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warning during arguments on Mississippi’s abortion law that overturning Roe v. Wade so soon after a change in the makeup of the Supreme Court could hurt the body’s legitimacy.

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warning during arguments on Mississippi’s abortion law that overturning Roe v. Wade so soon after a change in the makeup of the Supreme Court could hurt the body’s legitimacy.

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Quotation of the Day: Justices Indicate They Will Uphold Curb on Abortion

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Quotation of the Day for Thursday, December 2, 2021.

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Some join other pro-life advocates and say that the right to life should always outweigh the right of an individual to equality or to control their own body.

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It can cause mental and emotional health because some people may think that they should keep the baby but are forced to lose it from there parents. This can cause the person of the child to be depressed because they had to lose there ""child""

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"By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems."https://web.nmsu.edu/~tlquinon/quotes.htm            -zanisty 

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"By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems."https://web.nmsu.edu/~tlquinon/quotes.htm            -zanisty 

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Ku'ulei- "The bill would legalize abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy—and later, if the pregnancy resulted from 🤬 or threatened the person’s life or health, exceptions currently allowed under the Criminal Code."

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As lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies discuss an abortion bill sent by President Alberto Fernandez to Congress last month, Argentina has a new opportunity to comply with its international human rights obligations and to tackle a serious public health problem.

The bill would legalize abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy-and later, if the pregnancy resulted from rape or threatened the person's life or health, exceptions currently allowed under the Criminal Code.

The 2018 debate shed light on two facts that are now undisputed. The first is that penalizing abortion does not prevent it. In fact, people experiencing unwanted pregnancies seek access to abortion and post-abortion services even in highly punitive legal situations. The second is that abortion restrictions push them out of the national health system and into clandestine, unregulated settings. Many clandestine abortions are performed unsafely, leading to short- or long-term health problems, or even death.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch revealed that, in practice, even when those exceptions apply, many women and girls are still denied abortions, putting their lives and health at risk. Barriers include arbitrary gestational limits imposed by health facilities and lack of access to various medical and surgical abortion methods, including misoprostol pills. The stigma of criminalization and mistreatment by health professionals affects all women seeking abortions, even legal ones. Medical facilities lack effective referral systems to assist women when doctors invoke conscientious objection, causing excessive burdens and delays. This sends many who would be entitled to a legal abortion to resort instead to unsafe, clandestine procedures.

Criminalization of abortion entrenches inequalities. A woman's resources, where she lives, even the medical facility where she routinely seeks care affect her ability to access abortion services. Vulnerable groups, including people living in poverty or in rural areas, and adolescents -- are the most likely to be driven to clandestine, unsafe, abortions.

To support pregnant people's options, President Fernández also sent a separate bill to Congress that would provide economic assistance to vulnerable people and to their children for the first 1,000 days of a child's life.

No international legal instrument explicitly references the right to have an abortion. However, authoritative interpretations of human rights treaties ratified by Argentina, including by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, have long established that highly restrictive abortion laws violate the human rights of women and girls, including their rights to life, to health, and not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Forcing a woman or a girl to continue a pregnancy in cases such as when the fetus has serious complications incompatible with life outside of the womb or the pregnancy was the result of rape is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. Criminalizing abortion can force pregnant persons to complete a pregnancy, imposing overwhelming burdens that is incompatible with respect for their human rights.

Access to abortion is also a critical public health issue. In 2009, the National Health Ministry estimated that between 371,000 to 522,000 abortions are performed each year in Argentina. These figures continue to be used by the National Health Ministry, who has also concluded that, "in general," abortions are performed under unsafe conditions. In 2016, public hospitals admitted around 40,000 women and girls for abortion complications. In 2018, the National Health Ministry reported 35 deaths from abortion, constituting 13 percent of maternal deaths.

This is not, and should not be, a debate about religious beliefs, personal anecdotes, or ideological views. By legalizing abortion, legislators would not push anyone to have an abortion. They would simply be ensuring Argentina complies with its international obligations and that no one is forced to suffer needlessly, especially among Argentina's most vulnerable.

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As lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies discuss an abortion bill sent by President Alberto Fernandez to Congress last month, Argentina has a new opportunity to comply with its international human rights obligations and to tackle a serious public health problem.

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“According to a national study conducted by researchers associated with Guttmacher, disappointment is the most common response of parents who learn that their teen daughter is pregnant, and almost no parent responds with violence.” (https://www.gale.com/open-access/abortion)

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“According to a national study conducted by researchers associated with Guttmacher, disappointment is the most common response of parents who learn that their teen daughter is pregnant, and almost no parent responds with violence.” (https://www.gale.com/open-access/abortion)

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Kaua - An article says "Abortion (as humans are concerned) consists in deliberately ending pregnancy.  At present, this amounts to killing a fetus either directly or by causing a miscarriage.  No part in the abortion debate thinks that abortion is per se a good thing, and therefore nobody is pro-abortion"  this is talks about how  an abortion would be talking about killing an unborn child. In my opinion every child deserves the right to live or at least have a chance at living in the real world and by murdering them that is doing the exact oppisite.

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Kaua - An article says "Abortion (as humans are concerned) consists in deliberately ending pregnancy.  At present, this amounts to killing a fetus either directly or by causing a miscarriage.  No part in the abortion debate thinks that abortion is per se a good thing, and therefore nobody is pro-abortion"  this is talks about how  an abortion would be talking about killing an unborn child. In my opinion every child deserves the right to live or at least have a chance at living in the real world and by murdering them that is doing the exact oppisite.

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something beautiful

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"Were aborted lives counted as are other human lives, induced abortion would be acknowledged as the largest single preventable cause of loss of human life."

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Abortion and public health: Time for another look

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Four decades after Roe v. Wade, abortion remains highly contentious, pitting a woman’s right to choose against a fetal claim to life. Public health implications are staggering: the US annual total of more than one million induced abortions equals nearly…

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LeMasiofo:" Life begins at conception, so unborn babies are human beings with a right to life."

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LeMasiofo:" Life begins at conception, so unborn babies are human beings with a right to life."

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"Upon fertilization, a human individual is created with a unique genetic identity that remains unchanged throughout his or her life. This individual has a fundamental right to life, which must be protected. Jerome Lejeune, the French geneticist who discovered the chromosome abnormality that causes Down syndrome, stated that “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion… The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” [15] [16]".

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Abortion is also wrong because it kills innocent kids

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Abortion is also wrong because it kills innocent kids

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"The results revealed that at least one-third of the respondents have experienced psychological side effects. Depression, worrying about not being able to conceive again and abnormal eating behaviors were reported as dominant psychological consequences of abortion among the respondents. Decreased self-esteem, nightmare, guilt, and regret with 43.7%, 39.5%, 37.5%, and 33.3% prevalence rates have been placed in the lower status, respectively."

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Abstract

Objective

Abortion either medical or criminal has distinctive physical, social, and psychological side effects. Detecting types and frequent psychological side effects of abortion among post abortion care seeking women in Tehran was the main objective of the present study.

Method

278 women of reproductive age (15-49) interviewed as study population. Response rate was 93/8. Data collected through a questionnaire with 2 parts meeting broad socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and health- related abortion consequences. Tehran hospitals were the site of study.

Results

The results revealed that at least one-third of the respondents have experienced psychological side effects. Depression, worrying about not being able to conceive again and abnormal eating behaviors were reported as dominant psychological consequences of abortion among the respondents. Decreased self-esteem, nightmare, guilt, and regret with 43.7%, 39.5%, 37.5%, and 33.3% prevalence rates have been placed in the lower status, respectively.

Conclusion

Psychological consequences of abortion have considerably been neglected. Several barriers made findings limited. Different types of psychological side effects, however, experienced by the study population require more intensive attention because of chronic characteristic of psychological disorders, and women's health impact on family and population health.

Keywords: Abortion, Pregnancy complications, Psychology, Women health

Abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in, or caused by its death. This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage, or be artificially induced through chemical, surgical or other means ( 1, 2). Commonly, abortion refers to a procedure induced at any point during pregnancy. Medically, it is defined as a miscarriage or induced termination of pregnancy before twenty weeks of gestation, whenever the fetus is considered to be nonviable ( 3).

Abortion is classified as either spontaneous or induced. Spontaneous abortion which is also called miscarriage mainly occurs due to accidental trauma or natural causes, such as structural and numerical chromosome aberration, chronic diseases coincident with pregnancy, and environmental factors. Induced abortion is deliberately/intentionally performed. Induced abortions are further subcategorized into two categories of therapeutic and elective abortions. ( 2, 4)Induced abortion has been a controversial issue through the ages; anthropologists have found evidence of its existence in every known culture.

The earliest records of recognized abortifacients (agents which cause the premature termination of pregnancy) which are presumed to have been written more than 4500 years ago are found in ancient Chinese texts. In ancient Greece also, philosophers had accepted abortion as a permissible act to put an end to an unwanted pregnancy or to control population. Reflecting a variety of religious, social, and political forces, laws and regulations permitting or restricting abortion have been enacted over the centuries ( 5).

Abortion is known as a main cause of maternal mortality, life threatening complications such as hemorrhage, fever, and infection on one hand, and psychological disorders such as regret, guilt, smoking, alcoholism, self-destructive behaviors, and even suicide on the other( 6, 7, 8).

