In today’s world, abortions are one of the most debated topics because it not only pertains to women’s health and bodily rights but it also brings religion into the question.  Many people believe that receiving an abortion just because they got pregnant on accident or because they don’t want a child in their life should be against the law.  In fact, in some countries, it is legal to get an abortion after the first trimester solely on the grounds of the sex of the child.  Other people believe that a woman should have a say in what does or does not happen to her body, which they are not wrong.  However, if they were fighting complete control over what happened to their body don’t you think that control would include preventing unwanted pregnancies through the use of contraception?  Abortions should be illegal because it affects people’s religion, women are getting them for the wrong reasons, and it causes pain to the unborn baby inside of the mother.

Before a person chooses whether they are prochoice or prolife, they must first understand exactly what an abortion is.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines abortion as: the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus during the first 12 weeks.  In other words, the women either takes a pill or undergoes a procedure that kills the baby before it is carried to full term.  When a person is prolife, they usually argue that an abortion is the equivalence of murder.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines murder as: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.  As you can see, the accusation of abortion being murder is not far off.  An abortion is a procedure that is premeditated because the woman must schedule an appointment with the doctor for some time in advance.  

Over the years, the way abortions have been thought of have changed tremendously.  At one point in history, abortions were banned by the United States as well as other countries; however, abortions were still carried out by “abortion providers” instead of licensed doctors.  Later, abortion was viewed as a solution for unwed pregnant mothers because having sex with a guy that you are not married to was strongly frowned upon let alone actually conceiving a child from it.  In fact, women were so desperate to receive an abortion that some took to their own home ways.  For instance, some exposed themselves to lead or inserted candles into their cervix to kill the baby (Walker).  Nowadays, a woman having sex and conceiving a child with a man she is not married to is accepted by American culture, so not only do these extreme alternatives to abortion not exist anymore but also receiving an abortion just because you’re ashamed of what you have done with a guy should not be a reason for killing your child.  

Overall, millions of children are not alive today because their parents aborted them.

Who Most Commonly Receives an Abortion:

Since abortions are a dangerous, emotional, and painful procedure to undergo, it is normal to wonder what kind of women most commonly receive them.  In other words, you question what kind of women can intentionally kill her child and end her chance of a creating a family at that point in her life.  If you stop and think, you’ll start to realize that most people have at least one friend or family member that has terminated her pregnancy through having an abortion.  There are two routes a woman can choose when she discovers that she’s pregnant; however, there’s no right answer as to why she chose abortion.  

There is a certain stereotype that comes to mind when you picture a woman that is okay with receiving an abortion.  It is usually involving tattoos on her arm, a cigarette in her mouth, an overly small tank top with her bra showing, or shorts that are too short for her.  In other words, you imagine a woman that is harsh and not warm and welcoming.  While that theoretical woman stated above may or may not have received an abortion, the average woman that chooses to kill her child is different.  In reference to the statistics set forth in Prospect, the typical abortion patient is used to be a white, middle-class girl that was still in school and whose future would be ruined with the birth of their child; however, today, over half of the women that undergo this procedure was because of economic problems (Marcotte).  These women most likely receive an abortion because they cannot afford the financial burden of a child; however, if they are mature enough to be having sex with a man than they are old enough to find a job that could financially support herself and the human being that is growing inside of her.

One of the most argued topics when it comes to abortion is if there are circumstances where abortion should be allowed.  That answer is never a straight yes or no.  Technically speaking, yes abortion should be allowed for cases of rape or incest.  However, if a woman has received proper medical care soon after those awful incidents occurred, then it will insure that the victim will not become pregnant.  In a year, 14,000 abortions are carried out because the woman conceived a child from either being raped or incest (Abortion Statistics).  Yes, most people agree that it would be unfair to expect the victim to birth and raise a child that came from a horrific event.  Interestingly, not everyone stops to think that abortion punishes the child when the person being punished should be the perpetrator.  In most cases, the woman is probably incapable of raising a child because she does not believe she can give it the mothers love it deserves, which may not be wrong.  In contrast, if the women kept the child instead of rushing to get an abortion, she could give it up for adoption.  In the U.S. alone, there are a little over 4 million women who want to be able to give a child their love because they are unable to have one of their own (Hoping to Adopt).  

When asking an individual why they are prolife, the most common answer received is that they are against abortion because of their religious beliefs.  In countries, east of the United States, there is typically one main religion that is evidently prominent all throughout.  For instance, in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam is most prominent.  In India, Hinduism and Buddhism have the most followers.  Since these countries have one dominant religion, the topic of whether or not abortion is legal relies solely on that religious beliefs.  This does not apply for the United States, however, because we have religious freedom that other countries do not.  However, some religions do allow condemn abortion in certain circumstances.

Since abortion is an ethical issue, it is only natural that people would look to their religions to decide how they genuinely feel on the topic.  There are certain religions that are strictly pro-natalist, like Roman Catholicism.  Then there are other religions that do not take a firm stand on what they believe, like Protestants.  

