
The abortion debate has been a long and highly controversial debate throughout history. It is not a question of should abortion be legal, it was made legal in the Roe V Wade supreme court case.  The modern abortion debate has stemmed into more of a discussion about when is it viewed as socially acceptable and just to seek an abortion. This new debate creates more than just a pro-life and pro-choice viewpoint. Certain pro-life groups feel that abortions should never be acceptable no matter the circumstances surrounding the mother or the child. However, others feel that if the child is a product of rape or has certain birth defects, then it is okay. This makes for a fine line between being viewed as socially acceptable and being condemned for having an abortion. Another issue that stems from this bigger problem is that planned parenthood clinics and other abortion services are not equally available to every woman. The research this essay looks at provides reason that if a woman has the ability to potentially become pregnant, she should also have access to the necessary services that she may need as a result of engaging in sexual intercourse. Overall, the choice to have an abortion is a conversation that should take place between a women and her doctor. The circumstances that surround a pregnancy or an expectant mother's personal life should have no impact on whether or not she should be able to seek out pregnancy termination services being that it is her constitutional right to do so, regardless of how the public views her circumstances. 

The modern debate on abortion typically entails more than just the standard pro-choice and pro-life view. Gallup, an American research-based management consulting company, released a poll stating that many young people do not identify as just pro-choice or pro-life anymore. More specifically, the poll also stated that 77% of people believed that abortion should be legal in most or all cases(Laguens). The problem my research is trying to diffuse is the portion of that statement that says "most or all cases". It should not be a question of the case; all cases should be viewed exactly the same. Each time someone is seeking an abortion it is because they are deciding to do what is best for their own life and the life of their unborn child. This should not be debated mainly because this is an issue for a woman to discuss with her doctor and ultimately decide for herself. Dawn Laguens, in her article published in Feminist Studies, writes that many "People fundamentally understand that every situation is different; that every woman is different; and that every woman should be able to make her own personal health care decisions." (Laguens 189). It is for this reason that there is such discrepancy as to what category many people's abortions opinions fall into. Aspen Baker gave a TED talk titled, A Better Way to Talk about Abortion, that adds another category to the abortion debate known as "pro-voice". She created this category so that people can freely discuss when they feel abortions are okay and when they are not. Taking all of these statistics and research into account, it can be concluded that many of the people who do not know where they stand would fall into this "pro-voice" category. The main purpose of this viewpoint is to open the floor to discussion on when a women should be able to exercise her constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. 

The first circumstances that many feel would constitute reason for an abortion, are rape and incest. A common topic that has come up in the abortion debate is whether or not people who are carrying a child that is a product of rape or incest should be held to a different standard when it comes to abortion. A pregnancy that occurred as a result of rape or incest could be mentally harmful to the mother, and the child alike.  Glen Cohen, a law professor at Harvard Law School, states 

The two premises underlying the Pro-Life position at first seem to directly conflict with the rape and incest exception. If fetuses are persons or at least have the personhood right of inviolability and "regular" abortions are wrong for this reason, then so should abortions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. After all, from the perspective of violating the rights of a rights bearing entity, all 

abortions are equal.(89)

Essentially what is being explained is that in each case the fetus is still considered a person according to pro-life activists. This proves that it does not make sense to justify the killing of a person in one case rather than the other. In any circumstance, it would be cruel to expect a mother to carry to term a child she does not want being that there would be so many psychological problems for both the child and the mother. Cohen goes on to explain that "Many unwanted pregnancies can feel like possession or domination." (Cohen 93). If a mother was expected to raise this child she would be constantly reminded of the power her perpetrator had over her. It needs to be taken into consideration what type of life this child and mother would be living. These children and their mothers probably would be faced with constant depression and other mental hardships. In the case of incest, the child would have immense physical and mental deficits. It would be wrong in every way to bring this child into the world. All in all, if every fetus is considered a person at the same point in time by pro-life activists, then it should not matter the circumstances under which the child was conceived, every abortion should be treated in the same manner. 

Another factor getting in the way of women getting abortions is the government restricting a women's right to have access to planned parenthood clinics. This is being done in some of the more conservative states throughout the country such as Texas. Geographic location is an element that should have no relation to whether or not a woman should have access to an abortion. When living in The United States, it is a constitutional right for a woman to choose how it is she wants to handle a pregnancy occurring inside her own body. The government should not be able to cut funding to necessary health care institutes, causing them to close in an effort to reduce the number of abortions and abortion clinics in any particular state. The New York Times released an article by Adam Liptak in March of 2016 referring to an ongoing Supreme Court case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, regarding reform to abortion clinics in Texas. The reform being proposed "requires all abortion clinics in the state to meet the standards for "ambulatory surgical centers," including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing. The other part requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital." (Liptak 1). The dispute taking place is that the government is saying these cuts were necessary for women's health, but abortion activists feel that these cuts were proposed in an effort to close abortion clinics. Since this law was passed the number of abortion clinics in the state has dropped by half and if the law was not banned then that number would be dropped to ten (Liptak 1). Being that Texas is one of the biggest states, this would make it increasingly difficult for many women to utilize their constitutional right to terminate pregnancy while in Texas. The government attempting to eliminate planned parenthood clinics is directly interfering with the fact that a woman should have the right to an abortion regardless of the situation surrounding her life, especially based off of where in the United States she happens to be living at the time of the pregnancy. 

