Induced abortion has been the most common way to terminate pregnancy intentionally since it was legalized by the Supreme Court under the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 (Manninen 4).  In North America, 18% of unintended pregnancies ended in abortion in 2008 (Singh and Hussain 4). Moreover, of the 6.1 million pregnancies in the United States in 2011, around 45% were unplanned. At that time, 42% of unintended pregnancies were ended in abortion and 22% ended in birth (Finer and Zolna 1). The data above illustrate the prevalence of induced abortion in North America and in the United States. However, as an argumentative topic, it has been continuously debated by supporters and opponents for several decades in the United States (Manninen 1). Some pro-choice people regard induced abortion as one of the most basic and significant rights for women, who have the freedom to dominate their own bodies and protect their health. Some pro-life people claim that induced abortion should not be allowed since it is a murder of an innocent life who has feelings (Rosenthal 4).

When you have read the paragraph above, you may be confused as to why I would write this essay. Induced abortion has been legal in the United States for 44 years, so arguments do not affect the legalization. In fact, although induced abortion has been legalized for a long time, it still faces opposition from the public and some restrictions from governments, such as the imposed reduction on the number of abortion clinics, the Trap laws, and the 20 weeks ban. The 20 weeks ban was introduced in 2010 when the lawmakers in Nebraska established a bill named "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" (Manninen 1). It is also known as HR 36, which is a bill that leads to a ban on induced abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The House of Representatives just passed the bill with 237 votes for and 189 votes against on October 13th, 2017 (Tatum 1). "It will protect those children who science has proven can feel pain, and give them a chance to grow and live full and happy lives," the leader of the house McCarthy said, “We have an obligation to speak and defend for those who can't speak for themselves.” (Tatum 1). In fact, the bill, HR 36, has been vetoed twice both in 2013 and 2015 (Tatum 1). “The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 36, which would unacceptably restrict women's health and reproductive rights and is an assault on a woman's right to choose.” The Obama administration strongly opposed this bill and claimed that, “Women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care, and Government should not inject itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor” (Obama, Barack 1).

Although most of the abortions occur before 20 weeks, women need the right to decide when to terminate the pregnancy before or after 20 weeks by themselves rather than by politicians. This essay aims to show the advantages of induced abortion and the harms of adding restrictions on it; governments should support induced abortion rather than add restrictions on it because it benefits pregnant women, fetuses and the society in several ways. First, governments should protect women's rights above fetuses' rights since choosing induced abortion is one of the most basic rights of autonomy and privacy for women. Moreover, women have human rights but fetuses do not since they have not been born. Second, induced abortion should be allowed since many women are notified of their fetuses’ unhealthy diagnosis after 20 weeks. Otherwise, these women have to terminate gestation in unusual ways. Third, induced abortion gives pregnant women, who do not want to bear babies another chance to gain a better life and prevents the births of marginal fetuses who might live not well. Fourth, induced abortion is good for the society because abortion legalization reduced the death rate of pregnant women and public crime rates in many states. These are reasons why induced abortion needs to be allowed by governments: It has a number of benefits for pregnant women, fetuses and the public.

Firstly, induced abortion should be supported because fetuses offend women's right to privacy and autonomy; women should be allowed to use and make choices about their own body, and terminate their pregnancy on their own should they choose to. Moreover, governments need to pay attention to women's requests rather than fetuses' because fetuses do not have human rights. At first, because of the right to autonomy and privacy, making the decision about when to terminate the pregnancy is one of the most basic rights for women at the constitutional level (Rosenthal 6). The Obama administration published a similar statement in 2015, which said: “Over the past forty years, since Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has affirmed a woman's constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose” (Obama, Barack 1). In this way, the Roe v. Wade decision, as a foundation of the abortion legalization, should be respected and obeyed rather than have added to it some extra restricted laws and be potentially overturned. The right of autonomy is necessary to be followed according to the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, which was published by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2005. It claims the importance to protect people’s autonomy: “The autonomy of persons to make decisions, while taking responsibility for those decisions and respecting the autonomy of others, is to be respected.” Similarly, the dean professor Erwin Chemerinsky and the Chancellor’s Professor Michele Goodwin at the University of California, Irvine School of Law write: “When the State makes judgments as to who should or should not be granted autonomy over her reproductive decision making. It engages not only in social determinism but also an unconstitutional and discriminatory practice"(12). For this reason, governments should not establish restrictions on induced abortion because any restriction is immoral and unconstitutional to the fundamental human right. Moreover, induced abortion can be regarded as a defense for pregnant women’s own bodies. 

