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Abortion Argumentative Essay: Definitive Guide

Academic writing

Abortion remains a debatable issue even today, especially in countries like the USA, where a controversial ban was upheld in 13 states at the point this article was written. That’s why an essay on abortion has become one of the most popular tasks in schools, colleges, and universities. When writing this kind of essay, students learn to express their opinion, find and draw arguments and examples, and conduct research.

It’s very easy to speculate on topics like this. However, this makes it harder to find credible and peer-reviewed information on the topic that isn’t merely someone’s opinion. If you were assigned this kind of academic task, do not lose heart. In this article, we will provide you with all the tips and tricks for writing about abortion.

Where to begin?

Conversations about abortion are always emotional. Complex stories, difficult decisions, bitter moments, and terrible diagnoses make this topic hard to cover. Some young people may be shocked by this assignment, while others would be happy to express their opinion on the matter.

One way or another, this topic doesn't leave anyone indifferent. However, it shouldn’t have an effect on the way you approach the research and writing process. What should you remember when working on an argumentative essay about abortion?

Don’t let your emotions take over. As this is an academic paper, you have to stay impartial and operate with facts. The topic is indeed sore and burning, causing thousands of scandals on the Internet, but you are writing it for school, not a Quora thread.
Try to balance your opinions. There are always two sides to one story, even if the story is so fragile. You need to present an issue from different angles. This is what your tutors seek to teach you.
Be tolerant and mind your language. It is very important not to hurt anybody with the choice of words in your essay. So make sure you avoid any possible rough words. It is important to respect people with polar opinions, especially when it comes to academic writing.
Use facts, not claims. Your essay cannot be based solely on your personal ideas – your conclusions should be derived from facts. Roe v. Wade case, WHO or Mayo Clinic information, and CDC are some of the sources you can rely on.

Speaking of Outline

An argumentative essay on abortion outline is a must-have even for experienced writers. In general, each essay, irrespective of its kind or topic, has a strict outline. It may be brief or extended, but the major parts are always the same:

Introduction. This is a relatively short paragraph that starts with a hook and presents the background information on the topic. It should end with a thesis statement telling your reader what your main goal or idea is.
Body. This section usually consists of 2-4 paragraphs. Each one has its own structure: main argument + facts to support it + small conclusion and transition into the next paragraph.
Conclusion. In this part, your task is to summarize all your thoughts and come to a general conclusive idea. You may have to restate some info from the body and your thesis statement and add a couple of conclusive statements without introducing new facts.

Why is it important to create an outline?

You will structure your ideas. We bet you’ve got lots on your mind. Writing them down and seeing how one can flow logically into the other will help you create a consistent paper. Naturally, you will have to abandon some of the ideas if they don’t fit the overall narrative you’re building.
You can get some inspiration. While creating your outline, which usually consists of some brief ideas, you can come up with many more to research. Some will add to your current ones or replace them with better options.
You will find the most suitable sources. Argumentative essay writing requires you to use solid facts and trustworthy arguments built on them. When the topic is as controversial as abortion, these arguments should be taken from up-to-date, reliable sources. With an outline, you will see if you have enough to back up your ideas.
You will write your text as professionals do. Most expert writers start with outlines to write the text faster and make it generally better. As you will have your ideas structured, the general flow of thoughts will be clear. And, of course, it will influence your overall grade positively.

Abortion Essay Introduction

The introduction is perhaps the most important part of the whole essay. In this relatively small part, you will have to present the issue under consideration and state your opinion on it. Here is a typical introduction outline:

The first sentence is a hook grabbing readers' attention.
A few sentences that go after elaborate on the hook. They give your readers some background and explain your research.
The last sentence is a thesis statement showing the key idea you are building your text around.

Before writing an abortion essay intro, first thing first, you will need to define your position. If you are in favor of this procedure, what exactly made you think so? If you are an opponent of abortion, determine how to argue your position. In both cases, you may research the point of view in medicine, history, ethics, and other fields.

When writing an introduction, remember:

Never repeat your title. First of all, it looks too obvious; secondly, it may be boring for your reader right from the start. Your first sentence should be a well-crafted hook. The topic of abortion worries many people, so it’s your chance to catch your audience’s attention with some facts or shocking figures.
Do not make it too long. Your task here is to engage your audience and let them know what they are about to learn. The rest of the information will be disclosed in the main part. Nobody likes long introductions, so keep it short but informative.
Pay due attention to the thesis statement. This is the central sentence of your introduction. A thesis statement in your abortion intro paragraph should show that you have a well-supported position and are ready to argue it. Therefore, it has to be strong and convey your idea as clearly as possible. We advise you to make several options for the thesis statement and choose the strongest one.

Hooks for an Abortion Essay

Writing a hook is a good way to catch the attention of your audience, as this is usually the first sentence in an essay. How to start an essay about abortion? You can begin with some shocking fact, question, statistics, or even a quote. However, always make sure that this piece is taken from a trusted resource.

Here are some examples of hooks you can use in your paper:

As of July 1, 2022, 13 states banned abortion, depriving millions of women of control of their bodies.
According to WHO, 125,000 abortions take place every day worldwide.
Is abortion a woman’s right or a crime?
Since 1994, more than 40 countries have liberalized their abortion laws.
Around 48% of all abortions are unsafe, and 8% of them lead to women’s death.
The right to an abortion is one of the reproductive and basic rights of a woman.
Abortion is as old as the world itself – women have resorted to this method since ancient times.
Only 60% of women in the world live in countries where pregnancy termination is allowed.

Body Paragraphs: Pros and Cons of Abortion

The body is the biggest part of your paper. Here, you have a chance to make your voice concerning the abortion issue heard. Not sure where to start? Facts about abortion pros and cons should give you a basic understanding of which direction to move in.

First things first, let’s review some brief tips for you on how to write the best essay body if you have already made up your mind.

Make a draft

It’s always a good idea to have a rough draft of your writing. Follow the outline and don’t bother with the word choice, grammar, or sentence structure much at first. You can polish it all later, as the initial draft will not likely be your final. You may see some omissions in your arguments, lack of factual basis, or repetitiveness that can be eliminated in the next versions.

Trust only reliable sources

This part of an essay includes loads of factual information, and you should be very careful with it. Otherwise, your paper may look unprofessional and cost you precious points. Never rely on sources like Wikipedia or tabloids – they lack veracity and preciseness.

Edit rigorously

It’s best to do it the next day after you finish writing so that you can spot even the smallest mistakes. Remember, this is the most important part of your paper, so it has to be flawless. You can also use editing tools like Grammarly.

Determine your weak points

Since you are writing an argumentative essay, your ideas should be backed up by strong facts so that you sound convincing. Sometimes it happens that one argument looks weaker than the other. Your task is to find it and strengthen it with more or better facts.

Add an opposing view

Sometimes, it’s not enough to present only one side of the discussion. Showing one of the common views from the opposing side might actually help you strengthen your main idea. Besides, making an attempt at refuting it with alternative facts can show your teacher or professor that you’ve researched and analyzed all viewpoints, not just the one you stand by.

If you have chosen a side but are struggling to find the arguments for or against it, we have complied abortion pro and cons list for you. You can use both sets if you are writing an abortion summary essay covering all the stances.

Why Should Abortion Be Legal

If you stick to the opinion that abortion is just a medical procedure, which should be a basic health care need for each woman, you will definitely want to write the pros of abortion essay. Here is some important information and a list of pros about abortion for you to use:

Since the fetus is a set of cells – not an individual, it’s up to a pregnant woman to make a decision concerning her body. Only she can decide whether she wants to keep the pregnancy or have an abortion. The abortion ban is a violation of a woman’s right to have control over her own body.
The fact that women and girls do not have access to effective contraception and safe abortion services has serious consequences for their own health and the health of their families.
The criminalization of abortion usually leads to an increase in the number of clandestine abortions. Many years ago, fetuses were disposed of with improvised means, which included knitting needles and half-straightened metal hangers. 13% of women’s deaths are the result of unsafe abortions.
Many women live in a difficult financial situation and cannot support their children financially. Having access to safe abortion takes this burden off their shoulders. This will also not decrease their quality of life as the birth and childcare would.
In countries where abortion is prohibited, there is a phenomenon of abortion tourism to other countries where it can be done without obstacles. Giving access to this procedure can make the lives of women much easier.
Women should not put their lives or health in danger because of the laws that were adopted by other people.
Girls and women who do not have proper sex education may not understand pregnancy as a concept or determine that they are pregnant early on. Instead of educating them and giving them a choice, an abortion ban forces them to become mothers and expects them to be fit parents despite not knowing much about reproduction.
There are women who have genetic disorders or severe mental health issues that will affect their children if they're born. Giving them an option to terminate ensures that there won't be a child with a low quality of life and that the woman will not have to suffer through pregnancy, birth, and raising a child with her condition.
Being pro-choice is about the freedom to make decisions about your body so that women who are for termination can do it safely, and those who are against it can choose not to do it. It is an inclusive option that caters to everyone.
Women and girls who were raped or abused by their partner, caregiver, or stranger and chose to terminate the pregnancy can now be imprisoned for longer than their abusers. This implies that the system values the life of a fetus with no or primitive brain function over the life of a living woman.
People who lived in times when artificial termination of pregnancy was scarcely available remember clandestine abortions and how traumatic they were, not only for the physical but also for the mental health of women. Indeed, traditionally, in many countries, large families were a norm. However, the times have changed, and supervised abortion is a safe and accessible procedure these days. A ban on abortion will simply push humanity away from the achievements of the civilized world.

Types of abortion

There are 2 main types of abortions that can be performed at different pregnancy stages and for different reasons:

Medical abortion. It is performed by taking a specially prescribed pill. It does not require any special manipulations and can even be done at home (however, after a doctor’s visit and under supervision). It is considered very safe and is usually done during the very first weeks of pregnancy.
Surgical abortion. This is a medical operation that is done with the help of a suction tube. It then removes the fetus and any related material. Anesthesia is used for this procedure, and therefore, it can only be done in a hospital. The maximum time allowed for surgical abortion is determined in each country specifically.

Cases when abortion is needed

Center for Reproductive Rights singles out the following situations when abortion is required:

When there is a risk to the life or physical/mental health of a pregnant woman.
When a pregnant woman has social or economic reasons for it.
Upon the woman's request.
If a pregnant woman is mentally or cognitively disabled.
In case of rape and/or incest.
If there were congenital anomalies detected in the fetus.

Countries and their abortion laws

Countries where abortion is legalized in any case: Australia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.
Countries where abortion is completely prohibited: Angola, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Paraguay, Palau, Jamaica, Laos, Haiti, Honduras, Andorra, Aruba, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, Senegal, etc.
Countries where abortion is allowed for medical reasons: Afghanistan, Israel, Argentina, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Bahamas, Central African Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Algeria, Monaco, Pakistan, Poland, etc.
Countries where abortion is allowed for both medical and socioeconomic reasons: England, India, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Finland, Taiwan, Zambia, Iceland, Fiji, Cyprus, Barbados, Belize, etc.

Why Abortion Should Be Banned

Essays against abortions are popular in educational institutions since we all know that many people – many minds. So if you don’t want to support this procedure in your essay, here are some facts that may help you to argument why abortion is wrong:

Abortion at an early age is especially dangerous because a young woman with an unstable hormonal system may no longer be able to have children throughout her life. Termination of pregnancy disrupts the hormonal development of the body.
Health complications caused by abortion can occur many years after the procedure. Even if a woman feels fine in the short run, the situation may change in the future.
Abortion clearly has a negative effect on reproductive function. Artificial dilation of the cervix during an abortion leads to weak uterus tonus, which can cause a miscarriage during the next pregnancy.
Evidence shows that surgical termination of pregnancy significantly increases the risk of breast cancer.
In December 1996, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics concluded that a fetus is considered a human being on the 14th day after conception.

You are free to use each of these arguments for essays against abortions. Remember that each claim should not be supported by emotions but by facts, figures, and so on.

Health complications after abortion

One way or another, abortion is extremely stressful for a woman’s body. Apart from that, it can even lead to various health problems in the future. You can also cover them in your cons of an abortion essay:

Continuation of pregnancy. If the dose of the drug is calculated by the doctor in the wrong way, the pregnancy will progress.
Uterine bleeding, which requires immediate surgical intervention.
Severe nausea or even vomiting occurs as a result of a sharp change in the hormonal background.
Severe stomach pain. Medical abortion causes miscarriage and, as a result, strong contractions of the uterus.
High blood pressure and allergic reactions to medicines.
Depression or other mental problems after a difficult procedure.

Abortion Essay Conclusion

After you have finished working on the previous sections of your paper, you will have to end it with a strong conclusion. The last impression is no less important than the first one. Here is how you can make it perfect in your conclusion paragraph on abortion:

It should be concise. The conclusion cannot be as long as your essay body and should not add anything that cannot be derived from the main section. Reiterate the key ideas, combine some of them, and end the paragraph with something for the readers to think about.
It cannot repeat already stated information. Restate your thesis statement in completely other words and summarize your main points. Do not repeat anything word for word – rephrase and shorten the information instead.
It should include a call to action or a cliffhanger. Writing experts believe that a rhetorical question works really great for an argumentative essay. Another good strategy is to leave your readers with some curious ideas to ponder upon.

Abortion Facts for Essay

Abortion is a topic that concerns most modern women. Thousands of books, research papers, and articles on abortion are written across the world. Even though pregnancy termination has become much safer and less stigmatized with time, it still worries millions. What can you cover in your paper so that it can really stand out among others? You may want to add some shocking abortion statistics and facts:

40-50 million abortions are done in the world every year (approximately 125,000 per day).
According to UN statistics, women have 25 million unsafe abortions each year. Most of them (97%) are performed in the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 14% of them are especially unsafe because they are done by people without any medical knowledge.
Since 2017, the United States has shown the highest abortion rate in the last 30 years.
The biggest number of abortion procedures happen in the countries where they are officially banned. The lowest rate is demonstrated in the countries with high income and free access to contraception.
Women in low-income regions are three times more susceptible to unplanned pregnancies than those in developed countries.
In Argentina, more than 38,000 women face dreadful health consequences after unsafe abortions.
The highest teen abortion rates in the world are seen in 3 countries: England, Wales, and Sweden.
Only 31% of teenagers decide to terminate their pregnancy. However, the rate of early pregnancies is getting lower each year.
Approximately 13 million children are born to mothers under the age of 20 each year.
5% of women of reproductive age live in countries where abortions are prohibited.

