Abortion: The Lifelong Fight Of Legal Or Illegal

The first article is by Sarah Zhang, called “Why Science can’t Say When a Baby’s Life Begins”, it is about, well, why scientists do not have any conclusive evidence as to when a baby’s life begins. The article’s main idea is about when does a baby’s life begins? To some people it is when the egg gets fertilized, to others, it is when the quickening happens, when the baby first kicks.

To scientists, however, it depends on their field of expertise. One scientist might say it is okay because there are no brainwaves yet; however, to another scientist it is too late because it has a heartbeat, it all depends on the person you ask. Roe v. Wade made it clear that abortion was okay until the fetus is viable outside of the womb. With this in mind it still does not help us out, because when is the fetus viable outside of the womb? The amount of time is still fluctuating to this day because no one really knows when the fetus is viable outside of the womb. Finally, this argument is no longer about the science, it is about how people want to perceive the answer to be. The second article is written by Paul Parker and is called “The Case Against Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey”. This article is about how two of the most influential Supreme Court cases that talk about abortion should be overturned because they were both wrong. The article brings up ways that the Supreme Court rulings fall apart if you look back before the Supreme Court cases.

The article also brings up the question of did the 14th Amendment, which states that anybody born in the United States are citizens of the US and the state in which they reside, does it include the unborn? The article believes so, which is why the article says that Roe v. Wade is wrong and need to be changed. Planned Parenthood v. Casey the second Supreme Court Case this article brings up is when the Supreme Court goes and piggybacks on Roe v. Wade with their ruling. In their defending of Roe, one of the Justices, Justice Scalia, pointed out that whether Roe is correct they must back it up because it would look bad if they turned on their own ruling it would look bad on them. Even most women believe that illegal with a few exceptions. Human lives die each year because, if there really was an error in the controversial ruling in Roe, if they go back and change the central idea of Roe, it would look bad on the Supreme Court. A case can be overruled; however, the only way it can be is that it has to be because of a new understanding of the facts, and if it requires a new ruling in a case thatcase should be reopened and have a new ruling for it. The third article is “The First Ache” and is by Annie Murphy Paul and is about fetal pain. The main point in this article is do fetuses feel pain when the abortion process happens? For the fear of fetuses feeling pain, doctors who do the abortions are required, in five states, to give the fetus the option of anesthesia.

According to research, fetuses can feel pain almost halfway through pregnancy. Even now if you ask doctors during an abortion if the baby feels pain, they are not one hundred percent sure that they can or cannot. No matter the number of weeks in the pregnancy there are left, if the fetus draws back from the knife that the doctor is using to perform the abortion with, that could be a reflex, or it could be pain, it is indecisive even in the medical field. The consciousness of five kids that went to Disney World even though they have a brain stem but they either have a damaged cerebral cortex or no cortex at all has left a lot of scientists wondering then, can fetuses experience pain? If the brain stem is created before the cerebral cortex is in fetuses than it would be reason enough to believe that fetuses can experience pain. If the mother wants to have a pregnancy after 20 weeks of gestation, the doctor needs to be aware of the pain that it could cause on the fetus and prevent that to the best of their ability. Finally, anything that happens, as long as it is for the best interests of the fetus, it is a possibility that they could get anesthetics for them when going through tough processes. The fourth article is called “Still True; Abortion Does Not Increase Women’s Risk of Mental Health Problems” and it is written by Susan A. Cohen. After 15 months of researching the negative effects of having an abortion no results were any different than those that took the baby full-term. Even with this being well-known to everybody, anti-abortion activists still say that having an abortion can lead to personal physical problems.

Psychological however, there was a very minute bit that was different than carrying the baby to full-term. Once anti-abortion activists heard this they took it and ran with it. Even the APA (American Psychological Association) says that as long as the pregnancy was unwanted it does not pose a threat to her psychologically. No matter how many different studies are conducted most if not all of them will come back with no psychological damage. Whoever you ask, anti-abortion activists will always say that having an abortion will leave you with psychological damage, even though the science says otherwise.