Abortion

Introduction

Abortion is illegal in Uganda; practically mandated in India and China, where there are one-child-per-family policies; a form of birth control in Russia; and perhaps the most contentious issue in the United States. In some countries, abortion doctors are criminalized, while in other countries, abortion providers as well as women who have abortions can be fined or jailed. In the United States, abortion doctors and clinic staff have been murdered, and recently in Brazil, a bishop excommunicated a 9-year-old girl and a doctor over an abortion. This girl was pregnant with twins after allegedly being raped by her stepfather; the doctor performed the abortion because he didn't think her 80-pound body could carry a pregnancy to term. Brazil allows abortion only in cases of rape and in order to save the life of the mother (Tribe, 84-105).

The vast array of circumstances with abortion around the world gives the impression that there is no consensus on the issue—yet, some protest that the shared goal among many of these practices and restrictions is a desire to control women. Abortion rights supporters believe that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be the woman's alone (in consultation with medical professionals); supporters of the right to life publicly denounce abortion as murder.

History of Abortion

Women have sought to induce abortions since ancient times, and medical recipe books dating from the colonial period in the United States commonly included descriptions of herbal abortifacients (substances that cause abortion), sometimes couched in ambiguous terms such as “remedies to restore menstruation.” In the early 19th century, laws prohibiting abortion began to appear, beginning with Connecticut in 1821, and such laws became common in the 1860s. By 1900, abortion was illegal in most American states, although some states allowed exceptions, such as in the case of rape or incest. Abortion remained widely restricted until the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in 1973, which prohibited states from restricting women's access to abortion in the first trimester (three-month period) (PollingReport.com, 26-37).

Roe v. Wade

In the United States, abortion policies are most synonymous with the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which determined that abortion should be legal in all 50 states and available up until the point of viability (around 24-28 weeks), which in the past had been a similar cutoff described as quickening. At the time of the Roe decision, pregnancies were dated from the time of conception; currently, the medical community uses a standard 40 weeks, dating all pregnancies from the first day of the last period, which means that what was once a 28-week-old fetus could now be labeled a 30-week pregnancy. This form of dating places more emphasis on number of weeks pregnant rather than the age of the fetus.

The Roe v. Wade decision is credited with allowing women to terminate a pregnancy, but it's equally a decision about determining pregnancy; giving women the right to decide if and when they want to carry a pregnancy to term. The decision is also highly regarded as a privacy case—women ...