We hope that this abortion information was useful for you, and you can use some of these facts for your own argumentative essay. If you find some additional facts, make sure that they are not manipulative and are taken from official medical resources.

Abortion Essay Topics

Do you feel like you are lost in the abundance of information? Don’t know what topic to choose among the thousands available online? Check our short list of the best abortion argumentative essay topics:

Why should abortion be legalized essay
Abortion: a murder or a basic human right?
Why we should all support abortion rights
Is the abortion ban in the US a good initiative?
The moral aspect of teen abortions
Can the abortion ban solve birth control problems?
Should all countries allow abortion?
What consequences can abortion have in the long run?
Is denying abortion sexist?
Why is abortion a human right?
Are there any ethical implications of abortion?
Do you consider abortion a crime?
Should women face charges for terminating a pregnancy?

Want to come up with your own? Here is how to create good titles for abortion essays:

Write down the first associations. It can be something that swirls around in your head and comes to the surface when you think about the topic. These won’t necessarily be well-written headlines, but each word or phrase can be the first link in the chain of ideas that leads you to the best option.
Irony and puns are not always a good idea. Especially when it comes to such difficult topics as abortion. Therefore, in your efforts to be original, remain sensitive to the issue you want to discuss.
Never make a quote as your headline. First, a wordy quote makes the headline long. Secondly, readers do not understand whose words are given in the headline. Therefore, it may confuse them right from the start. If you have found a great quote, you can use it as your hook, but don’t forget to mention its author.
Try to briefly summarize what is said in the essay. What is the focus of your paper? If the essence of your argumentative essay can be reduced to one sentence, it can be used as a title, paraphrased, or shortened.
Write your title after you have finished your text. Before you just start writing, you might not yet have a catchy phrase in mind to use as a title. Don’t let it keep you from working on your essay – it might come along as you write.

Abortion Essay Example

We know that it is always easier to learn from a good example. For this reason, our writing experts have complied a detailed abortion essay outline for you. For your convenience, we have created two options with different opinions.

Topic: Why should abortion be legal?

Introduction – hook + thesis statement + short background information

Essay hook: More than 59% of women in the world do not have access to safe abortions, which leads to dreading health consequences or even death.

Thesis statement: Since banning abortions does not decrease their rates but only makes them unsafe, it is not logical to ban abortions.

Body – each paragraph should be devoted to one argument

Argument 1: Woman’s body – women’s rules. + example: basic human rights.

Argument 2: Banning abortion will only lead to more women’s death. + example: cases of Polish women.

Argument 3: Only women should decide on abortion. + example: many abortion laws are made by male politicians who lack knowledge and first-hand experience in pregnancies.

Conclusion – restated thesis statement + generalized conclusive statements + cliffhanger

Restated thesis: The abortion ban makes pregnancy terminations unsafe without decreasing the number of abortions, making it dangerous for women.

Cliffhanger: After all, who are we to decide a woman’s fate?

Topic: Why should abortion be banned?

Essay hook: Each year, over 40 million new babies are never born because their mothers decide to have an abortion.

Thesis statement: Abortions on request should be banned because we cannot decide for the baby whether it should live or die.

Argument 1: A fetus is considered a person almost as soon as it is conceived. Killing it should be regarded as murder. + example: Abortion bans in countries such as Poland, Egypt, etc.

Argument 2: Interrupting a baby’s life is morally wrong. + example: The Bible, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics decision in 1996, etc.

Argument 3: Abortion may put the reproductive health of a woman at risk. + example: negative consequences of abortion.

Restated thesis: Women should not be allowed to have abortions without serious reason because a baby’s life is as priceless as their own.

Cliffhanger: Why is killing an adult considered a crime while killing an unborn baby is not?

Argumentative essay on pros and cons of abortion

Examples of Essays on Abortion

There are many great abortion essays examples on the Web. You can easily find an argumentative essay on abortion in pdf and save it as an example. Many students and scholars upload their pieces to specialized websites so that others can read them and continue the discussion in their own texts.

In a free argumentative essay on abortion, you can look at the structure of the paper, choice of the arguments, depth of research, and so on. Reading scientific papers on abortion or essays of famous activists is also a good idea. Here are the works of famous authors discussing abortion.

A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson

Published in 1971, this essay by an American philosopher considers the moral permissibility of abortion. It is considered the most debated and famous essay on this topic, and it’s definitely worth reading no matter what your stance is.

Abortion and Infanticide by Michael Tooley

It was written in 1972 by an American philosopher known for his work in the field of metaphysics. In this essay, the author considers whether fetuses and infants have the same rights. Even though this work is quite complex, it presents some really interesting ideas on the matter.

Some Biological Insights into Abortion by Garret Hardin

This article by American ecologist Garret Hardin, who had focused on the issue of overpopulation during his scholarly activities, presents some insights into abortion from a scientific point of view. He also touches on non-biological issues, such as moral and economic. This essay will be of great interest to those who support the pro-choice stance.

H4 Hidden in Plain View: An Overview of Abortion in Rural Illinois and Around the Globe by Heather McIlvaine-Newsad

In this study, McIlvaine-Newsad has researched the phenomenon of abortion since prehistoric times. She also finds an obvious link between the rate of abortions and the specifics of each individual country. Overall, this scientific work published in 2014 is extremely interesting and useful for those who want to base their essay on factual information.

H4 Reproduction, Politics, and John Irving’s The Cider House Rules: Women’s Rights or “Fetal Rights”? by Helena Wahlström

In her article of 2013, Wahlström considers John Irving’s novel The Cider House Rules published in 1985 and is regarded as a revolutionary work for that time, as it acknowledges abortion mostly as a political problem. This article will be a great option for those who want to investigate the roots of the abortion debate.

FAQs On Abortion Argumentative Essay

Is abortion immoral?

This question is impossible to answer correctly because each person independently determines their own moral framework. One group of people will say that abortion is a woman’s right because only she has power over her body and can make decisions about it. Another group will argue that the embryo is also a person and has the right to birth and life.

In general, the attitude towards abortion is determined based on the political and religious views of each person. Religious people generally believe that abortion is immoral because it is murder, while secular people see it as a normal medical procedure. For example, in the US, the ban on abortion was introduced in red states where the vast majority have conservative views, while blue liberal states do not support this law. Overall, it’s up to a person to decide whether they consider abortion immoral based on their own values and beliefs.

Is abortion legal?

The answer to this question depends on the country in which you live. There are countries in which pregnancy termination is a common medical procedure and is performed at the woman's request. There are also states in which there must be a serious reason for abortion: medical, social, or economic. Finally, there are nations in which abortion is prohibited and criminalized. For example, in Jamaica, a woman can get life imprisonment for abortion, while in Kenya, a medical worker who volunteers to perform an abortion can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.

Is abortion safe?

In general, modern medicine has reached such a level that abortion has become a common (albeit difficult from various points of view) medical procedure. There are several types of abortion, as well as many medical devices and means that ensure the maximum safety of the pregnancy termination. Like all other medical procedures, abortion can have various consequences and complications.

Abortions – whether safe or not - exist in all countries of the world. The thing is that more than half of them are dangerous because women have them in unsuitable conditions and without professional help. Only universal access to abortion in all parts of the world can make it absolutely safe. In such a case, it will be performed only after a thorough assessment and under the control of a medical professional who can mitigate the potential risks.

How safe is abortion?

If we do not talk about the ethical side of the issue related to abortion, it still has some risks. In fact, any medical procedure has them to a greater or lesser extent.

The effectiveness of the safe method in a medical setting is 80-99%. An illegal abortion (for example, the one without special indications after 12 weeks) can lead to a patient’s death, and the person who performed it will be criminally liable in this case.

Doctors do not have universal advice for all pregnant women on whether it is worth making this decision or not. However, many of them still tend to believe that any contraception - even one that may have negative side effects - is better than abortion. That’s why spreading awareness on means of contraception and free access to it is vital.

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Persuasive Essay Guide

Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Crafting a Convincing Persuasive Essay About Abortion

How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Abortion is a controversial topic, with people having differing points of view and opinions on the matter. There are those who oppose abortion, while some people endorse pro-choice arguments.

It is also an emotionally charged subject, so you need to be extra careful when crafting your persuasive essay .

Before you start writing your persuasive essay, you need to understand the following steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Position

The first step to writing a persuasive essay on abortion is to decide your position. Do you support the practice or are you against it? You need to make sure that you have a clear opinion before you begin writing.

Once you have decided, research and find evidence that supports your position. This will help strengthen your argument.

Check out the video below to get more insights into this topic:

Step 2: Choose Your Audience

The next step is to decide who your audience will be. Will you write for pro-life or pro-choice individuals? Or both?

Knowing who you are writing for will guide your writing and help you include the most relevant facts and information.

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Step 3: Define Your Argument

Now that you have chosen your position and audience, it is time to craft your argument.

Start by defining what you believe and why, making sure to use evidence to support your claims. You also need to consider the opposing arguments and come up with counter arguments. This helps make your essay more balanced and convincing.

Step 4: Format Your Essay

Once you have the argument ready, it is time to craft your persuasive essay. Follow a standard format for the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Make sure that each paragraph is organized and flows smoothly. Use clear and concise language, getting straight to the point.

Step 5: Proofread and Edit

The last step in writing your persuasive essay is to make sure that you proofread and edit it carefully. Look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or factual errors and correct them. This will help make your essay more professional and convincing.

These are the steps you need to follow when writing a persuasive essay on abortion. It is a good idea to read some examples before you start so you can know how they should be written.

Continue reading to find helpful examples.

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples

To help you get started, here are some example persuasive essays on abortion that may be useful for your own paper.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Persuasive Essay about legalizing abortion

You can also read m ore persuasive essay examples to imp rove your persuasive skills.

Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents both sides of an argument. These essays rely heavily on logic and evidence.

Here are some examples of argumentative essay with introduction, body and conclusion that you can use as a reference in writing your own argumentative essay.

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Abortion - Introduction

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

If you are looking for some topics to write your persuasive essay on abortion, here are some examples:

Should abortion be legal in the United States?
Is it ethical to perform abortions, considering its pros and cons?
What should be done to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions?
Is there a connection between abortion and psychological trauma?
What are the ethical implications of abortion on demand?
How has the debate over abortion changed over time?
Should there be legal restrictions on late-term abortions?
Does gender play a role in how people view abortion rights?
Is it possible to reduce poverty and unwanted pregnancies through better sex education?
How is the anti-abortion point of view affected by religious beliefs and values?

These are just some of the potential topics that you can use for your persuasive essay on abortion. Think carefully about the topic you want to write about and make sure it is something that interests you.

Check out m ore persuasive essay topics that will help you explore other things that you can write about!

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Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments.

According to the Guttmacher Institute , 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion.
The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.
Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
In the United States, 14 states have laws that restrict or ban most forms of abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
Seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In places where abortion is illegal, more women die during childbirth and due to complications resulting from pregnancy.
A majority of pregnant women who opt for abortions do so for financial and social reasons.
According to estimates, 56 million abortions occur annually.

In conclusion, these are some of the examples, steps, and topics that you can use to write a persuasive essay. Make sure to do your research thoroughly and back up your arguments with evidence. This will make your essay more professional and convincing.

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MyPerfectWords.com that provides help to students in the form of professionally written essays. Our persuasive essay writer can craft quality persuasive essays on any topic, including abortion.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What should i talk about in an essay about abortion.

When writing an essay about abortion, it is important to cover all the aspects of the subject. This includes discussing both sides of the argument, providing facts and evidence to support your claims, and exploring potential solutions.

What is a good argument for abortion?

A good argument for abortion could be that it is a woman’s choice to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is also important to consider the potential risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.

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Abortion Essay Writing Guide

Abortion is a controversial issue that has been at the center of public debate for decades. It is a multifaceted problem that can be discussed from different aspects, including legal, ethical, philosophical, moral, religious and medical. Also, abortion is a highly sensitive subject that leaves no one untouched. Everyone has an opinion or a personal experience related to abortion. The debate on abortion can take various forms, and likewise, there are different types of essays that can be written on the subject. This article offers an overview of the most common types of essays on abortion. A detailed description is given for each particular type, including its structure, outline, basic information on its contents, and tips for successful writing. Examples of well-written sample essays are also provided.

Essays on abortion can be divided into several categories which will be discussed below. The types include argumentative essays, persuasive essays, research papers, cause and effect essays, satirical essays and expository essays.

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY ON ABORTION

The argumentative essay is a type of writing which requires extensive investigation of a topic. The writer needs to collect and evaluate information and take a stand on the subject. Literature and previously published texts need to be researched with great scrutiny. This leads to a writer having in-depth knowledge on the subject and understanding different standpoints expressed by various authors. Based on that the writer can take his/her own position and then back it up with evidence. All argumentative essays involve stating a clear thesis and adhering to strict rules of reasoning. What argumentative essays are all about is establishing a position and then trying to convince the readers of the validity of one's points of view. Factual evidence is given to support one's opinion. To be able to do that, the writer should have explored the issue from various angles beforehand, collected facts, expert opinions, and statistics to support his/her claims.

Research and data collection are the first steps when writing an argumentative essay. After a topic and a position on it have been determined, the author goes on to develop an outline of the future essay. This allows for the basic structure of the essay to be established. The structure of the outline is as follows:

A thesis statement : the topic is reviewed in a general way setting the stage for the discussion that will ensue.
A smooth transition is made between the introduction and the body of the article, and later between the body and the conclusion.
Paragraphs forming the body of the article contain all relevant arguments, supported by different types of evidence, statistical, logical, factual, experiential, etc. Opposing views are also introduced with the evidence.
In the conclusion , the thesis is addressed once again and argued with regard to evidence presented.

