Abortion Exploratory Essay Example

Abortion Exploratory Essay Example Abortion Exploratory Essay Abortion Exploratory Essay ayCatalina Tellez ENC 1102 What’s right? What’s wrong? Under what conditions should abortions be allowed? Another controversial to date is abortion. It has been the subject of debate for centuries between many human rights activists, religious groups, and even health care practitioners. There is a myriad of factors that contribute towards the decision if to go for or against abortion. For this reason I cannot make a choice whether I am pro life or pro choice. Most pro-life or anti-abortion people say that the government should make ineffective a woman’s decision to have an abortion in most cases and require her to continue her pregnancy and give birth to the baby. Those promoting pro-choice say that the government should not interfere with the woman’s decision, she should be able to have an abortion if she wants to. So the question I will be exploring in this paper is: Should abortion be the choice of a woman, or not allowed at all? That is a question that has led to many debates worldwide. It is of great interest to me due to the fact I am a women and every woman has the possibility of being exposed to a situation in which they have to decide whether or not to have an abortion. The first source I acquired was from an articled called â€Å"Social Sources of Womens Emotional Difficulty After Abortion: Lessons from Womens Abortion Narratives† written by Katrina Kimprt. In this online article I was able to see that women were interviewed after they had an abortion to see the emotional effects the abortion had on them. 1 women were interviewed, and all 21 were suffering post abortion effects. These interviews were done through the phone. They recruited these women through two different ways, one being a direct sample that was made for a separate research project on the experiences women had after abortion. The second way was the women were partnered with two abortion support talk lines. These strategies seem very effective because it wasn’t just a 10 minute in terview; it had a length of 75 minutes. Throughout the interview questions like â€Å"how did the family, partner involved, and friends respond? and â€Å"how did the people that surround you have an effect on your decision in having the abortion? † The most thorough question asked was how she felt emotionally after the abortion. The women weren’t just from one age range, the ages ranged from 21-48. Which gives a good amount of diversity because it demonstrates dissimilar levels of maturity? Five of those women had gone under two abortions, eleven only had one abortion, and the other five had more than two abortions. More than two abortions is a preposterous amount though. Four of the twenty one women had medication abortion which is one that is done by taking medications that will end a pregnancy and the other sixteen had aspiration abortions which are when a hollow tube is inserted into uterus and the fetus is â€Å"sucked† out. The women throughout the interviews said that abortions were very emotionally complicated because it was difficult for them to find someone to give them moral support after the abortion and having to make the decision before the abortion. Women commented that most of them made the decision by themselves because they felt no one else felt what they were going through. When the few women that explained that the decision of having an abortion wasn’t theirs they reported having very unfavorable feelings. Most of these women reported that they barely told any of their relatives or friends that they had an abortion because they feared they wouldn’t receive moral support since most people are against abortion. The women that actually were brave enough to go ahead and tell their friends clarified that they had some friendships come to an end and distanced themselves from their family. From this source I now know that the support from friends or family received after having an abortion matters a lot when trying to overcome an abortion, meaning that if under any circumstance I have to have an abortion I would need an abortion I’d need moral support from my closest relatives so I don’t feel a sense of regret. Does this source convince the reader that to prevent this post-abortion emotions, one should just not have an abortion? This source doesn’t give me enough information for me to be able to decide if abortion should be allowed or not. My next source is  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision. www. womenshistory. about. com. by Jone Johnson Lewis. Roe v. Wade is the popular and historic Supreme Court decision overturning the Texas understanding of abortion law and making abortion legal in the  United States. The date of the decision was January 22, 1973. The effect of Roe v. Wade was that state laws limiting womens access to abortions du ring the first trimester of pregnancy was annulled by Roe v. Wade. State laws limiting such access during the  second trimester were maintained only when the restrictions were for the purpose of  protecting the health of the pregnant woman. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the  United States, which was not legal at all in many states and was limited by law in others. The Roe v. Wade decision held that a woman, with her doctor, could choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without legal restriction, and with restrictions in later months, based on the right to privacy. This case was important in the history of the United States showing that in the constitution there is the belief that people have choices and a right to privacy. The third source I utilized was from a Planned Parenthood website. The article is called â€Å"In-Clinic Abortion Procedures. This source gives me exact details on the process of the abortion. The main question I asked myself when reading this was â€Å"Is it even safe for the mother? † Two types of abortions listed in this source were In-Clinic abortions and at home abortions. The most popular type of abortion is the In-Clanic abortions and that is the one I am going to go into detail about. The most common procedure done in these In-Clinic abortions are aspirations as mentioned earlier in this essay. The procedure itself typically takes less than 15 minutes Suction is created with either an electric pump or a manual pump. Both methods use the same level of suction, and so can be considered equivalent in terms of effectiveness and safety. D;E, dilation and evacuation, is the second kind of in-clinic procedure. D;E is usually performed later than 16 weeks after a woman’s last period while aspirations are done before the first 16 weeks after a woman’s last