Abortion: Pro-Choice Term Paper

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Pro-Choice: The Abortion Issue -- A philosophical, as well as a legal issue of rights, responsibility, and the question of when life begins

Just across the border, in the United States, one of the most symbolically significant issues in political life today is the issue of abortion. Abortion is often phrased as question of personal rights and liberties: as in, a woman has the personal right and freedom to do what she wishes with her own body. Abortion is also often phrased as an issue of when life begins -- as in, a fetus is not a human being, or the fetus is a human being. Lastly, there is also another way to perhaps broach these two queries or ways of framing the difficult abortion debate, by stating that, even though when life begins is ambiguous, this should not require a woman, or any human being, to forcibly surrender her body to support the body of another.

In terms of rights, the pro-choice argument for abortion holds that every woman has the right to do what she wishes with her own body. In other words, individuals who attempt to limit the right to an abortion based upon the fact that a woman has the 'choice' to assume the risk of pregnancy before engaging in an act of sexual intercourse are really passing a moral judgment upon the woman's lifestyle that has no place within the legal system of rights. An individual has the right to freely use his or her body, provided it harms no one else, in a fashion that some may find morally aberrant. For instance, I have the right to get a tattoo even if my friend views such an act as a mutilation to my flesh. Without the right to choose to be pregnant or not to be pregnant, what use is the system of a law-based democratic system of rights at all, pro-choice activists ask? Pregnancy places a profound strain upon the female body. It requires a woman to sacrifice nine months of her mental as well as her physical health.

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It requires her to take time off of work, and to go through the physical stress of childbirth. True, one could say that the woman should consider all of these factors before having sexual intercourse. But firstly, does a young girl really have the mental capabilities of taking all of these scenarios into consideration, with a fully cognizant mind, every time she is subject to sexual pressure? And moreover, what of the fact that the male in question, no matter how irresponsibly he may enter the decision to engage in an act of sexual intercourse, will not bear the same long-term physical, social, and mental stigma that his female partner must bear? To not allow abortion is thus an act of sexual discrimination, unfairly penalizing the rights of the female and the body of the female.

Some opponents of abortion might counter this argument saying that the women's rights are irrelevant because the fetus is indisputably alive. Firstly, it should be noted that those who prohibit abortion in all cases but rape or incest engage in a contradictory argument when they state that the fetus is legally and morally entitled to personhood. If this were the case, a fetus would have equal rights on the parity of human beings, regardless of how the fetus' life originated. Just as individuals are not entitled to fewer rights because of their status as being born as the result of rape or incest, then a fetus would have to be protected that was the result of a rape, regardless of how cruel this would be….....

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