Abortion: Anti or Pro?

Jiwon Choi  

Abortion: Anti or Pro?


    Abortion is one of the most debatable topics in the United States. When the topic is discussed, people tend to take one of the two standpoints: pro or against abortion. The controversy of moral and legal status continues to rage on between the two standpoints. People that identify themselves as Pro-Life is against abortion and people that refers themselves as Pro-Choice are pro abortion. However, you will always have an invisible scale that will even fail the best logic persuasion because there are a lot of factors when it comes to abortion. That is the pain that the mother went through while deciding to abort the baby or after aborting the child. Millions of women who have aborted their child go through the pain, loss, and emotional need to justify what was done. When you scale the issue down to this, it doesn’t become so debatable because no logic that is best will work. Therefore, considering the invisible scale of this issue, there is no “right or wrong” answer to the question of abortion’s legality because they believe their opinions on this topic are correct.


      In Palestine, there were a hundred participants in an abortion rally. They held signs, cheered on speakers, prayed, and sang. This event was the 2nd annual Northwest Families March for Life held for people who believe that abortion should be illegal. Each had a different reason for why they are against abortion, but the group had one main objective for this rally. They were seeking for a peaceful vigil to end abortion. In another article, Pope Francis denounced abortion as “horrific”. He believes that this “throwaway culture” has grown to encompass beings themselves. At his annual “State of the World” address, he has finally decided to speak up about how “evil” abortion is. When you compare the two articles, they have very similar reasons as to why abortion should be illegal, why they are against abortion, and what is so bad about abortion. A participant at Palestine, Cindy Guerrero stated, “Every pregnant woman feels her own way and has her own fears. I know it's a challenge to get her to see why abortion is not the answer." Also, Scott Kirkpatrick had a sign reading “remember the unborn”. On the other hand, Pope Francis has said, “Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as unnecessary.” When comparing the reasons for being against abortion, both articles state that people are killing the unborn as a reason. They consider this as a crime and human trafficking because they consider the unborn fetuses as alive. They also talked about how people are murdering these unborn babies that might help the world become a better place later on.


    Meanwhile, there is also another stance in abortion: pro-choice. In the Huffington Post, a woman writes about how women who choose to abort a child is not an oxymoron. In the article, she stated that she became more pro-choice as she became pregnant. In The Guardian, actor Mark Ruffalo talked about why he supports abortion. The article also talks about the number of clinics left in some of the states. Lastly, it showed respect towards the well-known figures that stand up for abortion. When you compare the two articles, they both talk about unwanted pregnancy. They want women to be able to receive help easily from pregnancy they weren’t ready for. In the Huffington Post she said, “If a woman feels that it's the right time for her to become a parent, she should. If she feels that it's not, then she should have other options available: contraception, adoption, and, yes, abortion.” Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo stated, “I don't want to turn back the hands of time to when women shuttled across state lines in the thick of night to resolve an unwanted pregnancy, in a cheap hotel room.” Both of them seem to have talked to or known people that suffered with unwanted pregnancy and didn’t know how to get help easily. The woman in the article from The Huffington Post said that she talked to numerous of people about how they waited until they were ready and how they felt when they had a child. Mark Ruffalo talked about how his mother had to suffer to get an abortion for a child she really didn’t want or wasn’t ready for. These two articles believe that if the mother has no intention of having the baby, the society should respect their decisions and offer help to them is what they are trying to tell everyone.


    Now, when you compare the two stances, you can see the prejudiced points of view that the two opposing sides have. The anti-abortionists believe that everyone deserves to have a chance to live. They consider women who decide to abort their child as “murderers”. They don’t consider what kind of situation that the mother is going through when they are deciding this matter. There are some that are against it because of religion reasons; the bible tells us that abortion is wrong. Life is something needs to be protected under all circumstances is their argument. Other reasons include: the mother should deal with the consequences if the pregnancy was a mistake and if abortions are easy to obtain, it will be a method of birth control. (SexInfo Online) On the other hand, the pro-abortionists believe that the mothers should have a choice to keep the baby or not. They believe that women should receive help easily because if they cannot access to help, they would need to get abortion illegally. Other reasons include: in cases of rape or incest, the fetus could remind the mother of the horrible experiences, all women should be prepared for their pregnancy, and the fetus is not a human being yet. (SexInfo Online)


     In conclusion, abortion is a topic that cannot have clear direct stances because there are so many reasons as to why it might be right to have an abortion in one situation, but shouldn’t be allowed in another. The prejudiced points that the Pro-Life side have are: they don’t consider the situation that the mother is in. If it really was a case of rape or incest, it would not be right for the having to have the baby, which may have her be reminded by the terrible experiences, and that giving up a child for adoption can be emotionally damaging to the child as having the abortion. There are many children who are emotionally damaged because the fact that their parents abandoned them. In these cases, it is right to have help accessed easily. This is not just a matter of protecting a precious life, it is the matter of the mother’s pain also. Pro-Choice doesn’t consider that not all situations should be allowed for the mother to abort the baby. When a woman aborts a child in a situation that isn’t right to have the child aborted, then that would essentially be a form of murder. Abortion can also lead to expose women with various of health risks.

    The only reason for this topic to be controversial is because of the prejudiced views. If everyone were to notice that this topic is more complicated than it is known already, this would not have been a big issue today. The end result is that there is no “right” answer because there are so many factors that we have look upon when deciding to have an abortion. The circumstances are what matters the most. You wouldn’t want to murder a fetus, but you wouldn’t want to emotionally and physically damage the mother, and perhaps the child’s feelings later on.


Works Cited:

Ferrarin, Elena. "Group Rallies against Abortion in Palatine." Daily Herald. N.p., 19 Jan. 2014. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. <http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140119/news/701109566/>.

Withnall, Adam. "Pope Francis Denounces Abortion as ‘horrific’." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 14 Jan. 2014. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pope-francis-denounces-abortion-as-horrific-9058040.html>.

Erdreich, Sarah. "'Pro-Choice Mother' Is Not an Oxymoron." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 July 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-erdreich/pro-choice-mother_b_3640718.html>.

Cochrane, Kira. "Mark Ruffalo's Pro-choice Stance on Abortion Rights Sets a Powerful Example." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/aug/19/mark-ruffalo-pro-choice-abortion-rights>.

"Arguments For and Against Abortion | SexInfo Online." Arguments For and Against Abortion | SexInfo Online. N.p., Dec. 2012. Web. 22 Jan. 2014. <http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/article/arguments-and-against-abortion>.

Comments (3)

Miles Cruice-Barnett (Student 2016)
Miles Cruice-Barnett

Interesting theory that it is not as black and white as we make it. However, how would you propose that the legality of it is handled because it is either legal or not, unless someone is deciding when it is okay.

Tobi Hahn (Student 2016)
Tobi Hahn

I think that it is kind of odd how you say that while a fetus is not a human being yet, it is still murder to abort a fetus when not in the "right circumstances." How do you define the right circumstances? There are many times when it is necessary to get an abortion other than rape or incest. It also seems unlikely that a person would abuse abortions, as the cost is very high.