Abortion, in contemporary parlance, refers to the intentional termination of pregnancy. Abortion became one of the most divisive issues of the last quarter of the 20th century and remains an important question in contemporary political discourse in the United States.
Throughout most of American history, abortion had been legal prior to "quickening," or the perception of fetal movement on the part of the woman. Most state legislatures did not pass laws proscribing the practice until the late 19th century. The idea of liberalizing abortion laws became culturally salient during the late 1960s, and several state legislatures passed relatively permissive abortion laws during this period. The trend toward gradual liberalization was interrupted by the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which held virtually all state abortion laws to be unconstitutional.
Although public opinion generally moved in a more prochoice direction following Roe, the decision mobilized opposition from several, often religious, sources. Many cultural and religious conservatives opposed legal abortion because legal abortion was thought to encourage sexual promiscuity by reducing the risks of sexual activity outside of marriage. Another early source of opposition to legal abortion came from the African-American community. Several African-American leaders denounced legal abortion as "genocide" and suggested that easy access to abortion would ultimately be used by whites to limit societal responsibility to care for children born into poverty.
The most visible opposition to Roe came from Roman Catholic Church and Evangelical Protestant leaders, who regarded abortion as the taking of human life. Indeed, since the Roe decision, opponents of legal abortion have been characterized by themselves and opponents as "pro-life." Catholics opposed legal abortion on the ground that intentional termination of pregnancy constituted a violation of natural law. Since the early 1950s, the fetus was regarded as "ensouled" (and, therefore, fully human) from the moment of conception. Evangelical Protestants came to oppose abortion on the basis of biblical passages in Exodus, Leviticus, and Proverbs. Conversely, support for legal abortion has come primarily from people who regard a woman's right to control her own fertility as fundamental. Abortion, to some activists, has come to be regarded as an issue of women's rights, and proponents of legal abortion have generally been characterized as "prochoice."
One possible consequence of these changes in abortion jurisprudence is that, since the early 1990s, abortion has become a highly partisan issue. Among both party leaders and members of the mass public, the abortion issue has become more polarized along party lines, with the Democratic Party taking a generally consistent pro-choice position and the Republicans becoming more uniformly pro-life. Abortion has become a very important issue in many elections in the United States.
In response to the continued legality of abortion, many pro-life activists have resorted to "direct action," which has included sidewalk counseling near abortion clinics, obstructing access to such facilities, vandalism of abortion clinics, and occasional violence against abortion providers. Many of these activists are motivated by religious zeal, although their actions are generally condemned by most religious leaders.
Abortion activists on both sides of the issue have been challenged by a number of developments in the evolution of the issue. Contemporary abortion debate now centers around the morality and legality of so-called partial birth abortions, which are late-term abortions performed for medical reasons. Other controversies surround the use of the drug RU-486, which provides an alternative to surgical abortions in the early stages of pregnancy, and the appropriateness of research on fetal tissue. Fetal tissue research has appeared to be a promising avenue of inquiry for curing such maladies as Alzheimer's disease and juvenile diabetes, but the morality of such research has been challenged by pro-life advocates.
