Abortion
Brian Kesser
Race and Gender
Abortion?
Should a woman have a choice? This is the question that has plagued
governments the world over for more than a century. Today, in the United States, she
does. It was not always this way though. It was not until 1973 that women could legally
choose whether or not to give birth to their unborn fetuses in the United States. This
subject strikes a sore spot primarily for religious groups all over the world. So should a
woman be given the right to choose her fate and the fate of the child inside her? If that
right is taken away will she find alternate means? How do we decide where the line
should be drawn between that what we believe is right and the freedoms we so cherish?
In the 1890's doctors estimated that there were two million abortions per year.
Today there a one and a half. (Feminist, 2) Determined woman throughout the world and
throughout the ages have always found ways to terminate unwanted pregnancies by
whatever means they could. This fact alone tells us that this is not an issue that we
can just sweep under the rug and forget. There have always been available options by
which women could end a pregnancy, some of them are just more grotesque than others.
The "Coat hanger Effect" has been used to describe what can happen when
abortion is made illegal. Women have all too often subjected themselves to
voluntary sodomy with such crude instruments as coat hangers, sowing needles, curtain
rods, ice picks and even bicycle pumps. An estimated five percent of all criminal
abortions were performed by the woman herself (Abortion Practices, 2&3). That averages
out to...
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