Abortion: Controversial Issues in Society Today Essay

One of the major controversial issues confronting the society today is abortion. I chose abortion as the topic of discussion since it contradicts my values and beliefs. Abortion is the extraction of the human fetus from the mother’s womb with an intention to end the life of that fetus prior to its natural birth. Most religious people believe that abortion should be completely banned. They agree with the idea that it is simply a type of murder and murdering a person is a crime and abortion is just a different type of killing. Some other, generally non-religious people believe that abortion should be not be banned and it should be a personal choice whether a women gets an abortion or not. There could be some cases where the women has no choice but to have an abortion and considering these circumstances some part of the population believe that abortion should never be banned. The controversy surrounding abortion is whether it should be legalized or not? In my opinion, bearing in mind the different views on abortion I cannot agree with a particular one.I chose this issue for discussion to bring to light many of the hidden facts and arguments, of which people are unaware and not very sensitive today. Abortion is a controversial issue lacking of humanity and moral value because of the various motives behind it. Article 1 â€Å"The more you relax, the less pressure and pain you will feel,† she says. Dr. Oyer dilates Anna’s cervix and turns on the vacuum aspiration machine. She inserts a tube through Anna’s cervix, and a gentle whirring sound fills the room. She barely has to raise her voice to explain, â€Å"The cramping you feel is totally normal.† Anna lets out a few gasps before Dr. Oyer clicks off the machine, signaling the end of the five-minute procedure. By: Liz Welch for Glamour magazine. P.O.V-In this article the author tries to convey abortion as a simple convenient procedure ignoring the stigma attached to it. The stating of the process as a five minute procedure clearly shows the way society has altered the sensitivity of abortion. Article 2 The GOP:Party of Quacks. â€Å"Out of the various layers of falsehoods contained in Todd Akin’s now-notorious claim that â€Å"legitimate rape† cannot end in pregnancy, one that caused many eyebrows to raise the highest was his contention that â€Å"doctors† had told him that the female body has a way to prevent pregnancy from rape through a vague mechanism he described as â€Å"shut that whole thing down.† Surely no actual doctor would say such a thing, many of us thought. But we underestimated the right’s devotion to creating their own set of â€Å"facts,† backed up by their own â€Å"experts.† Just as conservatives have been able to pay handsomely for people with impressive-sounding credentials to spread lies about everything from global warming to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so have they been able to build up their own little empire of medical doctors who will say any fool thing about women’s bodies and pass it off as science. If anything, the anti-choice movement was instrumental in shaping the conservative approach to science. Anti-choicers were among the first to realize that if the experts and the evidence counter your beliefs, you can simply make up your own claims and put them in the mouths of well-credentialed people. It’s just as good as the truth! Better, even, because it can be endlessly manipulated to meet new ideological goals.† By Amanda Marcotte. P.O.V: Amanda Marcotte is a Brooklyn based freelance journalist, grounded on the above article her main focus is on showing resentment towards the conservative party rather than the actual question of abortion. ARTICLE 3 MOSCOW ; â€Å"Every year, millions of Russian women undergo an abortion. Russia’s government is making free abortions available to women who fall into several newly defined categories, through their twenty second week of pregnancy. Critics of the free abortions blame Russia’s declining birth rate on cheap abortions. In the past six months, twice as many deaths as births have been recorded in Moscow. Of course it’s sad, said Vaganov. The whole story is sad, the number of abortions still being performed is sad, mortality figures are sad†¦. The thing is that you can just see more of what used to be hidden from the public eye he said. We are just trying not to hide the new realities of life, and we are not neglecting the old ones.; P.O.V; The journalist is trying to show that the united states is not the only one facing challenges in abortion and is possibly biased towards the united states. Source:Cable News Network, Inc.2011 Article 4. A pregnant leukemia patient who became a flashpoint in the abortion debate in the Dominican Republic died Friday morning, a hospital official told CNN. The 16-year-old, who had been undergoing chemotherapy, died from complications of the disease, said Dr. Antonio Cabrera, the legal representative for the hospital. Her case stirred debate in her country, as her life was potentially at risk because of anti-abortion laws in the Dominican Republic. Doctors were hesitant to give her chemotherapy because such treatment could terminate the pregnancy — a violation of the Dominican Constitution, which bans abortion. Some 20 days after she was admitted to the hospital, she finally began receiving treatment. The case sparked renewed debate over abortion in the Dominican Republic, with some lawmakers calling on officials to reconsider the abortion ban. From Rafael Romo, Senior Latin American Affairs Editor,CNN According to Article 37 of the Dominican Constitution, â€Å"the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death.† Dominican courts have interpreted this as a strict mandate against abortion. Article 37, passed in 2009, also abolished the death penalty. P.O.V: The author wants to identify the situations where abortions can be deemed necessary. He tries to convince the readers to see the two sides of abortion. He seems to support the notion of legalizing abortion in the Dominican republic. ARTICLE 5: â€Å"Legalized abortion is a national holocaust; an affront to our national character; a contradiction of established principles subscribed to from the beginning of Western Civilization; an insult to the principles of our Declaration of Independence; a bane of our national spirit; and a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. That we have allowed it to continue for 37 years now stands as an indictment against this generation of Americans and bodes ominously for the well-being of our posterity.† By Pastor Chuck Baldwin P.O.V-The author is clearly against abortion .As a pastor he takes a religious stand on as he considers it to be unholy. Based on his article he tries to urge the readers to be against any form of abortion. CONCLUSION As said by former Surgeon General and a pediatrician Dr. C. Everett Koop, the most common reason for abortion is convenience. Only three to five percent of all abortions performed are for reasons of rape, incest, the possibility of a deformed child, or severe threat to the life of the mother. According to researchers at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, of those obtaining abortions in 1980, 30 percent were under age 20 and 79 percent were unmarried, which shows that abortions in the United States are most often sought as a â€Å"solution† to the problem of pregnancy outside of marriage. The major reason behind most of the abortions is mere inconvenience or unwantedness of the baby seems mean, insensitive and unreasonable .However the question of whether abortion is right or wrong will remain a controversial issue for everybody has their own point of view on the subject. The ultimate right of choice should lie with the woman who is undergoing the abortion. This remains one of the foremost arguments and is often stated by supporters to be as important as the basic right of survival.