In Judaism, the reasoning behind their views of abortion and when it is and is not allowed differ from the straight-forward views of Roman Catholicism.  In the Torah, it states, “whoever destroys one life is as if he destroyed a whole world, and whoever preserves a life is as if he preserved the whole world,” (Sanhedrin 4:5).  This excerpt is very straight forward.  It simply says that destroying a life, the baby growing inside you, is as though you are destroying that whole world.  However, in Judaism, they generally accept abortions within the first 40 days of conception because they believe that the soul has not entered the baby yet.  After the first 40 days are up, then abortion is believed to be a sin.  

In Islam, their views on the morality of abortion are a little different.  The Muslim teachings do allow abortion; however, it is limited to the very early stages of pregnancy and only if there is a good reasoning behind it.  Abortions for Muslims later in their pregnancy are allowed, but only if there is proof that it will bring harm to the mother (Cline).  This means that the mother cannot abort her baby solely because she does not want the responsibility of taking care of a child.  

Abortion when it comes to Buddhism and Hinduism are treated generally the same.  Since Buddhists believe in reincarnation, which means they believe that life truly does begin once the baby is conceived (Cline).  This means that the act of getting an abortion at any stage of the pregnancy counts as murder.  In Hinduism, they believe that the fetus has a divine spirit, so killing the fetus is seen, in their eyes, as not only a sin but also a villainous crime.

Abortions, in the eyes of religion, are not condemned because it allows man to act against God’s wishes.  In other words, if you get pregnant, even if it’s by accident, God had something to do with it.  If a religious person were to get an abortion for a reason that is not allowed in their religion, then they are altering the way God had intended the world to be.  

When discussing a topic as controversial as abortion, it is easy to stray away from the facts.  In order to determine how safe abortion is, one must turn to the medical statistics.  In essence, the problems that occur from an abortion are related directly to the experience of the abortion provider.  However, since most women who are denied an abortion go to an unlicensed abortion provider, these risks are much higher and should not be taken lightly.

Of course, there is the main problems that are common from any medical procedure: infection, blood clotting, and allergic reactions.  Nevertheless, abortion has its own complications that are caused just from receiving this procedure.  The first complication is having an incomplete abortion.  This means that the fetal tissue may not have been completely removed from the uterus.  Because of this, the woman will experience heavy and irregular bleeding and she will have to undergo another abortion to complete it.  Another complication is uterine perforation.  This happens when a medical instrument that the abortion provider is using punctures that uterus wall.  While the probability of this occurring in an actual hospital are low, the probability of these happening when the abortion procedure is done from an unlicensed provider is between 10-50% (Informed Consent).

Abortions should be illegal because it can result in multiple medical complications that could last the women’s lifetime.

All the topics previously mentioned aim to answer one question.  Should abortion be illegal?  For previous years, the abortion law has either prohibited, restricted, or regulated abortion.  Most prochoice people argue that abortion should be allowed for any woman who does not wish to have a child, and they argue that the law should be changed; however, what they fail to recognize is that voting on bills and laws to govern abortions are always on the ballot.   

The most popular court case based around abortion is Roe vs. Wade.  This was the first court case that legalized abortion within the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy.  The decision to legalize abortion was based on two different mothers with two different problems; one mother’s health was at risk and the other mother was not able to financially support her unborn child.  Even though abortion was legalized within the first trimester, the ruling in Roe vs. Wade gave the states the right to intervene throughout the second and third trimesters of the pregnancy (West).  

Abortion should be illegal because it denies the unborn baby the right to life, which was given to all Americans through the US Constitution.  

If abortion was legal without having any restrictions, then the abortion rates would increase; however, the actions of citizens would also change drastically.  When a woman discovers she is pregnant, she could immediately receive an abortion procedure without a second thought.  In fact, women could receive as many abortions as they wanted and treat it as just another contraception method.  Or maybe abortion would be the mother’s only contraceptive method.  There would be no restrictions on when the mother would have to receive the abortion.  For instance, women would be able to get an abortion during not only the first trimester but also the second and third.  This means the mother could abort their unborn child if they decide they do not want a baby boy and they’d rather try to get pregnant again and have a baby girl.  This is a form of selectively choosing the gender of your child, which is usually practiced in China because they’d rather have a boy to carry on the family name than a girl.  Selective abortion is highly discriminatory and incredibly against what America, the land of the free, believes in.  

I believe abortion should be illegal because it is a cruel act against an unborn baby, it is against my religion, and it is highly dangerous to the mothers receiving the operations.  The idea of abortion being legal without any ramifications would greatly affect our society and the way they behave.  The reason abortion is limited to the first trimester is because this is when the fetus is still developing its sense and therefore it will feel the pain less.  If there were no restrictions on the timeframe the abortion could be done, then does that mean that it would be legal for a teenager to kill themselves?  By aborting a perfect, healthy unwanted baby, that you conceived by accident you are making it harder for parents to adopt a baby who can’t conceive a child.  In regards to religion, abortion makes human life completely disposable.  God is the reasoning behind all things and if you got pregnant, then he has a reason for it.  By getting an abortion for that baby you do not want you are deliberately acting against the will of God.  I also believe that abortion in the case of rape or incest should not be allowed because when they receive the proper medical care, the doctor ensures that the women will not get pregnant.  
