Nine Reasons Why Abortions are Legal
Nine Reasons Why Abortions are Legal
A Statement From the Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Abortion is never an easy decision, but women have been making that choice for thousands of years, for many good reasons. Whenever a society has sought to outlaw abortions, it has only driven them into back alleys, where they became dangerous, expensive and humiliating. Amazingly, this was the case in the United States until 1973, when abortion was legalized nationwide.
Thousands of American women died and thousands more were maimed before abortion was legal. For this reason and others, women and men fought for and achieved women's legal right to make their own decisions about abortion.
However, there are people in our society who still won't accept this. Some argue that even victims of rape or incest should be forced to bear the child. And now, having failed to convince the public or the lawmakers, certain of these people have become violent extremists, engaging in a campaign of intimidation and terror aimed at women seeking abortions and health professionals who work at family-planning clinics.
Some say these acts will stop abortions, but that is ridiculous. When the smoke clears, the same urgent reasons will exist for safe, legal abortions as have always existed. No nation committed to individual liberty could seriously consider returning to the days of back-alley abortions--to the revolting specter of a government forcing women to bear children against their will. Still, amid such attacks, it is worthwhile to repeat a few of the reasons why our society trusts each woman to make the abortion decision herself.
1. Laws against abortion kill women.
To prohibit abortions does not stop them. When women feel it is absolutely necessary, they will choose to have abortions--even in secret, without medical care, in dangerous circumstances. In the two decades before abortion was legal in the U.S., it's been estimated that nearly 1 million women per year sought out illegal abortions. Thousands died. Tens of thousands were mutilated. All were forced to behave as if they were criminals.
2. Legal abortions protect women's health.
Legal abortion not only protects women's lives, it also protects their health. For tens of thousands of women with heart disease, kidney disease, severe hypertension, sickle-cell anemia and severe diabetes and other illnesses that can be life-threatening, the availability of legal abortion has helped avert serious medical complications that could have resulted from childbirth. Before legal abortion, such women's choices were limited to dangerous illegal abortion or dangerous childbirth.
3. A woman is more than a fetus.
There's an argument these days that a fetus is a "person" that is "indistinguishable from the rest of us," and that it deserves rights equal to women's. On this question, there is a tremendous spectrum of religious, philosophical, scientific and medical opinion. It's been argued for centuries. Fortunately, our society has recognized that each woman must be able to make this decision, based on her own conscience. To impose a law defining a fetus as a "person," granting it rights equal to or superior to a woman's--a thinking, feeling, conscious human being--is arrogant and absurd. It only serves to diminish women.
4. Being a mother is just one option for women.
Many hard battles have been fought to win political and economic equality for women. These gains will not be worth much if reproductive choice is denied. To be able to choose a safe, legal abortion makes many other options possible. Otherwise an accident or a rape can end a woman's economic and personal freedom.
5. Outlawing abortion is discriminatory.
Anti-abortion laws discriminate against low-income women, who are driven to dangerous self-induced or back-alley abortions. That is all they can afford. But the rich can travel wherever necessary to obtain a safe abortion.
6. Compulsory pregnancy laws are incompatible with a free society.
If there is any matter which is personal and private, then pregnancy is it. There can be no more extreme invasion of privacy than requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted to compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop? The concept is morally repugnant. It violates traditional American ideas of individual rights and freedoms.
7. Outlaw abortion, and more children will bear children.
Forty percent of 14-year-old girls will become pregnant before they turn 20. This could happen to your daughter or someone else close to you. Here are the critical questions: Should the penalty for lack of knowledge or even for a moment's carelessness be enforced pregnancy and child-rearing? Or dangerous illegal abortion? Should we consign a teenager to a life sentence of joblessness, hopelessness and dependency?
8. "Every child a wanted child."
If women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the result is unwanted children. Everyone knows they are among society's most tragic cases, often uncared-for, unloved, brutalized and abandoned. When they grow up, these children are often seriously disadvantaged, and sometimes inclined to brutal behavior toward others. This is not good for children, for families or for the country. Children need love and families who want and will care for them.
9. Choice is good for families.
Even when precautions are taken, accidents can and do happen. For some families, this is not a problem.
But for others, such an event can be catastrophic. An unintended pregnancy can increase tensions, disrupt stability and push people below the line of economic survival. Family planning is the answer. All options must be open. At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really about abortion. It is about the value of women in society. Should women make their own decisions about family, career and how to live their lives? Or should government do that for them? Do women have the option of deciding when or whether to have children? Or is that a government decision?
The anti-abortion leaders really have a larger purpose. They oppose most ideas and programs which can help women achieve equality and freedom. They also oppose programs which protect the health and well-being of women and their children.
