Personal Decision

"Misconceptions About Abortion." THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK. N.p., n.d.

Web. 29 June 2015.
Pro-life is pro-family. Pro-abortionists are anti-family. Abortion destroys the family.
Legal abortion helps parents limit their families to the number of children they want
and can afford. This strengthens and stabilizes the family unit. Therefore, pro-choice
is pro-child and pro-family. Anti-abortion laws can cause stress and hardship for
families with insufficient resources to raise unwanted children. Families with
unwanted children often consist of a child and her child, living at the lowest levels of
society.
Personal Decision
"Misconceptions About Abortion." THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 June 2015.
Most unwanted pregnancies become wanted children. Women who have abortions
regret their mistake later.
Many unwanted babies are abused and neglected, and suffer lifelong developmental
and social problems. Many women make mistakes in having babies they don't want
and can't love or care for. A few women may come to regret their abortion, but this
should not be a reason to deny choice to all women.
Personal Decision
"Abortion Isnt a Necessary Evil. Its Great." - In These Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 June
2015.
And, finally, abortion prevents sufferingnot only the emotional, physical and
financial suffering of parents, but that of infants. Some fetal defects, such as
bilateral renal agenesis (lack of both kidneys) or anencephaly (lack of an upper
brain and skull) are simply not survivable. Were not talking disabilities, were
talking death sentences: If the pregnancy is brought to term, the child will die,
usually within hours or days of birth.
Any reasonable person would presumably agree that its senseless and inhumane to
force a family that is already losing a pregnancy to endure the longest and most
painful version of that loss, or to condemn a child to unavoidable, lethal suffering,
simply so that strangers can have the satisfaction of knowing it died outside the
womb. Yet not only do anti-abortion advocates encourage women to carry nonviable fetuses to term, Pollitt unearths a horrifying story of a 17-year-old in Peru who
was denied an abortion by Peruvian law, and who was therefore forced to give birth
to, and breastfeed, an anencephalic child who lived for four days.

This, along with tales of women who entered sepsis or died because they could not
receive abortions while they were miscarrying, constitutes the dark end of the road
for anti-abortion arguments: The culture of life that anti-choice movements want
actually brings tragedy and death by failing to recognize reality.
Personal Decision
"Misconceptions About Abortion." THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 June 2015.
Adoption is a better alternative to abortion.
A woman should be able to decide for herself. Some women do choose adoption,
but many more choose single parenthood. Adoption is a difficult route for anyone to
take, and it is not fair to demand that women make such a sacrifice. For a married
woman, giving a baby up for adoption is virtually impossible.
Personal Decision
"More Americans." Gallup.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 June 2015.

Human Rights
"Arguments in Favour of Abortion." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 29 June 2015.
Many people regard the right to control one's own body as a key moral right. If
women are not allowed to abort an unwanted fetus they are deprived of this right.
The simplest form of the women's rights argument in favour of abortion goes like
this:

a woman has the right to decide what she can and can't do with her body
the fetus exists inside a woman's body
a woman has the right to decide whether the fetus remains in her body
therefore a pregnant woman has the right to abort the fetus
The issue brings many ideas about human rights into brutally sharp focus.
every human being has the right to own their own body
a fetus is part of a woman's body
therefore that woman has the right to abort a fetus they are carrying

The important US Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade to some extent supported
that view when it ruled that a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy came
under the freedom of personal choice in family matters and was protected by the
14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
This leads some people to claim is that it is unethical to ban abortion because doing
so denies freedom of choice to women and forces 'the unwilling to bear the
unwanted'.
Opponents of this argument usually attack the idea that a fetus is 'part' of a
woman's body. They argue that a fetus is not the same sort of thing as a leg or a
liver: it is not just a part of a woman's body, but is (to some extent) a separate
'person' with its own right to life.
A second objection to this argument is that people do not have the complete right
to control their bodies. All people are subject to various restrictions on what they do
with their bodies - and some of these restrictions (laws against suicide or
euthanasia) are just as invasive.

