Course talk:GRSJ 224

Pro Life[edit] From the perspective of Pro Life supporters, abortion is equivalent to murder. There should not be any reason that a woman should undergoes abortion. To deny the life of another individual is a great sin. Even if the mother is not able to take care of the new born baby, there are 1.5 million American families out there willing to adopt a child. [1] Given that, there should not be any reason why abortion should occur and that all abortion clinic should be put out of the business.

Pro Choice

The argument that supporter of Pro Choice make is that abortion generally take place in the first semester where the fetus is not developed yet and should not be consider "alive" by any definition. Using this as a rebuttal, they argue that going through abortion does not mean taking the life of an unborn child. More over, to retain the child is a right of the woman. It is not just to subject woman under such physiological and psychological trauma if they give birth to a child just to give it up. Reproductive freedom is a right for woman everywhere and no on should be able to take their freedom of choice.

Its probably a good idea that you expand on what I have started. Overall, not too many grammatical mistakes.

Availability of Abortions in the United States[edit] The current judicial interpretation of the U.S Constitution regarding abortion in the United States is that abortion is legal, but may be restricted by the states to varying degrees (4). Certain states have laws that, prohibits abortions when the women is in the final stages of their pregnancy, minors require parental notification. However, even with these current laws enacted, there are still many factors that contribute to the availability of abortions.

Location

Poor distribution characterizes geographical access in the United States. Out of 500 abortion clinics, half of these are located in the 30 largest metropolitan areas furthermore only 26 percent of all non-Catholic general hospitals and 16 percent of public hospitals provide abortion services and these percentages have been decreasing (5).

Cost

Abortions cost varies from $200 at a clinic for a first-trimester abortion to approximately $350 in the sixteenth week of gestation after which costs go up about $100 per week. Furthermore, a telephone survey of 19 clinics in Ohio conducted as part of this research, found an average lowest price of about $230 (5).

Funding

Federal funds that helps pay for abortion has been replaced by the Hyde amendment to annual appropriations measures for the Department of Health and Human Services. Without the federal funding, abortion costs appears to impede some women from obtaining a proper abortion (5).

You should probably show more detail in this section. Try to elaborate more and tie in the materials from class. For example, given the expensive procedure of abortion, how would this affect woman from a racial standpoint? Talk about social justice of woman from a reproductive freedom perspective etc.

Ethical Debates[edit] Abortion is one of the most controversial moral issues in this century. The ethical debate over abortion primarily focuses on whether the fetus has a right to life and whether or not the bodily integrity of women justifies the abortion (11).

Ethical questions that are pertaining to abortions usually encompass (12).

Is abortion justifiable if the child will be born deformed?

Is abortion justifiable if the fetus jeopardizes the women’s life?

Is abortion justifiable in the case of rape?

Does a women have full control of what she choose to do with her body?

Again, you should have more detail in your entry. You can expand more on this section by presenting the arguments with both the pro-life perspective and the pro-choice perspective. More research needed in this section as its all bone and no meat.

Gender issues

Facing unwanted pregnancy, the responsibilities facing the consequences usually falls solely upon the female. The other half of the equation, the father, should also take responsibility for this unwanted pregnancy; however, there is a biased perspective from the society and responsibilities are not enforced upon the father. When pregnant females does not receive emotional and financial support from their partner, is it fair to blame them for their decision? Consider this, the view of society deem the mother to be the baby killer whereas the father is being told that the abortion is not his business and is entirely up to the mother and the doctor. Abortion rights has now become a tool to control the reproductive freedom of women. Gender equality cannot be achieved when men are being told that all they need to do is pay the fees for abortion and they are fine whereas women are told they are murderers for killing of innocent. Both the men and women are to blame equally for the loss of a life in an abortion, but until gender equality is achieved, why should a woman take all the blame?

I added a new section for you to consider

Pro Choice Argument[edit] Socio-economic reasons

Pro-Choice supporters thought it would be unethical to have children for whom they were not able to provide for. The main concern for most of these mothers is the future of their child. They do not want their children to grow up in an environment less than ideal (2). To consider this into context, even when controlling for the same income level, minority ethnicity abortion rate is still much higher compared to their white counterpart. . What failed to be taken into context are discrimination faced by these minorities. In a study, it was shown that Black and Hispanic adolescents have less exposure to the education of birth control as well as reproductive health. In addition to that, when dealing with unwanted pregnancy, woman of color faces much more discrimination as reported by them in the same study. Sometimes, the effect of race is rather significant variable in these situations. It is not all too surprising that minorities ethnicity have a much higher abortion rate given less resources and support they have at disposal.

Talk about how wealth plays a big part in the decision making of abortion. While abortion rate among white females have been dropping over the year, abortion rate of minority ethnicity is still as high as ever. Why is that? Try reading this article: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301339

Bodily integrity

Judith Jarvis Thomson introduced the argument of how bodily integrity justifies abortion. She claims that even if the fetus has a right to live the abortion is morally acceptable since a women has a right to her own body and functions of her life supporting functions. (9)

"more elaboration here!"

Sexual Inequality

Depriving the women to the right of an abortion can be viewed as a form of female oppression and showcases sexual inequality between the two sexes. Furthermore, there is also a debate on how much influence does the potential father have in the decision of the potential mother in undergoing a abortion (10).

Talk more about gender equality and how male in society are not blamed for the unwanted pregnancy.

Pro Life Argument[edit] Future Like Ours Argument

The “Future Like Ours” argument that was developed by Donald Marquis claims that a fetus has a future just as any human being and an abortion deprives the fetus in realizing this future just as killing a human being will deprive him or her of any future. Therefore, the killing of a fetus is only justifiable if the taking of adult life is also justifiable. The “Future Like Ours” dispute fetus has a future as well as any human, but through the act of abortion, the future that the fetus would have otherwise had is taken from him or her. This is most similar to that of a homicide. The killing of a person “destroys our most valuable possession, a future of value”. (3). Marquis agrees that depriving a human of its future should be considered homicide, however, he argues that the killing of an adult cannot be compared to that of abortion in terms of deprivation of a future. The killing of a person is morally wrong because it “deprives the victim of his or her self-represented future” (3), but this cannot be the reason for why it is morally wrong for a woman to undergo an abortion since “a fetus does not construct mental representations of its future. The neurological and embryological evidence of this issue is clear” (3). Although a fetus does not have a self-represented future that will be deprived of through abortion, nonetheless it is still striped of whatever future the fetus would have otherwise had. Marquis believes it is our “self-represented future of value, requiring consciousness that better explains the wrongness of killing” (3).

Religious Beliefs

Christianity

The Christian tradition has always emphasized human life. One of the earliest Christian writings, the Didache or the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles states: "You shall not kill the child in the womb or murder a new-born infant.” (6)

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church does not agree with abortion because it believes that all life should be cherished. (7) Pope John Paul II wrote a letter called the Gospel of Life. In this letter he discusses the human life from its very beginning and the conflict between the culture of life and culture of death.

Islamic

Islam teaches that an unborn child has certain rights such as the right to care, protection and life. In the Islamic holy book Al’Quran. “Do not kill or take a human life which God as declared to be sacred“ (8).

You can tie in how religion affects politics and how does that influence legislation on abortion which takes away the reproductive freedom of female. How is public opinion on pro life and pro choice affected by religion?

Overall, I think you have many good thinks to work with, but its best if you were to have more materials and tie in stuff from the course.