Abortion

Hello everybody! Hope you’ve all had a pleasant week so far. Today, I’m going to tackle the issue of abortion. My stance is generally pro-choice and I will explain why. To those who immediately felt a rush of animosity at my words, please restrain yourself from any unreasonable actions. To those who haven’t read the About page on this blog, please do. There are clear rules on this blog as to freedom of speech and I will not censor opposing opinions as long as there is logic to back it up. However, if any comments contain hate speech and/or argues points that I’ve already explained (seriously, please don’t be repetitive), I will delete them. Let’s start.

The main opponent to abortion, it seems, is the idea that it is equivalent to murdering a human being. That is not true. A person is considered irreversibly dead when their brain activity stops, therefore it stands to reason that a person is considered alive when their brain starts exhibiting regular signs of said activity or scientifically speaking, when electroencephalography (EEG) activity starts. That occurs at around 25 weeks, about halfway through the pregnancy. The definition of death is not disputed and so, will serve as a consistent marker in my argument. So that means that people who oppose abortion in all instances on moral grounds won’t be able to argue that the baby is veritably alive until at least halfway through the pregnancy. Therefore, abortion should be allowed at least during the first trimester.

To further expand on the first point, some of the same people who claim abortion shouldn’t be legal on moral grounds also say that the fetus has a “right to life”. If that is the case, then wouldn’t the mother also have the right to her body and her life? Remember, the mother is a fully-formed independent human being with thoughts and dreams and instead, the greater consideration is given to a bundle of cells that is in no way able to live outside the mother’s body and thus far doesn’t have any sort of human thought or personality. Having a “right to life” ultimately means being able to choose for yourself so there is no reason why the mother can’t choose to not have the baby, especially if having the baby means that the mother’s life is threatened.

Another anti-abortion argument is that abortion removes the consequences to having sex. Some people are afraid that if you were able to just get an abortion if you get pregnant, then unmarried people would have sex willy-nilly and the country’s morality would degenerate. Their argument basically says that if you have sex, then you know you risk getting pregnant. Thus, if you do get pregnant, then the responsible thing to do is to have the baby. While I can’t argue for the decision-making skills in teens, I can safely say that having a baby at that time of their life is disastrous. But it’s not only the teen mom’s life that will be ruined, the baby will also be born in subpar conditions and will probably live like that for the rest of their lives. (Fun Fact: For all of America’s reputation as a country of opportunity, the percentage of people who actually move up in life is 4% and that’s not taking into account exactly how much they’ve moved “up”.) This doesn’t apply to just teenagers though; teenagers just happened to be the most understandable scenario. In that case, the more responsible thing, I’d say, is to abort.

That said, having an abortion isn’t an easy thing. Having a procedure isn’t cheap and it requires a certain degree of desperation on the part of the mother. Going through abortion is not only a financial problem but also emotionally taxing.

You could also say that the woman can use contraception to avoid pregnancies, but contraception isn’t effective 100% of the time and even then, you have to assume that the option of contraception is available. Also, Sex Ed. isn’t taught in all schools in the USA either, meaning there is a serious lack of information about such things in the areas of the US that are most affected by unplanned pregnancies. And to those few that say a woman’s body is capable of shutting down a pregnancy if the woman really didn’t want to get pregnant, then you’re probably dumb or drunk or both.

In reality, the underlying argument in the question of abortion is about women’s rights. Does a woman have the right to choose? Does the woman have to sacrifice her goals and dreams and part of her life to take care of an unwanted baby? However, there is one crucial question that is missing, is the man responsible for the baby too? If the man were to be held accountable, then would the same arguments be put forward against abortion?

I won’t say anything about abortion in cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in serious danger because there are clear reasons why abortion in those cases is the best thing to do.

That’s all for this time. Thank you for reading this rather long post. ^_^ Please leave your thoughts and comments below. There are a lot of aspects to this debate that I didn’t cover so I’ll be counting on you guys to help fill in. Remember to back up your arguments!