The general consensus is that the fetus has an inherent franchise of life, which is violated by abortion. The three inalienable human rights are commonly perceived to be life, liberty, and property. Unfortunately, detractors of abortion are either ignorant or negligent of the Social Contract and laws of nature. These laws elucidate that individuals in a society have the previously mentioned inherent rights, but when an individual infringes on another individual's rights through heterogeneous means, the individual committing the infringement forfeits his or her inherent rights. A fetus could potentially threaten its carrier's life, and a fetus lowers its carrier's personal autonomy. Hence, the fetus is undeserving of its own rights. Once it separates from its mother and reimburses her freedom, the fetus gains its human rights, but while leeching off of her, it does not withhold its right to life and can be aborted (McKinley). Taking this into account, a fetus that violates its mother's natural rights, and subsequently the laws of nature, forfeits its right to life, and therefore abortion is de facto not violating rights, but enforcing them.
In numerous pregnancies, the woman's physical health, and even life, is at risk. In a survey conducted by CNN, 85% believed abortion should be allowed when a woman's life is endangered and 77% for when a woman's physical health is endangered (Rubin).
In the year 2000 alone, 131,484 teenagers had abortions. Almost five thousand of these teenagers were under fifteen years old (“Abortion Surveillance”). How can females this young, with underdeveloped sexual organs and inadequate amounts of hormones, be expected to carry out safe pregnancies? In a plethora of cases, the woman is unfit to carry out the pregnancy, whether too young or too old. When a young woman's membranes ruptured in her fourteenth week, it became impossible to save the fetus, but she was denied an abortion that would save her life. Heart patient Michelle Lee was turned down for an abortion because her doctors weren't able to prove she was more than 50% likely to die from an abortion (Sykes). If abortion is made illegal, countless lives, not just embryos and fetuses will be lost.
A common misconception about abortion is that it is a life-threatening and difficult operation. The state has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion is performed under circumstances that ensure maximum safety for the patient (“Roe vs. Wade”). Gynecologists consider first-trimester abortion, which makes up over 90% of abortions, a “minor” surgery that is for amateurs (Sloan). For every 160,000 woman who have legal abortions, only one single woman dies (Dudley). In the United States, a woman is thirteen more times more likely to die bringing a pregnancy to term than having an abortion. The World Health Organization recently reported that 670,000 women die a year from pregnancy-related complications. That's 1,800 women a day (McKinley). From 1972 to 1999, there were only 351 total deaths caused by legal abortions (“Abortion Surveillance”).
Almost six times more women die in a day from pregnancy-related complications than the number of women that die from legal abortions in twenty-seven years. Of women who obtain abortions before thirteen weeks, 97% have no complications, 2.5% have easily handled minor complications, and less than .5% need additional surgery or hospitalization (Dudley). With such minor side effects, it is nearly impossible to argue that abortions harm a woman's health.
Opponents of choice argue that women who have abortions have a greater risk of breast cancer. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, January 9, 1997 found no trace of a link between abortion and breast cancer. The largest such study ever published is praised by scientists for its freedom from reported bias, and offers a resounding conclusion to the controversy. Mads Melbye and Jan Wohlfahrt of Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen led a group of researchers and reviewed the medical records of over 1.5 million Danish women born between April 1, 1935 and March 31,1978 (Denmark maintains detailed medical information for all its citizens). After deep analysis of the medical records, the researchers concluded that the 280,965 Danish women who have had abortions had the same risk of developing breast cancer than those who didn't (Dudley).
Unwanted babies remain a detriment to society today, but their numbers would only increase of abortion is banned. A popular belief is that adoption will find a welcome home for all unwanted babies. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. About 110,000 children are living in the child welfare system, needing families to adopt them. Most of the children waiting to be adopted have some sort of special need. The median age children are adopted is 6.4, leaving some older children never adopted (“Adoption Facts”). In Arizona, a widely publicized adoption campaign took place, but not a single child has been asked to be adopted. In greater Pittsburgh, hundreds of families have put baskets out on their porches for unwanted babies; none have been dropped off (Sykes). Many younger moms simply abandon their children, with the psychology that putting them up for adoption is too much of a hassle.
In 2001 alone, babies have been discovered in the Mississippi River, a trash bin behind a Texas high school, a field in Richmond, California, and a gas station rest room in Los Angeles. In just January that year, babies were left along railroad tracks in Paterson, New Jersey, behind disposable diapers in a Denver supermarket, and in a Minneapolis trash can. A computer search of major daily newspapers found sixty-five reports of discarded newborns in 1991, and 105 in 1998, but experts estimate that over half are never discovered (Hampson). After Roe vs. Wade there has been a significant decrease in rape, assault, murder, and other violent crimes. This is because unwanted children are often neglected and abused, channeling a built up inner rage they unleash upon society (Morgentaler). Undesirable children who aren't left for the dead at birth often grow up without loving families. Their lives are frequently void of joy or happiness, which they convey upon society. Outlawing abortion would cause the birth of innumerable children that will live out miserable lives, which sometimes last a mere hours or days, and inflict irreparable damage upon others.
Although society or moral obligation may condemn the act of abortion, it must remain as a choice. Legal abortion is part of a woman's personal liberty, can benefit the health of a woman, and solves the nagging problem of unwanted babies. Outlawing abortion would be infringing upon the Constitution, the document the guides the government and ruining the lives of the 1.4 million women that receive abortions every year (Deam). Abortion is allowing hundreds of women to choose to progress their lives and society every day, and there is no justifiable reason to eliminate the choice of abortion.