Anti-abortion leaders claim to act "in defense of life." If so, why have they worked to destroy programs which serve life, including prenatal care and nutrition programs for dependent pregnant women? Is this respect for life?
Anti-abortion leaders also say they are trying to save children, but they have fought against health and nutrition programs for children once they are born. The anti-abortion groups seem to believe life begins at conception, but it ends at birth. Is this respect for life?
Then there are programs which diminish the number of unwanted pregnancies before they occur: family planning counseling, sex education and contraception for those who wish it. Anti-abortion leaders oppose those, too. And clinics providing such services have been bombed and people have been killed. Is this respect for life?
Such stances reveal the ultimate cynicism of the compulsory pregnancy movement. "Life" is not what they're fighting for. What they want is a return to the days when a woman had few choices in controlling her future. They think that the abortion option gives too much freedom. That even contraception is too liberating. That women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions.
Americans today don't accept that. Women can now select their own paths in society, including when and whether to have children. Family planning, contraception and, if need be, legal abortion are critical to sustaining women's freedom. There is no going back.
If you agree with this, you can help. Circulate this statement among your friends, and support our work by contacting Planned Parenthood in your area. Thank you.
Revised version March 1989
Check out Abortion Laws for the laws regarding parental permission and abortion in the United States, listed by state.
Thanks and appreciation are extended to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for allowing the use of this material!
Member Comments
by crystal_2631 on October 29, 2008 at 1:57 PM
I can agree with the first two "reasons" but that is where I draw the line. I am pro-life, but I believe that abortion should be a state's right issue. Every state's population should get a vote on whether they think it should be legal and to what extent.
To make the statement that a woman is more than a fetus is ludicrous- of course we are. BUT, a woman makes the CHOICE to have sex. If that choice results in a pregnancy the woman must take responsibility for that result.
Abortion, especially after blood has begun pumping through the veins of the BABY, is wrong! I can at least empathize with the viewpoint that mother's whose lives are at risk, or have been raped may have reason, but there is NO REASON that someone who was careless enough to get pregnant should be able to kill a child as birth control.
IMO at the very least we should ban partial- birth abortions. I truly believe if the general public knew what a partial birth abortion entialed that there would be a huge outcry against them. To deliver a living, moving child only to kill it before it's head leaves the mother is an abomination. Why don't we just make it legal to kill our infants until the age of 1? There has now been a case of a baby born at 20 weeks that survived! Yet, it is still legal to abort a baby in the womb that age. There should be laws to protect children who could survive outside the womb, what exactly is the point of killing them at this stage of pregnancy. If you've gotten that far - deliver full term and give it up for adoption!
There are other options for mothers who dont' wish to raise their child. Women must take responsibility for their actions. You should not have sex without knowing, even on birth control, that a baby may result and be prepared for the reprecutions.
by mommymeg on October 30, 2008 at 7:39 AM
"Following [the doctor's] directions, I took the collection bottle and poured its contents into a shallow pan. Then I used water to rinse off the blood and smaller particles which clouded the bottom of the pan. 'Now look closely,' the doctor said. 'It is important that we have got all the stuff out.' I looked in the pan to find that the stuff consisted of the remains of what had been, a few minutes before, a thirteen week old fetus. I could make out the remains of arms and legs and a trunk and a skull. I tried to piece them back together in my mind, to see if there were any missing parts. Most of the pieces were so battered and bloody they were not recognizably human. Then my eyes locked upon a perfect little hand, less than half a centimeter long. I stared at four tiny fingers and a tiny opposed thumb, complete with tiny translucent fingers. And I knew what I had done."
--former abortionist "Chi An" quoted in Stephen Mosher's "A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One Child Policy" pgs 60-61
by Caryad on October 31, 2008 at 6:46 PM
If Men were faced with this idea that they could become pregnant anytime they have sex.. do you think they might start taking responsibility as well?
As an "adopted" child.. do you not think I have had a Life of feeling abandoned.. do you really believe that going to term and just "adopting out" a child is best for all ?
The Fact that even birth control cannot prevent pregnancies leaves women out of control of their sex lives and its results.
The whole point of this whole thing is that a woman should have the choice of what she does with the reproductive function in her body.
Do you not think that having an abortion is the hardest choice ANY woman could make and that it leaves a permanent scar on the psyche?
People need to take responsibility for their OWN choices in Life and particularly on this issue.
This threat to the Roe v Wade decision is a threat to go back several hundred years in our evolution.
