The Right to Choose
No government in the United States has the authority to dictate how a person’s family operates. The family is a very personal and private entity, and the government cannot be allowed to interfere with it. The government cannot tell a woman how many children she must have. The government cannot dictate how parents must raise their children. The government cannot even mandate that married couples stay together or that unwed couples not have children. These are all choices made by the couples, by the parents, and are seen as the freedom to run their own lives and families. The right to an abortion is to be included in these freedoms. Since the government cannot prescribe how the family operates in other facets, it should not be able to demand that a woman take on an unwanted pregnancy and the family an unwanted child, even if the public finds the abortion objectionable.
Several theories are prevalent in the argument for the right to an abortion in a global sense. Colin Francome proposes five theories of abortion opinion. The feminist and the reformist views deal with the personal right of the woman or family to have an abortion. Francome’s summary of the feminist view basically declares, “a woman should have absolute control over her own body” (7), and freedom of choice would make women more equal to men by not forcing them to accept and take care of what men have forced upon them (5). The view is that generally the woman will have to give up her goals and dreams to stay and take care of the child. The men have the freedom to continue working and pursuing their careers; they do not necessarily have to deal with the consequences of pregnancy. The men do not have to deal with the physical and mental problems of pregnancy, and they do not have to alter their lives to have the child. Men have the freedom to completely break off the relationship and can choose not to deal with it. Women have to deal with the pregnancy; they cannot choose to forget about it. If women have the right to choose whether to have a child, they can have more control over their lives. They will not have to give up what they strive for in order to bear and take care of a child. Their opportunities for success will be more equal to the men. America prides itself on trying to provide equal opportunity for all people, and if the right to an abortion would make a woman more equal then it should be followed through upon. Another view is a reformist view, which focuses on the nuclear family and proposes “that abortion protects it by excluding unwanted children who would otherwise place strains upon the family unit” (Francome 8). The quality of life in the family will be much higher without the extra burden of an unplanned and unwanted child. The economic and social strains of the unwanted child will be avoided. Abortion would help to prevent the degradation of the family’s quality of life. Both of these philosophical theories provide a logical basis for the right to an abortion. One suggests that the right to abortion will help to make women more equal to men in certain aspects, while the other focuses on keeping the health and welfare of the family at the same level by not having unwanted children. The government should work to promote these theories, as they try to improve the lives of women and of the family.
The reasoning behind having an abortion can usually fall into health reasons or social reasons. Callahan lists several reasons for why a woman may want an abortion and divides them into these two categories. The government should definitely allow abortions based on medical reasoning. One of the medical reasons is if the woman’s life will be endangered if she goes through with the pregnancy, although the number of these cases has declined with the advances of modern medicine (Callahan 27). The government cannot simply tell a woman that she has to have a child that may kill her. It doesn’t seem right to say that a woman has to die for one mistake. Another is the possibility that the child will be deformed or handicapped in some way that would make its life miserable and burdensome (Callahan 91). The government should not be able to tell a woman she has to have a child that will not live a happy and complete life. Forcing a woman to endure the anguish of having a deformed child whose life could be very short. No one should have to endure those physical and mental pains when there is an alternative that would prevent them. Sacrificing the possible child should is generally acceptable when the life of the woman is at stake; only the real extremists feel that the sacrifice of the fetus should not be allowed. The main source of discontent is when a woman has an abortion for social reasons. Even some of these reasons are more or less accepted as allowable conditions. Pregnancies resulting from rape or incest are generally allowed to be aborted without much resistance. The government should not be able to force a pregnancy upon a woman, especially in the case of rape because she gave no consent. Other social reasons for having an abortion can range from money or housing shortages, tense martial relations, or pregnancies that occur out of wedlock (Callahan 27). The basic problem with the reasoning behind these is that the problem would have been averted if the woman had not entered into sexual relations. The medical problems are out of the woman’s control; rape and incest probably were done without consent; but the woman willingly entered into the situation and now wants to back out. Maybe the situation arose when proper protection and contraception were used but failed; the woman still knew the risks. However, the government cannot outlaw promiscuity. They cannot mandate that people only have relations when they want a child, it would be enforcing a religious moral belief on people. The government cannot be able to dictate to a woman how her family operates. Whatever her reasoning for the abortion, she should have the right as a private person to do so. Whether it is to protect her own life, to end something she did not consent to, or to fix an error in judgment, a woman should have the ability to abort a pregnancy.