period. During an aspiration abortion,  your health care provider will examine your  uterus, and then you will get medicine for pain. You may be offered sedation then a  speculum  will be inserted into your vagina. The health care provider may inject a numbing medication into or near your  cervix. The opening of your cervix may be stretched with dilators, a series of increasingly thick rods. Or you may have absorbent dilators inserted a day or a few hours before the procedure. They will absorb fluid and get bigger. This slowly stretches open your cervix. Medication may also be used with or without the dilators to help open your cervix then given antibiotics to prevent infection. A tube is inserted through the cervix into the uterus. Either a hand-held suction device or a suction machine gently empties your uterus. Sometimes, an instrument called a curette is used to remove any remaining tissue that lines the uterus. It may also be used to check that the uterus is empty. When a curette is used, people often call the abortion a D;C: dilation and curettage. This process only takes about five to ten minutes max. During a D;E abortion your doctor will inspect you and check your uterus. You will get medication for pain and also may be offered sedation to make you more comfortable. A speculum will be inserted into your vagina then your cervix will be prepared for the procedure. You may be given medication or have absorbent dilators inserted a day or a few hours before the procedure, they will absorb fluid and grow bigger which slowly stretches open your cervix. You will be given antibiotics to prevent infection. In later second-trimester procedures, you may also need a shot through your abdomen to make sure there is fetal demise before the procedure begins. Your health care provider will inject a numbing medication into or near your cervix. Medical instruments and a suction machine gently empty your uterus. A D;E usually takes between 10 and 20 minutes. In-clinic abortion procedures are very safe but possible risks include: an allergic reaction, blood clots in the uterus, incomplete abortion, infections, injury to the cervix, undetected ectopic pregnancy, and very heavy bleeding. The process of abortion seems fairly quick and easy. It does not seem like it would be a huge hassle to have one and the Planned Parenthood website has a lot of information to help with decisions about abortions. The Planned Parenthood makes it seem simple and safe and makes it easy to consider abortion. After reading this source it really makes me question myself if all past information against abortion is wrong and if abortion really is harmless and an easy process. Abortion: Questions and Answers. † By Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilkie, is my third source that I will be using. This book went in depth with pictures and articles about the method of abortions. The book divided the methods of abortion into three categories: the abortion method that takes over the uterus and kills the child by instruments which enter the uterus through the cervix, the abortion method that kills the pre-born child by supplying drugs o the patient and then those drugs stimulate labor and the delivery of a dead baby, and lastly the abortion method that raids the uterus  by abdominal surgery. This book has a lot of gruesome details and people have argued that it can make a pro-choice supporter change to pro-life. There were some parts in the book that made me feel like definitely abortions were awful. This book has a lot of information but I feel like they are frightening you into being pro-life instead of just showing you useful statistics and helpful pictures that make the reader understand why prolife is the most reasonable choice. This source made me think about how atrocious an abortion was but I think it was mainly because of the pictures that would follow after the explanation of a horrible abortion story. It is all rhetoric strategies the author uses so people are in the prolife side. I think this book made me want to be pro-life because it shows that the fetus is always human the moment it is conceived. Making it feel like you are â€Å"assassinating† your own child. Do most prolife books, websites, articles just use any way to make pro-choice seem like the worst idea or do they actually have reasonable arguments? Based on the sources I have researched and the information I have gathered, I believe I can make an educated decision about abortion. Should abortion be the choice of a woman, or not allowed at all? I believe abortion should be the choice of a woman. The four sources I used all gave information that helped me in making my decision because although one of the sources provided dreadful sources on the process of abortion and how the fetus looks like when aborted, this source was very bias because it used the sources just to get people on their side –prolife. Pro-life is a very good lifestyle but they want abortion banned. There are many factors that go into pregnancy and childbirth that make women give thought to having an abortion. Reality is most women wish they didn’t have to make the decision of having an abortion or not. For example, if someone was raped, pro-life would make her carry the pregnancy and give birth to the baby or what if you have barely enough financial support for yourself and cannot afford a child you should be able to have that choice to have an abortion. Abortion should be kept legal and no woman should be condemned for wanting one, it is their body and they have privacy rights. But  instead of sitting around and debating with each other for hours, lets help these women that are in the situation of having to choose on whether or not to have an abortion, let’s give them moral support. WORKS CITED Head, Tom. Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice.   About. com: Civil Liberties. N. p. , n. d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. http://civilliberty. about. com. In-Clinic Abortion Procedures.   Planned Parenthood. N. p. , n. d. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. lannedparenthood. org/. Kimport, Katrina, Kira Foster, and Tracy A. Weitz. â€Å"Social Sources of Women’s  Emotional Difficulty After Abortion: Lessons from Women’s Abortion  Narratives. †Ã‚  Perspectives on Sexual Reproductive Health  43. 2 (2011):103-109. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 26 Oct 2011. Lewis, Jone Johnson. Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision.   About. com: WomensH istory. N. p. , n. d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. womenshistory. about. com. . Willke, J. C. , and Barbara Willke. Abortion: Questions and Answers. Cincinnati, OH:Hayes, 1985. Print. 1,988 words.