Abortion: Safe, Legal, and Rare

Maeve Enright
AP Language
Friday, December 17, 2016

Acknowledgements

I received assistance from Meghan, my teacher, who gave me suggestions on organization and
research, Eli, my classmate, who gave me suggestions on my argument and evidence, and Rita, a
consultant in the Writing and Rhetoric Studio, who gave me suggestions on organization and my
argument. I used NoodleTools, a citation device, to create my works cited page. I also used the
New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford American Writers Thesaurus for assistance
with word choice and definitions. Many of the ideas contained in this essay originated or were
developed in our class discussions.

Recognizing this assistance, I affirm that this piece is my own work, and I am entirely
responsible for its content.

_______________________________________________________
Maeve Enright
Friday, December 17, 2016
 According to Our Bodies Ourselves, at every point in history, women from around the

world have had abortions to control their reproduction. Abortion in the United States has been

widely practiced since before 1880, although most states by that time had banned it. In part,

these laws were due to the threat that midwives who performed abortions became to men in the

medical industry, as well as an attempt to keep women in the traditional childbearing role. These

laws caused many women to resort to dangerous self-abortions, and although most deaths were

not reported to be caused by illegal abortions, thousands of women a year were treated in

hospitals due to dangerous, incorrectly performed, self-induced abortions, and many of them

died because of their injuries.

Roe v. Wade, the famous Supreme Court decision made on January 22, 1973, legalized

abortion and nullified any existing laws criminalizing abortion, but also allowed states to put

restrictions on abortion in the third trimester to preserve the fetus. Since the decision in 1973,

states have enacted over a thousand abortion restrictions, a quarter of which have been between

the years 2010 and 2015. These restrictions include required waiting periods, targeted regulation

of abortion providers (TRAP) laws, restrictions on medication abortions, informed consent

laws, and the prohibition of abortion in the third trimester. Restrictions like the TRAP laws,

which hold abortion providers to unfair standards, and the informed consent laws, which

require medical staff to provide sometimes inaccurate information to patients before they

consent, make it much more difficult for women to receive safe abortions. In addition to these

restrictions, the Hyde Amendment and other laws restrict federal funding for abortions through

Medicaid, unless the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest or the mothers health is

endangered by the pregnancy. These laws specifically target low-income women, leaving 1.2
million women without affordable health care through Medicaid or their states health exchange

that covers abortion. Currently, California is the only state that requires insurance companies to

cover abortion in their individual or employer plans.

In April of 2015 in Indiana, Purvi Patel became the first woman in America to be

incarcerated for the crime of feticide. The 33-year-old was sentenced to 20 years for feticide

and neglect of a dependent, despite claiming she gave birth to a stillborn baby, according to The

Independent. Patel said she believed the fetus to be stillborn, but prosecutors claimed she had

ordered abortion medication off of the internet, even though no evidence of these drugs were

found in her system. The law that was used to convict Patel was meant to target illegal abortion

providers, and thus an Indiana judge reduced her sentence to 18 months without parole this past

fall. Although Patels sentence was reduced dramatically, her arrest in 2013 threatened to set a

dangerous precedent for pregnant women everywhere, and points to the increasing threat of

self-abortions if restrictions on womens access to abortion continue to be made.

The Pro-Choice Action Network (Pro-CAN), an organization that provides funding for

abortion clinics in Canada, debunks many of the misconceptions that surround abortion.

According to Pro-CAN, while different religious communities have different ideas of when life

begins, there is no scientific evidence to support the idea that life begins at conception, as

pro-life advocates often argue, and thus it cannot be considered murder. Pro-lifers often argue for

the rights of the embryo or fetus, arguing the absurd idea that the fetus rights are more important

than the womans. Pro-CAN also states that the idea that being pro-abortion means you are

anti-family is incorrect, and that abortion simply allows mothers to determine when and how
many children they want to have in the instance of an unplanned pregnancy. An idea that Laurie

Abraham spoke about in her piece, Abortion: Not Easy, Not Sorry in ELLE.

Even though Laurie Abraham is the highly educated daughter of a Planned Parenthood

clinic volunteer, she still struggled with unplanned pregnancies at three different times in her

life. When she found out about her last unplanned pregnancy, Laurie was 44, married, and had

two daughters of her own that she loved dearly, but decided to have an abortion to prevent

putting more financial and emotional stress on her marriage and family. Lauries experience is

not abnormal, as one in every three women will get an abortion before the age of 45, and six out

of every ten women who choose to get abortions are already mothers.

Abraham openly tells her readers that she had one unplanned pregnancy in each decade

of [her] reproductive life, which isn't something to be proud of, but [shes] not sure it's anything

to be ashamed of, either. She also tells her readers that she doesnt believe her abortions to be

murder. In the first trimester, when nine out of ten abortions in the US occur, including Lauries,

only an embryo the size of a lima bean has developed. It is not until twelve weeks that a fetus

that is two to three inches long is formed, but even then it is incapable of thinking or living on its

own outside of the womb. Laurie, while she believes abortion should be legal and accessible to

women everywhere, understands that having her abortions hadnt erased the careless act of

having sex without a condom, and believes that the traditional just-the-facts health education -

void of social and emotional context can be ineffective on anyone, whether directed to a high

school drop-out or someone who has multiple degrees.

