Reasons Why Abortion Should be Outlawed

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Why Preserving Life is Good
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 arenaCITATION Del19 \p 1 \l 1033 (Delay and Liger 1). The discussion has also spilled into drawing the line and determining when life starts. This question is philosophical and will remain intractable and at the center of abortion debates. 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, preserving conceived life is important 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 abortions should be outlawed is that it terminates innocent lives. Firstly, any person is entitled to life in the constitution. The 14th amendment of the US constitution 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 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 lesser human beings and killed at the convenience of another person. They deserve a chance at life. If the woman cannot 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 abortion rather than assisting them to terminate innocent young lives. Steve Jobs was given up 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 adoption if they do not want the baby. They may change the world someday. It is better to give birth and let the child be a blessing to another family where they are 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 analysis of fetuses, a fetus was considered life 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 stimuliCITATION Rei13 \p 5 \l 1033 (Reissland, Francis and Mason 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 think about the victim’s 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 for 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 U.S. women having an abortion have had one previously.’ Similarly, CITATION Jat17 \l 1033 (Jatlaoui, Shah and Mandel) 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 risky sexual practices. They are irresponsible, and they normalize abortion to save their skin. Therefore, abortion is wrong because irresponsible adults who choose the easy way out for their reckless behavior are used for the wrong reasons.
There are many documented cases where mothers who have had prior abortions have difficulties conceiving. In a study carried in China, the researchers concluded that ‘induced abortion by vacuum aspiration is associated with an increased risk of first-trimester miscarriage in the subsequent pregnancy. Additionally, abortion has increased the likelihood of developing breast cancer CITATION Sun03 \l 1033 (Sun, Che and Gao). The risk of cancer increases as the number of abortions increases CITATION Sun03 \l 1033 (Sun, Che and Gao). In some cases, the mother is left barren, especially if unqualified or quack doctors do the abortion. In extreme cases, some mothers have lost their lives when procuring abortions. Therefore, making abortion illegal and enforcing such laws protects the life of the unborn and that of the mother. Concisely, abortion is very dangerous for the mother and could carry long-term implications.
Additionally, abortion can lead to psychological trauma for mothersCITATION Big16 \p 1 \l 1033 (Biggs, Rowland and McCulloch 1). Some mothers who procure abortion easily get depressed out of guilty for their actions. The suicide rate among women who have had an abortion is 34.7 per 100,000 people compared to 11.3 women in the general populationCITATION S...