Get OFF your self-righteous soap boxes and quit judging people who have to DEAL with these decisions.
by HopeForProLife on December 4, 2008 at 9:04 PM
All of these so-called "Reasons", are just selfish, immature, irresponsible excuses. I am 100% Pro Life and I'm sick of hearing the argument about 'even if its illegal, theyre going to do it anyway' ... why do you think right now it is "safe"? there is nothing safe about ripping a child from a womans body. that is not what nature intended...and while we're on the topic...why not just make it legal for people to just kill whenever they get angry or dont like someone... i mean, murder is illegal and people sit on death row every day--why? why is it wrong to kill an adult?... "theyre just going to do it anyway"... why not make it easier on them? ...thats wrong you'll say... but tell me why its not wrong to leave a child laying in a bowl on a stainless steel counter, left to die after an abortion has gone wrong and didnt fully work? have you seen the pictures? videos? read the articles? i dont understand. and i refuse to believe that anyone who is pro-choice has actually seen the gruesomeness of abortion. if you have and you still think its okay, you dont have a soul.
by azjp21109 on February 11, 2009 at 11:46 AM
why should you care about someone else's life?
seriously?
would YOU take care of the child?
what if it had a birth defect?
also, abortion is not murder, it's a frikking fetus, not a baby.
it's not fully developed, then it's not murder.
that is WHY they made it so that you can have an abortion only if the fetus is under 8 months.
oh, and YOU dont have a soul because you're not opening your eyes to see the real world. if a child is unwanted then he/she wont be loved to the fullest and would you really want a kid to live a life where they wont be loved and shit? wow. you're a cold-hearted bitch.
by astrumvir10 on April 14, 2009 at 5:02 PM
azjp21109: That is the most indecent, ruthless, insulting, degrading comment I have ever read regarding the issue of abortion. Ignoring the fact that you obviously have little respect for human life, do you seriously believe that there aren't people in this world who are willingly to love unconditionally? With your logic, we should just kill everybody that's physically handicapped, or mentally ill, or retarded. How about anybody that's not perfect, by however you define perfect? Let's kill everyone with an IQ lower than 100, everyone who is overweight, everyone who has ever committed a crime. Do you understand what you're saying? I could keep going with my killing spree here, using your logic, and end up making sure no one was left on this planet except for you, because you are obviously perfect. Seriously? Come on. Grow up.
If you want to support a Pro-Choice point-of-view because you personally believe that life does not begin at conception, fine. I believe you are horribly incorrect and I'll debate you until the bitter end, but you are entitled to your opinion. If you think it's ok to destroy human life, be aware that you'll be called a murderer. But if you disagree, learn to defend yourself without downgrading the human person. "Why should you care about someone else's life?" Because if you don't, humanity is screwed. Seriously.
by tns007 on February 6, 2009 at 9:28 AM
I understand if a women is having complications with her pregnancy but is adoption really that bad and if you don't want a child don't have sex i mean it is common sense if you can't handle a child keep your legs crossed and men should keep it in our pants until you feel ready to have and raise a child.
by azjp21109 on February 11, 2009 at 11:40 AM
that's why there are things called condoms.
by andy__03 on October 12, 2009 at 7:03 AM
its called rape. FORCED sex. girls can't help it if there raped. and condoms dont work 100% of the time
by aimek1 on February 28, 2009 at 9:04 PM
tns007 and crystal
Are either one of you suggesting that you are better than a woman who has abortion? What about the little girls who are raped by their father or uncles and have to carry out an inbred child? Or the woman who is raped and never had a choice? Adoption is not always the answer either, it leaves people missing a part of themselves their whole life. Abortion should be legal and whether a woman closes her legs or spreads them eagle, she should have the right to decide whether or not the fetus becomes a walking talking person. I mean after all look at what they are doing to cows sheep and goats...cloning them so we can eat them, mmm where was GOD in the life process..if scientists' and the government can play GOD why can't a woman who is only trying to make the best worse decsision of her life? Oh and other options would detail the NEBRASKA SAFE HAVEN ACT where parents left their grown teen and pre teen children at hospitals and churches because they could not handle them? Lets weigh the severity grown teen abandoned vs unwanted baby aborted.... seems to me like the fetus is the lucky one..who remains innocent and can be renewed..unlike the damaged teen who is ruined for life..oh and will probably continue the cycle of abuse.Get with it... and quit judging others ... thats where most christian's and other religions get confused your'e supposed to humble yourself and quit being so judgmental...seriously though.
by astrumvir10 on April 14, 2009 at 5:10 PM
Just wanted to throw this our there for you to think about: less than 1% of all abortions are rape/incest related, and the two top reasons for having an abortion, coming in at 21% a piece, are because women aren't 'ready for the responsibility' and 'cannot financially afford to have a child.' The simple solution is to abstain from sex until you're ready to have a family. But we can't do that here in America. Entertainment ranks higher on our list of priorities than responsibility. That's sad. Seriously.