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|  Essay on The Impact of Restrictive Abortion Legislation |
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| The Impact of Restrictive Abortion Legislation Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Abortion is one of the most common and safest medical procedures that women age 15 to 44 can undergo in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Statistical Abstract, which combines figures reported by the Centers for Disease Control and the individual states, approximately 1.2 million abortions were performed in the United States in 2005. Among women aged 15 to 44, the abortion rate declined from 27 out of 1,000 in 1990 to 19.4 out of 1,000 in 2005. The number of abortions and the rate of abortions have declined over the years, partly as a result of improved methods of birth control and partly as a result of decreased access to abortion services. The number... |
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| Essay on Abortion as a Social Problem |
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| Abortion as a Social Problem Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. As a contemporary social issue, elective abortion raises important questions about the rights of pregnant women, the meaning of motherhood, and the rights of fetuses. Since the late 1960s, abortion has been a key issue in the contemporary U.S. culture wars. The term culture wars refers to ongoing political debates over contemporary social issues, including not only abortion but also homosexuality, the death penalty, and euthanasia. Culture wars arise from conflicting sets of values between conservatives and progressives. The culture war debates, particularly those surrounding the issue of abortion, remain contentious among the American public. The debates have resulted in disparate and strongly... |
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| Essay on Abortion as a Social Problem » |
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| Essay on Medical Issues of Abortion Controversy |
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| Medical Issues of Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Scholars have shown that for every society for which some recorded history exists, there is evidence of abortion. Indeed after an exhaustive review of materials from three hundred fifty ancient and pre-industrial societies, the anthropologist George Devereux (1954) concluded, ''There is every indication that abortion is an absolutely universal phenomenon, and that it is impossible even to construct an imaginary social system in which no women would ever feel at least compelled to abort'' (p. 98). One of the earliest known medical texts, attributed to the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung (2737-2696 BCE), refers to mercury as a substance that will ''cause abortion.'' The Ebers Papyrus of Egypt... |
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| Essay on Abortion Controversy: Legal And Political Issues |
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| Abortion Controversy: Legal And Political Issues Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Beginning with its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court in large measure has defined the contours of the debate over the status of abortion. That landmark decision struck down a 1854 Texas law that criminalized abortion except when necessary to save the woman's life. The Court, by a seven-to-two margin, held that the Texas law violated a woman's fundamental right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy free of governmental interference before the point of fetal viability (i.e., the capacity to live if born). On the same day the Court also struck down a more ''modern'' 1968 Georgia abortion law that prohibited most abortions but lifted criminal penalties... |
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| Essay on Abortion Controversy: Legal And Political Issues » |
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| Essay on The SLED Test and Abortion |
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| The SLED Test and Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Stephen Schwarz has provided a useful acronym (SLED) to describe the four differences between the unborn and the born - Size, Level of development, Environment, and degree of dependency - all of which are morally irrelevant in deciding whether anyone, born or unborn, has a fundamental right to life. The theories of personhood covered in this paper either implicitly or explicitly accept one or more of these differences as morally relevant. Because we have already discussed and critiqued these theories, what follows is merely a shorthand way to summarize the problems... |
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| Essay on Pro-Lifers and Capital Punishment |
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| Pro-Lifers and Capital Punishment Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Some abortion-choice (and even pro-life) advocates argue that the pro-lifers who support capital punishment are inconsistent because, on the one hand, they oppose killing in abortion but, on the other hand, support killing in capital punishment. There are several problems with this reasoning. First, how does this help the abortion-choice position or hurt the prolife position on abortion? Wouldn't this argument make people who are against capital punishment and for abortion choice equally inconsistent? Second, inconsistent people can draw good conclusions... |
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| Essay on Impossibility of Legally Stopping Abortion |
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| Impossibility of Legally Stopping Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Maybe the defender of the above argument is making the more subtle point that because there is widespread disagreement on the abortion issue, enforcement of any laws prohibiting abortion would be difficult. In other words, abortions are going to happen anyway, so we ought to make them safe and legal. There are several problems with this argument. First, it begs the question, because it assumes that the unborn is not fully human. For if the unborn is fully human, this argument is tantamount to saying that because people will unjustly kill other people anyway... |
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| Essay on Religious Pluralism and Abortion |