When outlined in this way, the structure of an argumentative essay seems quite clear, but even so, when attempting to write an argumentative essay on abortion, you could have specific issues concerning that particular subject that need further explanation.

Abortion is a highly sensitive subject with people usually having strong feelings towards it and quite polarized opinions. A person is either strongly for abortion, therefore considering it as a question of personal freedom, or strongly against it, seeing it as a crime. Writing an argumentative essay is not about making statements but investigating them and finding supporting evidence for each of them. Before you can start doing that, it is important to choose and define the topic of the essay carefully. There is an almost indefinite number of possible topics you might choose, but they all come down to either looking at the problem from the pro-life perspective, which means being against abortion; or, from the pro-choice point of view, meaning being in favor of its legalization. When you decide on the perspective you would like to take, in-depth systematic research of the existing literature is needed to make an objective evaluation of the subject. No facts should be presented without backing evidence or testimonials given by recognized authorities on the subject. Since abortion is such an arguable topic, with two firmly opposed sides, both of them should be given careful consideration in your essay. But, as mentioned before, you are supposed to take a side and to give supporting evidence to your views, along with presenting the opposite opinion and arguments for it and then refuting it with evidence.

If, for example, you were to write an argumentative essay on why abortion should not be fully legalized, you would want to highlight four or five arguments supporting your opinion, backing them up with statistics, official standpoints of prominent figures and authorities, and other evidence. If you write your essay from a pro-life position, you could argue that a fetus is actually a human being from the point of conception, and, as such, has a right to live; it can feel pain, therefore, abortion causes suffering. These statements should be reinforced by medical evidence in the form of analysis of sonograms, which clearly show that after three months of gestation, human embryos are fully formed; they have a beating heart and a developed nervous system allowing them to feel the sensation of pain. By the time most abortions take place, the fetus can move his legs and arms, has fully developed fingers and toes and is a vibrant and thriving human being inside the mother's womb.

This would be the first argument in favor of the position you are taking when writing an argumentative essay. Another three or four solid arguments should follow. Next, you could look at the issue from the perspective of possible medical and psychological consequences for a woman. The procedure of an abortion potentially has significant health risks along with possible mental health issues following the psychological trauma of abortion. Another point is religion. The position of most major religious denominations has been made clear over the centuries and can be used as an argument here. A further point can be made with protection of human rights, rights of all humans including developing ones, which are usually referred to as fetuses.

When embarking on a journey of writing an argumentative essay, it is helpful to divide it into four or five sections beforehand and then simply add content to each section. This forms the outline of your essay and can make the process of composing your paper much easier. The outline starts with an introduction in which the topic is first addressed in a general manner. After that, the author should explain the importance of the subject, or why it is worth investigating. Finally, a thesis is formulated, with a short elaboration on it. So for example, if your subject is “Why abortion should not be legalized,” you would give a brief introduction of the problem and clarify your point of view by explaining why you believe that it should not be legalized. You could argue that it represents a murder because a fetus is already a human being from the moment of conception. You would point that out in the introduction section of your argumentative essay on abortion.

In the following section, which belongs to the body of the essay, you would start introducing arguments which favor your position and continue with disproving the opposing arguments. It is not ethical to only give evidence which proves your point. In the interest of objectivity, it is necessary to include evidence to the contrary. So, in this example, you would present the arguments of those who support the legalization of abortion, and then give evidence as to why they are mistaken. You could say that although a woman should not be coerced into raising an unwanted child, there are better options she can resort to instead of abortion. There are numerous couples whose desire for having children is denied by problems with infertility, and who would be willing and able to adopt a child and give it a loving home. By acknowledging the opposing views, you make your essay less arbitrary and more objective. You recognize, in part, the validity of views that are contrary to yours but go on to explain how they can be addressed without resorting to abortion. This makes an even more powerful point. The body of the essay usually has several paragraphs. In each paragraph, a single general idea is discussed, while keeping a logical link between the discussion of each idea and the thesis statement formulated in the introduction section.

The closing section of your essay is the conclusion. Since it is the part of your essay which would make the strongest impression on the reader, you should formulate it to be effective as well as logical. It should follow naturally the presented body of evidence, and make a synthesis of all the facts given in the body of the essay. No new information should be presented in this section. You restate your thesis, repeat the most important arguments and motivate your readers to continue thinking about the subject, suggesting an approach to abortion which would make the person considering it think more thoroughly about it, weigh all the options and only resort to it when absolutely necessary.

If you decide to support the opposing position, that abortion should be fully legalized, the structure of the argumentative essay stays the same. You state your thesis, write about the subject from the perspective of pro-choice advocates, and give arguments that support your point of view backing them with factual evidence, statistics and information coming from reliable sources. You can use articles written on this topic, opinions from renowned experts; give a historical overview of the issue, etc. Make sure to include enough evidential support for your position, as well as substantial refuting arguments for the opposing standpoint. An essay outline is essential to give an organized structure to your writing. In the introduction section, you would state your thesis about fully legalizing abortion and then go on to discuss it in terms of every woman having the right to decide for herself with no interference from society or the legal system. The body of the essay would present evidence to larger numbers of illegal and unsafe procedures being performed in countries with restrictive law policies towards abortion. Statistical data on complications following illegal abortions should further advance your cause. Other pro-choice arguments should ensue, discussing the issue in the context of health, demography, personal liberties, legislation, religion, etc. You can mention the expert opinions that fetuses that are not yet viable outside the womb cannot be considered to be independent human beings and that it is wrong for the government to decide on issues pertaining to a woman's body on her behalf.

Your essay than continues with the presentation of opposing arguments on which your opponent's position relies upon. Abortion is really a matter of perspective: when you consider it from the perspective of a developing fetus, you can argue that it has every right to live and thrive inside the mother's womb and to be born and have a life of its own. Conversely, from the mother's perspective, she has the right to have her privacy protected and not to be intruded on by the government, as well as the right to make decisions about her own body. You can discuss issues of congenital diseases and birth defects, age and socioeconomic circumstances of a mother, maternal physical and mental illnesses that could affect the unborn child and so on.

All the issues you dealt with in the body of the essay should be summarized in the conclusion section. Once again, this is the place for you to make your argument even more effective by restating the most important facts given throughout your essay, perhaps with a punch line that would make your view of the matter stand out from all other possible points of considering the problem at hand. You could refer to unwanted pregnancies that are in fact consequences of rape or incest, or situations when a child is bound to be born with a serious and debilitating health condition.

To sum up what is said on writing an argumentative essay, it consists of stating your position and then giving a comprehensive list of supporting and contrasting arguments with those in favor of your point of view, prevailing over those opposed to it. What you are doing is essentially trying to convince the reader of the validity of your opinion, while simultaneously discrediting the opposing opinions. Covering the issue with strong arguments is crucial, while also giving an evidence-based presentation of the other side's arguments, and then invalidating them convincingly. In argumentative essays on abortion, you give arguments supporting both opposing opinions. Here is a plan you can implement when listing the pros and cons concerning the subject of abortion in an argumentative essay:

a) Introduction, followed by two pro-points supported by evidence, then a con-point which is refuted and conclusion;

b) Introduction, followed by a con-point which is disputed, then two pro-points with supporting evidence and conclusion;

c) Introduction, three con-points which are disputed and conclusion;

d) Introduction, body of the essay consisting of two parts – in the first part three counterclaims are presented accompanied by refuting evidence, and in the second part, three claims are given with evidence to support them. All this is followed by a conclusion.

e) A pattern in which claims and counterclaims are given in an alternating order: introduction, a claim followed by supporting evidence, a counterclaim with refuting evidence, another claim with evidence, another counterclaim, and so on. The conclusion is given at the end as always.

The patterns a) - c) are suitable for short argumentative essays on abortion while patterns d) and e) are more suited for advanced college essays .

Always bear in mind that your opinions should be well supported by factual evidence, rational justifications, and testimonials given by experts, if available. Also, some counterarguments would need to be proven incorrect, or refuted; and others - shown to be irrelevant to the subject, or rebutted. Both approaches can be valuable in discrediting the other side's argument.

These suggestions on how to write an argumentative essay on abortion cover all the basic elements required to be successful. Should you, however, need additional assistance you can turn to sample essays on abortion that are readily available online and can give you a starting point for your own writing. You can follow the structure of these essays to ensure that your composition has all the necessary components presented properly. If you would like to find arguments for the debate on abortion, there is a wide array of those in the already written material. All that is left for you to do is to decide on the position you would like to take in this matter, whether it is the pro-choice or the pro-life argument that makes more sense to you.

Samples of argumentative essays each discuss different aspects of the abortion issue, some of them take a historical perspective, some discuss the problem from the legal point of view, yet others focus on human rights or even medical issues. These samples can provide a good basis for your work, an example of how an argumentative essay is supposed to be structured and which content is the most suitable for this type of essay. Abortion is obviously a multifaceted subject, and these examples can be your guide leading you in the right direction after you have decided on the position you would like to support. They offer a comprehensive overview of the subject, covering all possible angles some of which could have never crossed your mind before but are certainly worth mentioning.

The abundance of material available on the internet sometimes makes it hard and time-consuming to find what you are looking for, and it is easy to become overwhelmed. Free argumentative essays on abortion that are now available online can be time saving and inspiring, thus, allowing you to compose a well-structured and convincing essay in just a margin of time you would need if you were to start from scratch. It can be helpful to review already existing work to refine one's own standpoint and come up with a strategy for writing the assigned essay. After you have checked the sources used in sample essays for authenticity and reliability, you can also use them in your own work, instead of going through tons of books and articles printed in scientific journals.

Samples of argumentative essays can be used throughout the process of writing an argumentative essay on abortion. Also, when you have completed your work, you can compare it against the example essays to check if an important issue had been left out or if a significant line of arguments had been omitted. For instance, the issue of abortion can be covered from the medical point of view, including mental and physical health issues of the mother, as well potential risks to the health of the fetus. Or, you could approach it from the legal point of view, with statistical data on numbers of illegal and unsafe procedures in countries with restrictive legislation compared to those registered in countries with more permissive laws concerning abortion. Or, focus on the demographic point, discussing the overpopulation problem and the one-child, or two-children per couple policy which exists in some countries. Regardless of the perspective you choose, the arguments should always be logical, well-established and supported by expert opinions, statistical data as well as originating from reliable sources.

Here are some pointers on how you can successfully write an argumentative essay on abortion:

Research the subject thoroughly . You could be keen on starting your essay immediately, or you could feel it is a waste of time to investigate the topic extensively. It is actually never a waste of time. If you do not have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the subject, you will not be able to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources of information on the Internet and to reject those that are complete fiction or a matter of an author's personal biased opinion, which is not based on evidence.
Take your time . Never skip steps in a rush to get the work done. Your urge to get on with it is perfectly understandable, but you should try not to start writing until you have made extensive notes, covering all the major sides of the topic you wish to discuss. Go through your notes once again; check if there is anything you would like to add or if there are any unnecessary repetitions. Scrutinizing the material another time could produce more ideas or even induce you to continue your research if you find that your notes are not covering all the angles.
The introduction is crucial . Beginnings are always the hardest. You may even feel as if you were not up to the task, not competent enough or that the work that lies ahead of you exceeds your abilities. Forcing yourself to come up with ideas while staring at an empty piece of paper is never helpful. For starters, you can use one of the introductory sentences from existing papers. Once you get started, and your own work starts to flow, you can go back and change the opening line into something original. The introduction could contain some political or moral views, but avoid opening your essay with religious aspects of the subject as your readers could be easily upset or offended by those. There is no need to avoid the issue completely. You are free to discuss it in the following segments of your paper. Assure your readers that you have considered the topic in a serious and meticulous manner, which you can achieve by providing statistical data, references to reliable and well-trusted sources and by paying attention to the counterarguments as well as to arguments supporting your position.
Base your essay on facts . There are two sides to any story, and both of them must be portrayed impartially. You are writing an argumentative essay, so you need to set aside all prejudice and use only factual evidence to reinforce your claims. Being professional in presenting the evidence is imperative, because any attempt to bend the truth is bound to end in disaster, and only make you look unprofessional. Use the information you gathered. You have already learned how to write an argumentative essay from two opposing perspectives, so you are ready to start working on the main part of your essay – the body. This is where the bulk of advice for writing an argumentative essay lies, so pay close attention to the following:

If you decided to address the abortion issue from the pro-choice perspective, you would examine the problem from the angle of a pregnant woman. Perhaps the best policy is to avoid starting the essay with the issue of human rights since you can easily be trapped into the debate of whose rights are more important, those of a mother or those of a fetus. It is much safer to open with some medical information on pregnancy and abortion, as well as on safe ways to end a pregnancy before full term. This can be accompanied by statistical data but beware of boring your reader with tons of statistics. Try to apply just the right dose of statistical information to prove your point, but then use examples or personal stories to make the reading more lifelike and enjoyable. Here are some of the reasons a pregnant woman might want to induce miscarriage and not bring her pregnancy to term:

The continuation of pregnancy poses a great risk for the mother due to complications of the pregnancy or illnesses that might be exacerbated by pregnancy.
The risk of death during childbirth is significant for either the mother or the child or both.
There is a genetic abnormality in the fetus which will make it not viable after birth or condemn it to a life of suffering.
The pregnancy might be a result of rape or incest and bringing it to term, and raising the child afterward would pose a tremendous strain on an already traumatized woman.
The woman is too young for motherhood, both from the health perspective (given that such an early pregnancy might cause reproductive problems later on and put a young woman's health at serious risk), and from the socioeconomic perspective, because a teenage mother is not capable of providing for her child, and they would both most probably be living in poverty without financial means to provide them with opportunity for education.
The mother is mentally ill and cannot be expected to take good care of her child. Also, some mental illnesses are highly hereditary, so there is a strong possibility that the child would be affected.

