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You are pro-life or pro-choice. There is no in-between. You’re either a murderer or a life advocate. It’s one or the other. You either believe the mother’s life is more precious than the baby’s, or believe the baby’s is more precious than the mother. There is no gray area when it goes to abortion.

False.

Abortion is a very polarizing and dangerous topic. People on both sides fight passionately and have been for decades. The fight can even date back to ancient Roman times. But more recently, pro-life advocates have resorted to violence to get their point across, which is kind of hypocritical seeing as they are fighting to save lives. Everyone makes it seem like you can only be on one side of the argument.

Well, I can see both, because I do agree that abortion is killing. Abortion’s definition, according to Webster’s dictionary, is, “The ending of the pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo from the womb before It can survive on its own.” So yes, it is what all pro-life people love to call it, murder. However, this essay is not about why abortion is murder or even the moral aspect of it, but rather the legality of it and why I stand by pro-choice in saying our government should protect the decision made forty-two years ago in the case Roe vs. Wade.

In 1973, the Supreme Court stated that the Ninth Amendment reservation of the rights is broad enough to encompass a women’s decision to abort her child. It also installed a trimester system. Stating that from the first trimester until fetal viability could a women’s interest in abortion be “reasonably related” and non-interfered by the government.  This case named Roe vs. Wade ended the criminalization of abortion and allowed women to make a decision on their own knowing they would have safe medical care.

So here’s why the Supreme Court was right. One, we live in a great country with a strong government, one so strong sometimes it can overstep its boundaries. And allowing the government to decide whether or not we have a child is crossing that line. A decision this big, affecting every part of the rest of your life, should not be left up to the government. Two, every baby deserves proper care and love. If this is not possible then abortion should be okay, because even if you give it up for adoption, you aren’t guaranteed the child will find a family, or have a good life for the matter. Three, abortion is a safe medical procedure despite what people think and recent findings found it even safer than childbirth. Not to mention if abortion were banned, women would still have abortions, but it would be dangerous and could further harm themselves. Lastly, some women just don’t want to have kids or don’t have the money to support the child. All in all, the decision to abort a child is a very delicate one, but one that should be in the mother’s hands and hers only.

I love the USA. I love wearing my red white and blue bandana with my blue jean shorts and feel the sun soak in my skin as I bask in my freedom. I believe we are the greatest country on the face of this Earth. We are the police of the world and stand for all that is good. But like everything, we are flawed. And our flaw is the greed for power.  As Americans grow more and more scared of terrorism we give up some of our rights like our privacy. (For example, the government can now read our text messages and phones but this is beside the point). This is allowing our government to ignore our rights in the name of protection. Now some people want to give up more of our rights, the choice of keeping a human. Yes a human, a little ball of life, a baby. This little child will change every aspect of our future to a life of dirty diapers and snot. Now why would we allow the GOVERNMENT, a bunch of old men who wear suits and smell like leather decide whether or not we want this life? As a women myself, I should have the right to decide what future I would like for myself and if that includes a child or not. This isn’t about morals. This is about personal rights because pregnancy is a painful thing, and the government should not be allowed to force me to carry something I don’t want to carry and suffer in the process.

Next, many pro-life people scream about adoption. But let me hit you with some cold hard facts. Worldwide, there are 17,900,000 kids waiting to be adopted and 423,773 of these kids are in the U.S. That is a lot of needy kids and recent studies have shown American families have adopted the highest number of children from China, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Conga. This shows more Americans are adopting outside the U.S. rather in it. Furthermore, only thirty percent of the American kids waiting will be adopted and will wait three years in doing so. In 2012 23,396 youth aged out of the foster care system without the emotional and financial support of a family. Sixty percent of the young men aging out have been convicted of a crime, fifty percent of all the youth have been involved in substance abuse, and seventeen percent of the females were pregnant. This is a life filled with confusion and instability. These kids are going in and out of houses, running away, and even putting communities in danger. And excuse me for being blunt, but like or not abortion is a means of population control which is severely needed as the world’s resources go down and populations go up. This just goes to show more foreign kids are being adopted while American kids are aging out and falling victim to drugs and crime. Adoption is always an option, but statistics show, not a very good one.

Next, abortion should be kept legal because it is safer than childbirth. Medical abortions have less than a .5% risk of serious complications and do not affect a woman’s health or future ability to become pregnant or give birth. Compare this to the 8.8% risk of actually giving birth. This means you are seventeen times more likely to die from childbirth than from an abortion. We are lucky to be able to practice this safely compared to other regions. In Africa alone, 22,500 to 44,000 women have died from unsafe abortions and their complications.

Making abortion illegal will not stop women from doing it. It will only make women go extreme and unsafe measures in which that .55 of complications could turn into 8-15% like the developing countries in Africa.

Finally, some women just don’t have the support to raise a child, whether they’re fifteen-year old girls whose parents threw them out or a thirty-year old women who works full-time but still can’t manage to put food on the table. Neither situation is fair to the mother or baby. Not only this, but how are you expected to take care of a baby when you can’t even take care of yourself? And then what will you do? These girls are scared. They’re scared for their life, their future, their baby, their relationships, and who are we to judge when we don’t know what its’ like to be them. People are full of sympathy for the baby but what about the mother?

In conclusion, abortion is an awful thing. Any act in which human life is taken is a tragedy. But while I think this I also think that it should be a women’s right to decide if she wants to have a child. Because one, the government does not, and will never be able to force a woman to have a child she doesn’t want. Two, adoption isn’t what people make it out be. The foster care system is corrupt and ignorant to kids who look to gangs as family and crime to survive. Three, abortion is actually safer than childbirth especially for teenage girls whose bodies aren’t developed and ready for birth yet. Lastly, some women can’t support or don’t want children. You can’t force someone to want something it doesn’t want. In summation, lifting the law placed on legalizing abortion would not only lead to safety concerns of women, but also trample on our right to pursue happiness. Some people’s happiness does not include children. And that’s something that we’ll have to learn to accept.