Since fetuses live in women’s bodies without any permission and cause many inconveniences with pregnancy, women should be able to defend their right to bodily autonomy and right to privacy (Chemerinsky 1). Fetuses, who live in others’ wombs and sustain life by extracting nutrition from others’ bodies without any request, should not be regarded as moral and normal. “It is becoming increasingly necessary to make the case that the right to an abortion is not about flippantly ignoring the value of fetal life," Bertha Alvarez Manninen, who is a professor of philosophy at Arizona State University, writes, "but rather about stressing that no human being has the moral right to use another human being's body against the latter's will to sustain life" (4). Similarly, Matt Dillahunty, a public speaker, also has said: "Parental responsibility should never compel the use of someone else's body" (#137 Debate). Therefore, the right to abortion should be defended. Furthermore, fetuses have not been regarded as humans until they are born, so fetuses do not have human rights, but women do. According to the constitutional law, governments should protect women’s rights first rather than considering fetuses’ rights. In the first fetus case in 1992, the Supreme Court of Tennessee claims that women have human rights but fetuses do not since fetuses have not developed the characteristics of persons and have not become individuals yet (Manninen 6). For these reasons, induced abortion should be supported because it is a fundamental right for pregnant women whose right to privacy and autonomy are offended by fetuses, who have not grown to be individuals.

Secondly, governments should not restrict induced abortion and establish 20 week bans because women may face some difficulties suddenly; for example, pregnant women receive fetuses' disease diagnoses after twenty weeks. Although most induced abortions happened before 20 weeks, it is undeniable that there also many induced abortions that happen after. For instance, in 1999, 9643 reported legal abortions occurred after 21 weeks of gestation in 43 states in the United States. Among all of the reported legal abortions after 21 weeks at that time, 2020 induced abortions happened in North Carolina (Elam-Evans 1). If the 20-week bans were established at the federal level, pregnant women who received fetuses' unhealthy diagnoses could not terminate their gestation legally in the United States anymore, such as April's son. April and her husband, who loved each other deeply, just celebrated their seventh anniversary and learned that she was pregnant with a child who would be regarded as an extension of their love. However, after 20 weeks into the pregnancy, doctors confirmed that April's fetus had skeletal dysplasia, which means that her son has too narrow a rib cage to develop his lungs, so he could never breathe by himself. This means that when her son were to be born, he would die in a few minutes since he could not breathe (April's Story). If 20-week bans were established, what should April do? April imagined the situation that if she was forced to bear her son and she said, "I can't imagine holding him and watching him take his last breath and knowing that would be painful for him" (April's Story). Another mother Julie faced the similar situation and shared her pain: Doctor showed the sonogram and told her that parts of her fetus' brain were seriously malformed. Then she had to go to Congress where she met with representatives to ask for medical advice, and she said: "Because they are politicians…this is nothing to do with politics. This has to do with the choices my husband and I needed to make" (Why A 20). 

What will pregnant women do, if they want to terminate gestation but face restrictions and bans? They might end the pregnancy by themselves, (Grossman 1) travel to another place to abort or go to illegal clinics (Chemerinsky 24). In Texas, where there are some extreme laws restricting abortion, the estimated number of women, who have tried to end gestation by themselves in age 18-49, arrives at 100,000 and 240,000 (Grossman 1). If 20-week bans were established, pregnant women who want to end pregnancy after 20 weeks at current would have similar decisions to women in history  when induced abortion was illegal in the United States. Wealthy women asked friendly doctors for help or traveled to other countries, where they could terminate the pregnancy legally. Poor women, who could not afford to raise a new child or pay for the private abortion fee, had to go to illegal clinics, where there are high rates of infection, sterility, and death (Chemerinsky 24). Before the mid-1960s, the estimated death rate caused by illegal abortion rose to 1000 to 8000 deaths each year (Schoen 4). If governments issued laws and bans to restrict induced abortion after 20 weeks, these pained women, who have to terminate the pregnancy due to their children's diseases, would have to try different ways to end gestations. The history of America, when induced abortion was not allowed by laws, will repeat again among these poor women (Chemerinsky 4).