There is also the controversial argument that the world is already overpopulated and that bringing an unwanted child to life is irresponsible since resources in some parts of the globe are getting scarce. You should be very careful if you choose to use this argument and expect to find some strong opposition.

You could also argue that fetus is not considered to be an independent person before birth, and therefore ending a pregnancy cannot be considered a murder. If the pregnancy is terminated early enough, the fetus is still not capable of experiencing pain, especially if nonaggressive methods of abortion are used. Therefore, it is up to the mother to make a choice. She should not be punished for conceiving an unwanted child since this can happen even with regular use of contraceptives.

The above-mentioned arguments are some of the most common claims you could make when writing an argumentative essay from the pro-choice perspective. Of course, you can think of other examples and add to the list.

If you decided to write your argumentative essay on abortion from the pro-life perspective, you should look at the issue from exactly the opposite angle, considering abortion murder and substantiating your claims with some of the following evidence:

Abortion is a medical procedure that can have serious consequences, both immediate and long-term, including heavy bleeding, damage to the woman's reproductive or other organs, sterility and even death.
Abortion is physically and psychologically traumatizing. A woman can regret having an abortion for the rest of her life. She is at great risk of mental health problems, depression or even suicide.
Since so many couples struggle with infertility, a woman carrying an unwanted child can easily find loving parents for her baby and avoid having an abortion.
Most major religions are opposed to abortions and consider them a sin. Of course, not everyone is religious, but still it is an argument worth mentioning.
The unborn child, like any other human being has rights but is unable to stand up for him/herself, so he/she needs protection from legal institutions.
Philosophically speaking, if abortion is easily accessible and done without giving it a lot of thought, what does that tell us about the value of human life? Here you can call upon your readers to think for themselves and perhaps to consider the issue more deeply than before.

Bottom line, take a side. If you did not have strong feelings before starting to investigate the issue of abortion more thoroughly, this is the point when you have gathered enough information to decide which side to take. You might have even changed the opinion you previously had in light of all the evidence you had never seen before. But now you really have to pick a side and to either write from the pro-choice or the pro-life perspective. You need to be sure why you have chosen a particular point of view, and believe in it yourself if you want to convince your readers of its legitimacy. In the closing part of your essay, you will recap some of the arguments given throughout the body of the text, possibly adding a personal touch to the concluding section allowing your readers to understand exactly why you decided to support this particular viewpoint.

PERSUASIVE ESSAY ON ABORTION

A persuasive essay is an essay in which the writer takes a stand for or against something and tries to convince the readers to accept it as true or compel them to do something. A persuasive essay can be created on the basis of any idea that you strongly believe in. There is no room for the opposing point of view; if you are ambivalent yourself, there is no way you will be able to convince anybody else. You should be very well informed on the subject. If not, you should try to expand your knowledge using multiple sources, all legitimate ones, such as expert opinions, statistical facts, logical reasons, etc. Knowing how to compose a persuasive essay is a skill everyone should learn since it can be widely used in a number of situations; for example, if you would like your boss to give you a raise, you would need to persuade him with strong arguments that you actually deserve it. Even if your readers previously thought exactly the opposite, you can learn how to convince them in the validity of your position and ultimately induce them to change their opinions.

In a persuasive essay on abortion, as mentioned before, there are two opposed sides and no middle ground between them. So after carefully reviewing the available literature and giving it some thought, it is time for you to decide on a thesis that would most accurately represent your own opinion on the topic. The thesis should be formulated in a single sentence and yet reflect a strong position. If for example, after going through all the factual evidence, you decide that abortion is just the wrong thing to do, you can write a persuasive essay from the pro-life position, proving that abortion is murder and, therefore, should be legally sanctioned as such. You can prove your point by asserting that a fetus is a human being from the point of conception and, therefore, has a right to live and anyone trying to deprive it of its right should be treated as a criminal.

In this type of essay, the introduction contains a hook which is used to secure the readers' attention. It can be a quote, an unusual fact, a question, an anecdote or even an exaggerated statement meant to induce a psychological shock, an emotional reaction which would compel your audience to continue reading. When writing an essay against abortion, it can be a quote from the Bible, citing the commandment saying “You shall not kill.” Or, it can be a medical fact on how the fetus already feels pain at six weeks gestation or a sentence taken from an interview you conducted with someone who underwent an abortion and later regretted it.

When writing the body of your persuasive essay, each paragraph should begin with a strong assertion, a mini-thesis of a sort, which would reinforce your claim from different angles adding to its persuasiveness with each succeeding paragraph. Do not forget to add a paragraph including concession statements. A concession is a form of anticipating what your readers might say against your opinion. You acknowledge it and then prove that the particular argument is not valid, or not applicable to the case you are presenting. The concession is not a weakness; it actually adds to the strength of your opinion since it shows you to be open for debate and willing to recognize that there are more sides to the matter than the one you are taking.

Apart from having a strong opinion on the subject, you must be able to communicate it in a logical and professional manner. As easy as it may seem to simply articulate your opinions, you have to follow certain rules if you want to persuade your readers that you are absolutely right. To do that, it is necessary to back your views with supporting evidence in the form of personal experience, statistical facts, and logical justifications. Especially when your statements involve something that is not instantly obvious or common sense, you should be prepared to support it with strong evidence. The evidence you rely on should be factual and objective; otherwise, it will hardly be plausible to your audience. Also, remember to keep your sentences short if you want them to convey a strong message. Only use one point per sentence; otherwise, you will only weaken the argument you are trying to make.

Persuasive essays are relatively short, the body of the essay usually comprising of no more than three paragraphs, out of which two are used for your claims supported by evidence, and one for a counterclaim, followed by refutation thereof. In your pro-life essay on abortion, you could go into detail describing the cruelty and inhumanity of abortion techniques. Pay close attention to conveying the medical information accurately; they are gruesome enough for the average reader to become appalled with and start supporting your position. In the next part of the body, you can portray the fetus as a developing human being, able to experience pain from an early gestational period. It has a beating heart starting at six weeks gestation. Go on to describe the intrauterine development of the bodily systems, explaining when a fetus starts to hear, sleep, open its eyes, has a sense of taste, etc.

You can continue by introducing the religious issue into your essay, citing the commandments and interpreting abortion as murder, therefore being a capital sin. The fetus originates from two human beings and can only be human, nothing else. Also, it is human from the point of conception, although the opponents argue that it cannot be considered a human being before it is viable outside the womb, or before it can exist independently. Nevertheless, its humanity from the conception on cannot be questioned.

After stating your two strongest claims, go on to mention the most common counterclaim and try to refute it with evidence, expert opinions, statistical data, etc. You could make use of the statistics on abortion which show the most unwanted pregnancies to happen in women of young age, of low socioeconomic background, low education, that are in abusive relationships, or currently have no partners at all. One might argue that these are not the best conditions to bring a baby to life. On the other hand, is abortion really the best solution? Should the society not do more for these women in dire need? For example, they can be offered free housing, help with childcare, educational opportunities, jobs. Since every abortion carries a risk of complications including future sterility, this might be a woman's only opportunity to become a mother.

To be persuasive while writing this type of essay, the topic you have chosen has to appeal to you personally. It should be something you feel strongly about and will, therefore, be able to argue it passionately. It should be a highly debatable topic, with two strongly opposed sides. Make sure that your position potentially has enough arguments that support it. If the counterarguments are overwhelming, you should choose another subject to write about.

As mentioned before, persuasive essays are relatively short, so after writing a solid introduction and three segments of the body of the paper, you should summarize the crucial elements of your argument and emphasize once again what you want your readers to believe, what you want them to feel or what action you want them to take. This makes the conclusion part of your essay. Use it to refresh your readers' memory on the important points you made throughout your essay and then add a personal comment at the end. You can close with a quotation which sums up what has been discussed and calls for more in-depth thinking or for taking action to make a difference on the subject. You could end it with a personal note, elaborate on why you took a personal interest in this matter or why it is important to you.

Although writing a persuasive essay on abortion can be a complex task, since it is a highly sensitive issue and everyone tends to feel strongly about it, you should try to be very clear in your points of view. Repeat the most important ones in conclusion, and do it in a meticulous and explicit way. Go through your essay once more, check if there is a nice and natural flow of ideas, if your arguments are relevant to the subject and well supported by evidence and if your conclusion follows your argumentation logically. Also, make sure that the counterarguments have been dealt with objectively and refuted beyond doubt. In the conclusion section of the essay on abortion, you would want to underline the importance of your point of view and induce the readers to start looking at the issue from your perspective.

Revise your essay both regarding content and form. Correct any spelling or grammatical errors, and make sure the writing style is satisfactory. You may need to rephrase something, rearrange the paragraphs in the body of the essay, rethink some evidence and possibly remove a particular argument for being unconvincing or substitute it with another. Remember your task is to persuade the audience of the validity of your claim. You are allowed to appeal to the readers' emotions as well as their common sense and logic.

What has been said on persuasive essays against abortion can also be applied to persuasive speeches against abortion. Similar to writing an essay, when drafting a speech, you also start with an outline, divide what you would like to say in a few segments, each explaining your position from different angles but in a well-defined and persuasive manner. When speaking against abortion, you open with a thesis, give supporting evidence to your claims in the main part of your speech, and close with a recapitulation, a short summary of your position and a call for action. When drafting an outline for your persuasive speech on abortion, do not forget to ask a few questions and then attempt to offer plausible answers to them in the course of your speech. You can talk about statistical data concerning the number of intentional terminations of pregnancies that are performed each year, different legislations on abortion all over the world and how they reflect on the abortion practice. You can bring up the issue of the procedure safety about maternal health; refer to the possible immediate and long-term consequences etc. There is also the issue of human rights of the fetus to be discussed. You do not want to appear bigoted or blindly conservative and oblivious of the instances when abortion is indeed a necessity. Discuss those cases further, talk about the physical and mental health problems of a mother, cover all the angles and leave no stone unturned, so to speak. Remain objective and rational while occasionally also engaging the audience emotionally.

There is an abundance of persuasive essay samples online. They can come in handy when preparing to write your own essay of this type. You can use them to extract ideas or to find reliable sources of information on the subject. To illustrate how a persuasive essay on abortion should look like, here is an example:

Abortion is a term used to describe a purposeful ending of a pregnancy by means of fetus or embryo removal before it is viable to survive outside the mother's womb. It is also called an induced miscarriage in contrast to miscarriages that occur spontaneously. It used to be illegal in most parts of the world but is gradually becoming legalized. The turning point in changing the legislation on abortion was the infamous Roe v Wade case in which it was ruled that the state was not entitled to interfere with a woman's right to privacy or to prevent her from having a pregnancy terminated at request. Regardless of the procedure now being performed legally in the U.S., it remains a controversial and highly debatable subject. There are even attempts to reverse the ruling and limit the availability of abortion. The public opinion is divided into two opposed groups, the pro-life and pro-choice advocates. The pro-life supporters argue that a fetus is a human being entitled to all the rights other human beings have and that abortion is the wrong thing to do from the moral, religious and human rights perspective. Conversely, the pro-choice groups insist on a woman's right to decide over her own body without the interference from the government. Termination of pregnancy has been a common practice for centuries. This was, however, not regulated by law. Nowadays, abortions are legal and available on demand in most of the developed world countries. Legislations vary from country to country and, sometimes, within a single country. In the most permissive legislations, abortion is allowed on broad grounds including on a woman's request, without any medical indications. Other countries only allow it in special cases including the pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, or cases when the fetus has severe congenital malformations. 97% of the countries, however, allow the pregnancy to be terminated when the mother's health is at risk. Although those in favor of abortion claim that a fetus feels no pain, that it is merely a “clump of cells”, this can be challenged as Doctor Maureen L. Condic, a professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, explains that embryos cannot be reduced to collections of human cells, they can grow, to mature, maintain a delicate physiological balance, and adapt to changing conditions. The embryos may not resemble a human being at the beginning, but Dr. Condic raises the question if our respect for human life should really depend on its appearance. The real-life stories of women faced with the dilemma of whether to terminate their pregnancy or not can be heartbreaking. Helen found out that her unborn son had a terrible congenital disease which would make his life filled with pain and misery. The laws on abortion gave her the right to decide if he was to be born or not. This, of course, was not an easy decision. The responsibility for this choice was overwhelming, and Helen had to make it. What would any of us have decided in a similar situation is hard to tell. To conclude, we could argue that the issue of abortion is a highly sensitive and debatable one. No one is left indifferent. Whether it is legally accessible through the health system or performed in illegal unsanitary facilities by unskilled people, it is still the reality of life. There are always circumstances under which women would resort to abortion. Everyone has their own opinions on the reasons that can be considered substantial enough to warrant a termination of pregnancy, no matter if they are economic, medical, social, or even personal. However, human life is precious and worth preserving with utmost care, so that a decision to terminate it should never be made lightly or without thinking.

This essay example could be used when writing a high school level essay on abortion, while a more advanced educational level requires substantiating it with more factual evidence and discussing them in more detail.

RESEARCH PAPER ON ABORTION

A research paper analyses a chosen subject from a particular perspective and argues a point. It involves going through tons of literature, scientific articles, books, encyclopedias and other sources but it cannot be reduced to presenting a collection of those. When it is finished, a research paper represents your own views on a certain topic, strongly supported by meticulously collected facts and pieces of information. You draw upon what you already know about the subject and try to determine what experts in the field have to say about it.

