An argument commonly made is that if abortion is illegal and the women does not want the child, it will lead to more child abuse. Statistics shows that child abuse has not decreased since abortion was legalized, but in fact increased. For example the exact stat states, “In the first ten years after abortion was legalized in America. However, child abuse increased by over 500 percent” (life.org). Hence, showing there is no real correlation between the legalization of abortion and child abuse.
Some people argue that abortion helps prevent overpopulation, which in turn improves the quality of life (epm.org). Consequently, for example, a country with limited resources like Uganda will have children starve and suffer to death. If life begins at conception, killing the fetus to save lives later is illogical and contradictory.
The argument essentially states that we should kill innocent human beings now, to save innocent human beings later. It makes no sense entirely. Does that mean we should kill the homeless, mentally handicapped, and individuals in a vegetative state? They are all contributing to overpopulation. The answer is clearly no, thus demonstrating the flaw in the argument. Furthermore, president of the Population Research Institute, Steven Mosher, argues saying, “the socially responsible thing is to have children – providing the future consumers, the future producers, and the future taxpayers.”
The PRI president argued that if American families had an average of three children, “Social Security would be solvent forever,” and if the 56 million babies aborted since Roe vs. Wade were working in our society, the deficit would be half or less than half what it is now. He also pointed to the social science showing that children raised in large families have lower rates of crime, drug use, and premarital sex (christianpost.com).
Some pro-choice and pro-abortion people argue that pro-lifers and the government cannot force morality. Doesn’t the mother force her morality by killing the innocent baby? Doesn’t the government force their morality by making murder, rape, and stealing illegal?
Some individuals argue if a women’s life is in danger, it is okay to have an abortion to save her life. In medical ethics, the doctor does his best to save both lives. Although it is immensely rare, there can be a situation where the women can be killed by having the baby. When two lives are threatened, the doctor is always required to save one life. Historically when abortion was illegal, it was still allowed in these extremely rare cases. Besides, laws are not made on extreme cases. Even if abortion becomes illegal again, saving a mother’s life in the rare case of ectopic pregnancy, for example, would still be legal.
Furthermore, as we advance in the medical field, this is becoming less and less of a problem. Consequently in the case of an ectopic pregnancy an individual website gives a robust answer to the argument: What is rarely realized is that there are several cases in the medical literature where abdominal ectopic pregnancies have survived… So an abortion of an ectopic pregnancy is not necessary to save the mother’s life after all.
Moreover, if expectant management fails, the ectopic pregnancy does not spontaneously resolve, and surgery becomes necessary, the procedure to remove the ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion because the baby has already died… One of my patients was diagnosed with a tubal ectopic pregnancy by her obstetrician, and he informed her that they were fortunate to have made the diagnosis early and that she should have a methotrexate abortion.
