Abortion. Just the mention of the word itself can strike an ill cord with many people. Regardless of the context in which it is uttered, a heated debate is sure to arise between pro-lifers and pro-choicers.
Much of the political debate of the 1992 presidential election focused on the issue, as Bill Clinton, George Bush and Ross Perot publicly blasted each other for their differing moral beliefs.
Regardless of how popular a political topic abortion has become, the issue is not one for the government to decide. It is one that each individual woman should have the opportunity to decide for herself. Abortion is not available in over three-quarters of the counties in the United States, yet how can the governing body in each state determine whether or not a woman should have an abortion? They cannot. Each case is made up of a set of unique circumstances that should be considered individually by the parties involved, not by politicians.
In the years preceding the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that guaranteed abortion rights for women, there may have been as many as 1.2 million illegal abortions annually in the U.S. Women living in states that did not provide the procedure would travel as far away as was necessary to receive the medical attention they desired. Abortion quickly became a money-making game, as referral agencies popped up to charge out-of-staters as much as $100 to $1,000 for the names of doctors who would perform abortions.
Whether or not abortion is legal, women who are sufficiently desperate will find some means to have an abortion, safe or unsafe. If doctors refuse to conduct the procedure, women will turn to back alleys or basements with unlicensed abortionists, or home remedies which can destroy not only the fetus, but also the woman carrying it.
According to an article in Time magazine, a young woman from East St. Louis who could not easily obtain an abortion tried to induce a miscarriage by taking quinine pills. Unlike many women in her position, she decided to rule out a cheap abortion because a girlfriend had bled to death after receiving one.
“I know other girls who’ve done different things,” she said in the interview. “Jumped off the top of dressers or provoked their boyfriends to jump on them.”
The image this invokes makes me absolutely sick. This woman is not just hurting the fetus she is carrying, but is also damaging her own body. Many women have died from illegal abortions and still more have had to receive emergency medical treatment to cure the potentially deadly infections they contracted from dirty instruments or unskilled “surgeons.”
I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. In most cases, I believe there are other answers to a serious problem besides abortion, such as adoption for example, yet I will never deny a person of her right to choose.
America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, a country people come to ensure their freedom. This freedom includes the right for each person to choose what is best for herself, even if that choice is abortion.
Supposedly our government has come a long way since the decades before Roe vs. Wade, but has it really? Even though abortion is legal, a woman wishing to have one must still travel great distances and have to deal with the shame and guilt society places on a woman who has had the procedure.
Michael Bailey, an Indiana advertising-promotions executive and anti-abortion activist, once referred to the “ill-conceived idea of women’s choice” and went on to say, “Choice is no choice to babies.” True, babies have no say in the matter, but isn’t it also true that mother knows best? A woman should have the right to determine if it is best to terminate a pregnancy
