Full name: Daniela Quiguantar Caipe
Her decision
“Abortion is the ending of pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo before it can survive
outside the uterus” (Grimes, 2010). The topic of abortion has been a controversial issue that
continues to divide many communities, as the laws and points of view are different around
the world. For example in some countries abortion is legal in specific cases such as rape,
problems with the fetus, poverty, incest or risk of woman’s health. Abortion happens in
divergent situations, but in any circumstance is an insensitive fetus, since most
neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception; the cortex is not
functional until at least the 26th week. According to this the fetus could be a person at birth,
but not during pregnancy, is in here where the woman should have the right to make an
autonomy decision on her body.
Everybody has a basic fundamental right to do anything with their own body. If it is seen
in this way, women have the complete autonomy about the body and reproductive future.
It means power and control over the choice about when and whether to have children,
since it is essential to a woman's independence and ability to determine her future.
According to Sandra Day O'Connor in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, "The ability of
women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been
facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives." In this sense the restriction
of abortion violates the rights and woman’s autonomy. And deprives women of belonging
to an equal citizenship status.
Fetuses are not yet human beings. Personhood begins when the fetus becomes “viable”, it
means when it has the capacity to survive without or outside the womb. The fetus it is nothing
but a clump of cells with the potential to become a human being. It is “alive,” but other cells
in a woman’s body are too. It has no life by itself. It is not yet an unconnected life from the
life of the woman. However, pro-life movement claim that life begins at conception, so fetus
in the womb are human beings with the right to life. It must be admitted that people have
the human right to live, but this point is typically take into account after birth when the child
has self-awareness. On these conditions a child already born has the right to life, not because
human life is sacred, but rather because that child has become a self-aware being and part of
the society.
Making abortion illegal won't stop abortions from happening, it will only stop them from
being safe. On April 24 2007, abortion before 12 weeks became legal in Mexico City as a result
nowadays Mexico is considered by the World Health Organization, one of the countries in the
world with low maternal mortality rates; in the hospitals of the Mexican Institute of Social
Security, deaths that are consequence by abortions were, approximately, three every year.
Currently, thanks to technology developments abortion procedures are safe and do not
cause lasting health issues such as cancer and infertility. Making abortion illegal does not
reduce the number of deaths. Instead, it often drives women into the black market of
abortionists, who perform illegal and unsafe procedures.
As a whole, it would be appropriate to clarify that we are all pro-life, but in the circumstance
where you have palpable and independent life, is then when the baby’s life should be
protect no matter what. Having this options places a woman on an equal position with men,
instead of being the one with all the responsibility of a pregnancy. Also it is best for a kid
not to be born than to be born despised by a mother who was forced to have him because
there was no choice, and not because she wants to raise up him or her, as it should be. In
addition, Pro- choice movement just looks for the right to leave abortion as an individual
option for those women facing an unwanted pregnancy and do not want this situation to
define their future.
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