There are several steps in successful writing of a research paper :

Precisely defining the topic of your research paper . For example, a topic defined as “Abortion should be prohibited by law” is not considered good enough because it lacks precision. A better one would sound something like “Abortion should be prohibited by law since it involves killing a fetus that is already a human being.” In this way, the topic is narrowed down and made more precise. When trying to determine the specific topic you would like to write about, you can resort to literature or personal experiences of people who had confronted the issue. Next, you need to explain why you chose to investigate that particular aspect of abortion, to clarify why you regard it as an important subject.
Defining your thesis . It should be a debatable issue that involves facts which are verifiable and can be either confirmed or refuted. Keep your language professional and avoid using expressions like “I think” or “if you ask me,” etc. An example of a thesis on abortion could sound like “It is morally wrong and illegal to perform abortions since a developing fetus can already be viewed as a human being.”
Writing an outline . It serves as means of organizing your notes and making a list of everything you would like to include in your essay. You can divide your topic into subtopics and determine what each of them would contain. The outline consists of an introduction which has a thesis statement at the end, the body of the paper containing several points of argument such as information on legislation, statistical data, medical facts including the explanation of intrauterine fetal development, and a conclusion. The introductory section is supposed to be short and powerful in order to catch the readers' attention and induce them to continue reading. The body of the paper further discusses the main idea suggested in the introduction, and the conclusion summarizes all the main points made throughout the research paper and proves the postulated thesis. So if you have chosen to write a research paper against abortion, you would need to explain your standpoint, look for trustworthy sources of information on it, and use real-life stories of those who had undergone the procedure. Based on your outline, you can define research questions that you would like to answer in your paper. They could include the question of human rights, if, in fact, a fetus’s right to live should prevail over a pregnant woman's right to choose. Or, you could raise a legal question, if making abortion illegal would only raise the number of operations being performed in an unsafe manner; or, the religious question of what the Bible has to say on the subject.
Composing a draft . Focus your attention on the content, as this version of the text will later be revised and any grammatical or spelling mistakes corrected.
Writing a final draft . This version should meet the style requirements, and be free of any spelling or grammatical errors. It should only encompass ideas that are relevant and well supported by factual evidence. The required format of the paper should also be respected which includes adding citations and references, and a title page if requested.

Hopefully, these instructions will assist you in writing your own research paper. If however, you still find that the task exceeds your capabilities or time limitations, you can always order a research paper online .

CAUSE AND EFFECT ESSAY ON ABORTION

A cause and effect essay is a paper in which ideas are organized in such way as to determine why certain things occur, what is their cause, or what possible consequences could something have, what are its effects. Sometimes, there are lots of causes of a single effect, or conversely, different effects can be the outcome of a single cause. When writing this type of essay, your first step would be to determine whether you would like to focus on a cause, such as abortion, and then investigate its possible effects, like health-related complications or psychological issues such as grief, remorse or depression. Or, think if you would like to focus on abortion as an effect, and to examine the factors leading to it. The essay can have the purpose to inform or to persuade, and you would write it accordingly.

When discussing causes to an event, you should stay focused on those narrowly related to the event, and ignore any possible remote or indirect causes for which it could be rather difficult to prove that they played a role in the event. As always, you should support your claims with factual evidence, give examples to clarify your point and offer personal observations to elucidate your ideas further. Pay close attention to the terminology you use, qualify something as a cause only if there is strong evidence to support that qualification; otherwise, speak only of correlation or things occurring simultaneously or in succession but with no clear causal relationship. This is usually a five-paragraph essay, opened with an introduction, followed by two paragraphs discussing cause and effect separately and one in which these are combined, and ended with a conclusion. The instructions for writing a cause and effect essay seem rather straightforward, but should you require further assistance, you can find it online.

SATIRICAL ESSAY ON ABORTION

This sort of essay uses satire to criticize or ridicule the subject of discussion or make it absurd. Primarily, it is not meant to be funny or to amuse the audience, as much as it is intended to get your readers interested in what you have to say, humor being the shortest way to get someone's attention. A satirical essay uses hyperbole or exaggeration to accentuate things you would like to emphasize. Irony is also useful, in a way that saying the exact opposite of what you mean in an ironic way expresses your opinions even more effectively. Make jokes but be careful not to cross the line of good taste and risk offending the audience. When writing about a highly sensitive topic like abortion, you should be extra careful when using humor and irony. You could however quite easily get away with statements like “sex should be forbidden by law,” to point to the absurdity of certain claims that are usually made in connection with the termination of pregnancy.

EXPOSITORY ESSAY ON ABORTION

Expository essay is a type of essay in which a specific idea, or several ideas, are investigated, backed up with evidence, developed further into an argument which conveys the author's point of view on the subject. The means of accomplishing this task include providing definitions, contrasting opposing arguments, listing examples, analyzing what led to an event, etc. It can be written with very little preparation, as it usually does not require extensive research. It is more about your own thoughts on a subject, reinforced by real-life examples or other evidence. When the structure of the essay is concerned, this is a classic five-paragraph essay that starts with an introduction, develops into a three-paragraph body of the essay, and ends with a conclusion. If you are writing on the topic of abortion, you could define your thesis statement as “Abortion should be prohibited because it denies the fetus its human rights.” After composing an outline, you should think of illustrative examples that prove your point. Real life stories can be very useful in this type of essay, but be sure to connect them to the thesis consequently. Try to make your conclusion logical and to the point; it is likely to leave the greatest impression on your audience. If you follow these instructions carefully, writing an expository essay will not be a difficult task for you.

WRITING AN ABORTION ESSAY OUTLINE

After choosing a subject of an essay and doing thorough research on the available literature and other sources, what precedes the actual writing of a paper is drafting an outline. Most types of essays follow the same basic pattern:

Introduction in which the general idea on the topic is conveyed which is meant to grab the readers' attention. The topic is defined, and a thesis statement is formulated. When writing about abortion, the topic can be expressed as “Abortion should be prohibited,” and the thesis statement would be “Abortion should be prohibited because it denies the fetus its human rights.”
Body of the essay which consists of arguments linked to the thesis, backed with supporting evidence. Counterarguments should also be included followed by refuting evidence. Termination of pregnancy is such a controversial and debatable topic that it offers an abundance of possible claims and counterclaims to choose from. It is important to use only those that can be directly linked to the thesis.
Conclusion in which the thesis is restated, all the information is summarized and connected to the thesis.

OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION ON WRITING AN ABORTION ESSAY

Tons of written materials are readily available wherever you look. So what can you do to make your essay stand out from the multitude of similar essays and appeal to the audience? Well, first of all, you should determine who your audience or target group (or possibly a target person) is. It can be your high school teacher or a college professor who assigned you a writing project and who will grade your work afterward. It can be a group of classmates or peers or another social group. The tactic you will employ depends primarily on who you are writing for. If it is your teacher, your essay should instigate him to give you a good grade, if it is a person in charge of college admission, your aim is to convince them to admit you to college. But in the case of these two examples, there is not an issue of whether they would actually read your paper. They are required to do it; it is in their job description. Other audiences, however, are a completely different story. Since they are not obliged to read your essay, and can easily skip it and find something else to read, you need to catch their attention and make them interested in what you have to say.

Luckily, abortion is a topic which never ceases to be popular or widely debated. Nevertheless, you would need a good essay hook. A hook is a sentence or a phrase that attracts attention by presenting intriguing information which makes you want to continue reading and find out more about it. Consequently, you decide to read the essay through, which is exactly what the author wanted you to do. The hook is also dependent on who your audience is and what they want to read about. Do they simply want to be entertained, or do they need instruction on how to do something or how to resolve an issue? Or are they looking for answers to a particular question? When you have determined what your audience expects to get from reading your essay, you should try to formulate your hook in the way that corresponds to the readers' needs best. There is no simple formula how to do this. Just come up with one or two strong sentences to start your essay with, and you will successfully grab your readers' attention.

It is also necessary to determine the purpose of your essay. The purpose basically depends on the type of essay you are planning to write, whether it is an argumentative essay, a persuasive essay, a research study or any other kind which was previously discussed throughout this paper. In certain types of essays, the main purpose is to describe the subject in detail; in others, it is to persuade the audience to look at an issue from your particular point of view. A successful hook would be able to elicit an emotional response, and the type of emotions involved would depend on how you want your audience to feel after reading your essay, what is the desired effect that you aim to accomplish. In order to come up with a good hook for your abortion essay, it is always a good idea to read a few abortion essays written in a similar way, to evaluate them critically to determine what caught your attention and to find an advantage for yourself.

Some of the possible hooks for an abortion essay would be:

Is abortion a murder?
Whose child gets to be born?
Abortion – a solution to overpopulation
You are poor – get an abortion
It is your body – why should the government decide?

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TOPIC

The selection of a suitable topic is essential when planning to write an argumentative essay. Abortion being an extremely popular subject, there is almost no way you could go wrong. It all comes down to actually choosing a topic that suits you, that is in line with your personal opinions and points of view so that you can argue it convincingly. When it comes to abortion, there are two opposed fractions with basically no middle ground between them. They are the pro-life and pro-choice advocates. If you are not assigned to write from a particular position, simply go ahead and choose the one that is the closest to how you actually feel about the subject. Then you can decide to focus on different angles, including the religious point, the health issues argument, the legal aspects of abortion, the human rights issue, etc. Examples of good topics are: “Should abortion be fully legalized?”, “Is abortion a violation of human rights?”, “Is abortion morally right?”

CLOSING SECTION OF THE ABORTION ESSAY

The conclusion serves the purpose of recapitulating all that has previously been said in the course of the assignment. If your essay was rather long, then it is useful to summarize in short what has already been said on the subject. On the other hand, if your essay was a shorter one, you could just give a concise review of your argument. This is your chance to round up your major ideas, connect them all together and provide a closure for the subject you have been writing on, without completely shutting the discussion down, but rather creating a basis for continued thinking on the subject. When writing on abortion, there is an abundance of possible topics to choose from, such as:

Should the government have a say in ending a pregnancy?
Should a woman be required to undergo an abortion in specific cases?
How many abortions are women allowed to have in her lifetime?

Regardless of the specific content you decided to write about, the conclusion should contain a powerful message, perhaps putting the subject of the essay in a larger context or talking about the possible implications of the debated issue. The conclusion should make an impression on the audience; compel them to look at the problem from your perspective.

To become proficient in writing a high quality essay on abortion, the best policy is to adhere to the advice provided to you throughout this article, and combine what you have learned with reading several example essays that exist on the subject. It should equip you with tools necessary to get the structure of the essay just right, expand your knowledge on the topic as well as your vocabulary that you could later put to good use in your own paper, teach you how to use proper grammatical constructions and well-composed sentences. Apart from that, examples are indicative of the way a good essay should look like, what it consists of, where and how to formulate your thesis statement, how to secure a natural and logical flow of ideas, how to use a hook, how to link all the pieces of evidence and all the arguments to the thesis, and finally, how to write a strong conclusion that will convince your readers in the idea you are trying to put through.

There is absolutely no reason to start everything from scratch. Why waste time and energy on creating something that already exists, and has already been optimized by others? You can simply use the existing essays as sources of ideas, and make your own original work of art. You can combine solutions provided in multiple papers to accomplish the desired result. Also, if you experience a writer's block, you are temporarily unable to come up with fresh and original ideas, or lack time to do it, feel free to turn to the free essays on abortion available online. They will give you a much-needed push start, which you can later build on and make it original and stylish. All different types of essays on abortion, including the argumentative essay, the persuasive essay, the research paper, the expository essay, the satirical essay and the cause and effect essay can be found on the internet.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON WRITING AN ESSAY ON ABORTION

A possible way to address the issue of abortion is to look at it from a positive or a negative point of view. Depending on what you decide, you would either demonstrate its advantages or disadvantages. If you write from the advantages perspective, you will accentuate its good sides presenting them from various angles. From the legal point of view, it is much better to have permissive legislation that allows abortion on broad grounds so that women carrying unwanted children would not have to resort to illegal and unsafe procedures done by unskilled people in unsanitary conditions. Also, a woman should not be coerced to give birth to a child when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. From the social perspective, if a woman is too young, or still in school and with no income of her own, it would be better for her to postpone childbearing until she has finished school or found a decent job. This would potentially be beneficial for the child as well, as he/she would have better chances of growing up in a stimulating and loving environment. There is also the issue of terminating a pregnancy on medical grounds, when the mother's or the baby's life is in danger.

The issue of abortion can also be discussed in terms of philosophical questions it raises. Our modern society has still not reached a consensus when this sensitive issue is concerned. It remains a highly controversial topic. If you would want to argue it in a philosophical way you would need to formulate a plausible thesis, come up with arguments to support it and anticipate any possible counterarguments so that you can prepare a defense against them. You would need to create a comprehensive list of pros and cons and discuss each one of them in view of your thesis. An excellent philosophical essay on abortion has been written by Carl Sagan. He tries to ascertain at what moment is it considered that a fetus is a human being whose life should be preserved. He also raises the question of how it can be murder to kill a newborn infant, but not murder if it was killed just a day before. Was it not human then? Was the crime any less then? These are some of the most difficult questions to answer, and every profession involved in the issue has dealt with them in ways they can use in practice. Courts have ruled on the matter and stuck to their rulings; the medical profession has strict policies on when and on what grounds abortions can be performed. But the philosophical question of the value of human life, or indeed when the human life begins, remains open.

After having read these instructions and advice on how to write an essay on abortion, if you need further assistance, please contact our custom writing services , and a high-quality essay will be provided for you.

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Comparison/Contrast Essays: Two Patterns

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First Pattern: Block-by-Block

By Rory H. Osbrink

Abortion is an example of a very controversial issue. The two opposing viewpoints surrounding abortion are like two sides of a coin. On one side, there is the pro-choice activist and on the other is the pro-life activist.

The argument is a balanced one; for every point supporting abortion there is a counter-point condemning abortion. This essay will delineate the controversy in one type of comparison/contrast essay form: the “”Argument versus Argument,”” or, “”Block-by-Block”” format. In this style of writing, first you present all the arguments surrounding one side of the issue, then you present all the arguments surrounding the other side of the issue. You are generally not expected to reach a conclusion, but simply to present the opposing sides of the argument.

Introduction: (the thesis is underlined) Explains the argument

The Abortion Issue: Compare and Contrast Block-by-Block Format

One of the most divisive issues in America is the controversy surrounding abortion. Currently, abortion is legal in America, and many people believe that it should remain legal. These people, pro-choice activists, believe that it is the women’s right to chose whether or not to give birth. However, there are many groups who are lobbying Congress to pass laws that would make abortion illegal. These people are called the pro-life activists.

