since the Roe case, the life of Americans has come to mean less and less over time. He terms

the USA regard of abortion as the worst in the Western World. The regard for social cost has

not been an issue as many pro-life groups posit as they see a double standard in most

abortionist who abort in secret due to protection by the law and doctor-patient confidentiality

and cannot voice it out publicly since some still regard it as morally wrong but legally

permissible (Duraski, 1993).

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The debate of abortion has not ended as people keep trying to drum up support for

their course. At the moment, two camps keep raising reasons why abortion is right or wrong.

Both sides have compelling debates up their sleeve and unless one is cautious, delving on the

one hand too much may leave one convinced that that is the right side, only to read the debate

from other side and get confused. As technology keeps becoming stronger, maybe people will

get to a point where they define the beginning of life without basing it on the viability of the

fetus (Thapa & Sharma, 2015; Duraski, 1993).

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References
Duraski, R. M. (1993). Planned Parenthood v Casey. JAMA, 270(21), 2559-2559.

Finer, L., & Fine, J. B. (2013). Abortion law around the world: progress and pushback.

American journal of public health, 103(4), 585-589.

Gonzales, Attorney General v. Carhart et al. United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth

Circuit. No. 05-380. 2007.

Lazarus, Edward. (2003).The Lingering Problems with Roe V. Wade, and Why the Recent

Senate Hearings 011 Michael Mcconnell’s Nomination Only Underline Them."Find

Law’s Writ 12.

McCarthy, M. (2016). US Supreme Court strikes down key provisions of restrictive Texas

abortion law. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 353.

Nelson, E. (2015). Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies ed.

by Rebecca J. Cook et al (review). Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 30(3), 493-

494.

Roe v. Wade. (1973) 410 U.S. 113. Supreme Court of the United States.

Thapa, S., & Sharma, S. K. (2015). Women’s awareness of liberalization of abortion law and

knowledge of place for obtaining services in Nepal. Asia-Pacific Journal of Public

Health, 27(2), 208-216.

Thornburg v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (1986).

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services , 492 U.S. 490. Supreme Court of the United States.

1989.
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