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.