Explains pro-choice

Abortion is a choice that should be decided by each individual, argues the pro-choice activist. Abortion is not murder since the fetus is not yet fully human, therefore, it is not in defiance against God. Regardless of the reason for the abortion, it should be the woman’s choice because it is her body. While adoption is an option some women chose, many women do not want to suffer the physical and emotional trauma of pregnancy and labor only to give up a child. Therefore, laws should remain in effect that protect a woman’s right to chose.

Explains pro-life

Abortion is an abomination, argues the pro-life activist. It makes no sense for a woman to murder a human being not even born. The bible says, “”Thou shalt not kill,”” and it does not discriminate between different stages of life. A fetus is the beginning of life. Therefore, abortion is murder, and is in direct defiance of God’s will. Regardless of the mother’s life situation (many women who abort are poor, young, or drug users), the value of a human life cannot be measured. Therefore, laws should be passed to outlaw abortion. After all, there are plenty of couples who are willing to adopt an unwanted child.

If we take away the woman’s right to chose, will we begin limiting her other rights also? Or, if we keep abortion legal, are we devaluing human life? There is no easy answer to these questions. Both sides present strong, logical arguments. Though it is a very personal decision, t he fate of abortion rights will have to be left for the Supreme Court to decide.

Second Pattern: Point-by-Point

This second example is also an essay about abortion. We have used the same information and line of reasoning in this essay, however, this one will be presented in the “”Point-by-Point”” style argument. The Point-by-Point style argument presents both sides of the argument at the same time. First, you would present one point on a specific topic, then you would follow that up with the opposing point on the same topic. Again, you are generally not expected to draw any conclusions, simply to fairly present both sides of the argument.

Introduction: (the thesis is underlined)

Explains the argument

The Abortion Issue: Compare and Contrast Point-by-Point Format

Point One: Pro-life and Pro-choice

Supporters of both pro-life and pro-choice refer to religion as support for their side of the argument. Pro-life supporters claim that abortion is murder, and is therefore against God’s will. However, pro-choice defenders argue that abortion is not murder since the fetus is not yet a fully formed human. Therefore, abortion would not be a defiance against God.

Point Two: Pro-life and Pro-choice

Another main point of the argument is over the woman’s personal rights, versus the rights of the unborn child. Pro-choice activists maintain that regardless of the individual circumstances, women should have the right to chose whether or not to abort. The pregnancy and labor will affect only the woman’s body, therefore it should be the woman’s decision. Pro-life supporters, on the other hand, believe that the unborn child has the right to life, and that abortion unlawfully takes away that right.

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Abortion Essay Example

05 January, 2020

11 minutes read

Author: Elizabeth Brown

Composing essays is a must during your college studies. Sometimes, you might get a topic that you aren’t fully aware of. Or, you can fail to grasp the idea of what a particular essay topic requires you to reveal in your essay. An abortion essay, for example, has become one of the very on-going issues these days. Professors believe that elaborating an essay on such a topic can help a student learn how to develop appropriate arguments and ideas, even in the most sensitive essays. If you experience any difficulty with the abortion essay writing, you just need to take a few points into account. Regardless of your title, which can be either why abortion should be supported or why abortion should be illegal essay, you can master your writing just by acknowledging several essential facts about it.

Abortion Essay: Definitions, Goals & Topics

An abortion argumentative essay reveals the arguments for or against pregnancy termination. The main peculiarity of such an essay is that one can write it from different points of view. While one may strongly feel like composing an abortion arguments essay and advancing their positioning in terms of healthcare and research, others may think of this essay in terms of psychology and sociology. Regardless of the stance, it is necessary to carry out some preliminary research and make sure you operate on both your arguments and data accurately.

essay sample about abortion with introduction, body and conclusion

Abortion essays require the essay writer to stay tolerant and open-minded. The topic, the selection of arguments, vocabulary – all of these indicators should not offend people who are sensitive to the outlined topic.

All in all, the ultimate goal of an argumentative essay on abortion is to present the topic and provide arguments for and against it. It is likewise essential to give an insight into the subject, reveal its current state, and include most recent findings.

Abortion Essay Titles

When composing a title for an abortion essay, the first critical thing to keep in mind is transparency. The title should not create confusion or offend the reader. To select a title you would like to develop in your essay, decide whether you know why abortion is wrong essay, or if you favor supporting the topic. Here are some of the topics that will be easy to elaborate on in your essay about abortion:

Reasons why women in underdeveloped countries are inclined to abortions
Potential health hazard as a consequence of abortion
How different countries approach abortions
The reasons why calling abortion murder is inappropriate
Depriving a woman of the right to make an abortion is equal to depriving a woman of her freedom

Abortion Essay Structure

As you have already learned, a classical essay comprises three parts: an introduction, several body paragraphs (3-5), and concluding remarks. The abortion essay isn’t an exception. But a structure of an abortion essay should be very specific as it contains several fundamental points that differ from other essay types.

Introduction

First, you need to define abortion as soon as you start writing an abortion essay. Even though almost everyone in the world knows what abortion is, it is essential to state its interpretation. Later, you can mention recent findings or events that fairly make an abortion a topic of heated debate. At the end of an introduction, your primary task is to demonstrate your attitude to the topic. Namely, you need to write a short thesis statement that will mention your opinion. For instance, a thesis statement can be: “Should society decide for women what to do with their lives and bodies?”.

If you decide to support abortion in the essay, you may write the body part in the following way: 2-3 paragraphs supporting abortion + one counter-argument against abortion. Remember to provide arguments and support them, not just admit that abortion is good or bad.

Conclusion

When writing a conclusion, briefly summarize everything you mentioned in the text. You should come back to the thesis you mentioned in the introduction while writing it. Don’t forget to mention your own vision and attitude to a problem.

Best Tips For Writing Abortion Essay

Research comes first.

First of all, explore what is already said and written on the topic of abortions. Namely, don’t just read what people say and don’t make conclusions based on what image abortion has in the media. Instead, you may refer to recent research, speeches, and scientific papers by people whose findings are objective and not based on their subjective, emotional perception. Afterward, try to figure out what your attitude on the topic of abortions is. Are you an opponent of the topic, or would you rather support it?

Pay attention to introduction

An introduction is the most fundamental part of the whole paper. If writing an introduction seems to be too complicated, just refer to scientific papers. Find an attention-grabbing statement and feel free to use it in your paper. If possible, try to paraphrase it.

Think of the implications

Suppose you decided to write an essay as an opponent of abortions. Think of some possible implications that termination of pregnancy may have. Also, consider the hazard of continuing an unwanted pregnancy. Doing so is essential if you want to strengthen your arguments.

Be flexible

Since such a topic might be extremely sensitive, it is vital not to be critical. It isn’t a good idea to get emotional or, what is worse, judgemental in your paper. Demonstrate that even though you support a particular argument, you don’t exclude that the opposite argument may also hold true.

Abortion Essay Examples

Abortion implies a termination of pregnancy by removing the embryo from a woman’s uterus prior to its birth. Uncountable controversies and criticism have increasingly surrounded the topic of abortion. Even though most developed countries officially carry out a lot of abortions annually, this medical procedure is actively discussed in many countries. Today, a lot of people believe that pregnancies are terminated by women who are either underaged, poor, or promiscuous. A woman who terminates her pregnancy can also be mature, having kids already, married, happy, and wealthy. Women make this step due to multiple reasons. Should society take control over a female body and decide her and her kid’s fate, and does the prohibition of abortion indeed decrease the abortion rate?

Official prohibition of abortions isn’t likely to reduce the abortion rate. For example, gambling and prostitution have long ago been prohibited in many countries in the world. However, this doesn’t mean that the people don’t gamble and that particular women don’t make their living by engaging in prostitution. The same concerns abortions. Once abortions are prohibited on a state level, women will be left with nothing but a decision to find a person who will carry out an abortion illegally. Or, what is worse, women might induce a miscarriage on their own if they can’t find a specialist. While a medical abortion procedure is a safe way to terminate pregnancy, the latter is not. The risk of terminating pregnancy elsewhere or even at home might be incompatible with life. A lot of women die because of an unsuccessful pregnancy termination, which is way worse than a safe abortion in a medical institution.

A lot of infants in the US die during the first years, months, if not days of their life. This happens as a result of an inborn pathology. Pathology is usually diagnosed during pregnancy screenings. Since such screenings are performed at an early pregnancy phase, a woman can terminate pregnancy once such pathology is identified. The fact of the matter is that many pathologies are incompatible with life too. For each mother, watching her kid dying and knowing that she cannot help, even if she had all the money in the world, is devastating. And that’s even worse for a suffering child. This leads to the conclusion that terminating a pregnancy is the most humane decision in such a situation.

Prohibiting abortions often equals to forcing a woman to give birth to a child she does not want. The reasons for such an unwillingness are uncountable. First, a woman might not be mature enough, she might have kids already and no money to afford this child. Besides, her pregnancy might be a mistake not because of her fault. Indeed, 2 in 1000 women in the US are raped annually. Why should a woman be judged by her decision to terminate pregnancy which is a result of a sexual assault? Even in cases when no sexual assault took place, it is still irrelevant to shame a woman and criticize her for knowing what will be better for her. It is better to terminate a pregnancy than to give life to a child who will never be loved and secure and be an unsuitable fit for a woman at the same time.

Terminating pregnancy, on the other hand, is not just depriving an unborn child of a right to live a life he or she deserves. Regardless of the woman’s motives, she imposes risks on her health. First of all, an abortion undermines a woman’s emotional and mental health. Additionally, it might set risks for her physical health. Indeed, she might reduce her chances of getting pregnant again or increase further pregnancy complications. Besides, 7 in every 100 women face a risk of having parts of a fetus remaining in her womb.

Overall, abortion is solely a woman’s issue. It should not have anything to do with politics, religion, and disgrace. Bringing a child to the world is the responsibility of a woman who has enough grounds for making an appropriate decision. Although terminating a pregnancy might bring severe health risks, it erases the problems that might be even more severe, such as watching a child suffer and not being able to give them a childhood they deserve.

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Ethical Research Paper Topics

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How the Right to Legal Abortion Changed the Arc of All Women’s Lives

By Katha Pollitt

Prochoice demonstrators during the March for Women's Lives rally organized by NOW Washington DC April 5 1992.

I’ve never had an abortion. In this, I am like most American women. A frequently quoted statistic from a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which reports that one in four women will have an abortion before the age of forty-five, may strike you as high, but it means that a large majority of women never need to end a pregnancy. (Indeed, the abortion rate has been declining for decades, although it’s disputed how much of that decrease is due to better birth control, and wider use of it, and how much to restrictions that have made abortions much harder to get.) Now that the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn Roe v. Wade sometime in the next few years—Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion, and Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri have passed “heartbeat” bills that, in effect, ban abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy, and any of these laws, or similar ones, could prove the catalyst—I wonder if women who have never needed to undergo the procedure, and perhaps believe that they never will, realize the many ways that the legal right to abortion has undergirded their lives.

Legal abortion means that the law recognizes a woman as a person. It says that she belongs to herself. Most obviously, it means that a woman has a safe recourse if she becomes pregnant as a result of being raped. (Believe it or not, in some states, the law allows a rapist to sue for custody or visitation rights.) It means that doctors no longer need to deny treatment to pregnant women with certain serious conditions—cancer, heart disease, kidney disease—until after they’ve given birth, by which time their health may have deteriorated irretrievably. And it means that non-Catholic hospitals can treat a woman promptly if she is having a miscarriage. (If she goes to a Catholic hospital, she may have to wait until the embryo or fetus dies. In one hospital, in Ireland, such a delay led to the death of a woman named Savita Halappanavar, who contracted septicemia. Her case spurred a movement to repeal that country’s constitutional amendment banning abortion.)

The legalization of abortion, though, has had broader and more subtle effects than limiting damage in these grave but relatively uncommon scenarios. The revolutionary advances made in the social status of American women during the nineteen-seventies are generally attributed to the availability of oral contraception, which came on the market in 1960. But, according to a 2017 study by the economist Caitlin Knowles Myers, “The Power of Abortion Policy: Re-Examining the Effects of Young Women’s Access to Reproductive Control,” published in the Journal of Political Economy , the effects of the Pill were offset by the fact that more teens and women were having sex, and so birth-control failure affected more people. Complicating the conventional wisdom that oral contraception made sex risk-free for all, the Pill was also not easy for many women to get. Restrictive laws in some states barred it for unmarried women and for women under the age of twenty-one. The Roe decision, in 1973, afforded thousands upon thousands of teen-agers a chance to avoid early marriage and motherhood. Myers writes, “Policies governing access to the pill had little if any effect on the average probabilities of marrying and giving birth at a young age. In contrast, policy environments in which abortion was legal and readily accessible by young women are estimated to have caused a 34 percent reduction in first births, a 19 percent reduction in first marriages, and a 63 percent reduction in ‘shotgun marriages’ prior to age 19.”

Access to legal abortion, whether as a backup to birth control or not, meant that women, like men, could have a sexual life without risking their future. A woman could plan her life without having to consider that it could be derailed by a single sperm. She could dream bigger dreams. Under the old rules, inculcated from girlhood, if a woman got pregnant at a young age, she married her boyfriend; and, expecting early marriage and kids, she wouldn’t have invested too heavily in her education in any case, and she would have chosen work that she could drop in and out of as family demands required.

In 1970, the average age of first-time American mothers was younger than twenty-two. Today, more women postpone marriage until they are ready for it. (Early marriages are notoriously unstable, so, if you’re glad that the divorce rate is down, you can, in part, thank Roe.) Women can also postpone childbearing until they are prepared for it, which takes some serious doing in a country that lacks paid parental leave and affordable childcare, and where discrimination against pregnant women and mothers is still widespread. For all the hand-wringing about lower birth rates, most women— eighty-six per cent of them —still become mothers. They just do it later, and have fewer children.

