An issue of morality. Abortion. Cited with footnotes.

Essay by ladytronnHigh School, 12th gradeA+, March 2004

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Abortion is and has been one of the most controversial moral issues for centuries. The ongoing debate on whether or not abortion is acceptable has been evident in not only government legislation, but social mediation as well. Pro-life activists insist that killing a baby while inside the mother's womb is immoral and on the same level of manslaughter, and therefor should be outlawed. They say that homicide is illegal in the U.S. while in many states, abortions are not. How can one form of killing be criminal while another is authorized in more than half of the country? Pro-choice activists stress the importance of option, saying that different circumstances allow for different decisions by the woman that has been impregnated. The decision of whether or not a woman is to become a mother lies entirely in the hands of the woman, and no type of government ruling is to change that.

There is no well-defined line dividing person from non-person. Both the conservative and liberal standpoints are too extreme and abortions can be both justifiable and at times felonious.

In the United States, women choose to end about 25% of their pregnancies through abortion. Still Pro-Life activists have been pushing towards legislation that will outlaw abortions entirely. They successfully influenced government officials to provide laws that restrict abortion, yet most of these laws soon prove to be ineffectual and rarely pass through congress. Recent passage of the legal distribution of the RU-486 allows for the prescription of this pill, which will induce abortion. This antiprogestin is to be taken 49 days after the start of the woman's last period. It then triggers the immediate shedding of the uterine wall, or in other words, the start of the period. This eventually expels the embryo causing some discomfort to the female. As...