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| Religious Pluralism and Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. According to this argument, the question of when protectable human life begins is a personal religious question that one must answer for oneself. As abortion-choicer Mollenkott argues: Women who believe that abortion is murder may never justly be required to have an abortion. Anti-abortion laws would not affect such women for obvious reasons. But for women whose religious beliefs do permit them to consider abortion (and under certain circumstances require them to do so), anti-abortion legislation would forbid their following these religious convictions... |
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| Essay on The Social Necessity of Abortion |
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| The Social Necessity of Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. In his famous dissent in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1990), Justice Harry A. Blackmun claims that without freedom to choose abortion there will be no "full participation of women in the economic and political walks of American life." Blackmun is echoing the call of popular abortion-choice rhetoric that asserts that women cannot achieve social and political equality without control of their reproductive lives. In addition to Blackmun's comments, consider the following put forth by other abortion-choice supporters... |
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| Essay on If Abortion is Made Illegal |
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| If Abortion is Made Illegal Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. According to abortion-choice supporters, if abortion is made illegal, many women will be prosecuted, convicted, and/or sentenced for murder (a capital offense in some states) because the changed law will entail that abortion in almost every circumstance is the unjustified and premeditated killing of an innocent human person (the unborn). Abortion-choice activists argue that such a situation will unnecessarily cause emotional and familial harm to women who are already in a difficult situation. Such laws, if they are instituted, will lack compassion... |
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| Essay on Abortion and Child Abuse |
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| Abortion and Child Abuse Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Many people in the abortion-choice movement argue that legal abortion will help eliminate unwanted children. They believe that unwantedness is indirectly responsible for a great number of family problems, such as child abuse. Hence, if a family can have the "correct" amount of children at the "proper" times, then these family problems will be greatly reduced if not eliminated.6 There are several serious problems with this argument. First, it begs the question, because only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does this argument work. For if the unborn are fully human... |
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| Essay on Abortion and Child Abuse » |
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| Essay on Economic Inequity and Abortion |
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| Economic Inequity and Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Abortion-choice advocates often argue that prior to abortion being legalized, pregnant women who did not go to unscrupulous physicians or "back alley butchers" traveled to foreign nations where abortions were legal. This was an option open only to rich women who could afford such an expense. Hence, Roe v. Wade has made the current situation fairer for poor women. Therefore, if abortion is prohibited it will not prevent rich women from having safe and legal abortions elsewhere. This argument is fallacious... |
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| Essay on A Human Being as a Conception |
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| A Human Being as a Conception Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. From a strictly scientific point of view, it seems reasonable to believe that the development of an individual human life begins at conception. Consequently, each human being begins her physical existence as a zygote and that organism does not acquire its humanness at some later stage in its development. The human organism remains a human being throughout her life, from zygote to embryo to fetus to newborn to adolescent and throughout adulthood until natural death at which the existence of the living organism ends. None of these stages imparts to the human being her humanity... |
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| Essay on Abortion Regulation: Model of Permission |
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| Abortion Regulation: Model of Permission Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. The model of permission became the pervasive one around the world in the final quarter of the twentieth century. Under the model of permission, abortion is legally available, but only with the approval of government officials or officially-designated decision makers, such as administrative boards, committees, physicians, or judges. In some permission-model jurisdictions, officials grant permission pro forma in nearly every case... |
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| Essay on Abortion Regulation: Model of Permission » |
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| Essay on Partial Birth Abortion |
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| Partial Birth Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Partial birth abortion is a nonmedical term coined by antiabortionists to describe an abortion procedure known technically as intact dilation and extraction (D&X). D&X is used primarily in second trimester abortions, and the procedure involves partially delivering a living fetus into the birth canal, then collapsing the skull and completing delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus. In an amici brief to the Supreme Court, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists noted that D&X involves substantially less risk of complication than other methods of abortion used during the same gestational period (Stenberg v. Carhart, 2000). Fewer than five percent of abortions performed... |
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| Essay on Partial Birth Abortion » |
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| Research Paper on The Selective Abortion Controversy |