Most women don’t enter fields that require years of graduate-school education, but all women have benefitted from having larger numbers of women in those fields. It was female lawyers, for example, who brought cases that opened up good blue-collar jobs to women. Without more women obtaining law degrees, would men still be shaping all our legislation? Without the large numbers of women who have entered the medical professions, would psychiatrists still be telling women that they suffered from penis envy and were masochistic by nature? Would women still routinely undergo unnecessary hysterectomies? Without increased numbers of women in academia, and without the new field of women’s studies, would children still be taught, as I was, that, a hundred years ago this month, Woodrow Wilson “gave” women the vote? There has been a revolution in every field, and the women in those fields have led it.

It is frequently pointed out that the states passing abortion restrictions and bans are states where women’s status remains particularly low. Take Alabama. According to one study , by almost every index—pay, workforce participation, percentage of single mothers living in poverty, mortality due to conditions such as heart disease and stroke—the state scores among the worst for women. Children don’t fare much better: according to U.S. News rankings , Alabama is the worst state for education. It also has one of the nation’s highest rates of infant mortality (only half the counties have even one ob-gyn), and it has refused to expand Medicaid, either through the Affordable Care Act or on its own. Only four women sit in Alabama’s thirty-five-member State Senate, and none of them voted for the ban. Maybe that’s why an amendment to the bill proposed by State Senator Linda Coleman-Madison was voted down. It would have provided prenatal care and medical care for a woman and child in cases where the new law prevents the woman from obtaining an abortion. Interestingly, the law allows in-vitro fertilization, a procedure that often results in the discarding of fertilized eggs. As Clyde Chambliss, the bill’s chief sponsor in the state senate, put it, “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.” In other words, life only begins at conception if there’s a woman’s body to control.

Indifference to women and children isn’t an oversight. This is why calls for better sex education and wider access to birth control are non-starters, even though they have helped lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies, which is the cause of abortion. The point isn’t to prevent unwanted pregnancy. (States with strong anti-abortion laws have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country; Alabama is among them.) The point is to roll back modernity for women.

So, if women who have never had an abortion, and don’t expect to, think that the new restrictions and bans won’t affect them, they are wrong. The new laws will fall most heavily on poor women, disproportionately on women of color, who have the highest abortion rates and will be hard-pressed to travel to distant clinics.

But without legal, accessible abortion, the assumptions that have shaped all women’s lives in the past few decades—including that they, not a torn condom or a missed pill or a rapist, will decide what happens to their bodies and their futures—will change. Women and their daughters will have a harder time, and there will be plenty of people who will say that they were foolish to think that it could be otherwise.

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The Messiness of Reproduction and the Dishonesty of Anti-Abortion Propaganda

By Jia Tolentino

A Supreme Court Reporter Defines the Threat to Abortion Rights

By Isaac Chotiner

By Margaret Talbot

There’s a Better Way to Debate Abortion

Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach.

Opponents and proponents of abortion arguing outside the Supreme Court

If Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization becomes law, we will enter a post– Roe v. Wade world in which the laws governing abortion will be legislatively decided in 50 states.

In the short term, at least, the abortion debate will become even more inflamed than it has been. Overturning Roe , after all, would be a profound change not just in the law but in many people’s lives, shattering the assumption of millions of Americans that they have a constitutional right to an abortion.

This doesn’t mean Roe was correct. For the reasons Alito lays out, I believe that Roe was a terribly misguided decision, and that a wiser course would have been for the issue of abortion to have been given a democratic outlet, allowing even the losers “the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight,” in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Instead, for nearly half a century, Roe has been the law of the land. But even those who would welcome its undoing should acknowledge that its reversal could convulse the nation.

From the December 2019 issue: The dishonesty of the abortion debate

If we are going to debate abortion in every state, given how fractured and angry America is today, we need caution and epistemic humility to guide our approach.

We can start by acknowledging the inescapable ambiguities in this staggeringly complicated moral question. No matter one’s position on abortion, each of us should recognize that those who hold views different from our own have some valid points, and that the positions we embrace raise complicated issues. That realization alone should lead us to engage in this debate with a little more tolerance and a bit less certitude.

Many of those on the pro-life side exhibit a gap between the rhetoric they employ and the conclusions they actually seem to draw. In the 1990s, I had an exchange, via fax, with a pro-life thinker. During our dialogue, I pressed him on what he believed, morally speaking , should be the legal penalty for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who performs one.

My point was a simple one: If he believed, as he claimed, that an abortion even moments after conception is the killing of an innocent child—that the fetus, from the instant of conception, is a human being deserving of all the moral and political rights granted to your neighbor next door—then the act ought to be treated, if not as murder, at least as manslaughter. Surely, given what my interlocutor considered to be the gravity of the offense, fining the doctor and taking no action against the mother would be morally incongruent. He was understandably uncomfortable with this line of questioning, unwilling to go to the places his premises led. When it comes to abortion, few people are.

Humane pro-life advocates respond that while an abortion is the taking of a human life, the woman having the abortion has been misled by our degraded culture into denying the humanity of the child. She is a victim of misinformation; she can’t be held accountable for what she doesn’t know. I’m not unsympathetic to this argument, but I think it ultimately falls short. In other contexts, insisting that people who committed atrocities because they truly believed the people against whom they were committing atrocities were less than human should be let off the hook doesn’t carry the day. I’m struggling to understand why it would in this context.

There are other complicating matters. For example, about half of all fertilized eggs are aborted spontaneously —that is, result in miscarriage—usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Focus on the Family, an influential Christian ministry, is emphatic : “Human life begins at fertilization.” Does this mean that when a fertilized egg is spontaneously aborted, it is comparable—biologically, morally, ethically, or in any other way—to when a 2-year-old child dies? If not, why not? There’s also the matter of those who are pro-life and contend that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being but allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That is an understandable impulse but I don’t think it’s a logically sustainable one.

The pro-choice side, for its part, seldom focuses on late-term abortions. Let’s grant that late-term abortions are very rare. But the question remains: Is there any point during gestation when pro-choice advocates would say “slow down” or “stop”—and if so, on what grounds? Or do they believe, in principle, that aborting a child up to the point of delivery is a defensible and justifiable act; that an abortion procedure is, ethically speaking, the same as removing an appendix? If not, are those who are pro-choice willing to say, as do most Americans, that the procedure gets more ethically problematic the further along in a pregnancy?

Read: When a right becomes a privilege

Plenty of people who consider themselves pro-choice have over the years put on their refrigerator door sonograms of the baby they are expecting. That tells us something. So does biology. The human embryo is a human organism, with the genetic makeup of a human being. “The argument, in which thoughtful people differ, is about the moral significance and hence the proper legal status of life in its early stages,” as the columnist George Will put it.

These are not “gotcha questions”; they are ones I have struggled with for as long as I’ve thought through where I stand on abortion, and I’ve tried to remain open to corrections in my thinking. I’m not comfortable with those who are unwilling to grant any concessions to the other side or acknowledge difficulties inherent in their own position. But I’m not comfortable with my own position, either—thinking about abortion taking place on a continuum, and troubled by abortions, particularly later in pregnancy, as the child develops.

The question I can’t answer is where the moral inflection point is, when the fetus starts to have claims of its own, including the right to life. Does it depend on fetal development? If so, what aspect of fetal development? Brain waves? Feeling pain? Dreaming? The development of the spine? Viability outside the womb? Something else? Any line I might draw seems to me entirely arbitrary and capricious.

Because of that, I consider myself pro-life, but with caveats. My inability to identify a clear demarcation point—when a fetus becomes a person—argues for erring on the side of protecting the unborn. But it’s a prudential judgment, hardly a certain one.

At the same time, even if one believes that the moral needle ought to lean in the direction of protecting the unborn from abortion, that doesn’t mean one should be indifferent to the enormous burden on the woman who is carrying the child and seeks an abortion, including women who discover that their unborn child has severe birth defects. Nor does it mean that all of us who are disturbed by abortion believe it is the equivalent of killing a child after birth. In this respect, my view is similar to that of some Jewish authorities , who hold that until delivery, a fetus is considered a part of the mother’s body, although it does possess certain characteristics of a person and has value. But an early-term abortion is not equivalent to killing a young child. (Many of those who hold this position base their views in part on Exodus 21, in which a miscarriage that results from men fighting and pushing a pregnant woman is punished by a fine, but the person responsible for the miscarriage is not tried for murder.)

“There is not the slightest recognition on either side that abortion might be at the limits of our empirical and moral knowledge,” the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in 1985. “The problem starts with an awesome mystery: the transformation of two soulless cells into a living human being. That leads to an insoluble empirical question: How and exactly when does that occur? On that, in turn, hangs the moral issue: What are the claims of the entity undergoing that transformation?”

That strikes me as right; with abortion, we’re dealing with an awesome mystery and insoluble empirical questions. Which means that rather than hurling invective at one another and caricaturing those with whom we disagree, we should try to understand their views, acknowledge our limitations, and even show a touch of grace and empathy. In this nation, riven and pulsating with hate, that’s not the direction the debate is most likely to take. But that doesn’t excuse us from trying.

Abortion - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Abortion is a highly contentious issue with significant moral, legal, and social implications. Essays on abortion could explore the various aspects of the debate including the ethical dimensions, the legal frameworks governing abortion, and the social attitudes surrounding it. They might delve into historical changes in public opinion, the different arguments presented by pro-life and pro-choice advocates, and the impact of legal rulings on the accessibility and safety of abortion services. Discussions could also explore the intersection of abortion with issues like gender equality, religious freedom, and medical ethics. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Abortion you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Issue of Sex-Selective Abortion

Sex-selective abortion is the practice of ending a pregnancy due to the predicted gender of the baby. It has been occurring for centeriues in many countries many people believe that males are more valuable than females. This practice has been happening in many Asian countries but even in the US many Asians still hold strong to those beliefs. Due to these beleifs there is a huge shift in sex ratio in Asian countries. People are using the technology to determine […]

Abortion and Women’s Rights

In spite of women's activist desires, the matter of conceptive decision in the United States was not settled in 1973 by the important Supreme Court choice on account of Roe v. Wade. From the beginning there was animal-like restriction by the Catholic Church. Anyway, in the course of at least the last 20 years, the too early or soon birth discussion has changed into a definitely spellbound, meaningful debate between two differentiating societal talks that are moored to the problems […]

Women’s Rights in the United States in the 1970s

In the 1940’s-1960’s, there was a blurred distinction between clinical and sexual exams within the medical field (Wendy Kline, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry). For example, many male doctors would provide pelvic exams as a means to teach women sex instruction, and were taught to assert their power over their patients. This led to women instituting new training programs for proper examinations, creating a more gentle and greatly-respected method of examining women and their bodies. There was also an increase […]

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Abortion: a Woman’s Choice

Women have long been criticized in every aspect of their lives. They have even little to no choice about how to live their lives. Much like, abortion, which is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. It has been one of the most sensitive topics, society sees it as a murderous act. On, January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled on making the availability of abortion […]

Abortion: the most Debated Topic

There is no question that abortion is one of the most debated topics of the last 50 years. Women all over the United States tend to feel passionately over one side or the other, either pro-choice or anti-abortion. Not one to shy away from controversial subjects, I chose this topic to shed light on both sides of the ethical and moral decision of this important issue surrounding a termination of pregnancy. There is no question the gravity of this decision, […]

Women’s Rights to Choose

Every person in the United States is granted inalienable rights, whether it be to practice their own religion or vote, which should include autonomy over their own bodies. A woman should have the right to choose what she does with her own body, and in 1973 that became a possibility for American women. In 1973 Roe v. Wade made it possible for women to legally choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies within their first two trimesters. The government finally took into […]

Don Marquis’s View on Abortion

Don Marquis begins his argument of abortion being immoral by mentioning the pro-choice premise, which was that the statement of a fetus is never a person being too narrow. It's too narrow because if the fetus is never a person, then what would be the difference of a 9-month-old fetus and a newborn baby? That would just mean that infanticide isn't considered murder because a 9-month-old fetus and newborn weren't ever considered to be a person. Marquis further mentions that […]

Effects of Abortion on Young Women

Abortion is defined as the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. It is a controversial conversation that most people avoid having. Abortion is different than most issues in politics, because it directly impacts women, rather than men. Young women being targeted over the last forty-five years, has changed the way the public views abortion and what it does to women. A rise in physical complications, mental health problems, and the modern wave of feminism are the effects of legalized abortion […]

The Murder of Innocence

Abortion is a new generation's way of shrugging off accountability of their action at the cost of human life agreeing to the first revision to the structure that says we have the proper way to give of discourse. Me personally for one beyond any doubt that most of us would agree to the reality that ready to say and do what we need and select. For it is our choice to control of speech our conclusions. In connection, moms at […]

The History of Abortion

The history of abortion' is more complex than most people realize. There has been a lot of debate in the past few years about abortion being murder/not murder. Abortion has become illegal in most states. There are several women who believe in "pro-choice" which means they want to have a choice taking care of the baby. I, personally, believe abortion is murder. You are killing a fetus that is going to be born within months and they don't have a […]

Abortion: Go or no Go

Premature birth ends a pregnancy by killing an actual existence yet the mother isn't accused of homicide. Is this right? Shockingly, this has happened roughly twenty million times in the previous twenty years. Tragically, in South Africa, an unborn human has been slaughtered lawfully because of the nation's insufficient laws! The enemy of a honest unprotected human is a killer, accordingly, the individual merits the discipline proportional to a killer by law. Premature birth on interest just gives a mother […]

Abotion: Right or Wrong

When does a person learn right from wrong? Is someone that knows right from wrong, different from someone who does not? These questions bring up the topic of the difference between a "Human" and a "Person". A human would be of human genetics and have a certain build. On the other hand, a human can also not be a person at certain points in the stage of life. If you can distinguish right from wrong, and are able to make […]

