Abortion, More Harm Than Good free essay sample

Barring death by natural causes, everyone has the potential to eventually become a senior citizen someday — as long as they arent butchered before birth. In fact, some have said we begin to die the moment we are conceived because our lives always reach that inevitable conclusion. The not viable life excuse doesnt hold up because, if all life is not viable life, then what is the purpose of having an abortion? If these human beings werent viable and would not — if left unmolested — mature into born children and adults, then the abortion would be unnecessary to begin with. Also — and this is key — we humans are never fully-developed. Were not born complete; we grow, change, mature and age constantly, which means were always developing, and we develop though the first nine months of our lives Finnigan 2 attached to a host — our mothers. So, the fact that the first nine months of our developmental life is in utero is of no consequence to our overa ll lifespan; it is just the first stage. There are many developmental stages — early, middle and late. But life has to begin somewhere. We dont go from nothing to adulthood. Denying the fact that life begins the moment a female egg is fertilized is sheer lunacy — or, worse, intentionally misleading. It is simply a matter of choice that millions of Americans have decided to believe that life only begins when they say it does — at the moment of birth, or in the second trimester of pregnancy, or some other arbitrary guideline. It begins when it begins — at the moment a human being is biologically under construction. Passing laws or writing constitutional mandates from the bench of the Supreme Court cannot change this fact. Indeed, it has not changed this fact; only our perception of the fact has changed, largely for reasons of personal convenience. It is patently arrogant that we, as adults, get to decide for the most vulnerable of our society — our unborn children, who cannot speak for themselves — who lives and who dies. Or, if you prefer, who gets to experience further development and who doesnt. If we intentionally end any stage of a human life in development, we are committing an act of murder, as it has been defined by our society from its humble beginnings. Any attempt to convince ourselves otherwise is little more than a mental joust with reality and an injustice to our unborn that we can never excuse away, try as we may*. Dougherty explains the controversy over abortion and how people are in such denial when it comes to the leaving, the dead and the non-existent. In the case that a woman does get an abortion, it should be deemed Finnigan 2 murder but it’s not. In fact abortion is actually legal in a handful of states, but only under certain circumstances such as rape, incest or if the pregnancy is deemed a risk to the mother. Every child should have the chance to have a life, a chance to become the next Michael Jordan or next Babe Ruth. In the years before the supreme court ruling of Roe v. Wade, 1973, abortions were sometimes done by the women herself because it was legal to abort a child without the help of a medical professional back then. M. D. Waldo L. Fielding writes about his experiences with self-attempted abortions in his article, Repairing the Damage, Before Roe, he writes I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done. The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die. This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available. The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous â€Å"coat hanger† — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it. We did Finnigan 4 not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not. However, not simply coat hangers were used. Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off. Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart. The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional. It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating rom ancient Greek days. What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such. This article shows that the damage is so great that women inflict on themselves to try and terminate a pregnancy. If the women in this article would have given their children a chance then they wouldn’t have to go Finnigan 5 through that self-inflicted pain or the embarrassment of having to get surgery because of the mistake they made trying to abort the baby. When aborting a child there are many physical and emotional complications. On multiple different articles published on afterabortion. org doctors and people who have aborted children share their research and experiences for the world to see and read. Beverly McMillan, M. D, writes that The most common, immediate, and short-term complications include excessive bleeding, chronic and acute infections, intense pain, high fever, convulsions, shock, coma, incomplete removal of the baby or placenta (which can cause life-threatening infections and sterility), pelvic inflammatory disease, punctured or torn uteruses, and even death. Abortion can also result in uterine scarring, a weakened cervix, blocked fallopian tubes, and other damage to reproductive organs that can make it difficult to conceive or carry a child to term in the future. This latent morbidity of abortion results in long-term and sometimes permanent damage. Women who have had abortions also experience more ectopic (tubal) pregnancies, infertility, hysterectomies, stillbirths, miscarriages, and premature births (the leading cause of birth defects) than women who have not had abortions. Abortion has also been linked to increased risks of developing breast, cervical, and uterine cancer. Another article posted by Dr. Priscilla Coleman shows how much an abortion can affect someone mentally. The meta-analysis examined and combined results of 22 studies published between 1995 and 2009 and included data on 877,181 women from six countries. All 22 studies revealed higher rates of mental health problems associated with abortion for at least one symptom, and many for Finnigan 6 more than one symptom. Using a standardized statistical technique for ombining the results of multiple studies, the meta-analysis revealed that women with a history of abortion face higher rates of anxiety (34 percent higher) and depression (37 percent higher), heavier alcohol use (110 percent higher) and marijuana use (230 percent higher), and higher rates of suicidal behavior (155 percent higher). The study also found that women who delivered an unplanned pregnancy were significantly less likely to have mental health problems than similar women who aborted unplanned pregnancies. Women with a history of abortion were 55 percent more likely to have mental health problems than women who did not abort an unplanned pregnancy. These articles and research shows how badly a woman is affected because of an abortion. Abortions can lead to depression and sometimes the woman won’t even know that she is depressed because of the abortion. Abortion takes a major toll on a woman’s body and sometimes it will even shut down her reproductive systems, which means she can never have babies. Even if you feel that you really cannot take care of a child at this time do not fall to abortion. There are so many other options to keep you safe and the baby safe. An article posted on fam2fam. org entitled Options Other Than Abortion When Faced with an Unplanned Pregnancy, talks about the many options open to people who aren’t ready to take care of a child at the moment of the unplanned pregnancy. Options include an agency adoption, temporary foster care, and reaching out to family for help. Abortion does not even have to be Finnigan 7 n option, people are always looking to adopt children and the agencies will always make sure your child is placed into a loving and caring home. Abortion should be banned for the amount of damage it has inflicted on millions upon millions of people. Life is very valuable and you should not take away a child’s life because regret or a mistake you might have made. Give that child a chance you never know what they will become when they g row up. There are many options other than abortion. Abortion has done way to much damage and has taken away way too many innocent children who never got a chance.