There are too many factors attributed to the abortion which cover socio-economic, emotional, and psychological aspects of human beings' life, particularly those women as direct beds of abortion practices. However, the conclusion of studies do not indicate a linear relation between abortion and its consequences, rather, they show great variations in terms of socio-economic and demographic variables of abortion in care seeking women, and whether their abortion was performed legally or illegally ( 9). However, the psychological consequences of abortion was also affected by the quality of family life, number of children, planned or unplanned pregnancy, beliefs and genetics ( 10, 11).

Abortion as an aspect of reproductive behavior is defined and characterized by different bio psycho-social determinants. Despite the fact that abortion has been practiced over the world throughout the history, there are still controversies about abortion in terms of its legitimacy and consequences ( 12).

Since abortion is a legally and religiously prohibited phenomenon in Iran, there is no reliable data on the prevalence of abortion in this country. However, a study conducted in Teheran before the Islamic revolution, has found out that out of 16.707 pregnancies reported by 4209 women, 243 (1.5%) resulted in stillbirths and 1834 (11%) in abortions ( 13). Another study about abortion among households of a central neighborhood of Teheran from anthropological perspective revealed that abortion was as a prevailed behavior among women in spite of their beliefs and intentions ( 14). Proceedings of a Seminar held in Kermanshah (2002) on "Comprehensive Analysis of all Aspects of Abortion in Iran", present some useful information about abortion. Physiological effects of abortion are in fact rarely studied in Iran, particularly in the last three decades.

Pros and Cons of abortion attribute positive and negative emotional and psychological consequences to abortion.

Pros of abortion rely on studies which indicate that emotional responses to legally induced abortion are largely positive. They also point out that emotional problems resulting from abortion are rare and less frequent than those following childbirth ( 15). They emphasize that the most studies in the last two decades have found abortion to be a relatively benign procedure in terms of emotional effect, except when pre-abortion emotional problems exist or when a wanted pregnancy is terminated ( 16, 17).

In fact in many occasions, abortion is seen as a positive coping mechanism which provides relief as emotional reaction for most women particularly when it is practiced during first-trimester of pregnancy.

On the other hand, opponents of abortion, emphasize on negative emotional-psychological consequences of the abortion. From their point of view, abortion may cause psychological problems such as smoking, drug abuse, eating disorder, depression, attempted suicide, guilt, regret, nightmare and decreased self-esteem ( 18).

In many cases, the request for termination of an unplanned pregnancy is an evidence of a lack of knowledge of contraception, failure to use an effective method or failure of the methods. A good family planning seeks to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and evidence suggests that abortion rates are lowest in those countries with a comprehensive system of sex education and contraceptive services ( 9). However, abortion either as a miscarriage or as a criminal termination of a fetus life produces physical, social, and psychological consequences which may last for a long period of time, and affect personal, family, and social life of individuals. The aim of this study was to identify psychological consequences of abortion among women who were seeking for abortion or post abortion care in Tehran's hospitals.

Materials and Method

The present study is a descriptive and cross-sectional one, and aims to clarify the psychological consequences of abortion in the study population. Socio-economic and demographic characteristics of women who experienced abortion had been explored and studied. The socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the husbands of the sample were also taken into account in order to have a broader view of men's roles in family structure, decision making, and performance.

Study Sites

General and Maternity hospitals, from different sectors (public and private), in Tehran were determined as sites of data collection. Shariati and Valie-asr as university hospitals, Mirza Koochak khan, Rooeentan Arash, and Hedayat as Maternity complexes, Baharloo, Milad and Pasteurno as general hospitals were selected for this purpose. Coordination with administrators and managers as well as nursing departments of these hospitals was made, and interviewers started to complete the questionnaire with eligible respondents. On the whole, 261 questionnaires have been completed. Because of several, mainly administrative, barriers to access the abortionees, an attempt has been made to select cooperating hospitals. As a bias prevention strategy, different hospitals with different affiliations located in different parts of Tehran were selected for the study.

Study Population and Sampling

Women of age 15-49 who referred to Tehran's hospitals, (public and private), and had experienced abortion at least once in their reproductive life have been considered as the study population. There were 261 women with above mentioned characteristics that constituted the study population. Out of the whole respondents (278), there were 17 who did not appropriately respond to the questionnaires. Therefore, their questionnaires were excluded from the study (Response rate=%93/8). Table 1 demonstrates the distribution of the respondents in different hospitals.

Table 1

Name of hospital

Number of respondents

Mirza Khochek Khan

50

Rooeentan Arash

46

Hedayat

23

Shariatee

104

Pastorno

21

Milad

17

Baharloo

10

Vali-e-asr

7

Total

278

Data collection instrument

Data collection was carried out through a questionnaire which consisted of two parts. The first part included 32 questions about socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the respondents and their spouses as well. This part also includes a number of questions which meet some characteristics of original family and abortion related behavior of the respondents.

The characteristics of abortion service providers, existing and ideal family size, sex of the aborted fetus, the place of first abortion performed, group or individuals consulted either for abortion or for "post abortion" care, and temporary marriage (whether or not resulted in pregnancy and child delivery), were other questions which were asked from the respondents.

The second part of the questionnaire included 21 questions prepared in Lickert scale format on physical, psychological, and social consequences of abortion; of which, 10 belonged to psychological consequences attributed to abortion. The questionnaire was developed based on a vast global literature review, and consulting experts on women's health, and also on sociology and psychology disciplines. The questionnaire was piloted and then validated in terms of its content.

The respondents were asked to mark the most relevant option (too much, sizeable, few, much less, nothing) as determined for consequences. The independent variables included in the study were education, occupation, and the age of spouses, fields of study, age at first marriage, age at first abortion, marital status, temporary marriage, family size, and ideal family size, frequency of abortions experienced, reasons for abortion, and psychological consequences of abortion experienced by the respondents.

Results

Socio-economic and demographic characteristics: According to the respondents, a large proportion of them (68.3%) were aged 20- 35 years. In other words, they were in their healthy reproductive years of life. Approximately, one- third of the respondents had experienced abortion out of well-known healthy years of pregnancy (20-35 years), (6.5% under 20 and 25.3% above 35 years). Respondents in the age group of 26-30 were the largest group of the study population (28.4%), while the group under 20 remained the smallest (6.5%).

A gap of age was observed between the respondents and their husbands. Unlike the respondents, none of their husbands were placed in the age group of under 20, while most of them (44.1%) were included in the upper limit age group (36 and more). Table 2 demonstrates age distribution of the respondents and their male counterparts.

Table 2

Age group (year)

Respondents

Their husbands

No

%

No

%

As expected, the majority of the respondents were married and living with their husbands (98.1%), and only 1.9% were widow or single. The respondents and their husbands were mainly Tehran born citizens (55.2% and 49.8% respectively); and close to 70% of the participants had high school and tertiary level education. There was not a large gap between spouses in terms of their tertiary educational attainments.

More than 70% of the respondents were housewives, and about 25% civil servants. Early marriage seems to be a dominant position among the respondents. Slightly more than 50% of the participants (50.6%) married when they were under 20 years of age. The findings revealed that 36.4% and 11.5% of the respondents married in the age 21-25 and 26-30 respectively; and only 5% had experienced multiple marriages (twice), and 5.7% temporary marriage. Among the latter, only 1.9% had delivered a child.

More than 80% of the respondents belonged to a small family (2 or less children). Respondents with no children constitute the largest proportion of the study population (36.8%). About 75% of the respondents experienced abortion just once. 18.4% and 6.9% of the respondents practiced abortion for 2 and 3 times respectively. 79% of the respondents have experienced their first abortion when they were 20 to 35 year old, and only 21% went through with abortion during inappropriate ages for pregnancy (<20 and >35). The respondents considered two children with opposite sex as an ideal sex composition for a family. On average, 63% of the respondents supported one child of each sex as a preferred family structure.

Age and abortion

The findings revealed that 50% of the abortions belonged to those respondents who married at their 20s' or those under 20 years of age (early marriages). The number of abortions has been increased parallel to the decrease of age at first marriage among the respondents ( Table 3 ).

Table 3

Age at first marriage

Age at first abortion

20 or less

21-25

26-30

31-35

36 and more

Total

N0

%

N0

%

N0

%

N0

%

N0

%

N0

%

Hospitals were the main sites for abortion related services, and 64.8% of the respondents practiced abortion in hospitals. However, close to one-forth of the study population (24.5%) aborted their children at home, and 9.2% at physicians' offices. Only 1.5% of the respondents reported "other options" as the place they employed to conduct the abortion. Although "Hospitals" and "Clinics" have been indicated as the most referred institutions for abortion, and abortion related service providers (64.7% and 9.1%) respectively by all age groups of the respondents ((74%), still nearly one-quarter of the respondents conducted abortion at home. This could be an alarming indication of unsafe abortion with frequent undesirable consequences ( Table 4 ).

Table 4

Age at first marriage

Place of abortion practiced

Home

Hospital

Clinic

Other

Total

No

%

No

%

No

%

No

%

No

%

Respondents in all age groups indicated "spontaneous" abortion as the main reason for abortion they practiced (45.2%). Fetus and mother's health with 22.2% and 16.4% (respectively) were known as the second and third most important reasons for abortion. Sex preference stayed on the forth step as a reason for abortion (7.3%). Poverty, family size, and incompatibility of the spouses, were not considered as important as sex preference alone.