Adding to the need for widespread abortion accessibility is the fact that it was guaranteed to all women under the 14th amendment after the Roe V Wade decision. According to Kate Pickert, 

"In addition to North Dakota, three other states -- South Dakota, Mississippi and Arkansas -- have just one surgical-abortion clinic in operation. The number of abortion providers nationwide shrank from 2,908 in 1982 to 1,793 in 2008, the latest year for which data is available. Getting an abortion in America is, in some places, harder today than at any point since it became a constitutionally protected right 40 years ago this month [January]" (Pickert).

 With the current situation going on in Texas regarding the planned parenthood clinics, it appears that North Dakota may be close to following suit. While none of the states that have only one abortion clinic are considered to be highly populated states, there is still a portion of this country's women presiding there. Prior to the Roe V Wade court case many women were receiving illegal and potentially very harmful abortions. If the rest of the country follows in the steps of these states, women will likely be reverting back to a pre- abortion legality society. This opens doors for the instance "That women in rural areas might try to purchase pregnancy-terminating medication on the Internet without a doctor's supervision." (Pickert 1). Would this be helping anyone's situation? The new question that arises from this is if decreasing the number of abortion clinics, would even decrease the abortion rate or if it would result in more unsafe and illegal abortions, thus creating a higher mortality rate. The government needs to take the 14th amendment into deeper consideration, because the decreasing support for Roe V Wade is leading to an increase in the discrimination of women who are trying to exercise their constitutional right.

Looking more closely at Roe V Wade, modern feminists are beginning to wonder if the case should have been discussed in terms of equality rather than privacy. Essentially what is attempting to be proved here is that women should not be penalized for the fact that they can bear a child, while men can not. While this may seem entirely absurd to even think about because it is science that determines a women's child bearing ability and not the government or society's opinion on gender equality, if one thinks about what is actually happening in a more general way than it begins to constitute discussion. In the mind of some pro-life supporters, women should not be engaging in sexual intercourse if they are not prepared to handle the consequences that come along with it, such as pregnancy. Looking at this from an equality stand point, why should women have to think about these big life decisions when men can go around engaging in sexual intercourse with whomever they please and not facing repercussions of the same stature. Katha Pollitt wrote a periodical bringing to light the equality side of the debate. She explained that modern feminists are "Pursuing a different goal: reconnecting sex and reproduction by raising the cost to women of sex for pleasure." than the feminists in the 1970s (Pollit 1).  When looking at intercourse in this way, one can see that men are in most cases involved in sex for the main feeling of pleasure, but women are not able to get pleasure alone from it. Seeing abortion as an issue of equality would illustrate that women should be able to think of sex as an activity of pleasure rather than an act of reproduction. It is for this reason, that women should without a doubt be provided safe, easily accessible, and potentially free abortions being that they would not have to deal with this had they been a man. Having this extremely broad view of abortion makes it known that a circumstance many pro-life activists are using as reason to not be able to get an abortion is in fact being a woman. Recently a procedure known as Multiple Fetus Pregnancy Reduction has added more controversy to the abortion debate. This procedure is the terminating of one fetus in a situation where there are multiple fetuses, in order to increase the chances that the other fetuses and the mother remain healthy (Mutcherson 1). MFPR deals with making sure the mother and children are remaining physically and developmentally healthy, while abortion deals with more of the mental health of both the mother and the child. Most anti-abortionists choose to look at the medical facts when regarding MFPR but also make the assumption that every time a woman is getting an abortion she is doing it to support her own self interest rather than the well being of her child. In either case, there is a fetus being terminated in order to make one's quality of life more desirable. Kimberley Mutcherson discusses the opposing views of these two procedures in her article, When is an Abortion Not Considered an Abortion? She explains that "While it might be comforting to divorce the politics of abortion from the politics of MFPR, that division is ultimately a disservice to women who want and need the ability, supported by law, to determine their reproductive futures." (Mutcherson 209). The morality of the two circumstances presented is not what needs to be focused on when deciding if MFPR should be considered a form of abortion. The fact of the situation is that all women should have the freedom to decide how they will handle their own reproductive system, so justifying one way of terminating a fetus does not take away from the fact that a fetus is still being terminated. Therefore, all abortions should be considered abortions, and they should not constitute any animosity considering MFPR and abortion are the exact same procedure but have slightly different morally viewed goals.                                    

43 years after safe and legal abortions were guaranteed to all women, there is still immense amounts of hostility towards any women that seeks an abortion. The hostility in the present day is less about abortions being 100% wrong, and more about the circumstances of why a women got an abortion. The modern view of abortion presents the ideas that in cases of rape and incest abortions are often seen as okay. But then in cases of personal desire to exercise a constitutional right of terminating pregnancy, it is not viewed as immoral and unacceptable. This provides a double standard because in each case the life of a fetus is being terminated in an attempt to improve the mother or the child's quality of life. Due to the new debate on abortion, pro-life activists have tried to make it increasingly more difficult to obtain abortion services for women. Regardless of the circumstances a woman should not be denied her legal right to handle how a pregnancy in her own body is being handled. The lack of accessibility to abortion clinics is essentially going to create even more medical issues for both mother and child than if there was an easy, and judgment free way for every woman to exercise her 14th amendment right to have privacy over her own body. 


