Should Abortion be Legal or Illegal? | Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?

Abortion is one of the huge ongoing controversial issues in the United Sates. Almost daily, people on both sides argue and politicians debate on whether abortion should be legal or illegal in the United States.

Abortion was legal in the United States until about late 1800s. Since then, states have been passing laws that made abortion illegal. Today, most states banned abortion with an exception to save the life of the mother in some cases.

Abortion laws differ from states to sates from the strictest Texas to pro-choice, New York. The debate over why abortion should be legal or illegal continues to split the opinions of Americans since the famous case of Roe vs. Wade (1973) in Texas. Jane Roe was a 21-year- old Taxes women, who wanted abortion, but she could not get it legally through safe medical procedure. Her case was brought to the Supreme Court by an attorney named, Henry Wade, who wanted to prevent abortion to be legal. However, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jane Roe because the Taxes law violated a person’s right to privacy including a women’s right to decide whether she wanted children or not.

Roe vs. Wade

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_roe.html

There are many reasons why women abort their babies. The main reasons are that they want to postpone having children or have relationship problems or cannot afford to raise a baby or are too young or have maternal and fetal health problems. There are some cases when parents decide to abort their child later in the pregnancy after they found out that their child will have certain health problem such as Down syndrome or autism, and they are afraid to have abnormal child.

“While almost all abortions are performed in the first trimester, sometimes, as this case illustrates, women learn later that they are carrying a fetus with devastating anomalies or experience pregnancy complications that place their life or health at risk. Many of these complications are simply not detectable until later in pregnancy.”

New YorkState is mostly pro-choice allowing women to make their own decision on abortion. However, there are statutory laws against illegal and legal abortion.

http://statelaws.findlaw.com/new-york-law/new-york-abortion-laws.html

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/15248/