Issues in Abortion

Roe v. Wade
#3
Brittany Lake

When reading "Roe v. Wade" a lot of moral issues are brought to the attention of the reader. Back in distant years, it was legal to perform an abortion up until a certain amount of time. Then it changed to prohibiting abortion all together, unless the pregnancy endangered the mother's life. Today the law has changed back being legally able to have an abortion within the first tri-mester of pregnancy, or unless the pregnancy threatenes the mother's life. Constitutional rights are being broken on either side, those being the rights of the mother and the fetus. It is one's personal beliefs that incourage which side will be taken by that person. It's either pro-life or pro-choice. When believing that a life is formed at the moment of conception, one is going to take the side of pro-life. But when another person looks at it as if the pregnancy is an inconvinience to the life of the mother, such as financial difficulties or health reasons, then pro-choice will be favored.

When taking into consideration pro-life and pro-choice, I don't think it's possible to consistently believe that a) a woman has no right to an abortion, b) a human embryo or fetus has an inviolable right to life, and c) a woman may have an abortion if it is necessary to save her own life. When one is pro-life, then the option of the woman having an abortion if it's necessary to save her own life is not possible. When one is pro-choice, then the other two options are also not possible. Even if one is moderate on the issue and takes a little of both sides, it is still not possible to be consistent with these thoughts. "A woman has no right to terminate her pregnancy no matter what the situation and a human embryo has an inviolable right to life" (453) are definite statements and cancel out the third option because options A and B have no exceptions. The third, "A woman may have an abortion if it is necessary to save her own life" (453) is not definite and if one believes this then the other options cannot be adopted as a view.