Psychological consequences of abortion

Smoking, drug abuse, eating disorder, depression, attempted suicide, guilt, regret, nightmare, decreased self-esteem, and worry about not being able to conceive again were the questions asked from the respondents as the psychological consequences of abortion. At least one-third of the respondents have experienced one of the above mentioned psychological side effects (except suicide, drug abuse and smoking). "Depression" and "worry about not being able to conceive" and "eating disorder" were reported as dominant psychological consequences of abortion among the respondents with 60.5% and 53.6% and 48.7%, respectively. "Decreased self-esteem" (43.7%), "nightmare" (39.5%), "guilt" (37.5%), and "regret" (33.3%) have been placed in the lower steps respectively ( Table 5 ).

Table 5

Psychological consequences of abortion experienced by the respondent

Frequency

Too much

Considerable

Little

Too little

Symptomatic

Asymptomatic

Total

F

%

F

%

F

%

F

%

F

%

F

%

F

%

Discussion

Age at marriage is known as a strong demographic variable with significant implications on health of mothers and their children. Abortion, as a birth preventive strategy may develop correlation with age at marriage. Findings of the present study demonstrated that abortions were mostly practiced among the youngest age groups.

Although there is a legal permission for abortion for specific reasons, the distribution of consultants for abortion and post abortion care indicate that abortion seems to be still a hidden phenomenon practiced out of family and the family of origin supervision. Nearly one-quarter of the respondents conducted abortion at home ( Table 3 ). This could be an alarming indication of unsafe abortion. The main reason for abortion among the respondents belongs to "spontaneous abortion". Spontaneous abortion has been practiced by (45.2%) of the respondents.

Fetus and mother health with 22.2% and 16.4% frequency rates (respectively) were known as the second and third most important reasons for abortion.

The sex preference stayed on the forth step as a reason for abortion (7.3%).Whatever the reason and frequency of abortion, the findings have indicated that there was no sizeable knowledge about the consequences of abortion among all age groups of respondents.

Findings revealed that at least one-third of the respondents have experienced one of the psychological consequences of abortion (except suicide, drug abuse and smoking), and they are demonstrated in Table 4 .

The commonest psychological consequences of "Depression, 60.5%" and "Worry about not being able to conceive, 53.6%", which were experienced by the respondents indicate two more points. The first is that the respondents were unhappy and unsatisfied with abortion, though they did not seek intended and somehow criminal abortion. The second point is that loosing the capability to conceive a child seems to be a major concern for women, perhaps because of stigmas attached to infertility, and infecund women as reproduction of children in a hierarchical male dominated community may help to stabilize newly formed families, and to promote the social status of new mothers.

On the whole, the respondents suffered more psychological side effects than physical or social. It seems plausible that due to advances in medical technology and education, physical consequences of abortion decrease. Nevertheless, psychological consequences of abortion which refer mainly to very personal understanding and feelings of abortion practiced by individuals may be rooted in depths of the individuals' mind and conscience.

The major barriers for abortion studies in general and for the present study in particular, were lack of national data and literature as well as illegal and sinful characteristics of abortion itself, which force abortionist to avoid collaboration and project their very deep fillings about their own behavior in this respect.

Conclusion

intensive attention because of chronic characteristic of psychological disorders, and women's Psychological consequences of abortion have considerably been neglected in a community which has sinful and illegal look to abortion. lack of data and relevant literature together with other several barriers such as limited access to available sources of information, or cultural barriers which attach stigmas on psychological disorders and abortion, made findings limited. Different types of psychological side effects, however, experienced by the study population require more health impact on family and population health

Acknowledgment

A number of people have contributed in different ways to the present study. Azar Tol, Solmaz Garmchi, from Shariati, Dr. Morteza Siadatan and Saltanat Yasini from Pasteurno, Bijan Bakhtiary from Mirza Kouchek Khan, Alireza Shahbazi and Hamodeh Ethna-ashari from Rooeentan Arash, Mariam Dolatian from Hedayat hospitals and Maternity Clinic, as supervisors and data collectors together with Saeed Khanmohammadi as manager for data processing and statistical software operator are among them. We thank them all deeply for their invaluable helps. Special thanks should go to study participants which have devoted their times to answer numerous and very private questions openly and enthusiastically. We finally express our gratitude to the board, Chief Executive Officer, and all the personnel (in particular Mrs. Modarresi) of Family Planning Association (FPA) of Iran for their helpful cooperation.

References

5. Berkowitz GS, Daling JR. Reproductive health. In: Goldman MB, Hatch MC, editors. Women and Health. USA: Academic Press; 2000. [ Google Scholar]

6. Ferris LE, McMain-Klein M, Colodny N, Fellows GF, Lamont J. Factors associated with immediate abortion complications. CMAJ. 1996;154:1677-1685. [[ PMC free article] [ PubMed] Google Scholar]

12. Baird TL, Flinn SK. Manual Vacuum Aspiration: Expanding Women's Access to Safe Abortion Services. USA: Chapel Hill; 2001. [ Google Scholar]

13. Navidi-Kasmaii BD, Nahapetian V. Family formation and Pregnancy outcome in Iran. In: Omran AR, Standley CC, Azar JE, editors. Family formation patterns and health: an international collaborative study in India, Iran, Lebanon, Philippines, and Turkey. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 1976. [ Google Scholar]

Articles from Iranian Journal of Psychiatry are provided here courtesy of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

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Psychological Consequences of Abortion among the Post Abortion Care Seeking Women in Tehran

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Abortion either medical or criminal has distinctive physical, social, and psychological side effects. Detecting types and frequent psychological side effects of abortion among post abortion care seeking women in Tehran was the main objective of the present study. 278 women of reproductive age (15-49) interviewed as study population. Response rate was 93/8.

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Five Years After Abortion, Nearly All Women Say It Was the Right Decision, Study Finds | UC San Francisco

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Even Those Who Struggled to Make the Abortion Decision Supported it Years Later

By Laura Kurtzman

Five years after having an abortion, over 95 percent of the women in a landmark UC San Francisco study said it was the right decision for them.

The findings, published Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020, in Social Science & Medicine, come as many states are requiring waiting periods and counseling for women seeking abortions, based on the assumption that they may regret having them.

But the researchers at UCSF's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) found no evidence that women began to regret their decisions as years passed. On the contrary, the women reported that both their positive and negative feelings about the abortion diminished over time. At five years, the overwhelming majority (84 percent) had either positive feelings, or none at all.

This debunks the idea that most women suffer emotionally from having an abortion.

Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH

"Even if they had difficulty making the decision initially, or if they felt their community would not approve, our research shows that the overwhelming majority of women who obtain abortions continue to believe it was the right decision," said Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and first author of the study. "This debunks the idea that most women suffer emotionally from having an abortion."

The researchers analyzed data from the Turnaway Study, a five-year effort to understand the health and socioeconomic consequences for nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions in 21 states around the country. The analysis included 667 participants who had abortions at the start of the study. The women were surveyed a week after they sought care and every six months thereafter, for a total of 11 times.

While women did not report regretting their decision, many did struggle initially to make it. Just over half said the decision to terminate their pregnancy was very difficult (27 percent) or somewhat difficult (27 percent), while the rest (46 percent) said it was not difficult. About 70 percent also reported feeling they would be stigmatized by their communities if people knew they had sought an abortion, with 29 percent reporting low levels and 31 percent reporting high levels of community stigma.

Those who struggled with their decisions or felt stigmatized were more likely to experience sadness, guilt and anger shortly after obtaining the abortion. Over time, however, the number of women reporting these negative emotions declined dramatically, particularly in the first year after their abortion. This was also true for those who initially struggled with their decision.

And relief was the most prominent emotion reported by all groups at the end of the study - just as it was at every time point in the study.

"This research goes further than previous studies, in that it follows women for longer, and was conducted on a larger sample from many different clinics throughout the U.S.," said Julia Steinberg, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of family science at the University of Maryland, College Park, who wrote an accompanying commentary on the study in Social Science & Medicine. "It shows that women remain certain in their decision to get an abortion over time. These results clearly disprove claims that regret is likely after abortion."

Authors: Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH, Diana Foster, PhD, Heather Gould, MPH, and Katrina Kimport, PhD, of UCSF; and Goleen Samari, PhD, MPH, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Funding: The study was supported by research or institutional grants from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and an anonymous foundation.

Disclosures: The researchers had no competing interests to disclose.
About ANSIRH: Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), based at the University of California, San Francisco, conducts rigorous scientific research on complex issues related to reproductive health in the United States and internationally. ANSIRH provides much-needed evidence for active policy debates and legal battles around reproductive health issues. Please visit www.ansirh.org. About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.

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Five Years After Abortion, Nearly All Women Say It Was the Right Decision, Study Finds

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Even Those Who Struggled to Make the Abortion Decision Supported it Years Later By Laura Kurtzman Five years after having an abortion, over 95 percent of the women in a landmark UC San Francisco study said it was the right decision for them. The findings, published Sunday, Jan.

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"In a famous thought experiment, the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson once analogized an unplanned pregnancy to waking up with a famous violinist hooked up to your body, who will die if he’s disconnected before nine months have passed."

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Abortion does not free women

Some argue that abortion does not liberate women, but allows society not to cater to women's needs.

They say that what women need for equality is not free access to abortion but to be given what they need to survive financially and socially as mothers.

-Kaipo Poepoe

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This article sets out the women's rights arguments that oppose giving women an automatic right to an abortion.

