In honor of International Safe Abortion Day on September 28, this post aims to address some opposition to abortion.

Abortion is a hotly discussed topic in the United States, especially in the wake of the overturn of Roe vs. Wade. The historic 1973 Supreme Court decision established a federal framework for uniformed abortion laws across the United States that has since been dismantled in favor of numerous states establishing more conservative and restrictive laws for this medical procedure. However, access to safe abortion is a medical right that should not be denied to women in a country that loudly champions individual freedom above all.

The United States & Abortion Views

When Roe vs. Wade decriminalized abortion across the nation in 1973, women were freed to pursue safe and legal options for unwanted, forced, and medically dangerous pregnancies. Rather than resort to risky and illegal procedure that could endanger both the lives of the women and the ability of their doctors to practice medicine in the future, abortion became something that women were able to pursue. However, this legal freedom has always been accompanied by a stigma far before the last few years saw women across the United States losing access to their medical rights and bodily autonomy.

The question of pro life vs. pro choice has long outdated any decisions the Supreme Court established. It is not uncommon to hear about women being harassed and verbally assaulted for deciding to terminate a pregnancy. Many people have demonized the medical procedure of abortion, often citing religious grounds for why they find it immoral to terminate a pregnancy even if a woman was raped or if the pregnancy puts her life at risk. However, these outcries are often seeped in hypocrisy, as the people who are protesting for lives to be spared often show almighty indifference to these lives once they are brought into the world.

Abortion In The US: Hypocrisy Pervades 

While people who vehemently protest abortion are fast to call out women for terminating pregnancies, you would be hard pressed to find people among them who have taken in unwanted children. To many of these people, the children only matter until they are born, at which point they become promptly forgotten. Meanwhile, Christianity Today noted that pro-life and pro-choice clinics have the same adoption referral rate at 1%, suggesting that the solution for pro-lifers is to have people raise children they do not want or cannot raise. How is that a satisfactory solution for anybody involved?

When it comes to abortion views in the United States, many Americans express a desire to have abortion legalized- at least to an extent. Gallup News polled Americans in May 2023 and found that 34% were in favor of legalizing abortion under all circumstances, while 51% only favor the legalization of abortion under certain circumstances. (Meanwhile 13% want it illegal in all circumstances.) While it is clear that most Americans are in favor of the procedure, it can be argued that the essence of pro-choice allows a women to decide when she wants or needs to have an abortion performed. However, the majority of Americans are in favor of legalizing abortion or keeping abortion legal.

How Is Abortion Healthcare? 

American is a land that champions freedom to an almost ferverent degree. It is widely known that Americans don’t want to lose their Second Amendment right. It is therefore confusing to comprehend why a portion of Americans believe they have the right to dictate to women what they can do with their bodies or to what extent they can make decisions. Abortion, or the termination of pregnancy, is a medical procedure that all women should have access to. The following cases should help to highlight why abortion is a necessity and how denying it should be the only criminal and shameful act being protested against.

• A ten-year-old girl in Ohio was raped and was forced to flee the state with her parents in order to terminate her unwanted pregnancy after Ohio banned almost all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Furthermore, the horrors this child experienced were denied by a portion of the media who labeled her horrific ordeal as fake news. This is one child who certainly was not protected by the new abortion laws in the United States. 
• Nebraskan teenager Celeste Burgess and her mother both faced criminal charges after the women obtained pregnancy terminating pills for the teen. Celeste was given 90 days in jail for violating Nebraska abortion laws after her and her mother were accused of purchasing abortion pills online, ending Celeste’s pregnancy, and burying the fetus in her backyard. In a society where Celeste could receive legal access to abortion, one could argue that she wouldn’t have resorted to such extreme and now criminal measures to terminate her pregnancy. 
• Amanda Zurawski was denied an abortion in Texas, one of the strictest states when it comes to abortion laws, as only severe medical circumstances qualify for a legal abortion. However, Amanda was denied an abortion for a pregnancy she had desperately wanted even though she almost lost her life as a result due to cervical insufficiency. “It felt like I was living in a dystopian world. In the United States, as a pregnant person, you should not be afraid of your life because of the laws,” she told the BBC. 
• The Guardian reports that Black women are 2.6 times more likely to lose their lives during pregnancy and childbirth compared to white women. Structural racisms role in pregnancy plays a role in the story of Anya Cook. Anya had 17 miscarriages in 2 years and was nonetheless sent home to deliver a baby on her own who doctors knew couldn’t survive after the Black woman experienced pregnancy complications. Anya was denied an abortion for a pregnancy that could not be carried to fruition because her life was not yet in danger. She was forced to deliver her stillborn daughter into a toilet. The dismissal of Anya’s realities and horrors she was forced to endure reveal a glaring tear in the medical system and abortion legislation in the United States. 

Closing Thoughts On Abortion In The Us

Unfortunately these are just a small compilation of stories that start to shed a light on the grim reality for women in the United States alone. There will be no true freedom in the US until women have the right to choose what happens to their bodies. This is not something that should be governed. Furthermore, the right to choose should allow women the judgment to decide what happens to their bodies free from the restraint and restriction of other people’s moral oppositions.

Lastly, people who claim to be pro-life need to consider which lives they are protecting. Do they want to adopt unwanted children and raise them? Do they think it is just to force rape victims to carry their pregnancies to completion? What about the physical and mental health of the mother and the future of the child? As The Guardian reports, pregnancy in American is far riskier than abortion, as 650-750 women die in the US annually during pregnancy (the highest maternal death rate out of industrialized nations).

In comparison two women died from abortion complications in the US in 2018, as the rate of death is significantly lower. Therefore, pro-lifers should ask themselves which lives they are truly championing and at what grave expense to morality, decency, and freedom- rights they certainly claim to champion in other respects. 

Continued Reading: Why Do We Doubt Victims?