Third, induced abortion is good for both pregnant women's and fetuses' living circumstances because it gives women a chance to live better and prevents the tragedy of births of unplanned children. Generally, when pregnant women do not want to raise children when they face difficulties, they should decide whether to bear fetuses on their own rather than by governments. In a 1987 survey of women about their reasons for choosing induced abortion, there are several motivations, such as interference from school or work, financial hardship, and difficulties with their partner (Finer 1). In 2004, in a survey about specific reasons why to have an abortion, 42% answered that it is because they were unmarried, 11% answered that their relationship or marriage would break up soon, 34% answered that they were student or planning to study, 38% answered that a new baby interferes job or career, 22% answered that they were unemployed and 12% answered that partners were unemployed (Finer 4). These surveys illustrate that having a new baby really affects women's lives in several ways, so many people decide to end their gestation due to these reasons. If induced abortion were banned after 20 weeks, when these women face sudden difficulties, like unemployment, break-up, divorce, what would they do? Some of them may have to bear babies, face interference to their life under the pressure of study, work, and finance, and become single mothers. For this reason, induced abortion gives pregnant women a chance to terminate gestation they do not want to and to live as before pregnancy. 

Additionally, induced abortion helps some pregnant women get a better life. The living standard of many young women, who had terminated abortion, is better than that of pregnant women who had chosen to bear children (Fergusson 1). There is a longitudinal study about women who born in 1977 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Researchers interviewed them at age 15,16,18, 21 and 25 about their pregnancy history and abortion experience in order to compare living standard between women who had abortion before age 21 and who had pregnancy but gave a birth (Fergusson 2). From the result, we know that for women who have had induced abortion before age 21, 29.2% attended university, 18.8% got university degree, 54.2% have ever had welfare; the mean exposure to partner violence is 2.0, and the mean personal income at age 25 arrived at $24200. Compare to women who had pregnancy and no abortion before age twenty-one, 11.7% attended university, 3.9% got university degree, 68.8% have ever had welfare; the mean exposure to partner violence is 3.2, and the mean personal income at age 25 arrived at $17700 (Fergusson 4). It clearly shows that women who had pregnancy but no abortion before age 21 had lower percentage to attend university, gain university degree, higher percentage to rely on welfare, face partner violence and receive lower income. In conclusion, induced abortion gives women a chance to gain a better life rather than to be affected by the birth of a child. 

Abortion also prevents the birth of unplanned fetuses who might not live well. In a research, researchers estimate the relationship between abortion availability and living circumstance of marginal children (Gruber 3). The study shows that in 1980, if these marginal children were born in 1980, 18.6% were more likely to live with single parent, 18.8% might live in poverty, 10.6% might with welfare receipt and 1.9% might die in first year (Gruber 17). Since abortion are available, less marginal children may live in the single family, live in the poverty, receive welfare and face death. In addition, doctor Marianne Bitler and doctor Madeline Zavodny prove that abortion availability leads to a decline on the rate of child abuse of unplanned children (Bitler 3). Induced abortion should be supported by governments because it dramatically benefits both women and fetuses. 

Fourth, legalization of induced abortion benefits the society since it has decreased the death rate and crime rate. The evidence is the American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs’ claims: the legalization of induced abortion is the main factor to cause the decrease of mortality rate related to abortion (Coble et al. 1). Doctor Laurie D Elam-Evans proves that the fatality rate of pregnant women of legal induced abortion declined from 4.1% in 1973 to 0.6% in 1997 after induced abortion legalization (Elam-Evans 1). Furthermore, John J. Donohue III, an economist and a professor of law at Stanford Law School, and Steven D. Levitt, an expert in crime and a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, have written that legalization of abortion in several states leads to the decline in crime rates in that places. There are several types of research prove that legalization of induced abortion brings benefits to the public.

In conclusion, induced abortion should be supported rather than be restricted by governments because it offers benefits to pregnant women, fetuses and the public. Pregnant women should have rights to decide whether to terminate gestation by themselves since it is part of the right to autonomy and privacy. Induced abortion also helps pregnant women live better, prevents fetuses live not well, decreases mortality rates of pregnant women and declines the crime rates in several states.  However, it is undeniable that induced abortion harms women's health, such as the relationship between induced abortion history and the preterm birth crisis in the future (McCaffrey 1). Due to the certain harms to women’s health, the purpose of this essay is to emphasize the importance of rights for pregnant women to politicians but not to encourage women to choose induced abortion. How can pro-life people impose their personal opinions on others and even set restrictions on induced abortion in the law? Compare to restrict abortion, governments should pay more attention to sexual education in order to propagandize both sides of induced abortion. When women realize clearly both benefits and harms of induced abortion, they can thoroughly consider their health and living circumstance and carefully decide to have induced abortion or not. The right of determination of women’s body should belong to their own rather than to governments. 
