Abortion: It’s Your Choice

Abortion is a controversial topic around the world. There are two groups when talked about when discussing this topic: pro-life and pro-choice. People believing in pro-life want to make abortion illegal.
They believe it is not only wrong, but is cruel to kill an unborn child. It also can be harmful to the mother.Dorothy Shaw, president-elect of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) is quoted in the article “Unsafe Abortions Kill Thousands of Women, Experts Say” by Kuala Lumpar calming “Unsafe abortion is a serious public health problem for women, accounting for 13 percent of all maternal deaths globally each year (1). Kuala Lumpar of the Agence France Presse [a French newspaper] goes on to state “Some 70,000 women worldwide die from unsafe abortions each year while many more suffer serious injuries, especially in poor countries…(1)” These are both valid points; but what if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, if there is a fatal problem with the unborn child, or if the mother becomes fatally ill? If abortions became illegal families would be left with nothing but heartache and sorrow for something that can ultimately be fixed. Women of rape cases have every right to an abortion if they choose.Why should they have to keep a baby that was made with a man that they never wanted to sleep with in the first place? According to Bioethicist Andrew Varga, “It is also said that a pregnancy caused by rape or incest is the result of a grave injustice and that the victim should not be obliged to carry the fetus to viability. This would keep reminding her for nine months of the violence committed against her and would just increase her mental anguish (1).
” As Varga states, the child would be a constant reminder to the mother of the pain and violence that she went through.If abortion was to become illegal, women would have to keep a child that was made out of fear. And what if that woman didn’t want children, or wasn’t ready for a child at that point in her life? She shouldn’t have to keep a child that she never planned on in the first place. Although rape is a horrible part of life, caring a child with sever deformities or fatal diseases can be a far worse tragedy to go through. Many women conceive children with deformities or find out that their child is a victim of a terrible disease every day. It should be their choice to keep the child or to terminate the pregnancy.Having a child with a deformity is a lot of work that some people just aren’t ready for or wouldn’t be able to handle.

It would be worse for them to actually keep the child and not be able to care for it the right way as opposed to terminating the pregnancy while the fetus is still mostly undeveloped. Or what if the child has a horrible fatal disease and won’t live more then a few weeks or even months. Why should the parents have to go through all of that heartbreak and pain, become attached to their child, and then lose him/her in such a short period of time?Andrea Peyser’s editorial in the New York Post describes a horrifying story of abortion of a woman named Ilene Jaroslaw. Mrs. Jaroslaw received a routine sonogram in her 17th week of pregnancy which showed that her unborn child had one hundred percent fatal brain abnormality “Half of them die before birth…
of the other half that survive, they live a few hours or weeks, maybe months… After the horrific news, Ilene learned that her only chance to have another baby – and spare her kids the agony of a birth followed by a funeral – was to have an abortion. 1)” Sometimes the only way to make life better is to have an abortion and save the family from having to go through a birth and death in a matter of weeks. Abortions are sometimes needed when there is a deformity with the child; however, they are also needed if the mother’s health is jeopardized. Some women discover late in their pregnancy that there is a fatal problem with their child, which will inevitably have an effect on the mother, possibly even becoming fatal. Molly Ginty describes the story of a woman by the name of Tammy Watts.In her eighth month of her planned pregnancy, Tammy received a routine ultrasound. She couldn’t wait to meet her first child.
During her ultrasound, Tammy discovered that her child had “Trisomy 13, a chromosomal abnormality that causes severe deformities and carries no hope of survival (1). ” Because her child was already dying and her life was at stake, Tammy received a late term abortion. If it weren’t for that abortion Tammy most likely wouldn’t be alive and neither would her daughter Savvy, her daughter after the abortion.It’s in times like these that abortions are very much needed for women. If they are not received many more women will lose their lives. Overall, abortion is a horrible thing. However, there are many circumstances where one is needed.
It should be up to the mother weather or not she wants an abortion for any of the reasons stated above. It shouldn’t be made illegal. Abortions do, believe it or not, save not only woman’s lives, but they also save families from falling apart.Works Cited Ginty, Molly M. “Late-Term Abortion Saved These Women’s Lives. ” Women’s ENews. 28 Oct.
2004. 27 Apr. 2007 . Haine, Tom. “Pro-Choice and Women’s Health. ” The Daily Princetonian 14 Dec. 2006.
25 Apr. 2007 . Lumpar, Kuala. “Unsafe Abortions Kill Thousands of Women, Experts Say. ” Agence France Presse 06 Nov. 2006. 27 Apr.
2007 . Peyser, Andrea. “Not Pro-Choice or Anti-Choice But Sad Choice. ” The New York Post. 9 Nov. 2006. 25 Apr.
2007 Varga, Andrew. Christian Answers. Apr. 1991. 27 Apr. 2007 .