Should abortion be illegal? I didn't choose this topic because of personal or experiential reasons, I chose to do this because being I am a teenage girl, who would like to gain more knowledge on what is really involved in an abortion and on the consequences of what happens afterwards. I am Pro-choice, and would like to prove to pro-lifers why abortion needs to stay legal in America. .
Abortion is one of the most controversial and talked about topics of our time. It is discussed in classrooms, work places and in our homes. Young adults, politicians, women's groups, religious leaders, doctors and many others are all debating, and often fighting over, abortion. "Approximately 1.5 million legal abortions are performed in the United States each year, with women under the age of twenty accounting for 300,000 of them"(Day 7). Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of an embryo or fetus"(Day 10). This definition includes accidental abortion such as, miscarriage and stillbirths, those incidents are not what is being debated. The American public wants to know if abortion is ethical; if the fetus can feel pain, and at what point, the fetus should be considered human. Some people also say the word "being" means "existing," and a living human fetus is a living human being (Byfield and Spector). These questions are very difficult to answer and may never be answered in our lifetime. The one thing we do know is that we have opinions, which range from completely against abortion to completely for abortion, with a number of people falling in between these two views. Pro-choice groups are fighting for a woman's right to control what happens to her own body. Pro-life activist argue that "It's Not a Choice, It's a Child."(Day 10). Dawn Helwig calls that legalizing abortion, a "godsend" and "one of the best things that's ever happened to women(Wright).