Human Rights
"Misconceptions About Abortion." THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 June 2015.
The right of the unborn to live supersedes any right of a woman to "control her own
body."
Margaret Sanger said, "No woman can call herself free who does not own and
control her own body." This concept is fundamental for women. Bearing a child
alters a woman's life more than anything else. Other women's rights are hollow if
women are forced to be mothers. Being born is a gift, not a right. People don't ask
to be born, and some even wish they weren't.
Life-saving Reason
"Misconceptions About Abortion." THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 June 2015.
Abortion is dangerous and medically risky. It is not as safe as natural pregnancy.
Abortion increases the risk of miscarriage in future pregnancies, and infertility.
The risk of dying from childbirth is about 13 times that for early abortion, and the
overall abortion complication rate is extremely low, about 25 times lower than for
childbirth. First-trimester abortion has become one of the safest and simplest
medical procedures of all, one that can be quickly and routinely performed even by
nurses as well as doctors. Having an abortion will not adversely affect a woman's

future reproduction. Legalized abortion has had a positive impact on the health of
American women by providing them with a safer way to terminate their
pregnancies.
Life-saving Reason
"Misconceptions About Abortion." THE PRO-CHOICE ACTION NETWORK. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 June 2015.
If abortion were made illegal again, women would not return to coat-hanger
abortions or back-alley butchers. Safe, modern technology will be available to nonphysicians, and it would be relatively easy to get an abortion.
If abortion were illegal, well-intentioned but unskilled practitioners would perforate
uteruses, misjudge the length of gestation, do incomplete abortions, and otherwise
botch the procedure. Women's health would suffer and the death rate soar. Further,
women would once more be forced to break the law to receive necessary medical
care, and their dignity would be lost in the process. Also, this argument, by
admitting that abortions would continue under anti-abortion laws, exposes the real
goal behind recriminalizing abortion---to punish women.

Life-saving Reason
"Abortion Isnt a Necessary Evil. Its Great." - In These Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 June
2015.
First, and most obviously, if you have a uterus, your life depends on being able to
control what goes on inside of it; giving birth necessarily represents a drastic
lifestyle change and heavy financial responsibility, which lasts anywhere from nine
months to the rest of your natural-born life. Therefore, in order to effectively plan a
life and career, you must have some guarantee that you will never be forced to take
on the risk or cost of childbirth unless you choose to do so. Birth control and
abortion are the only ways to provide such a guarantee. If we are to have leaders
and geniuses with uteruses, we must provide them with the reproductive freedom
necessary to go to school and build careers.
Pregnancy is also a health risk: Women and girls can and do die from childbirth and
pregnancy. There are plenty of other health risks, common and uncommon, that
attend upon pregnancy. Michelle Lee, whose story Pollitt cites in her book, required
a heart transplant, which she could not receive while she stayed pregnant. Yet

doctors at Louisiana State Medical Center denied her the necessary abortion, and
therefore also the transplant, because the hospital rules stated that the risk of
death from her pregnancy had to be greater than 50 percent before they could
abort.
Abortion saves lives, and even if your life is not directly or immediately endangered
by your pregnancy, I dont have the right to force you to risk life and limb, or go
through drastic and painful physical experiences like labor, simply because I prefer
that you stay pregnant.
Arguments Against Abortion
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. "In Support of Abortion, Its Personal vs. Political." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 28 Nov. 2009. Web. 29 June 2015.
Polls over the last two decades have shown that a clear majority of Americans
support the right to abortion, and theres little evidence of a difference between
those over 30 and under 30, but the vocabulary of the debate has shifted with the
political culture. Ms. Keenan, who is 57, says women like her, who came of age
when abortion was illegal, tend to view it in stark political terms as a right to be
defended, like freedom of speech or freedom of religion. But younger people tend to
view abortion as a personal issue, and their interests are different.