Abortion: A Woman'S Right In The First Trimester

Abortion: A Woman's Right in the First Trimester

The argument of abortion has split the nation for decades. There are two main sides, pro-life and pro-choice, and both make strong arguments to support their decisions. The two major debates are weather abortion is murder because a fetus is a human life or weather a woman has a right to choose what happens to her body. Abortion on demand should be a woman's unalienable right during the first trimester of pregnancy only, but after that point the developing embryo has the right to life. "This middle ground is what a lot of people believe these days, the right for a woman to choose in the first trimester only" (Baird 179).

In countries where abortion is not tolerated women continue to seek out and have abortions performed from unqualified abortionists. These individuals risk putting these women through painful and potentially fatal tortures in an attempt to abort their child. Woman would try anything to end their pregnancies. Many women would introduce caustic detergent substances into themselves, producing major burns of the vaginal wall and systemic poisoning. Others would insert a tablet of potassium which led to serious lesions. Number of women tried to dislodge their pregnancies by introducing knitting needles, coat hangers, or other metal or wooden objects into their uteruses. Some women threw themselves down flights of stairs, and some pumped air into the uterus by means of a small pump used to blow up bicycle tires. Illegal abortions were performed by people with no or little medical knowledge, in back rooms, in a non-hygienic environment. All this led to tremendous number of deaths but did not stop the abortions.

The reasons why women have abortions vary. It may be a case of rape,

physical or psychological condition. A choice must be available to avoid damage to the child, to safeguard the emotional and physical health of women, and to prevent the birth of unwanted children. Preservation of life seems to be a slogan rather than a indisputable goal of the anti-abortion forces. It seems as though control is what they are really after, control over the behaviors of women and power over them.

Abortion is a hard choice and the decision should be a personal one, without interference of government or special interest groups. Losing safe and legal abortion would be detrimental to women's rights and would reduce them to simply being used for child bearing. It would devalue women as independent human beings as well as turn away from modern advances in technology that allow us to safely perform these procedures. It would bring more meaningless deaths from the illegal and self- induced abortions and more pain for women.

January 22, 1973 is a day that marked an enormous step forward for women's rights. On this day the U.S. Supreme court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, a verdict that set the precedent for all abortion cases that followed. For the first time, the court recognized that the constitutional right to privacy "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy" (Roe v. Wade, 1973). It gave women agency in their reproductive choices; no longer were they forced to succumb to second rate citizenship as a housewife, a single mother, or a mother in poverty on account of pregnancy.

The pro-life movement believes that the killing of any child, abortion or not, is murder, and the unborn child should be protected by the laws of the states like any other victim of murder. "Pro-life advocates declare that the fetus is a person with the same rights and interests as a born person, therefore the mother does not have the right to privacy if by doing so they murder another person, their unborn child" (McDonagh 47). These people think that the unborn child has as many right as its mother that is carrying it, and although this seems reasonable, they are not taking into consideration that the mother has rights as well to choose what happens to her body and her life.

Any woman has control to do whatever she wants to her own personal body; therefore, if she so chooses to terminate