Choose To Have An Abortion Essay

Abortion, a word you have all heard or said. It is a word that has been in conversations and debates across the country. There is the pro-life side, and the pro-choice side. Abortion is a choice for women, not the government. Women today have the choice of self-determination, to determine whether or not they want to bear children. Religious leaders are trying to abolish the idea of separation of church and state by influencing the government into making a law that favors their religion. The government should not be influenced by these religions if they want to remain constitutional. How would you feel if you were a woman who has been unexpectedly impregnated and all of a sudden, you would have to drop everything you have done in your life, school, and work? How would your friends and family react to this? What would happen to your social status? This is the dilemma many women face who have had an unwanted pregnancy. Children have been born into homes that were not expecting a baby or unsuitable homes where the parents live in poverty. Children born into unsuitable homes will frequently have social, physical and mental problems. Whether the parents don’t have enough money to support the child, or there is an abusive parent, the child will be damaged and wont have a proper upbringing. â€Å"Unwanted children are [also] more likely to commit crimes.† If the child was expected and was planned, most likely the parents will take the proper precautions in having a baby, such as getting financially situated and having a nice home in a good neighborhood. Abortion can be very necessary in special cases. Consider this: a 12-year-old girl is walking home from her school, and she is raped. After a doctor’s checkup, she finds out that she is pregnant. This is a twelve-year-old girl, should she have to have a child when it wasn’t even her fault? She would have to care for this baby her entire life. But in this day and age, there is the choice of abortion. She and her family could take advantage of modern technology to save their daughter’s life. She could just put it up for adoption, right? Wrong. This poor girl would have to endure labor, and then the child would have to endure growing up without his or her real mother. There are also many problems with adoption. Adopted children will always have emotional issues concerning being adopted and dealing with the fact the parents they thought were their biological parents actually aren’t. Adopted  children frequently grow up to be problem teens and adults. So if adoption is your anti-abortion, then there are more complications than you thought. Abortion doesn’t stop with the legality issues. Abortions will still happen, whether they are legal or not. The problem is that these â€Å"back-alley† abortions are extremely unsafe. In past years, thousands of women have died from illegal abortions. The women who died were simply trying to practice their right to self-determination. The cultural and religious views of abortion continue to be an extremely heated debate. The Roman Catholic Church, Hinduism, and Buddhism teach that the soul enters the body at or before conception. Whereas Judaism, Islam, and–of course–Atheism, say that â€Å"the fetus is not yet a full human being, and thus killing a fetus is not murder.† The Roman Catholic Church is one of the most vocal of the religions. They say abortion is terminating a human life, but the other side disagrees. Now religious leaders, especially those from the Roman Catholic Church, are attempting to make their beliefs into laws for the entire country. They are attempting to abolish the law of separation of church and state, written in the Constitution. They say, that since most of the country believes that abortion is wrong, that means the other religions, that don’t believe that, should believe it anyway. They are disregarding the fact that they aren’t the only religion in the United States. Another idea in the Constitution is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If women have those constitutional rights, that means they have a right to have a life, and be happy. If being happy means not having a child, then their right is to have a choice of abortion. One other idea that an amendment to the Constitution states is the right of privacy. The fourteenth amendment says that a citizen has a right to privacy, or the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy. Any law that makes abortion illegal violates the Due Process Clause of the fourteenth amendment, and therefore is unconstitutional. This idea was stated in the  Roe v. Wade decision. In conclusion, abortion should remain legal. Abortion should be a choice. Abortion should not be up to the government or any religious leaders; it should be a choice for the woman. The woman that has an unwanted pregnancy should decide whether she is able to support a baby, and whether she is able to provide a safe environment for a baby. To make abortion illegal, would be taking away a woman’s right to privacy, and her right to life, liberty and happiness. Just think about what you would do in a situation where you had an unwanted pregnancy that directly affected you. Keep thinking about the women out there that would have to raise a child under horrible conditions like poverty and abuse. Think about the children that would grow up in an unsuitable home, who do one thing wrong, and get persecuted by the government that could have saved their life. The government has a choice to make: A choice whether to listen to the religious leaders demanding that abortion is wrong, or to listen to the women and children who would be affected by this law. You decide whether you think abortion is killing a baby–or saving a life.