Whatsupnow.info

Abortion is a guaranteed right. The definition of an abortion is the termination of a pregnancy owing to or resulting in the death of the fetus. If women do not have this right, they will turn to "back-alley" abortions, which are inadequate and life threatening. Or, these women will try to perform the abortion themselves. Women in Nicaragua, India, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Poland, are mangled from trying to induce their own abortions using bicycle tire spokes or sticks. The gynecologists in Africa say that they spend 90% of their time cleaning up botched abortions. A woman in the United States tried to self-abort with a coat hanger, and was hospitalized with an infection. Medicaid, which is a service similar to Medicare, paid for treating the infection, but would not pay for an abortion since the condition was not life threatening. Another woman carrying a twenty-two week old fetus with a fatal heart defect was denied funding for an abortion. A twenty-three year old woman with cervical cancer was told that Medicaid would pay for a hysterectomy, but not an abortion, which was a prerequisite to appropriate treatment of the disease. Restricting abortion denies women access to a procedure that may be necessary for the enjoyment of their right to health. Some women suffer maternity-related injuries such as hemorrhage or obstructed labor. According to the World Health Organization, unsafe abortions are responsible for the deaths of 78,000 women each year. Maternal mortality is an urgent crisis and global scandal. 13% is from unsafe abortions. Women take money from food, rent, and utilities to pay for abortions. In the time that it takes these women to raise the money, they will probably need a more costly second Denying women access to abortion is a form of gender discrimination. Only women must live with the physical and emotional consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. A woman has the right to determine the number and spacing of her children. This requires the government to make abortion services legal, safe, and accessible to all women. One of the major reasons that girls drop out of school is either because they get pregnant. Minors should not have to notify their parents before getting an abortion. Some girls might be physically or emotionally harmed if they are required to involve their parents in the decision to have an abortion. However, they are aloud to go before a judge and say, "I'm afraid to tell my parents that I'm pregnant because I'm afraid they might harm me.", and she will be able to get an abortion without parental consent. Access to legal abortion upholds women's right to control their destinies, and allows children to be born into homes where they will be loved and cared for. It reduces the number of unwanted children, some of whom become criminals as a result of parental abuse or neglect. Planned Parenthood's definition of "reproductive freedom" is the "fundamental right of every individual to decide freely and responsibly when and wether to have a child. Each year, seventy-five million women have unwanted pregnancies. The father of the baby is not only important, but possibly decisive in the choice to have an abortion. Women are significantly more likely to have an abortion if they think the father of the child will not do a Pro-life activists would treat the fetus as a complete person, but it is really a nonentity, especially since it is not out of the womb until the second trimester. In 1993, half of clinics responding to a survey reported severe anti-abortion attacks. They included death threats, stalking, chemical attacks such as butyric acid, arson, bomb threats, invasions, and blockades. Making abortion illegal, will no more make the practice go away than the outlawing of narcotics has stopped Americans from taking illegal drugs. If abortion were made illegal, a woman who was raped would be forced to bear a child. That violates her rights as a woman. Our next generation will be approximately ten billion people. We have had decades of failed population control strategies; and the best way to bring down population is to give women contraception and the choice of wether and when to have children. Legal abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures in the United States; comparable to a tonsillectomy. Abortion became legal in 1973, during the court case of Roe vs. Wade. Jane Roe was unmarried and pregnant, and wished to terminate the pregnancy, "performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions." She was unable to get a local abortion in the state of Texas, since her life was not in danger. She could not afford to travel anywhere to get one. Jane Roe was abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and fourteenth Abortion can also be induced by a pill, for women who do not wish to be seen by anyone, getting an abortion. RU-486, was approved for use by the FDA in 2000. The pill blocks the production of progesterone, causing the uterus to shed it's lining, dislodging the implanted embryo. A second drug called misoprostol is then administered to bring about a menstrual period. The combination of drugs has proven to be 95% effective in ending pregnancy during the first seven weeks. Abortion needs to remain legalized; more than one in five pregnancies already end in abortion.

Source: http://www.whatsupnow.info/fall2013/hannah/abortion%20speech.pdf