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The killing of an innocent human being is wrong, even if that human being has yet to be born. Unborn babies are considered human beings by the US government. The federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which was enacted “to protect unborn children from assault and murder,” states that under federal law, anybody intentionally killing or attempting to kill an unborn child should “be punished… for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.” The act also states that an unborn child is a “member of the species homo sapiens.” [126] At least 38 states have passed similar fetal homicide laws. [127]

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The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.

The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

Pregnancy-related maternal deaths could increase 20% in US states with abortion bans. Amanda Stevenson, Sociology Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained, "People with resources are more likely to make it out of state or find out about medication abortions. People who can't are more likely to have health issues, to live in poverty and have less access to resources." People of color are especially likely to be in the latter category and, thus, negatively impacted by abortion bans.

The predicted 20% maternal death rate does not include those who will die from "back alley" or illegal abortions because legal options were not available.

Globally 45% of abortions are unsafe, 97% of which take place in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; however, it does affect whether the abortions that women and girls attain are safe and dignified. The proportion of unsafe abortions are significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in countries with less restrictive laws."
Read More

Pro 2

Abortion bans endanger healthcare for those not seeking abortions.

Medical treatment for nonviable pregnancies is often exactly the same as an abortion.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterine cavity. About one in 50 pregnancies are ectopic, and they are nonviable. Bleeding from ectopic pregnancies caused 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths, and ectopic pregnancies were the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

One out of every ten pregnancies ends in miscarriage. The drugs used for medication abortions are the only treatment recommended for early miscarriages. For later or complicated miscarriages, the same surgical procedure used for abortions is recommended.

While some abortion bans include specific exceptions for nonviable pregnancies and miscarriages, other bans are too vague to be practicable. Healthcare providers may refuse to perform a procedure that could be interpreted as an "on-demand" abortion for fear of liability or prosecution.

Further, bans are a slippery slope to contraceptive and other healthcare restrictions. For example, some already wrongly view Plan B (the morning after pill) as an abortifacient and are thinking of including it in abortion bans.
Read More

Pro 3

Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, "eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.... In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce."

After being denied an abortion, household poverty increased and lasted four or more years, resulting in an inability to cover basic expenses including food, housing and transportation. A denied abortion was associated with a lowered credit score, increased debt, and an increase in negative public records including evictions and bankruptcies. The households were also more reliant on government assistance. Transgender and nonbinary people denied abortions may face even worse outcomes.

And the consequences can be much more dire. "If a woman of childbearing age dies, it has enormous economic consequences.... It's someone who society has invested in and who has many productive economic years ahead of them," according to David Slusky, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Often, death also removes a wage-earner and caregiver from the household.

60% of women seeking abortions already had other children. Being denied an abortion worsened the well-being of their older children, including not meeting childhood development markers.

The Turnaway Study concluded, "Abortion does not harm women," and "Women who receive a wanted abortion are more financially stable, set more ambitious goals, raise children under more stable conditions, and are more likely to have a wanted child later."
Read More

Con 1

Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.

Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human.

Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, "life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet." The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans.

Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death.

Pope Francis explained, "Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.... At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear.... Scientifically, it is a human life."

That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: "I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face-that I can't even imagine facing-seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn't even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses."
Read More

Con 2

Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.

Echoing a 2014 remark by Pope Francis that connected abortion to " throwaway culture," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stated, "abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem."

Tobin previously declared legal abortion a "brutalization of the American heart" on par with the "dehumanization of the undocumented" immigrants.

Alveda King, former Georgia state representative and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., also connected abortion to other societal ills: "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. We create the deceptions that the other person is less important, less worthy, less human. We are all fully human. When we face this truth, there is no justification for treating those who look different than us as lesser beings. If we simply treat other people the way we'd like to be treated, racism, abortion, and other forms of inhumanity will be things of the past."

As King notes, some fetuses are treated as less than human. This ideology combined with legal abortion could create a slippery slope to designer babies, gender selection, termination of disabled but healthy fetuses, and other trait-selection-based abortions. The slippery slope can then extend to the mentally disabled and elderly in general.

"[A]bortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation," according to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability."
Read More

Con 3

Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

Experts largely contribute the decline in abortions in the United States and elsewhere to the improved safety and availability of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) including IUDs and contraceptive implants that can last up to 10 years.

Access to health insurance to pay for contraceptives also contributed to a drop in abortions. With the passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), more people were insured with access to free or low-cost contraceptives and reproductive care.

Linda Rosenstock, Public Health Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, summarized the simplicity of the connection: "In the United States each year, about half of pregnancies are unintended and about 40% of those lead to abortion. Access to birth control leads to fewer abortions."

Further, teens are having sex later in life than their parents. 38.4% of American high schoolers reported they have had sex (down from 54% in 1991) and only 27.4% reported they were currently sexually active (37.5% in 1991).

Because teen birth control use has not increased significantly, experts attribute the decline in part to better sex education. A 2021 study found that students who received comprehensive sexual education initiated sex later than students who did not participate in sex ed. The later teens have sex, the less chance there is for them to become pregnant unintentionally, which leads to fewer abortions.
Read More

Did You Know?

1. Throughout much of Western history, abortion was not considered a criminal act as long as it was performed before "quickening" (the first detectable movement of the fetus, which can occur between 13-25 weeks of pregnancy).

2. In 1821, Connecticut became the first US state to criminalize abortion.

3. The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

4. Abortion rates in the United States have fallen at what the CDC called a "slow yet steady pace" since a peak in 1981. That year there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The rate fell to 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019.

5. 60% of women seeking abortions already had other children.

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Abortion - Top Arguments For and Against - ProCon.org

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The Pro Choice side says women should have control of their bodies. Pro Lifers say abortion is murder. Explore both sides of the debate.

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https://abortion.procon.org/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.

The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

Pregnancy-related maternal deaths could increase 20% in US states with abortion bans. Amanda Stevenson, Sociology Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained, "People with resources are more likely to make it out of state or find out about medication abortions. People who can't are more likely to have health issues, to live in poverty and have less access to resources." People of color are especially likely to be in the latter category and, thus, negatively impacted by abortion bans.

The predicted 20% maternal death rate does not include those who will die from "back alley" or illegal abortions because legal options were not available.

Globally 45% of abortions are unsafe, 97% of which take place in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; however, it does affect whether the abortions that women and girls attain are safe and dignified. The proportion of unsafe abortions are significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in countries with less restrictive laws."
Read More

Pro 2

Abortion bans endanger healthcare for those not seeking abortions.

Medical treatment for nonviable pregnancies is often exactly the same as an abortion.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterine cavity. About one in 50 pregnancies are ectopic, and they are nonviable. Bleeding from ectopic pregnancies caused 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths, and ectopic pregnancies were the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

One out of every ten pregnancies ends in miscarriage. The drugs used for medication abortions are the only treatment recommended for early miscarriages. For later or complicated miscarriages, the same surgical procedure used for abortions is recommended.

While some abortion bans include specific exceptions for nonviable pregnancies and miscarriages, other bans are too vague to be practicable. Healthcare providers may refuse to perform a procedure that could be interpreted as an "on-demand" abortion for fear of liability or prosecution.

Further, bans are a slippery slope to contraceptive and other healthcare restrictions. For example, some already wrongly view Plan B (the morning after pill) as an abortifacient and are thinking of including it in abortion bans.
Read More

Pro 3

Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, "eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.... In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce."

After being denied an abortion, household poverty increased and lasted four or more years, resulting in an inability to cover basic expenses including food, housing and transportation. A denied abortion was associated with a lowered credit score, increased debt, and an increase in negative public records including evictions and bankruptcies. The households were also more reliant on government assistance. Transgender and nonbinary people denied abortions may face even worse outcomes.

And the consequences can be much more dire. "If a woman of childbearing age dies, it has enormous economic consequences.... It's someone who society has invested in and who has many productive economic years ahead of them," according to David Slusky, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Often, death also removes a wage-earner and caregiver from the household.

60% of women seeking abortions already had other children. Being denied an abortion worsened the well-being of their older children, including not meeting childhood development markers.

The Turnaway Study concluded, "Abortion does not harm women," and "Women who receive a wanted abortion are more financially stable, set more ambitious goals, raise children under more stable conditions, and are more likely to have a wanted child later."
Read More

Con 1

Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.

Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human.

Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, "life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet." The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans.

Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death.

Pope Francis explained, "Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.... At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear.... Scientifically, it is a human life."

That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: "I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face-that I can't even imagine facing-seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn't even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses."
Read More

Con 2

Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.

Echoing a 2014 remark by Pope Francis that connected abortion to " throwaway culture," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stated, "abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem."

Tobin previously declared legal abortion a "brutalization of the American heart" on par with the "dehumanization of the undocumented" immigrants.

Alveda King, former Georgia state representative and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., also connected abortion to other societal ills: "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. We create the deceptions that the other person is less important, less worthy, less human. We are all fully human. When we face this truth, there is no justification for treating those who look different than us as lesser beings. If we simply treat other people the way we'd like to be treated, racism, abortion, and other forms of inhumanity will be things of the past."

As King notes, some fetuses are treated as less than human. This ideology combined with legal abortion could create a slippery slope to designer babies, gender selection, termination of disabled but healthy fetuses, and other trait-selection-based abortions. The slippery slope can then extend to the mentally disabled and elderly in general.

