Amanda's mom was forty-two, past her younger, more pubescent years, but certainly not prepared to pass away. Amanda's family had just lost their farm during the Great Depression; the family was left jobless. The last thing the family could possible desire was a third infant. With Amanda's mom's age and economic status, she could not afford to bear a third child. Out of deep desperation, Amanda's mom made a questionable, but all too common decision and went to a back-alley abortionist, who quickly botched the abortion and marooned her with infections and rampant pain. Amanda's dad was forced to cook and take care of Amanda, who was six, and her sister, who was eight.
After three months of affliction and anguish for Amanda's entire family, Amanda's mom was found sprawled on the floor, with cockroach powder polluting her bloodstream. The brutal pain of the illegal abortion overwhelmed Amanda's mom, who attempted suicide to end the unbearable pain. An agonizing ten days later, her pain finally consummated and Amanda's family was left without a matron. Years later, Amanda's grandmother told her and her sister that Amanda's mother had been butchered by the inexperienced abortionist. To this day, Amanda is haunted by this memory and wishes her mother could have received a legal abortion (“Amanda”). Unfortunately, deaths like these were all too common before abortion was made legal. If abortion is made illegal, not only will there a myriad of deaths, but rights would be infringed upon and the safety of millions would be at risk. Abortion should remain as an inalienable choice in the United States to all of its female citizens because it is a right granted by the government, it may be necessary to protect the physical health of a woman, and it debars the birth of unwanted babies.
Since the dawn of the United States of America, a woman's prerogative to abortion has been acknowledged by multifarious court cases. The subject was even brought up in the writing of the Constitution, but was instantly dejected (Abortion and the Law). In the milestone case of Roe vs. Wade(1973), the Supreme Court declared that laws outlawing abortion improperly invade a liberty possessed by a pregnant woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy, protected by the Bill of Rights.
The Court concluded that abortion is considered a birthright to personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, thereby declaring laws impeding abortion unconstitutional. The key factor in this cognition was the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, which states that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The choice of abortion is part of the liberty of a female, and cannot be deprived by the government. Restricting a female's control of her own body would limit her liberty and infringe on the Constitution (“Roe vs. Wade”). This fact was further brought to light in Planned Parenthood of South Eastern Pennsylvania vs. Casey (1992), in which the Court abolished laws restricting abortion (“Planned Parenthood”). The Supreme Court again used the Due Process Clause in Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood of New England (2006), again ruling that restrictive abortion laws are unconstitutional.
In Doe vs. Bolton (1973), which was decided on the same exact day as Roe vs. Wade (1973), the Court overturned laws banning abortion once again declaring them unconstitutional (“Roe vs. Wade”). Twenty-seven years later, the Court would once again defend the natural right to abortion in Stenberg vs. Carhart (2000) (“Stenberg”). If the Supreme Court, the official body of government that interprets the Constitution and trumps any contradicting opinions, believes that every individual has the right to an abortion, abortion must remain as a choice and inalienable right to every citizen of the United States.
One of the most controversial issues centered on the debate of abortion is whether the fetus is in fact a fetus or an embryo, and whether it is just to abort embryos. According to Glenn Woiceshyn, a well-respected senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, a fetus, by definition, is a biological parasite that feeds off its mother. If a mother is not allowed to abort her baby, she will become its slave, forced to foster her unborn baby (Woiceshyn). In fact, gynecologists say it takes more than twenty-four weeks for an embryo to mature into a fetus (Sloan). The general duration of a pregnancy is about forty weeks (MacDonald). Only 1% of abortions are executed in the last twenty weeks (Sloan). This means that under 1% of abortions take place when the baby is acknowledged as a fetus, showing signs of human life. But entities dissentient towards the choice of abortions say that human life begins at conception. At conception, the embryo is just a mess of DNA and chromosomes, just like any anatomic cell. If the embryo is considered human, then sperm and egg cells must be considered human, as they are just two halves of an embryo (Callahan). Every month, during her menstrual cycle, a female loses a human. Each time a couple has intercourse without conceiving, they are killing millions of human sperm cells. It is adherent to see how unreasonable it is to outlaw abortion because it “kills humans.”
