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Abortion
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Abortion Today few debates in American politics and society are as complex as the debate over abortion. The question of abortion encompasses many different issues, from the biological question of when life begins to the social question of the quality of an unwanted child’s life; from the legal question of whether some, not all, abortions should be outlawed to the ethical question of whether a rape victim may be required to bear her attackers child. Since the beginning of recorded history, up through Roe vs. Wade and today, both sides stay steadfast in their determination to change the opinion of the other side and win the debate once and for all. Like many other ethical topics, both sides are convinced they are morally correct and refuse to waiver in their convictions. The question in it’s most basic content centers on an individual’s rights. A woman’s right to choose what happens with her body, or what she can do with it, and an unborn child’s right to life. How can we as a society that bases our whole foundation on rights, ever hope to answer that question. Whose rights are more important, the mother’s or the unborn child? At different times in history Western societies have taken all different stances on the abortion question. English common-law at the time of the first European settlement permitted abortions, as long as the abortion was performed before intrauterine movement by the fetus. Exactly how common abortion was in colonial times is impossible to know, but most experts believe that it was far from rare. Many newspapers of that time even ran advertisements for abortion inducing drugs. In the last century, select groups started to fight for the life of unborn children. In 1948 most countries belonging to the United Nations signed a declaration declaring, “promising every human being the right to life.” The World Medical Association meeting the same year stated, “the utmost respect for human life was to be from the moment of conception.” The World Medical Association reaffirmed this declaration again in 1970. Many Americans started to offer rebuttal for this line of thinking. Whether it was fallout from the free love of the 1960’s and not wanting to deal with consequences of multiple sexual partners or a simple decline in the lack of morals, who knows. But many American women began to question what they viewed as interference into their personal lives. They wanted and demanded total control over when, where and how they would have children. Common sense held that they not outright try to maintain the “authority” to terminate a life, so more subtle language was needed. They approached the issue from an invasion of privacy standpoint. Roe vs. Wade was the landmark case in 1973 that forced the United States Supreme Court to rule on the subject. In the end they ruled that an American’s right to privacy included: “The right of a woman to decide whether to have children, and the right of a woman and her doctor to make that decision without state interference. (abortion)” The Constitution says we have a right to privacy; so taking away a woman’s choice to make decisions about her own body violates that right. Also covered under her individual right to privacy is the preclusion from any reporting policy to avoid embarrassment or harassment. The American Civil Liberties Union since Roe vs. Wade, has fought for the rights of abortion for women, and in recent years has argued major cases opposing restrictions that deny woman access to reproductive health care (“ACLU”).
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