"[A]bortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation," according to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability."
Read More

Con 3

Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

Experts largely contribute the decline in abortions in the United States and elsewhere to the improved safety and availability of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) including IUDs and contraceptive implants that can last up to 10 years.

Access to health insurance to pay for contraceptives also contributed to a drop in abortions. With the passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), more people were insured with access to free or low-cost contraceptives and reproductive care.

Linda Rosenstock, Public Health Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, summarized the simplicity of the connection: "In the United States each year, about half of pregnancies are unintended and about 40% of those lead to abortion. Access to birth control leads to fewer abortions."

Further, teens are having sex later in life than their parents. 38.4% of American high schoolers reported they have had sex (down from 54% in 1991) and only 27.4% reported they were currently sexually active (37.5% in 1991).

Because teen birth control use has not increased significantly, experts attribute the decline in part to better sex education. A 2021 study found that students who received comprehensive sexual education initiated sex later than students who did not participate in sex ed. The later teens have sex, the less chance there is for them to become pregnant unintentionally, which leads to fewer abortions.
Read More

Did You Know?

1. Throughout much of Western history, abortion was not considered a criminal act as long as it was performed before "quickening" (the first detectable movement of the fetus, which can occur between 13-25 weeks of pregnancy).

2. In 1821, Connecticut became the first US state to criminalize abortion.

3. The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

4. Abortion rates in the United States have fallen at what the CDC called a "slow yet steady pace" since a peak in 1981. That year there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The rate fell to 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019.

5. 60% of women seeking abortions already had other children.

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Abortion - Top Arguments For and Against - ProCon.org

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The Pro Choice side says women should have control of their bodies. Pro Lifers say abortion is murder. Explore both sides of the debate.

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Quotation of the Day: Justices Indicate They Will Uphold Curb on Abortion

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Quotation of the Day for Thursday, December 2, 2021.

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Criminalising abortion does not stop abortions, it just makes abortion less safe.

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ISAIAH:

BY Ross Douthat

A striking thing about the American abortion debate is how little abortion itself is actually debated. The sensitivity and intimacy of the issue, the mixed feelings of so many Americans, mean that most politicians and even many pundits really don’t like to talk about it.

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ABORTION IS WRONG BECAUSE YOU MURDER KIDS

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here are two ways of ending a pregnancy: in-clinic abortion and the abortion pill. Both are safe and very common

Abortion Information | Information About Your Options

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Access to legal, professionally-performed abortions reduces maternal injury and death caused by unsafe, illegal abortions.
According to Daniel R. Mishell, Jr., MD, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, before abortion was legalized women would frequently try to induce abortions by using coat hangers, knitting needles, or radiator flush, or by going to unsafe “back-alley” abortionists. [150] In 1972, there were 39 maternal deaths from illegal abortions. By 1976, after Roe v. Wade had legalized abortion nationwide, this number dropped to two. [7] The World Health Organization estimated that unsafe abortions cause 68,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year, many of those in developing countries where safe and legal abortion services are difficult to access. [11]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.

The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

Pregnancy-related maternal deaths could increase 20% in US states with abortion bans. Amanda Stevenson, Sociology Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained, "People with resources are more likely to make it out of state or find out about medication abortions. People who can't are more likely to have health issues, to live in poverty and have less access to resources." People of color are especially likely to be in the latter category and, thus, negatively impacted by abortion bans.

The predicted 20% maternal death rate does not include those who will die from "back alley" or illegal abortions because legal options were not available.

Globally 45% of abortions are unsafe, 97% of which take place in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; however, it does affect whether the abortions that women and girls attain are safe and dignified. The proportion of unsafe abortions are significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in countries with less restrictive laws."
Read More

Pro 2

Abortion bans endanger healthcare for those not seeking abortions.

Medical treatment for nonviable pregnancies is often exactly the same as an abortion.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterine cavity. About one in 50 pregnancies are ectopic, and they are nonviable. Bleeding from ectopic pregnancies caused 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths, and ectopic pregnancies were the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

One out of every ten pregnancies ends in miscarriage. The drugs used for medication abortions are the only treatment recommended for early miscarriages. For later or complicated miscarriages, the same surgical procedure used for abortions is recommended.

While some abortion bans include specific exceptions for nonviable pregnancies and miscarriages, other bans are too vague to be practicable. Healthcare providers may refuse to perform a procedure that could be interpreted as an "on-demand" abortion for fear of liability or prosecution.

Further, bans are a slippery slope to contraceptive and other healthcare restrictions. For example, some already wrongly view Plan B (the morning after pill) as an abortifacient and are thinking of including it in abortion bans.
Read More

Pro 3

Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, "eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.... In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce."

After being denied an abortion, household poverty increased and lasted four or more years, resulting in an inability to cover basic expenses including food, housing and transportation. A denied abortion was associated with a lowered credit score, increased debt, and an increase in negative public records including evictions and bankruptcies. The households were also more reliant on government assistance. Transgender and nonbinary people denied abortions may face even worse outcomes.

And the consequences can be much more dire. "If a woman of childbearing age dies, it has enormous economic consequences.... It's someone who society has invested in and who has many productive economic years ahead of them," according to David Slusky, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Often, death also removes a wage-earner and caregiver from the household.

60% of women seeking abortions already had other children. Being denied an abortion worsened the well-being of their older children, including not meeting childhood development markers.

The Turnaway Study concluded, "Abortion does not harm women," and "Women who receive a wanted abortion are more financially stable, set more ambitious goals, raise children under more stable conditions, and are more likely to have a wanted child later."
Read More

Con 1

Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.

Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human.

Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, "life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet." The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans.

Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death.

Pope Francis explained, "Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.... At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear.... Scientifically, it is a human life."

That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: "I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face-that I can't even imagine facing-seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn't even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses."
Read More

Con 2

Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.

Echoing a 2014 remark by Pope Francis that connected abortion to " throwaway culture," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stated, "abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem."

Tobin previously declared legal abortion a "brutalization of the American heart" on par with the "dehumanization of the undocumented" immigrants.

Alveda King, former Georgia state representative and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., also connected abortion to other societal ills: "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. We create the deceptions that the other person is less important, less worthy, less human. We are all fully human. When we face this truth, there is no justification for treating those who look different than us as lesser beings. If we simply treat other people the way we'd like to be treated, racism, abortion, and other forms of inhumanity will be things of the past."

As King notes, some fetuses are treated as less than human. This ideology combined with legal abortion could create a slippery slope to designer babies, gender selection, termination of disabled but healthy fetuses, and other trait-selection-based abortions. The slippery slope can then extend to the mentally disabled and elderly in general.

"[A]bortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation," according to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability."
Read More

Con 3

Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

Experts largely contribute the decline in abortions in the United States and elsewhere to the improved safety and availability of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) including IUDs and contraceptive implants that can last up to 10 years.

Access to health insurance to pay for contraceptives also contributed to a drop in abortions. With the passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), more people were insured with access to free or low-cost contraceptives and reproductive care.

Linda Rosenstock, Public Health Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, summarized the simplicity of the connection: "In the United States each year, about half of pregnancies are unintended and about 40% of those lead to abortion. Access to birth control leads to fewer abortions."

Further, teens are having sex later in life than their parents. 38.4% of American high schoolers reported they have had sex (down from 54% in 1991) and only 27.4% reported they were currently sexually active (37.5% in 1991).

Because teen birth control use has not increased significantly, experts attribute the decline in part to better sex education. A 2021 study found that students who received comprehensive sexual education initiated sex later than students who did not participate in sex ed. The later teens have sex, the less chance there is for them to become pregnant unintentionally, which leads to fewer abortions.
Read More

Did You Know?

1. Throughout much of Western history, abortion was not considered a criminal act as long as it was performed before "quickening" (the first detectable movement of the fetus, which can occur between 13-25 weeks of pregnancy).

2. In 1821, Connecticut became the first US state to criminalize abortion.

3. The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

4. Abortion rates in the United States have fallen at what the CDC called a "slow yet steady pace" since a peak in 1981. That year there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The rate fell to 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019.

5. 60% of women seeking abortions already had other children.

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Abortion - Top Arguments For and Against - ProCon.org

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The Pro Choice side says women should have control of their bodies. Pro Lifers say abortion is murder. Explore both sides of the debate.

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No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

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  "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." 

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  "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." 

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-zan.

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And we feel that, because of the impact on the woman, this  is a matter which is of such fundamental and basic concern to the woman involved that she should be allowed to make the choice as to whether to continue or to terminate her pregnancy.

Sarah Wedding-ton in Roe v Wade

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A pregnancy to a woman is perhaps one of the most determinate aspects of her life. It disrupts her body. It disrupts her education. It disrupts her employment. And it often disrupts her entire family life.

Sarah Wedding-ton in Roe v Wade

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a great deal turns for women on whether abortion is or is not available.

If abortion rights are denied, then a constraint is imposed on women's freedom to act in a way that is of great importance to them, both for its own sake and for the sake of their achievement of equality.

and if the constraint is imposed on the ground that the fetus has a right to life from the moment of conception, then it is imposed on a ground that neither reason nor the rest of morality requires women to accept, or even to give any weight at all.

Judith Jarvis Thomson

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"abortion is a woman’s right that should not be limited by governmental or religious authority, and which outweighs any right claimed for an embryo or fetus." https://abortion.procon.org/

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The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.