Some people would like to outlaw abortion for various reasons. Justice Blackmun declared in the Roe v. Wade decision that there were three general arguments that have been used historically to support anti-abortion legislation. The first is “a Victorian social concern to discourage illicit sexual conduct” (Baird and Rosenbaum 64). The second dealt “with abortion as a medical procedure” (Baird and Rosenbaum 65) and the third is “the State’s interest . . . in protecting prenatal life” (Baird and Rosenbaum 65). The first argument for restrictive abortion laws, to discourage illicit sexual conduct, is incorrect in two regards. If someone were to believe that all illicit conduct would just cease to occur if abortions were outlawed, they would be very naïve. It does not seem reasonable that illicit conduct would cease if the option of abortion were to disappear. People will find and use other ways to get around the problem. The other reason why this argument is wrong is due to fact that the laws would be trying to impose some religious morals by discouraging illicit sexual conduct. Whether or not having sexual relations out of wedlock is moral or not is determined by religious moral values. The government cannot force religious values upon a person, and trying to discourage illicit sexual conduct with the aims of eliminating it would be forcing religion onto the people. To the second argument dealing with the medical aspect of the abortion procedure, I say that this argument is outmoded. The medical procedures for abortions have become vastly better than those in previous centuries. While there is still some risk, the procedures are much safer and cleaner than they were before. The risks are minimal in a controlled medical environment. If abortions were to be outlawed, some would continue to seek them anyways. This situation would increase the danger to the woman because the illegal abortions would not be preformed in a controlled environment. The risks are much greater for the so-called “back alley abortions.” If the abortions are preformed in a controlled and proper medical environment, the risk of injury or death to the woman are much less. It is safer to allow abortions to be legal so they can be controlled and regulated. The third argument for laws outlawing abortion deals with the clouded issue of prenatal life. This argument is founded on opinion, as are the arguments opposing this argument. They all deal with when life actually begins. Some believe life begins at conception, some when the fetus makes its first movement, and others when the fetus has its first brainwaves. This is an issue that cannot be resolved. There is no way to adequately prove when life begins. Since there is no way to be sure that the unborn child is an actual life, outlawing abortion cannot be based on this argument. There is way too much gray area in this respect and concrete evidence cannot really be found and proven as fact. There also exist various other arguments for outlawing abortion. Many rely on the religious beliefs of that person (Noonan 8). Since a person has the right to freedom of religion, he or she can believe whatever. But a person also has the right to be free from governmentally imposed religious policies. The government, however badly they would like to instill better morals in their people, cannot support the morals of the religion in this regard. Any argument against abortion that has religious roots cannot be constitutionally implement and is wrong in that regard. Examples of this are like a child is God’s gift and should not be destroyed or that God decides who lives and who does not, so humans should not take the matter into their own hands. The government cannot force religious moral values upon anyone, and the last time I checked any belief in a god or God is subscribing to some sort of religious belief. Another argument is that there are many adoptive parents who would be interested in the children who would otherwise be aborted. To this I say that the government should outlaw abortion and raise taxes. More children will be flowing into the orphanages; there has to be some sort of money to support them. There may be a demand for children, but I do not think it is as large as some of the proponents of this argument believe. Since most of the arguments against abortion stem from some sort of religious morality, they can generally be written off as unconstitutional. Some of the other arguments are somewhat valid but either outmoded, ambiguous, or unable to be implemented. All of them back a movement that wants to invade the privacy of a woman; they all back a movement that should not be allowed to achieve its goals.
A woman’s right to choose is a
question of privacy and morals. The government can do very little to interfere
with either. A person has a right to privacy, which includes the privacy of his
home, his possessions, and his body. The government cannot invade a person’s
privacy unless they have probable cause of a crime. A woman’s body is under her
control, the government cannot tell her what to do with it. Nor can the
government force morals upon anyone. Most morality is a product of the commands
of some established religion. People have the right to exercise any religion
they want or none if they prefer, so why should the have to obey the morals set
down by one? A person should have the right to control what happens to their
body and their family. There is no logical reason for the government to have
control in this area.
Work Cited
Baird, Robert M., and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, eds. The Ethics of Abortion. 3rd Edition. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001.
Callahan, Daniel. Abortion: Law, Choice & Morality. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1970.
Feinman, Clarice, ed. The Criminalization of a Woman’s Body. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1992.
Francome, Colin. Abortion Freedom: A Worldwide Movement. Boston: Allen & Unwin, Inc., 1984.
Noonan, John T., ed. The Morality of Abortion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.