Why Abortion is Bad and Should be Outlawed

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Why Abortion is Bad
Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in the political arena in the West. There has been a heated debate on whether to legalize abortion or outlaw it irrespective of the reasons or circumstances. Most pro-abortion activists have been labeled dangerous and murderers, which shows how the debate has been heated for decades and spilled into the political arena (Delay and Liger 1). The debate has also spilled into drawing the line and determining at what point does life starts. This question is philosophical and will remain intractable and at the center of abortion debates. Abortion is bad because there is no significant difference between a day’s old embryo and an adult. Terminating a life with unique genetic material and, if given a chance, can develop into a fetus, infant, teenager, and eventually, an adult makes some lives more important than others. Therefore, abortion is wrong because differences in size, the complexity of development, and the degree of dependency on another person are not good reasons to terminate a life.
One of the key reasons why abortion should be outlawed is because it terminates innocent lives. Firstly, any person is entitled to the right to live in the constitution. The 14th amendment of the US constitution clearly stipulates that anyone should not be deprived of their life without the due process of the law. At conception, a new life begins, and while it does not have the complexity we have come to associate life with it, it is evidently the beginning of a new life. No life can skip that process, and therefore, it is an integral part of whatever complex being it can develop into. That early beginning of any life should also be protected and treated as any other life. Secondly, the unborn child inside the woman is oblivious of the circumstances that led to its conception and should be left to grow to term and be born. Terminating the life of an innocent person is akin to murdering another person, which is illegal anywhere on the planet. Therefore, just because a child cannot breathe or feed themselves, they should not be treated as a lesser human being and killed at the woman’s convenience. They deserve a chance at life. If the woman is not able to raise the child, there are many places where the child can be placed for adoption. Many people have made the hard choice to put their children for adoption rather than killing them, and they have gone on to have very good lives. According to CITATION Bit02 \p 1 \l 1033 (Bitler and Madeline 1), ‘the rate of adoptions of children born to white women declined by 34-37% in states that repealed restrictive abortion laws before Roe v. Wade.’ Mothers can be encouraged and supported to carry the pregnancy to term and give up their children to adoption rather than assisting them to terminate innocent young lives. Steve Jobs was given for adoption, and since he was raised in a loving family, he went on to change the world. Therefore, mothers should consider carrying the pregnancy to term and giving the child for adoption if they do not want the baby. He/she may change the world someday. It is better to give birth and let the child be a blessing to another family where he/she is wanted than to kill it.
Studies have shown that fetuses can experience pain as early as the first trimester. Before technological leaps that have enabled the more in-depth study of fetuses, a fetus was considered alive when it showed a heartbeat CITATION Hol16 \l 1033 (Holland). Today, with more advanced tools, and at eight weeks, long before some women realize that they are pregnant, the fetuses can experience pain through spinal reflexCITATION SWD20 \p 1 \l 1033 (Derbyshire and Bockmann 1). Doctors and scientists agree that fetuses can experience pain by week 12. In some extreme cases, 12-week-old fetuses have been observed to open their mouths in pain as if to scream when subjected to pain stimuli (Reissland et al. 5). It is wrong to put a child through that pain. Even hardened criminals charged with murder are killed humanely. And just because we cannot feel the pain or hear the fetuses scream does not mean they do not experience pain. Therefore, before considering an abortion, it is important to consider what the victim would be going through.
If women become pregnant, they should bear responsibility for their actions. Only in cases of rape and juvenile pregnancies should abortion be considered. Most women who seek abortion are not in a ‘do or die situation; rather, some have taken abortion as contraception. Having unprotected sexual intercourse and or failing to use contraceptives carries the risk of pregnancy. Nearly all adult women understand this, and therefore as they engage in it, they understand the likely repercussions. Abortion is punishing an innocent person for the mistakes of other adults. Some women have come to use abortion as contraception. CITATION Meg07 \l 1033 (McArdle) observes that as ‘conceptions rose by nearly 30%, births fell by 6%, indicating that many women were using abortion as a method of birth control, a crude and drastic sort of insurance policy.’ This shows that most women act irresponsibly and opt to do abortion for selfish reasons. Additionally, women who have had an abortion are more likely to do it again. According to CITATION Coh07 \l 1033 (Cohen), ‘about half of all US women having an abortion have had one previously.’ Similarly, (Jatlaoui et al.) observed that ‘women with one or more previous induced abortions accounted for 42.5% of abortions and women with three or more previous abortions accounted for 7.0% of abortions.’ These statistics show that many women use abortion to absolve themselves of the responsibility of risky sexual practices. They are irresponsible, and they normal...