The Abortion Debate

Abortion has long been a controversial subject. There are those who argue that the practice is essentially murder, and therefore is unethical and immoral in situations, while others consider the practice necessary to protect individual rights. While both sides have valid points, the practice of abortion is ethical when all outside factors for both mother and fetus are considered. These outside factors include the woman’s rights, the relative safety of the procedure, and the situations that make abortion necessary, such as rape, incest, and health concerns.

Abortion can be defined as the premature termination of pregnancy, or termination before birth. There are five types of abortion, and each type can be performed at a different period during

The anti-abortion movement sees the different types of abortions, such as the partial birth abortion, as brutal and invasive, and therefore dangerous and should not be allowed. The pro-abortion groups believe in allowing abortion because of the issue of self-induced abortions. These abortions, as discussed previously, can be extremely dangerous, leading to serious injury and even death. For these reasons, the types of abortion are an important part of understanding the different ideologies on the

However, they disagree on what actions should be taken to take responsibility. The pro-life groups state that, even if contraceptives are used, that women must know that pregnancy is a possibility, and thus they must take responsibility for their actions. Since the women should have been careful not to become pregnant in the first place, to take responsibility after the fact, she should carry the conceptus to term and give birth to the child. Pro-choice groups see the issue somewhat differently. While the do agree that women should take responsibility, they also believe that one way of taking responsibility is terminating the pregnancy. They typically are unhappy with the notion that if a woman makes a mistake that she should be punished by being forced to carry her pregnancy to term, even if she does not want to. Therefore, they feel that abortion is extremely necessary, even when it comes to women taking responsibility for their actions.