Abortion 21 Essay, Research Paper
Abortions should be illegal if you are going to go out and have unprotected sex, then you should be willing to take responsibility for your actions. The unborn child that is conceived has done no wrong and shouldn’t have to suffer because of the mothers actions. Women shouldn’t have a “right” to kill their preborn child. The word “choice” shouldn’t be used in regard to abortions, since killing a preborn child offers the child no choice at all.
If you think about it nearly 30 million preborn children have been slaughter in their mother’s wombs. Millions of women have been traumatized both mentally and physically by their decision to exercise their so called “right” to an abortion. The number of reported legal abortions from 1972 through 1992 has risen each year. The percentage of teenagers having abortions began to drop in the 1980’s because of the law requiring a parents involvement. The highest abortion rate is among eighteen to nineteen year old women. Each year about 15,000 abortions attributed to rape and incest this about one percent of all abortions. Allowing abortions is promoting values that encourage crime, illegitimacy, and the breakdown of families. Why would anyone want to put themselves through this procedure if it could be deadly?
A woman from Brooklyn, New York died from a legal abortion and the police engaged in cover up. Tamika Dowdy, 22 was pronounced dead after having a legal abortion at Long Island College Hospital on Wednesday (reported in the case of http://www.roevwade.org/rvw//.html). Dowdy’s fianc Rudy Alston waited in the waiting room for six hours the abortion practitioner told him that Dowdy’s heart had stopped. Dowdy and Alston were planning on a January or February wedding and the couple didn’t want a child because Dowdy wanted to go to a two year accounting school. The police officials tried to squelch news by omitting the tragic abortion death from their daily report that Dowdy died after an abortion(according to the case of http://www.roevwade.org/rvw//.html). They included only the address where the incident took place, not even mentioning an abortion was involved. I feel that abortions should be illegal just because of cases just like this one many other cases happen just like this one all the time. Why put yourself through an abortion when you could get help taking care of your child. There are more than 3,200 crisis pregnancy centers across the nation offering women the choice not to abort their children. These centers offer everything to carry the baby to term: cloths, furniture, parenting classes, and a very important thing, love. If these centers are out there then why would anyone want to abort a preborn child.
When an abortion is performed at a non hospital the average cost was $296 as of 1993(Jacobs, Landes, & Siegel, 1996). The farther along you get in the pregnancy the more expensive the abortion cost. When an abortion is performed in a hospital the average cost was $1,757 as of 1993(Jacobs, Landes, & Siegel, 1996). Paying for the abortion could get expensive and be a burden. Some private insurers will cover abortion expenses. Most middle class women can usually afford an abortion, but is often a burden for poorer women. For women whose lives were endangered by rape or incest 99 percent of the abortions are government funded.
Abortions should be performed in the first trimester by vacuum aspiration (suction). The physician widens the cervix and inserts a tube into the uterus. The tube is connected to a suction machine that empties the contents of the uterus, this procedure takes about five minutes. In the second trimester, a similar procedure called dilation and evacuation (D&E) is the most common method. The reason a different procedure is because the fetus is larger and the cervix must dilate. The process of dilation can take several hours or even overnight. Once the cervix is dilated, a suction machine is used to empty the uterus. Sometimes the physician scrapes the lining of the uterus to make sure the fetus is totally removed. Abortions performed later in the second trimester, physicians use medical induction which is when a saline solution is injected into the uterus, causing contractions to expel the fetus(Family, 1998, February). After reading how an abortion is done this sound like it would be very painful and uncomfortable. If something goes wrong you could die from this procedure so why even put yourself though this instead use your head before you loose your life.
When performing a late term/partial-birth abortion a technique called the Dilation and Extraction (D&X) is used. This involves two days of dilation of the cervix. Then an ultrasound probe is used to find the lower extremities of the unborn baby. Large grasping forceps are worked through the mother’s vaginal and cervical canals and into her uterus. With the forceps a leg of the infant is pulled into the mother’s vagina. Then the surgeon uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the torso, the shoulders, and the upper extremities(Family, 1998, February). The skull lodges at the internal cervical. While clutching the baby’s shoulders, the abortionist takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors. Carefully he advances the tip curved down along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull.
Then the scissors are forced into the base of the skull after safely entered in the skull the scissors are spread to enlarge the opening. The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted into the hole and the content in the skull is evacuated. With the catheter still in place traction is applied to the fetus removing it completely from the patient(Family, 1998, February). This procedure is very sick how could anyone think of sticking a baby with scissors and killing it when it is almost ready to be born. Anyone to do this has to be sick, if an abortion is going to be done it should never wait this long. Abortions should never have to take place anyway if good enough to have sex then you are good enough to have a baby. Going through each one of these steps just makes you ask why over and over especially the partial-birth. The baby has never done anything wrong it was the mother’s fault and the baby has no chance. Abortions should be illegal no one except rape or incest patients should have them. After finding out that nearly 4,400 legal abortion occur each day in the United States, this is a very high number of babies that never make it into the world they are just killed.
Reference
Brooklyn Woman Dies from Legal Abortion, Police Engage in Cover Up. Retrieved February 23, 2000, From the World Wide Web http://www.roevwade.org/rvw//.html
Jacobs, N.R., B.A., M.A., & Landes, A., B.A.,& Siegal, M.A., PhD (1996). Abortion an Eternal Social and Moral Issue. New York: New York
Status of Abortion in America. (1998, February) Family, 1-3