Abortion: Pro-Choice Essay, Research Paper

Abortion: Pro-Choice

It should be strictly between a doctor and his/her patient whether or not an abortion should be performed. Many Anti-Choicers give us their speeches about how immoral abortions are, but different people have different morals. I personally would not have an abortion, but I think that whoever wants an abortion should be given the option. Abortion should be allowed if it is performed before the 20th week of pregnancy and is performed in sanitary conditions by a trained doctor, if all of these requirements are met it reduces the chance of the mother or fetus being injured.

Pro-Choicers and Anti-Choicers alike agree that the fetus should not be hurt. Everyone agrees that at some point during a pregnancy the fetus can feel pain. Pain is an electrical signal sent from pain receptors to the thalamus through nerves in the spine. The pain receptors develop in a fetus about 7 weeks from the LMP, last menstrual period, the spino-thalamic system, the nerves and the thalamus, develop approximately 13 weeks into the pregnancy. However, these two things are not connected until about the 26th week of pregnancy. A group of experts in Britain who studied this subject concluded that a fetus could not feel pain until the thalamus and pain receptors are joined at about the 24th to 26th week.

Abortion, under the right conditions, is a very safe procedure. The National Abortion Federation, NAF, calls abortion one of the safest types of surgery. *1 If an abortion is performed by the 13th week of pregnancy, the chances that the woman will not have any complications are 97%.*2 If abortion were made illegal, the necessity for illegal, botched abortions would increase. These abortions are many times performed in unsanitary conditions with primitive equipment by incompetent practitioners. In these conditions, the chances of serious complications is much higher than with a legal abortion.

If abortions were illegal, the number of unwanted children would increase. If women are forced to bring unwanted children into the world, it could cause many problems. The children might be abandoned, neglected, or even brutalized by his parents. If the family did not abandon of the child, it could cause financial problems for the family. If the family did abandon the child, the orphanage would have one more mouth to feed.

Many people believe that the issue of abortion comes down to one question, whether or not the fetus is a person. But abortion should be legal if the fetus is a person or not. If the fetus is not a person, it is a part of the woman and it is her decision what to do with the fetus. If the fetus is a person, the 5th Amendment says that a life will not be taken without due process of law. The process of law, in this case, would be a legal abortion.