The debate between pro-choice advocates and pro-life advocates has been going on since the Roe versus Wade ruling of the Supreme Court in the spring of 1973. The Supreme Court affirms the legality of a women's right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. The court ruling decision was the beginning of the debate, and the formation of the anti-abortion movement. They are against the practice of abortion and its legality, and have been trying for the past four decades to make abortion illegal. The other side of the argument, the pro-choice side, believes that women should have the right to choose to have an abortion. Women should remain to have the right to choose to have an abortion, but the main goal is to decrease the number of abortions by providing young women with a better sex education, making the access to birth control easier, and to make the practice of safe sex more widespread.

The pro-life side of the debate believes in the right to human life and that it should be extended to the unborn. They advocate for regulations on abortion, and believe that abortion is morally wrong. There are may different groups of people involved in the pro-life movement, and believe in different aspects of the movement. For example, traditional Jewish people believe in abortion if it will help save the life and well-being of the pregnant woman, while the Catholic Church believes that abortion is morally evil. While there may be different arguments that the groups can make, they all believe that abortion is a morally wrong thing to do. The problem with that argument is that you can't make a law or legislation against something based on moral. 

Pro-lifers believe that conception is the beginning of human life, and that an abortion is killing a human who is entitled to the right to life. The argument is stated as, "if every human being has the right to live, which should be protected by law, and from the moment of conception, the unborn are human beings, then then unborn have the right to live, which should be protected by law." (The Humble Libertarian) However, there is no scientific proof as to when the human life begins, and there are many different theories as to when that moment is, but the argument that conception is the beginning is mainly a religious belief. The United States Constitution states in Article Six, "no religious Test shall ever be required as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." (US Const. amend. VI, sec. 1) This is saying that there has to be a separation of the church and the state, meaning that abortion cannot be made illegal based on the fact that some people believe that conception is the beginning of human life. This is one of the main arguments of the pro-life side of the debate, but their argument is invalid in trying to ban abortions and in getting legislation against abortions. 

Planned Parenthood is one of the major victims of the pro-lifer's attacks. The pro-life community sees Planned Parenthood as just a place that helps women carry out their abortions. What the pro-lifers don't know it that, "Planned Parenthood provides sexual and reproductive health care, education, information, and outreach to nearly five million women, men, and adolescents worldwide in a single year." (Planned Parenthood) This organization is helping not only young women who are going through the process of an abortion, but also men and young adults. This organization is helping out in an area that the United States is lacking in: sex education. With this organization still open, many young adults feel that they have somewhere to go and ask questions to an experienced adult without feeling judged and criticized. The pro-lifers are wanting to take away a place that is a "non-profit organization that provides reproductive, maternal, and child health services," (Congressional Digest) and could potentially benefit the spread of knowledge of sex education, and be a safe space for people who need it.

There is also the argument that the man is also entitled to a decision on whether or not he wants to keep the baby. The pro-lifers believe that the man should hold most of the power in deciding if they should abort or not. The Supreme Court gives the power of the decision to the women when there are disagreeing views on the issue because she has to endure the physical act of the pregnancy. The pro-lifers make the assumption that most women decide to have abortions on a whim with no thought on the matter, but they do not know the many different reasons that a woman could have an abortion. It is important for each woman to decide what is right for her, and what would be the best in her particular situation. The government cannot force a woman to have a child that they do not want, or cannot afford to have. 

Even though abortion is legal in all fifty states, "in 2013 alone, state legislatures enacted 70 laws restricting abortion access, ranging from bans on abortion at 20 weeks post fertilization to limitations on insurance coverage for abortions." (Green) The state is making it harder for women to have access to abortion, sort of like the Jim Crow laws that were put into effect in the late 1870's -- in no way is this comparing what happened in the Jim Crow era to abortion regulations, but the ideas are similar. The sense that they are limiting a right that the American women have through passing laws and legislations against abortions. It has been discovered that:

"the majority of Americans say they support Roe vs Wade, but that doesn't mean they necessarily oppose abortion restrictions that flagrantly violate it, as we've seen with the passive acceptance of twenty-week bans, seventy-two hour waiting periods, restrictions on insurance coverage, and laws like the ones in Texas that claim to protect women's health but are actually intended to shut clinics down." (Pollitt) 

This again touches on the fact there are laws that are being put into place that regulate abortion rights and are ultimately going to end in making abortion illegal again. 

The other side of the debate is the pro-choice side, who believe in the pro-abortion movement. The pro-lifers believe that women are entitled to the choice of having an abortion, and that it should be completely up to them. They advocate for legalized abortion, even though it is already legal. They are still fighting for the women to have this right because of all of the laws and legislation that the states are putting in place to regulate abortion. The people who make up the pro-abortion movement are feminists, and women's rights activists. They believe in a nation where women have the right to an abortion without needing a reason for it, and not having to fly half way across the country to get one. 

There are key differences between the two debates. One of them is, "pro-choice supporters maintain that the debate over the abortion issue is essentially a clash over conflicting ideologies about traditional sex roles, motherhood, and careers." (Medoff) This statement is saying that the two sides argue about three things: traditional sex roles, motherhood, and careers. These things become a part of the debate when looking at what is expected of women. People still hold the belief that women are supposed to get married and have babies, and that is all they are supposed to do. They are expected by some people to stay home with the children and raise/take care of them. 