The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

Pregnancy-related maternal deaths could increase 20% in US states with abortion bans. Amanda Stevenson, Sociology Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained, "People with resources are more likely to make it out of state or find out about medication abortions. People who can't are more likely to have health issues, to live in poverty and have less access to resources." People of color are especially likely to be in the latter category and, thus, negatively impacted by abortion bans.

The predicted 20% maternal death rate does not include those who will die from "back alley" or illegal abortions because legal options were not available.

Globally 45% of abortions are unsafe, 97% of which take place in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; however, it does affect whether the abortions that women and girls attain are safe and dignified. The proportion of unsafe abortions are significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in countries with less restrictive laws."
Read More

Pro 2

Abortion bans endanger healthcare for those not seeking abortions.

Medical treatment for nonviable pregnancies is often exactly the same as an abortion.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterine cavity. About one in 50 pregnancies are ectopic, and they are nonviable. Bleeding from ectopic pregnancies caused 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths, and ectopic pregnancies were the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

One out of every ten pregnancies ends in miscarriage. The drugs used for medication abortions are the only treatment recommended for early miscarriages. For later or complicated miscarriages, the same surgical procedure used for abortions is recommended.

While some abortion bans include specific exceptions for nonviable pregnancies and miscarriages, other bans are too vague to be practicable. Healthcare providers may refuse to perform a procedure that could be interpreted as an "on-demand" abortion for fear of liability or prosecution.

Further, bans are a slippery slope to contraceptive and other healthcare restrictions. For example, some already wrongly view Plan B (the morning after pill) as an abortifacient and are thinking of including it in abortion bans.
Read More

Pro 3

Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, "eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.... In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce."

After being denied an abortion, household poverty increased and lasted four or more years, resulting in an inability to cover basic expenses including food, housing and transportation. A denied abortion was associated with a lowered credit score, increased debt, and an increase in negative public records including evictions and bankruptcies. The households were also more reliant on government assistance. Transgender and nonbinary people denied abortions may face even worse outcomes.

And the consequences can be much more dire. "If a woman of childbearing age dies, it has enormous economic consequences.... It's someone who society has invested in and who has many productive economic years ahead of them," according to David Slusky, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Often, death also removes a wage-earner and caregiver from the household.

60% of women seeking abortions already had other children. Being denied an abortion worsened the well-being of their older children, including not meeting childhood development markers.

The Turnaway Study concluded, "Abortion does not harm women," and "Women who receive a wanted abortion are more financially stable, set more ambitious goals, raise children under more stable conditions, and are more likely to have a wanted child later."
Read More

Con 1

Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.

Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human.

Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, "life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet." The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans.

Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death.

Pope Francis explained, "Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.... At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear.... Scientifically, it is a human life."

That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: "I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face-that I can't even imagine facing-seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn't even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses."
Read More

Con 2

Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.

Echoing a 2014 remark by Pope Francis that connected abortion to " throwaway culture," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stated, "abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem."

Tobin previously declared legal abortion a "brutalization of the American heart" on par with the "dehumanization of the undocumented" immigrants.

Alveda King, former Georgia state representative and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., also connected abortion to other societal ills: "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. We create the deceptions that the other person is less important, less worthy, less human. We are all fully human. When we face this truth, there is no justification for treating those who look different than us as lesser beings. If we simply treat other people the way we'd like to be treated, racism, abortion, and other forms of inhumanity will be things of the past."

As King notes, some fetuses are treated as less than human. This ideology combined with legal abortion could create a slippery slope to designer babies, gender selection, termination of disabled but healthy fetuses, and other trait-selection-based abortions. The slippery slope can then extend to the mentally disabled and elderly in general.

"[A]bortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation," according to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability."
Read More

Con 3

Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

Experts largely contribute the decline in abortions in the United States and elsewhere to the improved safety and availability of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) including IUDs and contraceptive implants that can last up to 10 years.

Access to health insurance to pay for contraceptives also contributed to a drop in abortions. With the passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), more people were insured with access to free or low-cost contraceptives and reproductive care.

Linda Rosenstock, Public Health Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, summarized the simplicity of the connection: "In the United States each year, about half of pregnancies are unintended and about 40% of those lead to abortion. Access to birth control leads to fewer abortions."

Further, teens are having sex later in life than their parents. 38.4% of American high schoolers reported they have had sex (down from 54% in 1991) and only 27.4% reported they were currently sexually active (37.5% in 1991).

Because teen birth control use has not increased significantly, experts attribute the decline in part to better sex education. A 2021 study found that students who received comprehensive sexual education initiated sex later than students who did not participate in sex ed. The later teens have sex, the less chance there is for them to become pregnant unintentionally, which leads to fewer abortions.
Read More

Did You Know?

1. Throughout much of Western history, abortion was not considered a criminal act as long as it was performed before "quickening" (the first detectable movement of the fetus, which can occur between 13-25 weeks of pregnancy).

2. In 1821, Connecticut became the first US state to criminalize abortion.

3. The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

4. Abortion rates in the United States have fallen at what the CDC called a "slow yet steady pace" since a peak in 1981. That year there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The rate fell to 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019.

5. 60% of women seeking abortions already had other children.

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Abortion - Top Arguments For and Against - ProCon.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Pro Choice side says women should have control of their bodies. Pro Lifers say abortion is murder. Explore both sides of the debate.

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The landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade, decided on Jan. 22, 1973 in favor of abortion rights, remains the law of the land

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

Proponents of legal abortion believe abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives, while abortion bans endanger pregnant people not seeking abortions, and deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

Opponents of legal abortion believe abortion is murder because life begins at conception, that abortion creates a culture in which life is disposable, and that increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.

The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

Pregnancy-related maternal deaths could increase 20% in US states with abortion bans. Amanda Stevenson, Sociology Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained, "People with resources are more likely to make it out of state or find out about medication abortions. People who can't are more likely to have health issues, to live in poverty and have less access to resources." People of color are especially likely to be in the latter category and, thus, negatively impacted by abortion bans.

The predicted 20% maternal death rate does not include those who will die from "back alley" or illegal abortions because legal options were not available.

Globally 45% of abortions are unsafe, 97% of which take place in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; however, it does affect whether the abortions that women and girls attain are safe and dignified. The proportion of unsafe abortions are significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in countries with less restrictive laws."
Read More

Pro 2

Abortion bans endanger healthcare for those not seeking abortions.

Medical treatment for nonviable pregnancies is often exactly the same as an abortion.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterine cavity. About one in 50 pregnancies are ectopic, and they are nonviable. Bleeding from ectopic pregnancies caused 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths, and ectopic pregnancies were the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

One out of every ten pregnancies ends in miscarriage. The drugs used for medication abortions are the only treatment recommended for early miscarriages. For later or complicated miscarriages, the same surgical procedure used for abortions is recommended.

While some abortion bans include specific exceptions for nonviable pregnancies and miscarriages, other bans are too vague to be practicable. Healthcare providers may refuse to perform a procedure that could be interpreted as an "on-demand" abortion for fear of liability or prosecution.

Further, bans are a slippery slope to contraceptive and other healthcare restrictions. For example, some already wrongly view Plan B (the morning after pill) as an abortifacient and are thinking of including it in abortion bans.
Read More

Pro 3

Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, "eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.... In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce."

After being denied an abortion, household poverty increased and lasted four or more years, resulting in an inability to cover basic expenses including food, housing and transportation. A denied abortion was associated with a lowered credit score, increased debt, and an increase in negative public records including evictions and bankruptcies. The households were also more reliant on government assistance. Transgender and nonbinary people denied abortions may face even worse outcomes.

And the consequences can be much more dire. "If a woman of childbearing age dies, it has enormous economic consequences.... It's someone who society has invested in and who has many productive economic years ahead of them," according to David Slusky, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas. Often, death also removes a wage-earner and caregiver from the household.

60% of women seeking abortions already had other children. Being denied an abortion worsened the well-being of their older children, including not meeting childhood development markers.

The Turnaway Study concluded, "Abortion does not harm women," and "Women who receive a wanted abortion are more financially stable, set more ambitious goals, raise children under more stable conditions, and are more likely to have a wanted child later."
Read More

Con 1

Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.

Conception is the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell, which begins the process of cell division that creates a human.

Tara Sander Lee, Senior Fellow and Director of Life Sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, stated, "life begins from the moment of conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg, because there is the creation of a new, totally distinct, integrated organism or a human being, which is going to be biologically distinct from all other life forms on this planet." The first cell is biologically distinct because it has its own DNA that is different from either biological parent and all other humans.

Ending a life is murder legally and ethically, even a life that is only a few growing cells at the time of death.

Pope Francis explained, "Abortion is murder. Those who carry out abortions kill.... At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware (of being pregnant), all the organs are already (starting to develop). It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear.... Scientifically, it is a human life."

That people may face difficulties without abortion as an option does not excuse or justify murder. A reader of The Atlantic, who gave only the initial K., clarified the moral dilemma: "I wish that I could be pro-choice because the awful circumstances so many women face-that I can't even imagine facing-seem so much more real to me than the rights of a fetus who doesn't even always look human. But abortion is the intentional killing of a human being and we look back with horror at anyone in history who decided a group of people did not actually count as people. We cannot solve the problem of injustice against women with more injustice. We need solutions that support women without killing fetuses."
Read More

Con 2

Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.

Echoing a 2014 remark by Pope Francis that connected abortion to " throwaway culture," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, stated, "abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem."

Tobin previously declared legal abortion a "brutalization of the American heart" on par with the "dehumanization of the undocumented" immigrants.

