# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Every person should be able to decide for themselves if, when and with whom to start or grow a family.

The right to choose abortion is essential to ensuring a woman can decide for herself if, when and with whom to start or grow a family. We'll never stop fighting to protect and expand this fundamental human right.

The Supreme Court's landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that affirmed abortion as a constitutional right for all was supposed to be the beginning of the fight for women's equality and autonomy, not the end. Since then, we've been forced to defend it over and over again as anti-choice politicians and organizations focus on undermining and chipping away at our rights until they can do away with legal abortion access completely. They've passed hundreds of laws to restrict a woman's ability to access abortion care. These laws take many forms, including trying to outlaw abortion altogether, shutting down clinics, restricting access based on income level and dictating which medical procedures are available.

Anti-choice extremists will stop at nothing. They have opened thousands of fake health-care "clinics" that lie to and mislead women to prevent them from considering abortion as an option. And some anti-abortion zealots-emboldened by extreme rhetoric from anti-choice groups and politicians-have even murdered doctors and bombed clinics.

When the right to abortion is endangered, the fundamental equality of women is threatened. A woman can never be equal if she is denied the basic right to make decisions for herself and her family.

Eight in 10 Americans support the right to legal abortion. NARAL Pro-Choice America will continue to fight to keep abortion legal for all women, regardless of ZIP code or income. We will mobilize together to defeat attacks in the states and in Congress. We'll help elect candidates who will be champions for reproductive freedom. And we will continue to educate, inform and rally the public to protect and expand the fundamental human right of all people to make their own decisions about their lives.

Campaigns

Help protect abortion access. Get involved in one of our campaigns.

Everyone should be able to decide if, when, how, and with whom they start or grow a family.

By taking this action you are affirming your membership in NARAL Pro-Choice America. What's this?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Every person should be able to decide for themselves if, when and with whom to start or grow a family. The right to choose abortion is essential to ensuring a woman can decide for herself if, when and with whom to start or grow a family.

# data[].attributes.body
If a guy can leave a pregnancy then a woman should be able to as well. It is better then allowing a child to be born into hatred. Pro choice does not mean you are pro abortion it just means that you can not make a decision for anyone else.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Each person has a unique reason to be pro-choice. Here are some of ours.

I am pro-choice because I don't think there is any reason why a woman should have to face all the consequences from something she did not do alone. If a guy can get a woman pregnant and then run away, there is no reason why she should be the one responsible for everything. Having more options puts a woman on more equal footing with men, instead of being someone of whom they can take advantage. In addition, I believe that it is best for a child to not be born at all than to be born hated, to a mother who is forced to have him because she has no choice, and not because she wants the child.
Undergraduate Student in Chemistry

The single most important factor for women's advancement in society is our ability to control our fertility. Without that, we are trapped by the realities of pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing; rather than a privilege and a gift, these aspects of being female become an unbearable burden. Attempts to limit women's reproductive freedom are no more than a gambit to keep women "in their place"-- a gambit in the guise of religious moralism. True, the guise can run deep, and many so-called "pro-lifers" genuinely believe that killing a fetus is equivalent to killing a human being. But such religious feeling has no place in the public policies of a country that claims to separate church and state. In the words of supreme court justices O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." No one wants to plan an abortion. But the best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies: through sex education, improved distribution of birth control, and general empowerment of women to shape our own individual lives.
Graduate Student in Biology

I think one of the biggest problems with the abortion debate is that the two sides aren't in direct opposition. The pro-life movement seeks to force their moral beliefs on others - grounded in their own religion or personal philosophy. The pro-choice movement doesn't make claims on the morality of abortion - we leave that as an individual choice for every woman faced with an unwanted pregnancy. If they feel abortion is wrong and they want to give their child up for adoption, or keep it, we will support their decision. Pro-life people say "Abortion is wrong;" we only say "Abortion is." Making abortion illegal won't stop abortions from happening, it will only stop them from being safe. 43% of abortions worldwide are illegal. Changing laws doesn't solve the problem, making contraception available and affordable does. If we are to maintain the separation of church and state so central to our nation's identity, we cannot have some people forcing their beliefs on us all.
Undergraduate Student in Linguistics and Philosophy

