Anti-Abortion

Anti-Abortion

What is abortion? In my point of opinion, abortion is the purposeful killing of an unborn child - killing its life before it has a chance to live. It is also an immoral act and a murder. According to the World Health Organization, each year there are about 50 million abortions worldwide ("Prevalence" par. 5), and an article of the New England Journal of Medicine, "Roe versus Reality - Abortion and Women's Health," reported that 1.3 million women in the United States undergo abortions each year (Wright 2). Abortion has been a tough controversial issue for years. Many women assert that they should have a choice and should be able to decide. What about the child's choice? The child should also have a chance at a life and a future as well. To justify abortions, supporters give different reasons such as rape and incest, economic ability, or health problems, but these reasons seem unreasonable. Women can prevent pregnancy with advancements in technology, or their child can be adopted by families who cannot have a child. I strongly disagree with abortion except for saving the mother's life.

One of the main reasons many people say that abortion should be legal is for the victims of rape and incest. They are victims of terrible crimes, and they will not forget that, but using this as an example to justify the abortion is not valid. According to Finer's article, "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives," in 2004, less than 0.5 percent of women have abortions as a result of rape (table 3). This number is very small in comparison to the total number of annual abortions. I think people in this situation should not be allowed exceptions to rules unless it is necessary to save the mother's life.

Next, there is an idea that women have abortions when they have low incomes and simply can't afford the child or give it a good home. This is not true. There are hundreds of government agencies that can help low income families survive. For example, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) provides the WIC Program which supplies supplemental foods, nutrition education and referrals to health care, at no cost, to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are determined to be at nutritional risk. Or the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) works to secure the human and civil rights, health and welfare of all women, focusing particularly on pregnant and parenting women, and those who are most vulnerable - low income women, women of color, and drug-using women. How happy would a child be if it can live with its parents rather than in an orphanage or another family? Also, the women have several options to choose from such as adoption. Many women decide to get abortions as they simply don't want a child. For this reason and others, the women kill their children when there is the option of letting them live a healthy life with loving families. There are thousands of generous healthy families that want the children. Some like to adopt to give unlucky children good homes to grow up in, and others can't have them because of physical problems. The estimated total number of adoptions in the United States in 2001 by Child Welfare Information Gateway is 127,407. For kids who might not be adopted, there are a number of orphanages where they can grow up better. For instance, the SOS Children' Villages - USA builds families for children in need, helps them shape their own futures, and shares in the development of their communities. Why kills the children when there are a number of would-be parents who could provide the children with wonderful homes to grow up in? Abortion is senseless murder.

In addition, women who are in favor of abortion say that it is their body and they should have the rights to choose if they want to carry the child or have the abortion, but there is a child inside their body who should have a choice and an opportunity to live, too. Killing an unborn child is not different from killing one that is alive because a fetus with a beating heart is also considered a human being. The women still insist that they need to have the rights to choose. What about the rights of the children to choose? One person should not have that kind of control over someone. To decide whether