As Laurie Abraham points out, it is important to start with education. If teens had better,

more comprehensive education on safe sex and access to contraceptives in their formative years,
abortion would automatically decrease on its own. In his article Two Stories That Are Shaping

the Abortion Debate in the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf sites a study done in Colorado

regarding free contraceptives. The study examined the and rate of birth and abortions among

teenagers through a new program that offered them free implants and intrauterine devices

(IUDs), a long-term solution to contraception. Remarkably, many women took part in the

program, and in the years 2009 to 2013 the birth rate among teenagers in Colorado decreased by

40%, and the number of abortions decreased by 42%. As this case shows, when given the access

to effective contraceptives, women no longer needed to turn to abortion, as the number of

unplanned pregnancies itself is reduced. It is programs like these, coupled with education that

discusses both the physical realities and consequences of sex and its emotional repercussions,

that can prevent the need for abortion before it begins.

As Bill Clinton so eloquently states, I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

While I am pro-choice and I believe in a womans right to choose what she does with her body

and life, I recognize that abortion should not be the first plan. Abortion allows women to take

control of their emotional, mental, and physical health, but it should not be considered the

primary way to deal with unplanned pregnancy. As Katha Pollitt, the author of Pro: Reclaiming

Abortion Rights, said in an interview with ELLE, "No one feels guilty when they have sex

without birth control and don't get pregnant." Meaning, that frequently women, even those who

had sex-education in school, consciously dont use birth control, whether they have access to it

or not, and are only forced to deal with the consequences when they inevitably get pregnant. In

this way, both access to affordable and effective contraceptives needs to be increased and

education that better prepares young men and women for the responsibility of having safe sex
needs to be incorporated into high school curriculums if we want the need for abortion to be

reduced.

I, an upper middle class, 16-year-old, white, American, female, living in Los Angeles,

have been fortunate enough to be educated and informed on sex and its emotional and physical

consequences, but that is not an experience that everyone is fortunate enough to have. I have

always been taught by my mother that in a relationship, every woman needs to look out for

herself no matter what, because only she can protect her own body. She has taught me that being

safe and taking care of my body first and foremost is the most important thing I can do, as I am

the only one who can truly control my own safety. She has also taught me that abortion is and

has been incredibly crucial for many women who seek higher education and careers, and that its

okay to put your own well-being and happiness over that of others. This January, my mom and I

will be marching in the Million Women March after Donald Trumps inauguration. We are

taking a stand for all womens rights in the U.S., but a large part of the reason we are marching is

the danger that Mike Pence and the new administration will pose to the progress that needs to be

made regarding abortion in this country. In these next coming years, it is imperative that we

change the way we think about, deal with, and discuss abortion. In addition to an increase in

better education on safe sex and access to abortion, the shame and ridicule that women who

choose to have abortions needs to stop before women begin to resort back to the unsafe measures

that killed so many in the 17th century.

 Works Cited

Abraham, Laurie. Abortion: Not Easy, Not Sorry. ELLE, 14 Oct. 2014,

www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a14837/the-abortion-choice/. Accessed 8 Dec.

2016.

Baker, Aspen, performer. A better way to talk about abortion. TED, 2015.

Davey, Monica, and Michael Barbaro. How Mike Pence Became a Conservative Hero:

Unwavering Opposition to Abortion. New York Times, 16 July 2016,

www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/us/politics/mike-pence-conservative-abortion.html?rref=c

ollection%2Ftimestopic%2FAbortion&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&reg

ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collecti

on. Accessed 9 Dec. 2016.

Facts and Statistics about Teenage Abortion. Choices Womens Center,

www.choicespregnancy.org/facts-and-statistics-about-teenage-abortion. Accessed 14

Dec. 2016.

Filipovic, Jill. Why Im Pro-Choice. Everyday Feminism, 3 Dec. 2012,

everydayfeminism.com/2012/12/why-im-pro-choice/. Accessed 13 Dec. 2016.

Friedersdorf, Conor. Two Stories That Are Shaping the Abortion Debate. The Atlantic, 4 Aug.

2015,

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/two-stories-that-are-changing-the-abortion

-debate/400385/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2016.

History of Abortion in the U.S. Our Bodies Ourselves, 28 Mar. 2014,

www.ourbodiesourselves.org/health-info/u-s-abortion-history/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2016.

Misconceptions About Abortion. The Pro-Choice Action Network,

www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/abortioninfo/misconce.shtml. Accessed 13

Dec. 2016.

Revesz, Rachael. Purvi Patel: Judge orders release of woman given 20 years for rare crime of

feticide. Independent, 1 Sept. 2016,

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/purvi-patel-feticide-freed-released-prison-i

ndiana-20-year-sentence-a7220251.html. Accessed 11 Dec. 2016.

Saul, Heather. Twenty-year sentence handed to Purvi Patel for death of foetus condemned by

womens groups. The Independent, 1 Apr. 2015,

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/twenty-year-sentence-

handed-to-purvi-patel-for-death-of-foetus-condemned-by-women-s-groups-10148831.ht

ml. Accessed 15 Dec. 2016.