I believe strongly in taking responsibilities for one's actions. I believe that people should practice safe sex or abstinence. And I believe that the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy can be worse than the "benefits" of having irresponsible sex. However, in some cases, I believe that abortion IS taking responsibility. Bringing an unwanted child into the world is irresponsible. I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-choice. I believe that every woman should decide what to do with her own body without restrictions placed on her by a strongly religious government that ironically preaches the 200 year old doctrine of the separation of church and state. On that note, I think religious freedom and education are also a constitutional right of every citizen, but they do not belong in the hospital room. Reproductive freedom is just as sacred and constitutional as religious freedom. And I am not the opposite of "pro-life." I love life and I love babies, but an unwanted life can be worse than no life at all. I think safe sex and abstinence education is needed. Like many pro-choice believers, I want the number of abortions to be limited, or at least I want to limit the overwhelming need for abortions.
Graduate Student in Materials Science and Engineering

I'm pro-choice because it's the only option that isn't poisoned with misogyny. I believe that we are responsible for justifying our beliefs, and just as one cannot claim that a given race is inferior to another because "it's what I believe", I don't think one can argue that old white men can assert control over a woman's uterus -- and future -- because they claim to believe that a fetus is comparable to a human life. That belief is so clearly a result of the fact that only women can get pregnant and only women would ever have to carry an unwanted fetus to term that I find it laughable that anyone claims being anti-choice has anything to do with concern for potential life. Can anyone really believe that abortion would even be an issue if men had to face the possibility of giving birth to and raising a child because of one night of failed contraception?
I think Florynce Kennedy said it best: "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
Undergraduate Student in Mathematics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Each person has a unique reason to be pro-choice. Here are some of ours. I am pro-choice because I don't think there is any reason why a woman should have to face all the consequences from something she did not do alone.

# data[].attributes.body
The fetus is incapable of pain while most abortions are preformed. Safe and legal abortions reduces the risk of injury on the mother. 68,000 woman die yearly from unsafe abortions. Abortions do not cause lasting heath issues and women who are denied access usually suffer from mental issues. If a women can not support the child it will either end up in foster care or into a bad situation.

# 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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
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.

# data[].attributes.body
You can personally not ever want an abortion, but still realize it is every woman's choice.

# data[].attributes.body
People should be pro choice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why you should be pro-choice | Mackendrie Piper | Hickory RIdge High School

# data[].attributes.body
Abortion should not even be up for debate.

# data[].attributes.body
Men are mostly making the decisions even though they won't need the option

# data[].attributes.body
Poltics should not base everything off of their beliefs, but off of what will be best for the majority of people.

# data[].attributes.body
You don't have to support abortion you just realize it is a woman's choice.

# data[].attributes.body
You can make your own decisions, but no one else's.

# data[].attributes.body
Some people are pro choice. They believe that abortion is a human right and everyone should have the option. They believe that no one should be able to prevent that from happening. Banning abortions are not going to decrease the number of abortions it is just going to make it more dangerous for women. They believe it is discrimination to not allow a woman to get an abortion. approximately 25 million unsafe abortions are performed each year. Some pro life people even open up fake abortion clinics so that women won't consider it as an option.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Safe and Legal Abortion Is a Human Right

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) explicitly recognizes that the right to health includes access to safe and legal abortion, at a minimum, in certain circumstances.

# data[].attributes.body
Some people think killing an unborn child is cruel and unjust. This is known as being "Pro Life". Congress could permanently ban funding for abortion.  Many pro life people are only okay with abortion in cases or rape or incest. They say that they can't express their other rights unless they live long enough to do so, and abortion doesn't allow that to happen. People are trying to permanetly ban federal funding for abortions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Catholics Should View Abortion as a Moral Evil

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Catholic Church, edited by Michael Ruth, Greenhaven Press, 2016. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http%3A%2F%2Flink.galegroup.com%2Fapps%2Fdoc%2FEJ3010384277%2FOVIC%3Fu%3Dpl2683%26sid%3DOVIC%26xid%3D6608240c. Accessed 5 Mar. 2019. Originally published as "Upholding a Right not to Kill," Life Issues Forum, 29 Apr. 2014.

# data[].attributes.body
Abortion is a very controversial subject. Abortion deliberately ends a pregnancy. There are two sides to the issue Pro choice and Pro life. Most commonly abortions are performed up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. After 12 weeks the choice for abortion is limited based on your location. As of now abortion is still legal.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The election of President Trump, combined with the Republicans securing majorities in both houses of Congress, has been credited for inspiring state legislatures to enact or propose more stringent abortion restrictions in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Mississippi. Civil liberties and women's rights organizations have launched legal challenges to the new laws.