What needs to happen with this issue is giving women better access to knowledge and medicine that will help in preventing unwanted pregnancies. The end goal is not to make everybody believe in one side or another, but to decrease the number of abortions needed by giving young women better access to birth control, giving them a better sexual education, making the practice of safe sex more widespread, and making the practice of safe abortions more widespread. This change has to come from adults in positions of power over young women like high schools, colleges, and universities. 

There have been instances where pharmacists refuse to give women birth control. In one particular case, pharmacist Neil Noesen, who was the only person on duty that day, refused to give a woman her birth control because it was against his religious beliefs. He also refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy that was near by, and then refused again when the women returned to the pharmacy with the police. (Dale) Even though Noesen was accused of unprofessional conduct, the fact that pharmacists are refusing to give women birth control prescriptions is reason enough to make the access to them that much easier. The end goal is to decrease the number of abortions that happen, and giving women easier access to birth control. This can be done by decreasing the price that women have to pay to receive the birth control, and making sure that insurance is covering more of the cost. Planned Parenthood gives out free birth control at their clinics, but with the protestors outside and the closing of the clinics around the nation, it is becoming harder for those in need to get free birth control. 

The lack of sex education in high school is showing in teenagers. A study from 2003 states that, "19% of young people surveyed felt that they could talk to their parents, and 61% said that they could not," (Measor) in which they are talking about being able to talk to parents about sex. These kids are not feeling like they have a safe environment to talk about sex with, they are not even willing to go to their parents to talk about sex. This is the beginning of the lack of sex education in young adults. The problem is that it is not a topic that is discussed a lot which, in turn, leads to these teenagers and young adults not knowing much about the practices of safe sex. In most high schools the students are given a week long crash course on sex education in their freshman year health class, and then it is never talked about again in school with a professional. In many other schools, they did not even receive any form of sex education in their health classes. To expand the youth's minds on sex education, the school systems need to have more in depth sex education classes, and focus on making the conversations that young adults need to be having with their parents less awkward. The problem here is that most teenagers are not comfortable talking to their parents about questions they have with sex, making it harder for the message in a sex education class to get through to them. This will eventually effect the knowledge that young adults have on practicing safe sex. If the young adults are getting a better sex education they will end up knowing more about the practices of safe sex, and will be more conscious of what they are doing. Both of these things in the end will have a positive effect towards decreasing the number of abortions that are needed in the Unites States. 

The United States government has begun to place laws and legislations that are regulation abortions. This had led to women needing to travel long distances to have abortions in places that they are not familiar with. There have even been reports of abortions being performed without a trained surgeon. There is a popular game called Cards Against Humanity, which is like Apples to Apples except it is rated R. In this game there is a card that says, "coat hanger abortions."  Now this game is meant to be a joke and it is meant to be seen as a joke, but things like coat hanger abortions are becoming more of an issue with the regulations on abortions.  The practice of safe abortions is dwindling. There needs to be safer and more widespread practices of it, because these unsafe practices can hospitalize women. "The WHO estimates that 68,000 unsafe abortion related deaths occur annually; that about one in eight of all pregnancy-related deaths result from unsafe induced abortion; and that about 19 million unsafe abortions take place each year worldwide." (Singh) The fact that abortion is legal in the United States, and women have to endure these unsafe abortions is the problem. Women are entitled to the right to have an abortion, and they should have access to safe abortions. There have been specific cases where women talk about their experiences with unsafe abortion practices. In this case, the couple who was expecting discovered that their son was going to have chromosomal disease. They decided that terminating the pregnancy was ultimately the best thing to do, and they were given harsh treatment when asking what they could do next. They were denied help from their OB, telling them that it was not in her privileges at the hospital to preform an abortion if there is any chance of life. They then had to travel three hundred miles away from their hometown to get the abortion, and when they arrived they were treated with harsh responses and were ignored by nurses and doctors. Her unsafe abortion led to an emergency surgery on her uterus, and she asked the doctors at the hospital one thing: "Why couldn't I have received care in a hospital from the start?" (Padilla). Padilla brings up a good point on why abortions aren't practiced in hospitals even though they are legal in all fifty states. With better and safer access to abortions, the women who need them wouldn't be putting their lives at risk as well. 

The debate between pro-life and pro-choice has been around for over four decades, and there is no foreseeable end to this debate. The pro-life supporters will always believe that when a woman is getting an abortion that she is killing a living being and that it is entitled to the right to life, and the pro-choice supporters will always believe that all women are entitled to the right to choose to have an abortion, as protected under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The two sides of the argument are both trying to achieve the same goal: to decrease the number of abortions that are needed in the United States. The pro-choice movement supporters do not want to see more abortions happening, but rather they want to see less. This can be achieved through making birth control have easier access to women who need it, giving the young adults of America a better sex education in high school and middle school, having a more widespread practice of safe sex, and making the practice of safe abortions more widespread. Doing all of these things will decrease the amount of abortions that are happening. 