Alveda King, former Georgia state representative and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., also connected abortion to other societal ills: "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. We create the deceptions that the other person is less important, less worthy, less human. We are all fully human. When we face this truth, there is no justification for treating those who look different than us as lesser beings. If we simply treat other people the way we'd like to be treated, racism, abortion, and other forms of inhumanity will be things of the past."

As King notes, some fetuses are treated as less than human. This ideology combined with legal abortion could create a slippery slope to designer babies, gender selection, termination of disabled but healthy fetuses, and other trait-selection-based abortions. The slippery slope can then extend to the mentally disabled and elderly in general.

"[A]bortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation," according to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. "Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability."
Read More

Con 3

Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

Experts largely contribute the decline in abortions in the United States and elsewhere to the improved safety and availability of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception) including IUDs and contraceptive implants that can last up to 10 years.

Access to health insurance to pay for contraceptives also contributed to a drop in abortions. With the passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), more people were insured with access to free or low-cost contraceptives and reproductive care.

Linda Rosenstock, Public Health Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, summarized the simplicity of the connection: "In the United States each year, about half of pregnancies are unintended and about 40% of those lead to abortion. Access to birth control leads to fewer abortions."

Further, teens are having sex later in life than their parents. 38.4% of American high schoolers reported they have had sex (down from 54% in 1991) and only 27.4% reported they were currently sexually active (37.5% in 1991).

Because teen birth control use has not increased significantly, experts attribute the decline in part to better sex education. A 2021 study found that students who received comprehensive sexual education initiated sex later than students who did not participate in sex ed. The later teens have sex, the less chance there is for them to become pregnant unintentionally, which leads to fewer abortions.
Read More

Did You Know?

1. Throughout much of Western history, abortion was not considered a criminal act as long as it was performed before "quickening" (the first detectable movement of the fetus, which can occur between 13-25 weeks of pregnancy).

2. In 1821, Connecticut became the first US state to criminalize abortion.

3. The death rate for legal abortions is 0.7 deaths for every 100,000 abortions. By contrast, there are one to two deaths per 100,000 plastic surgery procedures, three deaths for every 100,000 colonoscopies, and three to six deaths per 100,000 tonsillectomies. Childbirth has nine deaths per 100,000 deliveries.

4. Abortion rates in the United States have fallen at what the CDC called a "slow yet steady pace" since a peak in 1981. That year there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The rate fell to 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019.

5. 60% of women seeking abortions already had other children.

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Abortion - Top Arguments For and Against - ProCon.org

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The Pro Choice side says women should have control of their bodies. Pro Lifers say abortion is murder. Explore both sides of the debate.

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leiai schrader                                                                  "A thirteen-year-old girl is raped, causing her to become pregnant. She’s scared, angry, and confused. She’s denied an abortion, with people claiming it’s the murder of an unborn child, but she is a child herself – a living, breathing child. Why must she have to suffer the consequences of somebody else's actions?" 

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leiai schrader                                                                  "A thirteen-year-old girl is raped, causing her to become pregnant. She’s scared, angry, and confused. She’s denied an abortion, with people claiming it’s the murder of an unborn child, but she is a child herself – a living, breathing child. Why must she have to suffer the consequences of somebody else's actions?" 

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https://www.thesentinel.com/communities/montgomery/opinion/abortion-isn-t-a-privilege-it-s-a-right-the-pro-choice-and-pro-life/article_afc26a1e-73b8-11eb-9565-cf4017fc3c26.html

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A thirteen-year-old girl is raped, causing her to become pregnant. She's scared, angry, and confused. She's denied an abortion, with people claiming it's the murder of an unborn child, but she is a child herself - a living, breathing child. Why must she have to suffer the consequences of somebody else's actions?

The pro-choice and pro-life debate has clouded the world for centuries. Should women be allowed the right to an abortion, or should it be left up to the mercy of the law? According to 80.4% of polled students who attended Quince Orchard High School last year, abortion is the woman's choice. Many claim that because it is her body, it should be her choice, with one anonymous student stating, "Pregnancy is a part of the woman's body, it should be up to the woman herself if she wants to keep the baby or not." As a 16-year-old junior student in a mainly Democrat-leaning state, the decision of whether or not I can obtain an abortion should be a choice left for me to decide.

When an 11-year-old girl was raped by a 26-year-old rapist in Ohio on multiple occasions, she became pregnant with her rapist's child. In a bill introduced and passed by Ohio representatives back in 2019, after a fetal heartbeat is found (around 5-6 weeks into the pregnancy, when most women don't even know they are pregnant), they can no longer get an abortion - no exceptions. This means that if Ohio's "heartbeat bill" had already been passed during the 11-year-old girl's pregnancy, she would not be allowed to abort the fetus left by her perpetrator. Although this may not have affected her during her circumstance, it can and would impact hundreds of other women who want to get abortions.

In a New York Times article written by K.K. Rebecca Lai, the reader is informed of the several states moving towards placing harsh restrictions on abortion, with Alabama legislators eariler that month voting (May 2019), " to ban abortions in nearly all cases." When taking a deeper look into what Alabama's legislature is made up of, you can discover that it is almost entirely white, Republican men. Why are a group of men making decisions of what a woman is allowed to do with her body? Since when did the female body lay under the jurisdiction of a man?

Many tend to claim that abortion is murder, which gives reason to why it should be banned. They say anything and everything should be given the chance at life, no matter the means that stand behind it. But would banning and restricting abortion really help this cause, or would it lead to more unsafe and extremely dangerous self-given abortions? According to the US National Library of Medicine, some 68,000 women die of of unsafe abortion annually, making it one of the leading causes maternal morality (13%). These numbers can be expected to rise drastically if the push to restrict abortion increases. Banning abortion altogether doesn't mean it will cease, it only means that women would have to perform it by themselves instead of getting it done by a professional. Now, the woman is in danger of injuring herself due to a law stripping her of a choice.

Abortion isn't a privilege, it is a right. Every woman should be given a choice on what she can do with her body, no matter the circumstances. Abortion can be a terrifying and devastating thing for a woman, which is why they need all the support and love they can receive. If you want to help ensure these women get the best care they need, I urge you to donate to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund , who is committed to protecting abortion rights and the women who need them.

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Abortion Isn't a Privilege, It's a Right: The Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Debate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A thirteen-year-old girl is raped, causing her to become pregnant. She's scared, angry, and confused. She's denied an abortion, with people claiming it's the murder of an unborn child, but she is a child herself - a living, breathing child. Why must she have to suffer the consequences of somebody else's actions?

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abortions are illegal in majority of states, in the United States, I think it should be legal in all 50 states. A lot of infants born in hospitals today do not go home with the mother due to abortions being illegal, causing the mother to give the infant up for adoption. If abortions were legal in the
United States, there would be less people on welfare.

https://www.grin.com/document/381134

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Thesis Statement

History of Abortion Laws in the United States

Roe vs Wade Case

Women Rights

Current Legal Situation

Statistics

Public Opinion

Arguments

Counter-arguments

Rebuttal

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Abortion is seemingly becoming an enormous public health challenge, in the United States. It has also emerged to be one of the most contentious social issues among the U.S population, leading to an unprecedented debate over its legalization. This debate can be attributed to the current situation whereby the prevalence rates of abortion seem to have assumed upward trends. It is quite surprising to learn that almost half of pregnancies among women, in the United States are unintended; thus, termination of the pregnancies serves as the most appropriate alternative. It has been found out that half of the women experiences at least one unintended pregnancy before the age of 45 years, and a third of these pregnancies are terminated. In the past decade, cases of abortion have increased significantly and, this change in prevalence trends is believed to have been caused by an array of social, medical and economic factors. Currently, epidemiological reports indicate that four women out of ten pregnant women carry out abortion, in the U.S. However, it is worth noting that the prevalence of abortion among different social classes of people with different socioeconomic status are relatively variant, owing to the differences in conception rates. In the past two decades, unintended pregnancy rates among women with low socioeconomic status increased by 50%, whereas the rates decreased by 29% among women with high socioeconomic status. These epidemiological trends have caused uproar in the society, leading to the current abortion debate. Despite the controversy overshadowing the issue, abortion appears to be a personal issue because; it influences one's health and social life. Therefore, this argument paper will give an overview over the issue of abortion and attempt to provide a justification for the legalization of abortion.

Thesis Statement

Although abortions are illegal in majority of states, in the United States, I think it should be legal in all 50 states. A lot of infants born in hospitals today do not go home with the mother due to abortions being illegal, causing the mother to give the infant up for adoption. If abortions were legal in the United States, there would be less people on welfare.

History of Abortion Laws in the United States

The history of abortion dates back to the 1760s when settlers were establishing their settlements, in the United States. Abortion was regarded to as a legal practice among women but, regulations to control abortion emerged during the first half of the 19th Century when different federal states begun introducing restrictive laws, although anti-abortion laws varied from state to state (NAF, 2010). By 1800, all medical procedure was considered risky; thus, abortion was categorized among the other medical practices, which resulted into fatal outcomes. As such, it did not attract significant attention from medical professionals and lawmakers.

In 1900, arguments by the newly formed American Medical Association, that abortion was a dangerous medical procedure and immoral enhanced abortion criminalization approaches by many federal states. Later on, by 1910, abortion had been criminalized in all states except the state of Kentucky, which had not established anti-abortion laws (Lewis & Shimabukuro, 2001).

