Alani Gauthier

Mr. Williams
H American Literature
20 February 2015
Abortion Should Be Abolished
Half of pregnancies among American women are unintended and about four out of ten of
these pregnancies end in abortion (Abortion in the United States). The deliberate termination of
a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy is the
definition of abortion (Rosenfield 1). The medical definition for abortion is when a pregnancy
is ended by medical or surgical action, it is called an abortion, no matter what the stage of
pregnancy might be (Abortion 1). Abortion has been the most controversial topic around the
world since the early nineteen centuries and there are plenty of factors that tie into this
controversy (Abortion 1). I believe that abortion should be illegal to all women in the world
unless it is a medical emergency or an incident of rape. I have my reasons for why I feel this way
and I have taken the time to understand different standpoints and views as well. Now let us take
an inside look at what abortion actually is, how it all started, and some possible solutions for this
problem.
Jane Roe was an unmarried pregnant woman that lived in Texas in 1970. At the time
Texas had a law stating that it was a felony to abort a fetus unless the life of the mother was at
risk (Blackmun). Ms. Jane Roe filed a law suit against Wade, the district attorney of Dallas
County, stating the statue on the ground that it violated the guarantee of personal liberty and the

right to privacy implicitly guaranteed in the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and fourteenth
amendments (Abortion 3). In deciding for Roe, the Supreme Court allowed first and second
trimester abortions (Blackmun). My point to this is how can the Supreme Court make their
decision based off of one woman? Why is it that this one woman can account for all women in
America? Jane Roe is the start of all this controversy and debate. It was once a felony to abort a
fetus, but today it is completely fine. Is the fetus an actually person? What is a person? When
does personhood begin? These three questions were questions raised before the Roe trial began
(Abortion 3). In 1973 the Supreme Court decided that the unborn baby is not a person as far as
the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution is concerned (Rosenfield 6). According to the
fourteenth amendment a fetus is not a person, but a fetus is a living creature and that is what the
Supreme Court failed to realize. Because they did not want to prolong the case, they made the
statement we need not to resolve the difficult question of when life begins (Abortion 3). At
week five of pregnancy the embryonic period begins and this is when the babys brain, spinal
cord, heart and other organs begin to form. At five weeks the baby has a heartbeat and seventytwo percent of women in the United Sates does not choose abortion until the twelfth through
twenty weeks period (Rosenfield 2). The question the Supreme Court failed to recognize has now
been answered. Life begins at five weeks when the heart begins to beat; therefore a fetus should
have the right to life. Safe and legal abortions have been available to women in the United States
since 1973, and in some states even before Roe v. Wade (Blackmun). It is clear that the abortion
ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, granting women constitutional protection, did not
decrease the debate over the morality and ethics of this problem (Rosenfield 5).
Birth control is a minor issue that connects with abortion. The legalization of birth control
came before abortion in 1965 when the Supreme Court decided in Griswold v. Connecticut that a

state could not make it illegal for a married woman to use birth control (Abortion 7). Birth
control has been legal for decades now and still, all these women are sleeping around without
using it. The more women continue to ignore birth control, more unwanted pregnancies pop up
and this leads to increasing numbers in abortion. Approximately one million teenagers in
America become pregnant each year and out of these pregnancies seventy-two percent are
unintended (Abortion in the United States). Of all the teenage women that become pregnant,
35% choose to have an abortion rather than bear a child (Abortion in the United States). In the
year of 2008, eighty-four percent of all abortions were performed on unmarried women, but back
to teenage abortion (Abortion 8). In the year of 2006, there were 200,420 abortions among
teenagers with the majority of them being of ages 15-19 (Abortion in the United States). 17% of
all U.S. abortions are from teenagers (Abortion 8).
Each year, nearly 1.2 million American women have an abortion to end a pregnancy
(Abortion-Reasons Women choose abortion). 1.2 million is a large amount of women having
abortions, but the question is why? The main reasons women choose to have abortions are; birth
control failure, inability to support or care for the child, to end an unwanted pregnancy,
prevention of birth defects, pregnancy resulting from rape, and physical or mental conditions that
will harm the mother (Abortion-Reasons Women choose abortion). It bothers me that a women
can have unprotected sex, get pregnant, and decide that oops she does not want the child
anymore for no apparent reason. There are those argue that the woman has rights at least equal
to the fetuses and can therefore end an unwanted pregnancy (Abortion 8). Although I oppose
abortion, the incidents of rape or incest is sort of an exception. I mean, if a 14-year old girl who
doesnt have a home or a family and who got pregnant when she was raped at age 13 cant have
an abortion without being dragged through the courts and the newspapers and having people

