11 December 2015 page 1

Why abortion should be an option for all women.

Dear classmates:

a·bor·tion
/əˈbôrSH(ə)n/
noun
1. the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first
28 weeks of pregnancy.

According to Google, an abortion is the termination of a human pregnancy. To some people, the
definition of abortion is the killing of a human baby and to others it could mean something else.
Besides the definition or opinions someone may have about abortion; abortion should be legal
for anyone that wants one. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion; pro-choice means that you
believe that a woman has a choice to make her own decisions about her own body.

According to Row W. Wade, the Supreme Court said that abortion is constitutional and not
having it as an option would violate a person's human right to make their own choices for their
body. People that are against abortion argue that abortions have caused women to have higher
anxiety levels than women who didn’t have abortions(Coleman). According to Cohen it states
that abortions are not tied in any way to the person and their mental health. It shows how
statistics prove that women that are told they can not have an abortion suffer more from mental
health than women who wanted an abortion and were not denied one. According to Toobin’s
article, he explains that back when abortion was illegal years ago; it would not stop women who
wanted to have an abortion to get one. Instead, they would go to “back-alley” places to get
abortions or perform the procedure themselves. So by making abortion illegal, women that want
to have an abortion will struggle with their mental health and women will risk their lives just to
get one. It is better to have an option for women instead of having them risk their mental and
physical health in order to make a decision about what they think is best for themselves.

Some supporters of abortion also support abortion only for women who have been raped and get
pregnant. Saying that a woman can not make the decision to get an abortion is wrong but picking
and choosing who can make a decision on what they want to do with ​their​ body is even worse.
People that think that abortion should only be legal for rape victims are saying that a woman has
to be dehumanized in order to have an option in what she wants to do with her body.

Another argument made by people that are pro-life is that women having the option of having an
abortion reduces the amount of adoptable babies (Child Welfare Information Gateway). Nobody
has the right to say that after a woman gives birth to a baby that she has to give it up for adoption
so nobody has the right to force a women into having a child. BBC says that women should not
have the choice to an abortion because it is against god to have one. A woman should have the
choice to have an abortion no matter what her circumstance is because pregnancy could put her
life at risk so denying a woman that option is sending her to the grave. If someone believes that
getting an abortion is the way a woman avoids responsibility for having sex (*BBC), they do not
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know why a woman could be getting an abortion. Some reasons why a woman gets an abortion is
they are not able to support the child after it’s born, the woman is not ready to become a mother,
and in some religions it’s not seen as ok to have sex before marriage and if the woman gets
pregnant she will get beaten or excluded from their religion. In some cases, the women put
themselves before the fetus. Even if it is against god or not, sometimes you have to do what is
best for​ you​ and ​your​ life even if other do not support the decision you made.

In conclusion, abortion should be legal everywhere because it is a decision a woman can make
for herself and does not need anyone else’s opinion on her choices. People that go protest at
abortion clinics and harass women out of getting an abortion because of what they believe in are
wrong. Abortion should not even be up for discussion, it should just be something that should be
there as an option for those who want to have one. Just because it’s there as an option doesn’t
mean you have to have one if you don’t want one. In the end, it’s up to the woman what she
wants to do with her life.

Thank you,

Alondra Flores.

Works cited
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), "Buddhism and Abortion," bbc.co.uk, Nov. 23, 2009

*British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), "Responsibility of the Mother," bbc.co.uk (accessed

Apr. 22, 2014)

Child Welfare Information Gateway, US Department of Health and Human Services, "Persons
Seeking to Adopt," childwelfare.gov, Feb. 2011

Jeffrey Toobin, "The People's Choice," newyorker.com, Jan. 28, 2013

Priscilla Coleman, PhD, and Eileen S. Nelson, EdD, "The Quality of Abortion Decisions and
College Students' Reports of Post-Abortion Emotional Sequelae and Abortion Attitudes,"
Journal of Social and Clinical Psycholog​y, Apr. 1998

Roe v. Wade​ (342 KB) ,​ ​US Supreme Court, lp.findlaw.com, Jan. 22, 1973

Susan A. Cohen, "Still True: Abortion Does Not Increase Women’s Risk of Mental Health
Problems," ​Guttmacher Policy Review, ​Spring 2013