Thereafter, Comstock laws, which were established in 1880s to criminalize abortion in the 49 federal states, remained effective until 1973, when a landmark Supreme Court ruling diverted the course of the issue. However, it is worth noting that prohibition of abortion during the first half of the 20th Century did not reduce the prevalence rates; instead, they increase to as high as 1.2 million yearly by 1970s. As a result, a large number of women were adversely harmed by the impacts of illegal abortion (Jacoby, 1998). This is probably the principal reason as to why liberalization of abortion laws occurred between 1967 and 1973, in which abortion restrictive laws in many states were repealed to allow the American women the right to have abortion (NAF, 2010).

Roe vs Wade Case

In 1973 Supreme Court made a landmark decision granting women the right to have abortions in the first three months, stating those rights belongs to the woman and her doctor, not the government. In this ruling, the remaining restrictive laws in all states were struck down to allow women seek for legal and safe abortions for experienced medical experts. The Roe vs Wade case was occasioned by the Texas state's law, which prohibited abortions, except in circumstances where the woman's life was at a risk.

Women Rights

The 1973 Supreme Court ruling upheld women rights for privacy and freedom to make decisions on birth control, especially with regard to bearing and rearing children. In this case, it was declared that women's privacy was a fundamental social right, which had to be respected. As a result, women were granted the right to make decisions on whether to have children with the assistance of their medical doctors without state interference (NAF, 2010).

Current Legal Situation

The current legal situation seems to be quite different from the situation between 1973 and 1994 when the terms Roe were upheld. In 1995 and 2003, there have been several moves led by the Republican Party in the House of Representatives and the Senate to ban partial birth abortion, only to have it blocked by President Clinton and the Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania vs Casey case of 1992 seems to have attracted changes in the Roe provisions leading to enactment of abortion restrictive laws by some states. In 2007, the Gonzales v. Carhart case reversed the federal ban of abortion in different states, in support of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, passed by the Congress during President George W. Bush Administration (Pew Forum, 2013). Consequently, anti-abortion laws criminalized the procedure up-to-date.

State by state legal status of abortion prohibition varies significantly with some states having relaxed regulations and others with stricter laws. Some states such as Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota intend to ban abortion upon the overturning of Roe, whereas 13 states uphold the pre-Roe ban laws. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada and Washington protect the right to abortion. On the other hand, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio have expressed intend to limit abortion (Guttmacher Institute, 2013).

Statistics

Statistics indicate that more than 50% of the women obtaining abortions in the United States are under the age of 25 years. However, abortion rates are more common among minority women. Since 1973, 56,177,034 cases of abortion have been reported. It may appear extremely shocking to learn that 3,700 cases of abortion are reported daily in U.S. This translates to about 1.37 million abortions per year (Klick, 2004).

Epidemiological reports indicate reasons for abortion as the inability to rear children, especially by women with low socioeconomic status. In addition, some health complications of pregnancies necessitate abortion to safe the woman's life (Bartlett et al. 2004). Other reasons are rape, mental disorders and incest. In most cases, the mother's mental status occasion abortion, especially when the mother experiences mental disabilities (Reagan, 2010).

Public Opinion

The public seems to have varied opinions with some states becoming increasing polarized on abortion, and lawmakers are passing tighter restrictions while some are seeking stronger legal protection for it. However, it is worth noting that these opinions are based on gender, age, party and religion.

Arguments

In regard to the Islamic religion, the Shariah law, which governs the social life of Muslims, permits abortion on various circumstances (Syed, 2000). For instance, a doctor is allowed to carry out an abortion in case the mother's life appear to be endangered. On the other hand, Christianity despises abortion on grounds that it is immoral.

On the other hand, liberalists regard abortion as the only solution to teenage pregnancies because most girls are not mentally mature to assume parental roles. In addition, abortion allows teenage girls to continue their education for sustainability in their future parenthood life.

In regard to the opinion of the political parties, the Democratic Party has been on the forefront in championing for the decriminalization of abortion, in which they cite economic and demographic implications as the justification for the legalization.

Counter-arguments

On the other hand, the Republican Party opposes legalization of abortion, citing the protection of human rights. They argue that the Roe provisions violate the Declaration of Independence and the 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution (Randolph, 2006).

Conservationists argue that abortion goes against the societal social norms and values. They claim that perpetuating abortion devalues the principal tenets of societal norms by disrespecting human dignity (Borgmann, 2009). As a result, the opinion of Conservationists is that abortion is a social vice which should be condemned.

Rebuttal

It is evident that abortion influences the women's health and social life more than it affects the society. As such, decision to terminate pregnancy seems to be associated to the women's social rights and, the 1973 Supreme Court's ruling reaffirms the women's right to decide whether to have a child or not with regard to the individual's reasons for abortion. Moreover, it is true to assert that, the legal provisions in most state laws, which permit abortion at certain medical risks, are relatively partial, especially with regard to the legal framework because; they perpetrate health inequity in the society. These laws violate the constitutional requirement that abortion should be restricted during the third trimester because; it is often fatal; thus, most women may wish to induce birth before the expected dates to have an abortion performed under the health risk legal provisions.
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Introduction Thesis Statement History of Abortion Laws in the United States Roe vs Wade Case Women Rights Current Legal Situation Statistics Public Opinion Arguments Counter-arguments Rebuttal Conclusion References Abortion is seemingly becoming an enormous public health challenge, in the United States.

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"These abortion bans had some exceptions in instances to save the patient's life — a decision that only doctors, 95% of whom were men, had the power to make" -charlsey

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"These abortion bans had some exceptions in instances to save the patient's life — a decision that only doctors, 95% of whom were men, had the power to make" -charlsey

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"5 years after having an abortion, over 95 percent of the women in a landmark UCSF study said it was the right decision for them." https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416421/five-years-after-abortion-nearly-all-women-say-it-was-right-decision-study

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Five Years After Abortion, Nearly All Women Say It Was the Right Decision, Study Finds | UC San Francisco

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Even Those Who Struggled to Make the Abortion Decision Supported it Years Later

By Laura Kurtzman

Five years after having an abortion, over 95 percent of the women in a landmark UC San Francisco study said it was the right decision for them.

The findings, published Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020, in Social Science & Medicine, come as many states are requiring waiting periods and counseling for women seeking abortions, based on the assumption that they may regret having them.

But the researchers at UCSF's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) found no evidence that women began to regret their decisions as years passed. On the contrary, the women reported that both their positive and negative feelings about the abortion diminished over time. At five years, the overwhelming majority (84 percent) had either positive feelings, or none at all.

This debunks the idea that most women suffer emotionally from having an abortion.

Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH

"Even if they had difficulty making the decision initially, or if they felt their community would not approve, our research shows that the overwhelming majority of women who obtain abortions continue to believe it was the right decision," said Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH, associate professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and first author of the study. "This debunks the idea that most women suffer emotionally from having an abortion."

The researchers analyzed data from the Turnaway Study, a five-year effort to understand the health and socioeconomic consequences for nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions in 21 states around the country. The analysis included 667 participants who had abortions at the start of the study. The women were surveyed a week after they sought care and every six months thereafter, for a total of 11 times.

While women did not report regretting their decision, many did struggle initially to make it. Just over half said the decision to terminate their pregnancy was very difficult (27 percent) or somewhat difficult (27 percent), while the rest (46 percent) said it was not difficult. About 70 percent also reported feeling they would be stigmatized by their communities if people knew they had sought an abortion, with 29 percent reporting low levels and 31 percent reporting high levels of community stigma.

Those who struggled with their decisions or felt stigmatized were more likely to experience sadness, guilt and anger shortly after obtaining the abortion. Over time, however, the number of women reporting these negative emotions declined dramatically, particularly in the first year after their abortion. This was also true for those who initially struggled with their decision.

And relief was the most prominent emotion reported by all groups at the end of the study - just as it was at every time point in the study.

"This research goes further than previous studies, in that it follows women for longer, and was conducted on a larger sample from many different clinics throughout the U.S.," said Julia Steinberg, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of family science at the University of Maryland, College Park, who wrote an accompanying commentary on the study in Social Science & Medicine. "It shows that women remain certain in their decision to get an abortion over time. These results clearly disprove claims that regret is likely after abortion."

Authors: Corinne Rocca, PhD, MPH, Diana Foster, PhD, Heather Gould, MPH, and Katrina Kimport, PhD, of UCSF; and Goleen Samari, PhD, MPH, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Funding: The study was supported by research or institutional grants from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and an anonymous foundation.

Disclosures: The researchers had no competing interests to disclose.
About ANSIRH: Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), based at the University of California, San Francisco, conducts rigorous scientific research on complex issues related to reproductive health in the United States and internationally. ANSIRH provides much-needed evidence for active policy debates and legal battles around reproductive health issues. Please visit www.ansirh.org. About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.

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Five Years After Abortion, Nearly All Women Say It Was the Right Decision, Study Finds

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Even Those Who Struggled to Make the Abortion Decision Supported it Years Later By Laura Kurtzman Five years after having an abortion, over 95 percent of the women in a landmark UC San Francisco study said it was the right decision for them. The findings, published Sunday, Jan.

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"More than anything, a persons right to abortion is a persons right to their own body."

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"Deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions are preventable".

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Criminalising abortion does not stop abortions, it just makes abortion less safe.

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Criminalising abortion does not stop abortions, it just makes abortion less safe.