Contraceptives are all over the place these days and can be employed by anyone. Some of these various forms include: birth control pills, the female and male condom, hormone injections, and a diaphragm, along with many others. They are a good thing to have around and should be readily obtainable for women to utilize as long as they have a well developed knowledge of the outcomes that come along with the use of the products. They help avert the possibility of a female receiving an abortion and this is the overall goal that is trying to be accomplished here.
One of the main reasons why abortions are occurring more frequently are because young adults are not being educated enough on how serious some of their actions that they are making can be. “Although there may be less guilt about sexuality these days, it still exists and can result in a lack of communication about sexual matters. This may be a factor in the non-use of birth control and a resulting unwanted pregnancy” (Francome 67). Parents need to become more involved with discussing important matters like this with their teenagers so that the teenagers are more aware of how serious this topic really is.
Other unfortunate reasons why women feel the need to get this procedure done are because of rape or incest. These are understandable reasons why women should have this option, but rape is different then incest. Granted, nobody would ever want either to happen to them, incest is just a little bit more serious because it is exceptionally sick and wrong in so many ways. Rape does not necessarily occur with another family member so the child would not suffer as much as an incest child would. The incest child would get teased in so many ways and it just would not be a good outcome. With proof of this type of activity happening to them, women should be allowed an abortion only if incest has occurred or if their life is in serious danger.
Money is also an issue when it comes to getting the procedure done. Many women can not afford somewhere around a $5,000 procedure and as a result, unwanted children are born. “By the end of 1979, twelve states were ordered by the court to pay for “medically necessary” abortions for Medicaid recipients. The most commonly used definition of a medically necessary abortion is the one articulated by the Supreme Court in Doe v. Bolton”(Jaffe 134). “In states where Medicaid funding was cut off, some pregnant welfare recipients scraped together the money required for a legal abortion or obtained the procedure as charity. Some may have returned to the pre-1973 patterns of illegal and self-induced abortions. Many undoubtedly have borne unwanted children” (Jaffe 142). Money will always be an issue for people because not everyone can afford exactly the same possessions as everyone else can.
Abortions are not only expensive; they are not always the safest idea in the world to follow through with either. According to Hern, “abortion complications tend to fall into five categories: failure of dilation, failure to completely empty the uterus, error in the estimate of length of gestation, trauma to the uterus, cervix, or other pelvis structures due to the operator’s failure to exercise sufficient caution, and developmental or functional abnormalities” (Costa 116). Psychological effects also take place with abortions. “Rates of distress were also higher for women who had abortions later in pregnancy” (Costa 118). These complications can affect females farther down in life if they ever want to start a family. Abortions should just not be occurring because if a couple does not want to take on the responsibility of having a child, they should have seriously thought about the consequences before they engaged in any sexual activity.
There are people out there in the nation who do agree with abortions and are all for pro-choice. “New pro-choice organizations were formed to attract a broader assortment of elements, and existing organizations took advantage of the concerns raised among pro-choice supporters to increase their resources and expand their operations” (Staggenborg 83). “On the national level, the pro-choice movement was in relatively good shape at the time that the Hyde Amendment crisis hit” (Staggenborg 83). “Passed by Congress in 1976, the Hyde Amendment excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people by the federal government through Medicaid” (Staggenborg 83). “The informal “information exchange” was formalized as the Abortion Information Exchange and greatly expanded” (Staggenborg 84).
Women also want pro-choice since it is their body. They feel that they have a right to choose whether there should be a fetus inside of them or not. They often associate the amendment of the having the right to privacy with this specific topic. Also in some strange cases, abortion might be necessary to save a mother’s life or if a woman was sexually assaulted and that resulted in a pregnancy. It is understandable where people are coming from in these circumstances, but pro-life is just the best way to go. It is not the unborn child’s fault. They do not get a say in whether or not they can live or die and that is unfair to them. It is the mother’s choice. The big idea here is that women should get a choice, as well as everyone else. How does the fetus get a choice if the fetus is never given the chance?
Here are some statistics that have been collected in the past years that dealt with positions on which people stand for. The following table shows the relationship between desirability of female employment index and support for legal abortion.
(Cook 83)
“This is important for those who regard parenthood as an important component of the lives of adults” (Cook 83).
Here are some statistics about which women get abortions. “The majority of abortions (84 percent in 1993) involved women between 20 and 29, but one in four was teenagers and more than 10,000 were 14 or younger. These are the estimates of the number of nonmarital births in 1992; Non-Hispanic white, 41 percent; African-American, 36 percent; Hispanic, 19 percent; other races, 4 percent. Among white women in their late 20s, nonmarital births are so strongly affected by education that the nonmarital birth rate for women with a grade school education is 35 times as high as the rate for college graduates. For African Americans and Hispanics they are a little bit different, but education played out a part too. Two-thirds of the abortion clients had previously borne a child; a quarter of them had borne four or more. Nearly half had at least one previous abortion. Abortion clients, as a group, are not the most sophisticated of women. Most are poor and uneducated. Some are 12 years old. Among many other disadvantages, they cannot manage the common methods of contraception” (The Arithmetic of Abortion).
Abortion has been an extremely influential topic throughout the years. Women will have to continuously make important choices on whether or not they can deal with a child in their lives at this point in time. Abortion is morally wrong, but as long as it is legal women will continue to go through this process of killing an innocent fetus. Family and friends, religion, and outside sources will always be in the back of their mind when making this tremendous decision too. People will always be fighting against this topic and nobody will ever all agree with one another. Abortion is a very controversial subject and will remain that way for many years to come.
Works Cited
Cook, Beth Adell, Ted G. Jelen, and Clyde Wilcox. Between Two Absolutes. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.
Costa, Marie. Contemporary World Issues Abortion. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1991.
Francome, Colin. Abortion Practice in Britain and the United States. London: Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1986.
Jaffe, Frederick S., Barbara L. Lindheim, and Philip R. Lee. Abortion Politics Private Morality and Public Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981.
Mylchreest, Ian. The Politics of Abortion and Birth Control in Historical Perspective. Ed. Donal T. Critchlow. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
No author. The Arithmetic of Abortion. 1997. 19 Dec. 2006 <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uwgb.edu:2048/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=118
Staggenborg, Suzanne. The Pro-Choice Movement Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
