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Abortions can be performed throughout a woman's pregnancy. During the first few weeks of a pregnancy, the drug RU 486 can be taken which will generate a miscarriage. Hormones can be injected into the woman up to about 19 weeks of pregnancy to cause contractions that will release the fetus. In the second trimester or later a hysterotomy, where the contents of the uterus are surgically removed, can be performed. In the third trimester a partial-birth abortion can take place (Britannica). This is where doctors induce labor, pull the fetus through the birth canal, and before the head is released, they cut a hole inside the back of its head, stick a high-powered suction tube into the hole, and sucked the fetus' brains through it. This method is probably the most controversial and fought over of the abortion methods (Roleff 75).
A new wave of feminism emerged in the 1960s. Many new feminist groups, for example, the National Organization for Women (NOW), began to form insisting that abortion was a woman's right. This "woman's liberation" called for a new sexual freedom for women where they no longer had to interrupt their careers and lives to raise children. Many doctors refused to do the procedure so many of the organizations learned how to perform abortions themselves and administered them without physicians. Most of these feminists argue that a fetus is just a "mass of cells" and is not alive until it comes out of the mother's uterus in birth. In 1973, in the United States, a famous Roe v. Wade decision legalized on demand abortion throughout the first three months of a pregnancy. Ever since, there has been a vicious debate between supporters of and those against a liberalized abortion policy.
On the other hand, the pro-lifers believe that all lives are created equal and that it is unjust to interfere in another's life. They believe that from the moment that the sperm and the egg unite that a new life is formed.