Abortion is it good or not?

First, what is abortion? Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after conception. It allows women to put an end to their pregnancies, but involves killing the undeveloped embryo or fetus. For this reason, it is a very controversial subject in American politics. Let us know what is going on about the abortion.

In 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court overturned Roe's trimester approach and introduced the concept of viability. Today, approximately 90% of all abortions occur in the first 12 weeks.

In the 1980s and 1990s, anti-abortion activism -- spurred on by opposition from Roman Catholics and conservative Christian groups -- turned from legal challenges to the streets. The organization Operation Rescue organized blockades and protests around abortion clinics. Many of these techniques were prohibited by the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

The most controversial issue is the so-called "partial birth" abortion, a rare procedure. Beginning in the mid-90s, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representative and U.S. Senate introduced legislation to ban "partial birth" abortions. In late 2003, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (HR 760, S 3).

This federal legislation was drafted after the Supreme Court ruled Nebraska's "partial birth" abortion law unconstitutional because it did not allow a doctor to use the procedure even if it were the best method to preserve the health (life) of the mother. Congress attempted to circumvent this ruling by declaring that the procedure is never medically necessary.

Challenges were filed in California, Nebraska, and New York. On June 2, 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton (San Francisco) struck down the federal statute on three grounds: it places an undue burden on a woman seeking a second trimester abortion, the language is unconstitutionally vague, and the law does not have the required exception for procedures that preserve a woman's health.

Action has moved to the statehouse, where 16 bills were enacted between January and May 2005; this is more than passed during calendar 2004, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights policy organization.

History

Abortion has existed in almost every society and was legal under Roman law, which also condoned infantcide. Today, almost two-thirds of the women in the world may obtain a legal abortion.

When America was founded, abortion was legal. Laws prohibiting abortion were introduced in the mid-1800s, and, by 1900, most had been outlawed. Outlawing abortion did nothting to prevent pregnancy, and some estimates put the number of annual illegal abortions from 200,000 to 1.2 million in the 50s and 60s.

States began liberalizing abortion laws in the 1960s, reflecting changed societal mores and, perhaps, the number of illegal abortions. Then in 1965, the Supreme Court introduced the idea of a "right to privacy" in Griswold v. Connecticut as it struck down laws that banned the sale of condoms to married people.

Abortion was legalized in 1973 when the U.S.Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that during the first trimester, a woman has the right to decide what happens to her body. This landmark decision rested on the "right to privacy" which was introduced in 1965. In addition, the Court ruled that the state could intervene in the second trimester and could ban abortions in the third trimester. However, a central issue, which the Court declined to address, is whether human life begins at conception, at birth, or at some point in between.

Most polls suggest that Americans, by a slim majority, call themselves "pro-choice" rather than "pro-life." That does not mean, however, that everyone who is "pro-choice" believes that abortion is acceptable under any circumstance. A majority support at least minor restrictions, which the Court found reasonable as well under Roe.

Thus the pro-choice faction contains a range of beliefs -- from no restrictions (the classic position) to restrictions for minors (parental consent) ... from support when a woman's life is endangered or when the pregnancy is the result of rape to opposition just because a woman is poor or unmarried.

The "pro-life" movement is thought of as more black-and-white in its range of opinions than the "pro-choice" faction. Those who support "life" are more concerned with the embryo or fetus and believe that abortion is murder. Gallup polls starting in 1975 consistently show that only a minority of Americans (12-19 percent) believe that all abortions should be banned.

Nevertheless, "pro-life" groups have taken a strategic approach to their mission, lobbying for mandated waiting periods, prohibitions on public funding and denial of public facilities.

In addition, some sociologists suggest that abortion has become a symbol of the changing status of women in society and of changing sexual mores. In this context, "pro-life" supporters may reflect a backlash against the women's movement.

Principle organizations include the Catholic Church, Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, and National Right to Life Committee.

Where it stands.

President George W. Bush supported and signed the constitutionally questionable "partial-birth" abortion ban and, as Governor of Texas, vowed to put an end to abortion. Immediately after taking office, Bush eliminated U.S. funding to any international family planning organization that provided abortion counseling or services -- even if they did so with private funds.

There was no easily-accessed issue statement about abortion on the 2004 candidate web site. However, in an editorial entitled "The War Against Women" the New York Times wrote:

The lengthening string of anti-choice executive orders, regulations, legal briefs, legislative maneuvers, and key appointments emanating from his administration suggests that undermining the reproductive freedom essential to women's health, privacy and equality is a major preoccupation of his administration - second only, perhaps, to the war on terrorism.

So the central thrust of Roe v. Wade is this: Women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. Fetuses, prior to viability, do not have rights. Therefore, until the fetus is old enough to have rights of its own, the woman's decision to have an abortion takes precedence over the interests of the fetus. The specific right of a woman to make the decision to terminate her own pregnancy is generally classified as a privacy right implicit in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, but there are other constitutional reasons why a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy. The Fourth Amendment, for example, specifies that citizens have "the right to be secure in their persons"; the Thirteenth specifies that "{n}either slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist in the United States." Even if the privacy right cited in Roe v. Wade were dismissed, there are numerous other constitutional arguments that imply a woman's right to make decisions about her own reproductive process.

If abortion were in fact homicide, then preventing homicide would constitute what the Supreme Court has historically called a "compelling state interest"--an objective so important that it overrides constitutional rights. The government may pass laws prohibiting death threats, for example, despite the First Amendment's free speech protections. But abortion can only be homicide if a fetus is known to be a person, and fetuses are not known to be persons until the point of viability.

In the unlikely event that the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade (see "What if Roe v. Wade Were Overturned?"), it would most likely do so not by stating that fetuses are persons prior to the point of viability, but instead by stating that the Constitution does not imply a woman's right to make decisions about her own reproductive system. This reasoning would allow states to not only ban abortions, but also to mandate abortions if they so chose. The state would be given absolute authority to determine whether or not a woman will carry her pregnancy to term.

There is also some question as to whether or not a ban on abortions would actually prevent abortions. Laws criminalizing the procedure generally apply to doctors, not to women, which means that even under state laws banning abortion as a medical procedure, women would be free to terminate their pregnancies through other means--usually by taking drugs that terminate pregnancies but are intended for other purposes. In Nicaragua, where abortion is illegal, the ulcer drug misoprostol is often used for this purpose. It's inexpensive, easy to transport and conceal, and terminates the pregnancy in a manner that resembles a miscarriage--and it is one of literally hundreds of options available to women who would terminate pregnancies illegally. These options are so effective that, according to a 2007 study by the World Health Organization, abortions are just as likely to occur in countries where abortion is illegal as they are to occur in countries where abortion is not. Unfortunately, these options are also substantially more dangerous than medically-supervised abortions--resulting in an estimated 80,000 accidental deaths each year.

In short, abortion is legal for two reasons: Because women have the right to make decisions about their own reproductive systems, and because they have the power to exercise that right regardless of government policy.