trying to stop her left and right, who can? (Skyes). Experiencing rape at a young age can affect
a person both physically and mentally. It can affect the person even worse when they have no
support system or if they do not get the proper counseling they need. This girl has been in foster
care since she was 5, and apparently she didnt like it much (Skyes). If abortion was illegal
under any circumstances, I would feel bad for the girls who have been raped at young ages. With
that being said, abortion should be illegal with an exception of rape and harm. It would not be
ethical for a minor to have a baby that she did not conceive by choice. This fourteen year old girl
should be able to decide whether she wants the child or wants to have an abortion. The choice
needs to be one hundred percent hers with maybe the help of guardians in her life.
Like everything else in the world, abortion has risks and special procedures and some can
pertinaciously become dangerously. There are several different procedures used for abortion. The
different procedures used are suction curettage, dilation and evacuation, instillation abortion, and
drug induced abortion (Rosenfield 2). Suction curettage is the most common procedure and in
this procedure, a thin plastic tube is placed through the canal in the cervix and into the cavity of
the uterus and suction is applied to remove the contents (Abortion 1). This procedure is usually
done between seven and twelve weeks of pregnancy (Abortion 1). At twelve to twenty weeks of
pregnancy, dilation and evacuation is done. In this procedure, the cervix is gently dilated over a
number of hours by placing, into the cervical canal, spongy materials that absorb moisture and
expand (Abortion 1). After this, a special clamp is used, along with a vacuum device to clean
out the uterus (Abortion 1). The instillation abortion procedure is used during the second
trimester of pregnancy. A long needle is placed through the mothers belly and into the sock
surrounding the unborn baby, then solutions are put into the sack that result in the death of the
fetus (Rosenfield 2). The uterus starts to contract about a day later and causes the fetus to be

delivered (Abortion 2). Any pregnancy within the first trimester can be aborted using the druginduced procedure. A drug called RU-486 works by blocking the production of progesterone
which is a hormone produced by the ovaries. The drug is given within the first forty-nine days of
pregnancy and it empties out the uterus (Rosenfield 2). Out of the four procedures, the dilation
and evacuation procedure is the most dangerous (Abortion 3). All four procedures can cause
infection, excessive bleeding, perforation of the uterus, and complications with anesthesia
(Abortion 3). All of the complications except for anesthesia are short term and can most of the
time be treated unless the conditions are severe, however it is still and abundant amount of
pressure and stress added to the womans body (Rosenfield 4). Overall complication rates for
legal first-trimester abortions are less than 0.5 per 100,000 abortions performed as compared to
more than four per 100,000 in the early 1970s, before the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v.
Wade (Abortion 4). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as many as 100,000
or more maternal deaths occur each year as a result of complication of an unsafe, usually illegal
abortion (Abortion 8). It seems that there are more deaths than complications caused by
abortion and that should be a red flag. If anything, there should be more complications than death
meaning eventually the complications got better. People may believe in privacy, rights, and free
choices, but death is never something to celebrate. It is bad enough that the baby is being
terminated, but now some women are dying as well.
As a political issue in a country with a wide variety of opinions, abortion seems to be a
problem with no solution (Abortion 5). Usually the method for solving major disputes in a
country such as the United States is political compromise, but sometimes compromise does not
work (Rosenfield 7). I believe that abortion should be illegal in all states except for when there is
a case of rape. Although abortion is not illegal, there are now laws and restrictions imposed on

certain aspects of it. Sex-selective abortion is currently banned in seven states because an
abundant amount of immigrants avoid giving birth to girls (Abortion 6). This also prevents
discrimination against girls. Thirty five states currently have laws in place that require women
to receive counseling before being allowed to proceed with an abortion procedure (Rosenfield
7). The purpose behind this is to offer counseling in hope that women will change their mind
about abortion. 20-week abortion bans are an increasingly popular method of attacking
reproductive rights (Rosenfield 8). Nine states currently are banning abortion after twenty
weeks because at this point the fetus can feel the pain that is being done (Abortion 6). These
restrictions are the first step to getting rid of abortion all together.
Abortion should indeed be illegal because number one, there is too much controversy
surrounding it. Number two, because the procedure are dangerous, and number three because not
only is the unborn baby being killed, but women are being put to rest as well. Abortion has
caused enough drama in the world and it is time for the drama to be put to rest. There is no doubt
in my mind that abortion really changes people lives. The question is, is it a good or bad change?
This is a question that would take another paper to explain, but I will forever stand my position
in abolishing abortion.