The Not so Black and White Controversy Over Abortion
Abortion has been a controversial issue prior to the Roe v. Wade case.
First off, we need to get a clear idea about what abortion is.
According to Google abortion is "the termination of a pregnancy by removing the fetus/ embryo before it can survive outside the uterus. "If you have ever heard about abortion in the news people that oppose it commonly throw around the term " baby killer" or "murder". Terms such as this perpetuate the tension between those that are pro-life and those who are pro-choice. The terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" in its self can be contentious. Why does this issue cause so much controversy among Americans?
The people that receive abortions are not to be degraded by the terms mentioned above. There are many reasons why women get abortions. Although, the majority of women that receive abortions are those that do not intend to have a child there are other reasons women have abortions. There are social, economic, personal, and familial reasons why people don't have abortions.
There is a large moral aspect of this issue. A difference in belief is one of the sources of this contention. Pro-life supporters do not support abortion and favor the birth of children. They are concerned with the embryo rather than the well-being of the mothers. According to a poll by Gallup, pro-life supporters are more likely to attend religious services in comparison to pro-choice supporters. Additionally, pro-life groups such as Focus on the Family, an American Christian group supports the spread of conservative values on public policy. They argue that abortion should be illegal because the baby itself should have the right to live. They also contend that the baby growing inside a mother’s womb is more than cells and tissues. They also argue that the issue of abortion is something that transcends politics despite there active political involvement. For a lack of a better phrase, they believe that it is a matter of life and death. Organizations like Focus on the Family, provide pregnancy resource centers in which provides women with the option of adoption or support groups for women that are considering abortion. In a future post, I hope to see how effective these arguments are.
In order to talk about pro-choice, I think need to talk about Roe v. Wade. Jane Roe contested the Texas State Law that prohibited abortion unless it was life-threatening to the mother involved. Roe sued on the grounds that the Texas State Law was unconstitutionally too vague and deprived her of the right to privacy under the “ first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and the fourteenth amendments.” In a decision of 7-2 in support of Jane Roe, abortion was legalized in 1973. It is important to recognize that the Roe decision was introduced a time where women’s choice was not only paraded but it was championed. Women rejected the tradition of housewives and demanded positions within the workplace. Through fighting against issues such as sexual harassment within the workplace, women demanded to be respected. When someone says that they are pro-choice they believe that it should be the women’s decision on whether or not she has her child and whatever she chooses should be respected.
In future posts, I want to talk about the following ideas:
Reasons why women have abortions
The adoption argument
The restrictions that states put on abortion: the positions of clinics, the cost of an abortion
The argument of the Christian Right
A look into what Planned Parenthood does and look into the Penn State chapter
The relationship if any to feminism and the right to have an abortion
The effect of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court
Thanks for reading, that’s all for now.
:) Alexa
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/teens/ask-experts/can-you-explain-what-pro-choice-means-and-pro-life-means-im-supposed-to-do-it-for-a-class-thanks
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/unplanned-pregnancies-how-should-the-church-respond/
I think it is very important to open a blog on this topic with this kind of post. Abortion is sometimes painted (on both sides) as a very cut-and-dry issue, with a certain list of definitions, reasons, and methods presented depending on what side of the issue a person falls on. However, as you noted, this issue is full of grey area. The simple and relatively clear cut moral questions about abortion–most fundamentally, when does life begin and whose life gets precedent, mother or child–become very quickly muddied when one considers not just the wide variety of reasons a woman may get an abortion, but ultimately the fact that every single case of abortion is different. A study by the Guttmacher Institute found that the most common reasons cited were inability to care for the child, fear of being a single mother and not being able to afford it, or the presence of a problematic relationship with family or a partner that could harm the child. However, the study’s survey also collected so many other reasons that their conclusions states that “the decision to have an abortion is typically motivated by multiple, diverse and interrelated reasons.” (Finer) This makes it difficult to make many valuable generalizations about why women get abortions and the implications of these reasons on ethical and policy concerns.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I really like how you brought up the specific history of Roe v. Wade as well. It is of course the primary case cited in any debate over this issue, but the details are often lost. For example, I didn’t know which amendments were cited in this case, which I think is a very important detail because it reveals specific parts of the constitution that illegal abortion violates. Overall, I think this post is a great introduction to this topic, and I am excited to see where you will take your discussion of this issue.
Finer, Lawrence B, et al. “Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives.” Guttmacher Institute, Guttmacher Institute, Sept. 2005, www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-have-abortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives.
While I do think this blog is very interesting, as well as a good summary for the two opposing sides of abortion, I think it would have been beneficial to go more in depth as to the aspects at the heart of each end of this debate. I think it is essential to understand the origins of both groups. Also within each group, there are many aspects that people do not agree on. For example, many people have different ideas of defining when a child is alive, While some people say it is when the child is conceived, other people believe it begins at the first heartbeat. I think it would have been very interesting to go into more detail on both sides of the argument. I do like, however you summarized the Roe v. Wade case because I do believe that it is essential in understanding the abortion debate.
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