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| The Selective Abortion Controversy Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. The development of tests to prenatally diagnose genetic diseases and disorders has greatly outpaced the development of effective treatments and therapies. The Human Genome Project promises to accelerate the development of prenatal diagnostic tests. Through procedures like chorionic villus sampling (CVS), which can be performed at ten weeks gestation, and amniocentesis, available at fourteen to sixteen weeks, numerous genetic abnormalities in the fetus can be detected in utero. The tests are routinely administered to women at risk for fetal abnormalities, such as older mothers and those with a family history of genetic disorder. Ultrasound, which is routinely performed throughout most... |
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| Research Paper on The Selective Abortion Controversy » |
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| Essay on Psychological Effects of Abortion |
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| Psychological Effects of Abortion Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. It is difficult to generalize about the emotional responses of patients to pregnancy termination but, like physical complications, psychological complications may be related to the type of procedure and the gestational age at the time of termination, with earlier suction curettage theoretically leading to fewer psychological complications than later procedures. However, most studies in this area suffer from methodological problems, including a lack of consensus about symptoms, inadequate study design, and lack of adequate followup. Furthermore, the so-called postabortion syndrome does not meet the American Psychiatric Association's definition of trauma (Gold)... |
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| Essay on Psychological Effects of Abortion » |
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| Research Paper on Reproductive and Sexual Health Policy in U.S. |
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| Reproductive and Sexual Health Policy in U.S. Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Campaigns for and against the legalization of abortion, public health interventions aimed at reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, prosecutions of pregnant women under novel extensions of drug trafficking and child endangerment laws, and debates about the appropriateness of vaccinating teenage girls against the virus that is linked to cervical cancer, each of these examples hints at the breadth of reproductive and sexual health, as well as the intense political struggle with which it is often associated in the United States today. Yet, to understand this area of politics, attention must be paid to historical trends, connections between issues, and how larger power... |
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| Essay on Abortion and the Women's Movement in 20th Century |
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| Abortion and the Women's Movement in 20th Century Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Abortion was clearly the issue around which the greatest support in the women's movement was collected in the 1970s. Women marched in their tens of thousands, including many women who otherwise took no active part in the women's-movement activities. Abortion and reproductive technologies have been themes since the nineteenth century. New antiabortion and anticontraception regulations, perceived as necessary to boost populations, were enforced either toward the end of the nineteenth century, or at the beginning of the twentieth. Most western European countries introduced antiabortion laws for the first time in the twentieth century. Antiabortion laws occurred... |
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| Essay on Abortion and the Women's Movement in 20th Century » |
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| Essay on Abortion, Infanticide, and Abandonment in 19th Century |
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| Abortion, Infanticide, and Abandonment in 19th Century Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Controversial Topics. Historical data on abortions are among the least reliable evidence confronting historians, but provocative records survive on this controversial subject. A study of abortion in France in the late 19th century concluded that approximately 250,000 abortions per year were performed there... |
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| Essay on Abortion, Infanticide, and Abandonment in 19th Century » |
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| Research Paper on Abortion Controversy and Reform Movement |
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| Abortion Controversy and Reform Movement Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Controversial Topics. It is hard to say precisely what set the abortion reform movement in motion. State abortion laws had remained essentially unchanged since the nineteenth century, but by 1960 pressure for liberalization was building. As the population of the world increased and natural resources were used up, many people thought that it was imperative to limit population growth... |
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| Research Paper on Abortion Controversy and Reform Movement » |
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| Essay on Abortion Controversy |
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| Abortion Controversy Research Paper, Custom Essays and Term Papers Writing on Abortion Controversy. Abortion is a controversial and emotional subject over which people are deeply divided. At this time--the last decade of the twentieth century-compromise between contending factions seems to be impossible because of the passion with which conflicting views are held. Even the terms that partisans of each position use to describe their views bear emotional freight. Anti-abortionists label themselves pro-life; they are not just opposed to abortion, they believe that the fetus is a complete, living person, deserving of legal protection. Those in favor of legalized abortion deny that they are pro abortion, for indeed most believe that abortion is undesirable, even though it is sometimes necessary... |
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| Essay on Abortion Controversy » |
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