Abortion And The Second Presidential Debate Essay

Pro-life versus pro-choice has always been a controversial issue due to religious reasons and our countries constitutional rights. The woman’s right to have a say on her pregnancy has slowly progressed throughout our countries history, while only allowing women the right to make their own choice on whether or not to keep their unborn child within the past 50 years. “The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteed a woman 's right to an abortion,” states Judith S. Baughman, editor of American Decades. However, this was not always the case and still causes controversy among many people living in America due to religious reasons.

Abortion has been legal and commonly practiced from the time of the earliest settlers. By federal law, abortion is legal, although many states have their own individual regulations and restrictions. Various states began passing laws to make abortion illegal in the mid-to-late- 1800s for fear that they would become overpopulated with children of newly arriving immigrants (national abortion federation ).Even though abortions can hold many risks today, they were especially dangerous in the 1800s where hospitals and antiseptics were not common (national abortion federation). Hospitals were not as common back then and doctors had basic training. Doctors wanted to criminalize abortion so that untrained physicians etc. could not steal their patients.

Regardless of the opinions surrounding abortion, a majority of people are familiar with the Supreme court cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. These two cases have played a tremendous role in regard to the abortion debate. In 1973, the Roe v. Wade case was ruled in favour of Roe and stated the stringent criminalization of abortion in Texas was deemed unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment. The law violated the right of privacy, which implied the privacy of a woman’s decision to an abortion. Although the courts agreed with Roe, they also recognized the rights to an abortion are not absolute. Limitations to the right was based on the trimesters of pregnancy with the first trimester protecting the woman’s choice and the third trimester being acceptable for states to regulate or even ban abortions outside of therapeutic reasons.

Abortion rights are one of the issues that has been around since 1800’s and it was declared illegal after many deaths among women occurred, which was a result of complicated and illegal abortion. Decline in birth rates in late 1800’s was another reason to ban abortion. By the end of the 19th century in 1967 abortion was illegal in the United States. Abortion was and still is considered a crime according to some percent of people. Many people are still against abortion because

In 1973, Roe v. Wade ruled a state law that banned abortions, except in the cases of risking the life of the mother, unconstitutional (Garrow 833). The Court ruled that states were forbidden from regulating or outlawing abortion performed during the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy, could pass abortion regulations if they were related to the health of the mother in the second and third trimesters, and pass abortion laws protecting the life of the fetus in the third trimester (Paltrow 18). However, the primary concern would remain to be the mother’s health, regardless. Roe v. Wade, controversial since it was decided, divided America and continues to spark debates,

Roe vs. Wade is based on the premise that the state does not have an interest in protecting a fetus until it is viable. The third trimester is when the fetus can survive outside the mother’s womb and can therefore restrict abortion in this trimester. The law has determined that during the first two trimesters the mother has a right to

Throughout the history of the world there is nearly four thousand years of abortion history, which we find that from the earliest times this issue has been less about abortion and more about life - its value and its sanctity. Abortion and contraception were lawful at the time of this country 's founding, and then criminalized, state by state, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. For the century after that, no woman could have an abortion unless a doctor declared that it was necessary to save her life (Abortion and the "Woman Question": Forty Years of Debate).

At the present time, abortion has become a hot topic that has sparked many heated debates in the recent presidential election, with both parties feeling strongly about the subject. Partial-birth abortion can be defined as the removal of a fetus that has already died and a late-term abortion is an abortion that occurs during a late stage of the pregnancy. I chose this topic in order to not only learn more and become better informed about this issue that has sparked such a widespread controversy, but also for the purpose of taking a closer look at the opposing sides to gain a better understanding of their views. Although I personally disagree with any kind of abortion, I would like to take a closer look at

Abortion is the termination of pregnancy before birth, resulting in, or accompanied by the death of the fetus. ("Abortion," Encarta 98). In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, dramatically changed the legal landscape of American abortion law. The result of the ruling required abortion to be legal for any woman; regardless of her age and for any reason during the first seven months of pregnancy, and for almost any reason after that. ("Status of Abortion in America"). In the Roe v. Wade case, Roe (Norma McCorvey), had claimed she was gang raped and attempted to have an abortion in Texas. ("Roe and Doe"). After hearing the case, the Supreme Court ruled that an American’s right to privacy included the right of a woman whether or not to have children, and the right of a woman and her doctor to make that decision without state interference, at least in the first trimester of pregnancy. ("Celebrating 25 Years of Reproductive Choice"). The moral issue of abortion—whether or not it is murder—has been debated since it was legalized in 1973. Roe v. Wade has been one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century. ("Roe No More"). More than two decades since the Supreme Court first upheld a woman’s right to abortion, the debate over the morality and legality of induced abortion continues in the United States. ("Abortion," Encarta 98). Abortion is one of the most divisive and emotional issues facing United States policy makers today. ("Economics of

The practice of abortion is a controversial topic. It is one of the most discussed issue in politics mostly during the election season. Many candidate use this topic in their favor to gain support from the voters.

Therefore, in Europe and Great Britain and of course many other countries, abortion was looked at in a very negative way and the women who got abortions were perpetrators. “Abortion was illegal in Britain under the 1861 offences against the person act. Any person, including the pregnant woman herself found guilty of attempting to procure abortion was liable to receive maximum penalty of life imprisonment” (Jones, v. 20.2, pgs. 283-298). Along with other countries the United States saw abortion as a wrong doings in the past. In the past before the 1800’s the United States did in fact allow abortions until of course laws were set in. This movement from abortion being legal to becoming illegal happened in the late 1800’s. Abortion was then outlawed in different states for many reasons. Due to abortion being illegal in most states, many women tried to have self-induced abortions which caused them many health problems (National Abortion Federation). Also, the National Abortion Federation gave statistics such as: “Between 1967 and 1973 one-third of the states liberalized or repealed their criminal abortion laws” (History of Abortion).For over 100 year’s abortion was illegal in every state and finally about forty-four years ago it was barely being made legal again.

Although abortion is a political topic that seems very recent, in the United States it dates back to before the early 1820s. Connecticut is the first state to have passed any laws regulating abortion. In 1821, they pass a law prohibiting the use of any sorts of a toxic substance that causes a miscarriage after quickening (the moment a pregnant woman first feels fetal movement) (Wilson, Jaque). Many other states followed Connecticut’s lead (Wilson, Jaque). Besides trying to humanely discard of fetuses, states began banning abortion for population control reasons as well. “In the mid-to-late 1800s states began passing laws that made abortion illegal. The motivations for anti-abortion laws varied from state to state. One of the reasons included fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly arriving immigrants, whose birth rates were higher than those of ‘native’ Anglo-Saxon

The controversy within the biomedical ethics topic, abortion, has two main proponents. The first is the view against abortion, also known as pro-life. The other view is rooted upon the belief of being pro-choice, or basically for abortions. These two different views are like two mathematical principles, in that although these two views have many differences, they also have larger similarities in the background. For example, when pro-choice activists support abortions due to unwanted pregnancies, the activists are not rallying behind the idea of sexual incompetency (pregnancies due to lack of birth control). Rather, they are supporting the idea that women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. In order to understand

The morality of induced abortion is one of the most controversial moral issues of our time. Abortion has grown to be one, if no the most, debated argument of modern times. In the following web-page, we will be discussing abortion in three of its major aspects: Public Opinion, Congress and Courts, and Interest groups.

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)