The Abortion Controversy w Works Cited
Since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, about one out of three pregnancies end in abortion. This means that 1.5 million abortions are performed in the United States each year (Flanders 3). Not since slavery has an issue posed a greater moral dilemma. It ranks among the most complex and controversial issues, arousing heated legal, political, and ethical debates. The modern debate over abortion is a conflict of competing moral ideas and of fundamental human rights: to life, to privacy, to control one's own body. Trying to come to some sort of a compromise has proven that you cannot please all of the people on each side of the debate. Many people describe the abortion debate in America as bitter and uncompromising, usually represented on both sides by people with an intense devotion to their cause and usually with irreconcilable positions. Many of those who are pro-choice insist that a woman's right to abortion should never be restricted while those who are pro-life maintain that a fetus has an unequivocal right to life that is violated at any stage of its development if abortion is performed. Discussions between both sides are usually argumentative, and sometimes violent, so any attempt at coming
There is no easy solution to this provocative social dilemma. No matter what the consequences are, these people are willing to put their money and their freedom on the line for the chance to save "innocent human beings". One can only assume that it is a hard enough decision to have an abortion without having protesters make you feel like you are committing murder. The number of federally funded abortions fell from 294,600 in 1977 to 165 in 1990 (financing permitted because the mothers' lives were in danger) (Bender 96). The long- and short-term effects of using RU 486 are unknown. The development of a safe and effective antiprogestin compound had been the goal of researchers in the field of reproductive biology for decades (Points 106). Civil suits brought by abortion clinics and others asked and got large sums of money which virtually bankrupted groups such as Operation Rescue. The first compromise would allow abortion for "hard" cases (rape, incest, or risk of the life or health of the pregnant woman), but not for the "soft" cases (financial hardship, inconvenience, possible birth defects, or failure of birth control). The cumulative effect of years of violence has no doubt taken its toll, and some physicians have stopped performing abortions because of the risks involved (Rubin 53). New York: Vintage Books, 1977.
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Acceptance Essays
