When an abortion procedure happens and the mother consents, the fetus’s tissue can be used to create a treatment or a cure to a disease. “Vaccines have been one of the chief public benefits of fetal tissue research. Vaccines for hepatitis A, German measles, chickenpox and rabies, for example, were developed using cell lines grown from tissue from two elective abortions, one in England and one in Sweden, that were performed in the 1960s.” (Gray) Abortion really isn’t as bad as it seems it’s just been published to seem that way. There are a lot of good things to come from having an abortion. One of those is that it can save a women’s life if the pregnancy was life-threatening. It can also change the women’s life for the better, if she weren’t ready to start a family or become a mother in general. Letting women have the option to get an abortion is good because it prevents them from feeling trapped and unhappy. When you hear the word abortion, your mind directly thinks about the fetus not the mother. Most people won’t acknowledge the mother right away rather they think about the fetus first.
That’s why women should have the option to have an abortion without feeling like they are being judged for their choice. Abortions are being performed more than ever now in the medical field because of the need for them and for the women’s personal reasons. We don’t know the reasons for why a woman chooses to have one. Now a days there are more risks when it comes to pregnancies which is why women sometimes opt to have an abortion sooner than later. But when it is illegal to have an abortion and women still have them, maternal death rates increase a lot. An example of how illegal abortions become more dangerous to women is in Africa, it showed how 14% of all maternal deaths were because of unsafe abortion procedures. “In Africa, 14 percent of all maternal deaths are attributed to unsafe abortion.”(Johnson, par 1) Having an abortion ends up being the choice of the women and she shouldn’t have to feel bad for her choice.
Women all over the world have different reasons for choosing to have an abortion. A study conducted from 2008-2010 was to try and understand better why women choose to have an abortion. The information collected was from 30 different clinics all over the US. They would wait a week after the women would have the abortion and would then proceed to asking them why, why did they choose to have the abortion. In total there were 954 women asked, each woman asked had their own reason. After they were grouped based on what was said, these following reasons were the main ones found, “…financial reasons (40%), timing (36%), partner related reasons (31%), and the need to focus on other children (29%). Most women reported multiple reasons for seeking an abortion crossing over several themes (64%).”(Biggs, par 3) There are multiple reasons for why women had the abortion. Financial reasons were the highest being 40%. In today’s economy, money is a big part in raising a child, and without the proper amount it is very hard. Timing comes in second, meaning that maybe they weren’t ready to become a mother, because of money or environment. Partner related reasons comes in third which relates with timing and money as well. Which is why when they are trying to make up their mind, their choice shouldn’t be influenced by those around her.
The choice on its own is hard, but it is even harder going through it alone. From the moment they find out to the moment that they finally choose what to do, is the worst. They have many things to worry about, themselves, their friend’s opinion, their family’s opinion, the world in general. All those things make it so hard, because some value the opinions of others a lot, and it could cloud their judgement in the final moment. Which is why it is important for them to make the choice on their own. It is a way for them to be very sure of their choice. A choice that they might regret if others get in the process. “A woman has the choice to raise her child, give him/her up for adoption, or to abort it. This decision cannot be controlled by the pressures of peers and the constant debates in the political world.” (Fiander-Carr, par 8) If and when a woman chooses to have the abortion, there are many good things to come from it. It can save the mother’s life because it was a life-threating pregnancy but it could also hurt her a lot because they might of have planned the pregnancy but can’t follow through. In other cases, it can bring peace to the mother because the pregnancy was a result of rape. Rape, is why women should have the right to choose whether to keep the fetus or not. There is no need to force someone to have a baby which they don’t want or won’t love. Something that many don’t know but that I mentioned before is that the mother can give her fetus to the medical field. A fetus can be used to develop and create a cure for a disease. An example was when researchers were able to create a treatment to reduce the chances of having a miscarriage. They used the cells from a fetus that was aborted. The political world and social media don’t make it any easier for the women. This way the abortion not only helped the woman that chose not to have the baby, but it helped future women who actually wanted a baby to have a higher chance in having one. This is why the choice of the women is very important and why it shouldn’t be influenced by those around her.
People have a wrong idea on what an abortion really is. When most people hear the word abortion, and most won’t consider the mother right away, they will think about the fetus first. Which is why people will call women who’ve had an abortion murders along with other words. They want to punish women for having an abortion without knowing the whole story. Society has made abortion seem like such a bad thing, that women who ultimately chose to get it and along with women who’ve had an abortion would rather stay quiet than speak up about it because of the fear of what would happen if they did. “Few women wanted to publicly discuss their experiences, fearing they’d be harassed or called murderers.” (Ruiz, par 3) It is wrong for women to have to feel bad about their choices because in the end, no matter what, it is their body. Women shouldn’t have to be told what they can and what they can’t do to their own bodies. They have the same right as anyone else to choose when to become a mother and when to create their families.
As a pregnancy begins the mother has the right to choose to end it. As I said throughout the paper, we don’t know the whole story of the mother and how she came to be pregnant. Since in the end the women have the final choice because it is her body and no nobody should be able to tell her what she can and can’t do. There are laws which keep women from having the choice to have an abortion unless it fits specific conditions. Along with that when you keep women from having one, they will still find someone to do the procedure because that’s how much they don’t it. When you give the women the freedom to do to what they want, they no longer feel so much pressure and the feeling of being trapped into something they don’t want to happen. When they finally have the abortion, they are made to feel like they are the worst person in the world. The world punishes the women for having an abortion by making them feel like they can’t speak up about their experiences. People judge those who have them and create protests in which they call them names like ‘murders’ and killers. Yet they never put themselves in that women’s shoes and think about them, no, they rather only think of the unborn embryo/fetus. No one’s opinions should matter when a woman is thinking about having an abortion because in the end it is her choice and her body and they shouldn’t have to feel bad about their choice.
