The Abortion Controversy w Works Cited essays

The Abortion Controversy w essays Since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, about one out of three pregnancies end in abortion. This means that 1.5 million abortions are performed in the United States each year (Flanders 3). Not since slavery has an issue posed a greater moral dilemma. It ranks among the most complex and controversial issues, arousing heated legal, political, and ethical debates. The modern debate over abortion is a conflict of competing moral ideas and of fundamental human rights: to life, to privacy, to control one's own body. Trying to come to some sort of a compromise has proven that you cannot please all of the people on each side of the debate. Many people describe the abortion debate in America as bitter and uncompromising, usually represented on both sides by people with an intense devotion to their cause and usually with irreconcilable positions. Many of those who are pro-choice insist that a woman's right to abortion should never be restricted while those who are pro-life maintain that a fetus has an unequivocal right to life that is violated at any stage of its development if abortion is performed. Discussions between both sides are usually argumentative, and sometimes violent, so any attempt at coming to a mutual agreement is drowned out. How can anyone hear if they refuse to acknowledge the other side except to shout at them? Since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion, proposed compromises on limiting or allowing abortion have taken two forms: those based on the reasons for abortion and those base on fetal development at different stages of pregnancy. The first compromise would allow abortion for "hard" cases (rape, incest, or risk of the life or health of the pregnant woman), but not for the "soft" cases (financial hardship, inconvenience, possible birth defects, or failure of birth control). Compromises of the second type would allow abortions, but only until a given stage of pregnancy,...