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 ruled in a seven to 2 decision that a woman's right to an abortion is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Unties States Constitution. The court ruling decision sparked 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 advocae 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.

Before talking about ways that we can solve the abortion debate, it is important to know what each side is, and what they believe in. The anti-abortion movement believes in the right to human life, and believed that it should be extended to the unborn. They advocate for regulations on abortion and support any law or legislation that is put in place to do so. There are many different groups of people that are involved in the pro-life movement, and believe in different aspects. For example, traditional Jews support an abortion if it will help save the life of the pregnant woman, but do not support it in any other circumstance. While on the other hand, the members of the Catholic Church believe that abortion is morally evil and under no circumstances will they support it. The common belief within the anti-abortion movement is that abortion in morally wrong, and is considered murder. 

Pro-life advocates make the argument that the man should be entitled to the decision on whether or not to abort when there are conflicting views on the issue. The pro-life advocates believe that the man should hold majority of the power in deciding whether or not they should abort. 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-life advocates 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.

A commonly held pro-life advocate argument is normally something along the liens of, "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 the unborn have the right to live, which should be protected by law" (Messamore). However, there is no scientific proof as to when human life begins. There are many different theories as to when human life begins, but the theory that conception is the beginning is mainly a religious held belief. Due to Article Six of the United States Constitution, stating that no religious tests shall ever be required as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States, there cannot be laws put in place based on one's religious beliefs. However, Article Six does not protect against abortion regulation. Statistics show that in 2013 alone, 70 laws that restricted access to abortion were put in to effect. These laws ranged from bans on abortion at 20 weeks post fertilization to putting limitation on insurance coverages for abortion procedures. The state is trying to make it harder for women to have access to abortions, and it has recently been discovered that even though majority of American's support the Roe versus Wade ruling, they are not legislation that is flagrantly violating the Fourteenth Amendment. Katha Pollitt writes, " ... 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." She describes only some of the regulations that the states have been putting on abortion, and this was three years ago. There have been more and more laws put in place to regulate abortion, and this needs to stop. 

The other side of the debate is the pro-choice side, who believe in the pro-abortion movement. The pro-choice advocates 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. It is commonly argued that the pro-choice advocates are murders and want to see more abortions, but that is not the case.

So this poses the question, what can we do about this? Even with the very different sides of the debate which mainly come down to "ideologies traditional sex roles, motherhood, and careers" (Medoff), there has to be some way that the two sides can both agree. There has to be something that the American public can do in order to attempt to solve this issue. What needs to happen in this case is that we need to educate the young adults of America. We need to give women better access to the knowledge and the medicine that will help them prevent unwanted pregnancies. The end goal here is to decrease the number of abortions needed by 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 abortions safer for women. 

With the government placing laws that regulate abortion, women who are in need of an abortion are forced to travel long distances, taking up time and money that they might not necessarily have, and ending up in unfamiliar places to have abortions. Even though it is legal in all fifty states, women are still being forced to travel these long distances to receive the procedure. There is a popular game called Cards Against Humanity, which is like Apples to Apples except rated R. In this game there is a card that says, "coat hanger abortions." Now this game is meant to be taken as a joke, but it is becoming a more common thing to hear about in the United States. The practice of safe abortions in the United States is becoming more and more scarce. But it is not only happening here in the United States, "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). These statistics are proof that due to the unfair access to abortions, women and doing whatever it takes to have an abortion, even putting their life at risk. Even in the Unites States, women and beginning of speak up about the experiences that they are having with these unsafe 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. By providing women with safer access to abortions, we can ensure that the procedure is safe and that they are getting the care that they need rather than them risking their lives for something that they have the right to. 

Another way that we can work towards solving this issue is by preventing the closures of Planned Parenthood clinics. Planned Parenthood is one of the major victims of the pro-life advocates attacks. The pro-life community sees Planned Parenthood as just a place that helps women carry out their abortions. What the pro-life advocates don't know is 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-life advocates 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.

Planned Parenthood clinics also provide women with free birth control, but with the closing of the clinics, it is becoming harder and harder for women to get the necessary medicine that will help them prevent unwanted pregnancies. There have even 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 woman 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 we can do this by 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. 

Another way to attempt to fix this problem is by providing our nation's young adults with a better and more in-depth sex education. 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 the practice of 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 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, 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 this number decrease. 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. 

