Should Abortion be Legal? 

By Ruby Mitchell

Abortion has been legal in the U.S. since 1973, when Roe v. Wade was passed, but since then, there has been an ongoing discussion about whether abortion is a morally valid choice, and whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned. In June of 2022, after the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Roe v. Wade was overturned. In some states, Roe v. Wade was protected, but in any state where Roe v. Wade was not protected, abortion became illegal. This court ruling inspired a very polarized response. Some people were overjoyed, celebrating in the streets when the ruling came out, while others were crushed. Many people were terrified of what this meant for the future of women's rights in America and feared that this was a large regression in the fight for equal rights. The debate about abortion is a difficult topic to discuss, considering the contentious moral question of the rights of the parent versus the fetus. 

The arguments of the pro-life side, the side that believes abortion should be illegal, center around the rights of the fetus. They claim that it’s necessary to fight for abortion restrictions because the fetus has no voice to fight for itself. They claim that the fetus is a living being and performing an abortion should be considered murder. They argue that all human beings have rights, and this should be no different when discussing the rights of a fetus. A majority of people who have pro-life beliefs practice some form of Christianity. A survey of U.S. adults conducted in March of 2021 found that people who follow some sort of Christianity believed that abortion should be illegal much more often than people who weren’t affiliated with any religion. The largest group of people in this study who believe that abortion should be illegal were white evangelical Christians, with most of them, about 75%, believing that abortion should be banned. Many Christian churches teach that abortion is a sin, and it’s likely that when pro-life Christians learn this, they feel the need to spread this message to protect anyone from committing this sin. However, many have critiqued this, saying that because of the separation of church and state, religion should not play a role in any government decisions. 

The arguments of the pro-choice side, the side that believes abortion should be legal and accessible, center around the rights of the parent over the rights of the fetus. They argue that any pregnant person should have the right to choose what they want to do with their body, and that choice should not be made by the government. They argue that the life of the parent is more important than the life of the fetus, because it is an actual life, the parent has feelings, memories and relationships, making their life more valuable than the possible life of an unborn fetus, with no consciousness or feelings. They argue that having a baby could be detrimental to someone who is pregnant and not capable of raising a child. They argue that being forced to have a child would not only hurt the parent, but also the child, because of how messed up the adoption and foster care system is. The survey I mentioned earlier also found out that on average, people who didn’t follow any kind of Christianity had more pro-life beliefs, with 97% of atheists believing that abortion should be legal. 

I believe that abortion should be legal for everyone. I agree with the pro-choice viewpoint that the parent’s life is more important than the potential life of the fetus. No one should have autonomy over anyone else’s body except for that person. People often forget that pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to get an abortion, it just means that if someone needs an abortion, they should have access to it. Banning abortion isn’t going to stop abortions from happening; it’s going to limit accessibility to safe abortions. If someone wants an abortion, there are many unsafe ways to get one that could result in not only the extraction of the fetus, but the death of the parent. When abortion is banned, there are very few licensed doctors willing to risk their careers to perform an abortion, which leads many people to unsafe abortions. Banning abortion also disproportionally affects people in poverty. Rich people will always have a way to get an abortion if it’s needed, they could always travel out of state or out of the country to get one, but for people in poverty that’s not an option, and that leads to a spike in unsafe abortions, and a higher overall death rate, of both parents and fetuses. If pro-life people want to lower the abortion rates, there are other ways to do so that don’t depend on stripping millions of people’s rights. They can make health care and prenatal care more accessible so it's easier for people to carry pregnancies to term, and they can make sex ed more helpful so fewer young kids are getting pregnant. The choice to get an abortion should be no one’s but the choice of the person who is pregnant, and banning abortion is doing nothing but regressing the progress of the ongoing fight for equal rights. 

 

References:  

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americans-views-on-whether-and-in-what-circumstances-abortion-should-be-legal/  

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-study-that-debunks-most-anti-abortion-arguments  

https://www.mccl.org/whyprolife