by freeindeed1 on March 24, 2009 at 2:39 AM
Abortion is a selfish act. So is family planning. Me first, my career first, my education first. Me, Me, Me! When are we going to wake up and acknowledge the fact that God is the creator of life and that He would not create anything without making a way to provide for what He created. We need to trust HIM!
freeindeed1
by freeindeed1 on March 24, 2009 at 2:39 AM
Abortion is a selfish act. So is family planning. Me first, my career first, my education first. Me, Me, Me! When are we going to wake up and acknowledge the fact that God is the creator of life and that He would not create anything without making a way to provide for what He created. We need to trust HIM!
freeindeed1
by freeindeed1 on March 24, 2009 at 2:41 AM
Abortion is a selfish act. We should trust the ONE who is the creator of all. He would not create anything without the means to provide. Trust HIM!
freeindeed1
by pearce1949 on May 15, 2009 at 9:55 PM
my son has a 17 year old girl who is pregnant and needs abortion no help from her mother no id birth certif takes 14 weeks to get here CAN ANYONE HELP also payment arrangements???
by iamoliviar on May 28, 2009 at 5:12 AM
ok to everyone who says that it's "a woman's choice to have sex and she should take responsibility"
sex takes TWO people. why should women be forced to partake in the consequences. where is the man in this situation? he doesn't have any of his rights taken away. he doesn't have his privacy violated. nobody is controlling his body and changing his life and forcing him to give up his dreams.
women should have teh same rights as men. i'm offended by anyone who says that women should suffer the consequences of sex.
abortion should be a women's choice. it's her body and her life. the baby isn't born yet. the fetus doesn't even have any thoughts or feelings. saying that the fetus has more rights than a women is wrong and disgusting of anyone to say.
by ortegawn on November 18, 2009 at 5:09 PM
1. So are you saying that since a law-breaker is going to break the law anyway and get hurt trying, we should remove the law? That's just removing the consequences from breaking the law.
2. Abortion is 3 and a half time more likely to kill a woman than childbirth. And you're specifically mentioning the women with problems... what about the healthy ones?
3. I absolutely agree with crystal_2631: "To make the statement that a woman is more than a fetus is ludicrous- of course we are. BUT, a woman makes the CHOICE to have sex. If that choice results in a pregnancy the woman must take responsibility for that result." And to those people that talk about forced sex -- incest or rape... If a man stole something from a store, would you punish his son? Of course not, that's ridiculous! Also, removing the evidence of the crime is only going to show the criminal that there aren't consequences to their actions, so they'll be more likely to do it again.
by ortegawn on November 18, 2009 at 5:09 PM
4. Same thing as before. Women choose to have sex, so they choose to provoke the consequences. If your teenager disrespected you, would you say it doesn't matter? No! You would punish them (grounding) because there should be logical results to each decision that a person makes. On this topic, I would like to mention that from a STAKES research, 52% of female suicides were during the year after an abortion. This is compared to the 16% who committed suicide because of nothing to do with pregnancy, 10% the year after childbirth, and 22% after a miscarriage.
5. This is ridiculous. Your point here does not support your argument at all, and you could easily also say: Abortion is discriminatory. Low-income women will not be able to afford abortions, and rich people will. AKA abortion is wrong. Your point is invalid.
6. There wouldn't be an unwanted pregnancy had she not had sex. Less than 1% of all abortion cases are forced (astrumvir10 said this, but I've also seen this elsewhere, numerous times) so don't talk about them. How are you going to back up the other 99%?
by ortegawn on November 18, 2009 at 5:09 PM
7. "Forty percent of 14-year-old girls will become pregnant before they turn 20." Where are you getting your facts? Forty percent? If you can statistically support this, then maybe it'd be a bit more believable. But it is still completely unrealistic.
8. Oh yes, of course. To prevent child abuse or the -feeling- of being unwanted, we should abuse them right at the start so they're dead and don't have to "suffer" through that later.
9. Anti-Abortion is not about women's rights. If anything, pro-abortion is giving women rights that men do not have. What about the father? Whether or not the mother has the child can affect the next 18 years of his life. And what if he wants to have the child -- why should the woman get to decide? Isn't it more sexist that the man has no choice?
You should be more specific on those three "is this respect for life" scenarios, and definitely list the sources.
Bringing in feminist views are completely off-topic and while I believe that women should have equal rights as men, the conclusions you have made are just trying to guilt-trip the reader and are badly drawn as well.