Life Goals

In the movie "Baby Boy," the first scene deals with Jodi's (Tyrese Gibson) girlfriend having an abortion. When one first looks at this movie for the first time, one will not understand what is going on until they see Jodi's girlfriend coming out the clinic holding her stomach while she is in pain. During the movie, Jodi and his girlfriend gets into an argument about the pack of condoms she finds in her backseat. She gets very angry with Jodi and states how it is amazing that he uses condoms on other girls that he sleeps with, but cannot use protection when they have sexual intercourse and how she gets a trip to the clinic. Also, there is a part in the movie where Jodi's mother, tell states, "I can't keep giving you money every time you get these girls pregnant." In other words, she was paying for Jodi's girlfriend to have an abortion. Today, the word "Abortion," has been brought up in many conversations and in the media, determining whether or not abortion should be legalized. Abortion is a controversial topic that is being discussed by many. Some people feel that aborting an unborn fetus is not problem if the mother is not capable of taking care of her child or if the mother is not financially stable. However, there are others who feel that abortion is not the correct way of getting rid of a child. A mother can both keep the baby and take care of her responsibilities regardless of the situation. Also, the mother can give her baby up for adoption. While I was in high school, it became very common for teenage women to have an abortion. In the beginning, the only thing I knew about abortion was that it meant that the mother could kill the unborn fetus. However, as I learned more and more about abortion, I have come to the conclusion that aborting a child is not right because the mother cannot take care of her responsibility. Throughout this paper, one will learn about abortion and the several Kennedy 2 methods used to terminate a pregnancy and will learn about the Roe vs. Wade court case, which dealt with abortion. Also, I will be giving some general information about abortion such as statistics and why women have abortion. Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by loss or destruction of a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus before birth. Also, depending on how far the pregnancy has advanced, this can be done by taking a pill, scraping the uterine lining, removing the uterine lining by suction, or inducing labor. Recent studies have shown that more than forty-three percent of American women will have one or more abortion during their lifetime. A woman who decides to have an abortion is usually between the ages eighteen and twenty-five, they are poor, and/or they are not married. There are many reasons why women have abortions, which are: they feel that they are too young and not mature enough to have a child. Some women tend to believe that they need a man to help raise a child, when in reality that is not true. Also, the mother may feel that by aborting the child, she will be able to focus on her future far as going to college, working, and being financially stable. Other reasons why women have abortion is because of they receive pressure from their parents or their boyfriends, she does not want anyone to know that she is pregnant, or she thinks that her parents will kick her out of the house and she will have no where to go. Statistics shows that about seventy-eight percent of women who have abortion are not married. In 1992, women under the age of fifteen had the highest rate for having an abortion, while the lowest rate is from women between the ages of thirty and thirty-four. In 1996, there were at least fifty-seven percent of white women who received legal abortions. Over the years, the rate of abortion has decrease because of school teaching Kennedy 3 students about sexual educations. Also, more and more teenage women are practiceing abstinence or using protection when having intercourse. Abortion and the Terminations There are several ways to prevent from getting abortion that is, using protection, practice abstinence, or take birth control pills. However, when one does decide to have an abortion, there are several ways that a fetus can be terminated: Medical (nonsurgical) abortion, dilation and curettage, dilation and evacuation, induced labor, and intact dilation and evacuation. One way to terminate a pregnancy is called Medical (nonsurgical) abortion, which is also known as RU 486 or mifepristone. A French company developed this procedure. In 1988, the French government approved a pill that could be used to induce abortion up to eight weeks after a woman's last menstrual period. The medical abortion has been used in many different countries such as: France, England, and China. This procedure works by blocking the body's use of progesterone, the hormone necessary for maintaining the endometrium of the uterus, thus causing shedding of the uterine lining. Soon, another drug combination had proven to be equally effective in terminating a pregnancy. In order for these two drugs to work, the woman had to take the first pill at the doctor's