Let’s Talk about my Abortion Article

Why is something that requires two people, almost always considered the woman's problem? Every answer to this question is different, more aggressive in some cases, but it narrows down to basic human rights. Now you may be asking "What the hell is she talking about?" and I can assure you, we will get to that. I'd like for you to first put yourself in a situation: You're given a puppy, yet you're allergic to dogs and absolutely do not have […]

Debates on Abortion Theme

Abortion has proved to be a highly controversial topic in religion, politics, and even ethics. Its debate has caused division between factions with some supporting and others opposing its practice. This issue has also landed in the realm of philosophy where several ethicists have tried to explain why they think the method should either be supported or opposed. This essay looks at the works of Judith Thomson and Don Marquis as a representation of both sides of arguments (advocates and […]

Abortion on Teens should be Abolished

Am sure we have all heard of the girl meets boy story, where the girl falls in love with the boy despite receiving plenty of warnings and criticism from any person who has ever mattered in the girl's life. Everything is merry and life is good for the girl until one day she realizes she has missed her period and rushes to her man's home telling herself that everything will be okay. Reality checks in, hard, when the boy declines […]

The Mother and Abortion

For Gwendolyn Brooks, writing poetry that would be considered out of the ordinary and frowned upon was a common theme for her. Her widespread knowledge on subjects like race, ethnicity, gender, and even abortion placed this African American poet apart from many others. Like many poets, Brooks based many of her works on her own life experiences. Although it's unclear whether or not Brooks had an abortion herself, she creates hints and provokes strong feelings towards the issue, revealing the […]

An Issue of Women’s Reproductive Rights

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that men and women are created equal (Elizabeth Cady Stanton). In America this has been the basis of what our nation stands for. It is stated that every citizen has the right to equality that shall not be stripped away, in many cases that is not true. Whether man or women you should possess the same rights, but more often than not the women's rights are taken away. There are many instances in […]

What is Abortion

Every year, approximately 40-50 million abortions are conducted. That's about 125,000 little human beings being vacuumed, sucked out, and dissolved, everyday. That's 1 baby being aborted every 26 seconds. As of 58% of Americans think abortion should be legal.. Only 37% thinks it should be illegal in all, Or most cases. Abortion should be eliminated because it is murder, gives women mental health issues, and can cause high risks in the mother's future baby's health. There are two different types […]

The Complex Debate: Exploring Abortion Laws and their Implications

There has been a disputed discussion in history among religious, political, ethical, moral and practical grounds when it comes to the case about abortion. Abortion law forbids, allows, limits and governs the availability of abortion. Abortion laws alter to a high degree by country. For example, three countries in Latin America and two others in Europe ban the act of abortion altogether. In other countries like the United Kingdom contains the abortion act of 1967 that clarifies and prescribes abortion […]

My Beliefs on Abortion

Society today condones the killing of a life, they call it abortion, but I will try to show you why this is wrong. Life begins at conception. The Bible provides proof that God knew us before we were even formed. This provides truth that what is inside a woman's body is a human life. I believe that when you decide to have an abortion, you are deciding to kill an innocent baby. Whether you're doing it because the baby may […]

Research on Abortion Issues

The raging battle for women's rights can be found in almost every avenue of American culture. Whether it be in the workplace, in the government, in churches, or within families, females are fighting for their freedom to control their own lives. They want to work in whichever field they desire, to love whomever they want, and to make decisions for themselves. One of the biggest cases in the quarrel for feminism is the legalization of abortion. Women argue that it […]

Reasons the Constitution of Texas should be Rewritten

The constitution of Texas was written in 1876 but this constitution is not successful in this modern time. Rules and set of protocols which are written in this constitution are not valid for urban Texas these rules need to be amended. From the time of the adoption of this constitution, a total number of 653 amendments were proposed and out of these 653 a total of 474 amendments were approved by the voters and 179 were rejected. Some ?urrent political […]

Get Rid of Abortion or Not?

The world includes a huge variety of people who share different beliefs and morals, however, the Bible states that no one should judge others. One is supposed to respect another for whom they are as a person. The people in this world are beginning to divide because of the debate concerning if abortion is right, or if it is wrong. People identifying themselves to be pro-choice are in support of abortion because they believe a woman should be allowed to […]

Abortion Issues in Modern World

Premature birth alludes to the end of a pregnancy by evacuating or removing the baby or fetus from the uterus before it is prepared for birth. There are two noteworthy types of premature birth: unconstrained, which is regularly alluded to as an unsuccessful labor or the intentional fetus removal, which is frequently instigated fetus removal. The term fetus removal is normally used to allude to the prompted premature birth, and this is the premature birth, which has been loaded up […]

My Understanding of Abortion

Life has a beginning and an end and every individual knows this, as much as they may not want to know or understand it. An abortion, however, brings a thought to many people within our modern society: Is a baby alive before it is born? There are many ways to look at this but scientist have found out that there is an age of viability, where a baby is considered alive after a certain period of a woman's pregnancy. Before […]

Potential Factors that Influence Abortion

When it comes to women and unplanned pregnancies, there are alternatives other than abortions that a woman can use who and go for who isn't interested in having a child. Adoptions could be one of those alternatives; however, some women can't bear the thought of actually carrying a child. Therefore, they turn to their only option which is the abortion. For women, there are several reasons that may lead to them wanting to have an abortion. According to Stacey (2018), […]

The Status of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights

The consequences of sexual behaviour between women and men have driven a desire and determination of women to control their fertility, yet in an environment in which anti-choice legislators and organizations do not protect women's reproductive rights, there is an ongoing dispute on who decides the fate of such rights. The status of women's sexual and reproductive rights remains controversial and while there have been many attempts to gain such basic human right, the fight for reproductive freedoms remains intense. […]

Abortion and Fathers Rights

In this section I will be focusing on the fathers' situation before and after conception, and bring out arguments how he could effectively avoid becoming a parent in any way (biological, bearer of financial costs, emotional). The father after conception has no alternatives left, unlike the mother has. She is in a position that can terminate the pregnancy by opting for an abortion, or she can carry out (or at least try to) the pregnancy until the end. The father […]

Abstinence only Vs. Abortion Rates

If an individual decides to have premarital sex and becomes pregnant it is likely that they will be shamed by someone no matter what decision they make. If they decide to keep the baby they will be shamed. If they decided to put the baby up for adoption they will be shamed. If they decide to get an abortion they will be shamed. Although the United States of America was founded on the ideas of freedom of religion and the […]

Why Abortion should be Illegal

Abortion is an issue in today’s society, people that agree or disagree about taking an innocent life away. Even though women now have the legal right to decide what to do with their bodies and to decide whether to end a baby’s life, there are options other than abortions. Each and every life is valuable, and babies should be able to experience a future ahead of them. Abortions should be illegal. Making abortion illegal could allow children to live a […]

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why abortion is legal.

Due to the outcome of a Supreme Court hearing, abortion is completely legal. In 1973, the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe vs Wade provided people legal access to abortion across the entire country. While legal, some doctors will not perform abortions.

How Abortion Affects Economy?

Women who have access to legal abortion will have the ability to continue their education and careers. Women denied an abortion because of gestational limits are more than 80% more likely to experience bankruptcy or face eviction.

Where Abortion is Illegal?

Abortion is legal in the entire country of the US, but some states have restrictions based on gestational status, fetal fatal conditions, and even rape. Other countries around the world have different laws and some have completely outlawed abortion, including Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.

Will Abortion Affect Health?

Women who have an abortion by a medical professional are at no risk for future pregnancies and there are no risks to overall health. Abortions do not increase any risk of breast cancer or have any effect on fertility.

Is Abortion Morally Justifiable?

This will depend on the person and their beliefs. Many women find abortion to be moral and a choice they are allowed to make in regards to their own bodies. Some religions have a strict stance on abortion and deem it immoral, regardless of the reason.

How To Write an Essay About Abortion

Introduction to the topic of abortion.

Abortion is a deeply complex and often controversial topic, encompassing a range of ethical, legal, and social issues. In your essay's introduction, it is important to define abortion and the various viewpoints and ethical considerations surrounding it. This introduction should establish the scope of your essay, whether you are focusing on the moral arguments, the legal aspects, the impact on individuals and society, or a combination of these. Your introduction should set a respectful and scholarly tone, acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic and the diverse opinions held by different groups.

Developing a Balanced Argument

The body of your essay should be dedicated to presenting a balanced and well-reasoned argument. Whether your essay is persuasive, analytical, or exploratory in nature, each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the abortion debate. This could include the ethical implications of abortion, the legal history and current laws regarding abortion in different regions, the psychological and physical effects on individuals, or the societal impacts. It's crucial to back up your points with evidence, such as statistical data, legal texts, ethical theories, medical research, and sociological studies. Addressing counterarguments is also important to show that you have considered multiple viewpoints and to strengthen your own argument.

Exploring Ethical and Societal Implications

An essay on abortion should also delve into the ethical dilemmas and societal implications surrounding the topic. This might involve discussing the moral philosophies related to the right to life, bodily autonomy, and the definition of personhood. The societal perspective might include the impact of abortion laws on different socio-economic groups, public health considerations, and the role of education and family planning. This section of your essay should challenge readers to think critically about their own values and the role of societal norms and laws in shaping the abortion debate.

Concluding the Discussion

In your conclusion, bring together all the threads of your argument, emphasizing the complexity of the abortion debate. This is your final opportunity to reinforce your main points and leave a lasting impression on your readers. Reflect on the broader implications of the debate and the ongoing challenges in finding a consensus in such a polarized issue. You might also offer recommendations for future policy, research, or public discourse. Remember, a strong conclusion doesn't just restate what has been said; it provides closure and offers new insights, prompting readers to continue thinking about the topic long after they have finished reading your essay.

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Abortion Rights: For and Against

Kate Greasley and Christopher Kaczor, Abortion Rights: For and Against , Cambridge University Press, 2018, 260pp., $29.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781316621851.

Reviewed by M. T. Lu, University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)

The editorial front matter in this volume claims that the book "gives readers a window into how moral philosophers argue about the contention issue of abortion rights." As a descriptive claim this strikes me as largely true. Unfortunately, how many "moral philosophers" actually do argue about this issue is not how they should.

The book consists of two essays written (apparently independently) by Kate Greasley (pro-abortion) and by Christopher Kaczor (anti-abortion), followed by a response from each author to the other, and finally a short reply to each response. Greasley begins the central argumentative part of her essay in favor of abortion rights by conceding what she calls the "silver bullet," namely that "if the fetus is a person, equivalent in value to a born human being, then abortion is almost always morally wrong and legal abortion permissions almost entirely unjustified" (5). In other words, she identifies moral personhood as the gravamen of the abortion question, setting aside (without argument) so-called women's rights arguments (of the sort made famous by Judith Jarvis Thomson) that abortion can still be justified even if the unborn child is a person.

This concession makes it immediately clear that her essay is not intended to be any kind of synopsis of the pro-choice side of the abortion debate, but to advance what Greasley herself takes to be the strongest case for the non-personhood of the unborn child. This is significant because many pro-choice writers take women's rights style arguments to be more effective, both because they prescind from many of the difficult questions about the nature of the child, but also because they purport to establish the moral permissibility of abortion even if the unborn child is a person. To concede this point, then, is to give up a lot of ground pro-choice writers have long coveted and so must presumably express Greasley's confidence in her own capacity to establish the non-personhood of the fetus.

Unfortunately, anyone expecting some kind of a new argument (much less one likely to change the mind of anyone already familiar with the abortion literature) will be disappointed. Greasley's argumentative strategy is well-worn. She defends a version of the familiar "developmental view" largely drawn from Mary Anne Warren which "takes personhood or moral status to supervene on developmentally acquired capacities, most notably psychological capacities such as consciousness, ability to reason, communication, independent agency, and the ability to form conscious desires" (26). While such traits may not all be necessary for personhood, Greasley concurs with Warren that "a creature could not lack all of the traits and yet be a person" (26).

She proposes that the non-personhood of the fetus can be established by means of three thought experiments, one of which -- the "embryo rescue case" (ERC) -- she seems to think is nearly dispositive. This is something like a trolley scenario in which we are invited to choose between rescuing "five frozen human embryos" or "one fully formed human baby" from a burning building. Greasley holds that it would be "unthinkable" to rescue the embryos "despite the fact that the embryos number five and the baby only one" (27). This she takes to be deeply problematic for anyone holding the standard pro-life view that the embryos are "morally considerable persons." Ultimately, she thinks this shows that "people simply do not believe that death is as serious for the embryo, or as tragic from an impartial point of view, as infant death or the death of an adult human being" (30). Accordingly, "the [intuitive] pull to save the baby . . . rather than the embryos -- even though this would mean saving the one over the many -- tells us something meaningful about our view of the relative status of embryos and born human beings" (31, emphasis in original).

Greasley's thought here is straightforward: if people would save one infant over five embryos, then they simply cannot believe that those embryos are "morally considerable persons." Of course, even if this is what the respondents believe , that doesn't by itself show that the belief is true . To be fair, Greasley does somewhat concede this point, noting that historically many have (falsely) denied the moral status of certain groups. Nonetheless, she largely dismisses the possibility that this is just a mistaken belief and seems to think the only truly plausible explanation for the near universal intuition is a (warranted) belief that the infant is a person and the embryos are not.

I do not have much confidence in the philosophical helpfulness of these sorts of cases in general, but if we are forced to play this game some reflection will show that the ERC doesn't have nearly the force Greasley want to gives it. Consider a parallel case in which we have to choose between saving five fully conscious nonagenarians and one baby. Perhaps I am unusual, but my intuitions are almost entirely in favor of the baby, "even though this would mean saving the one over the many." This is obviously not because I think the elderly are not persons. In fact, forced to choose, I wouldn't hesitate much between saving, say, one mother with small children over five childless, middle-aged tenured philosophy professors. Again, this is not because I deny the personhood of my colleagues (certain faculty meetings notwithstanding), but for the simple reason that I genuinely believe that it would very likely be worse for several small children to lose their mother than for five childless adults to die tragically (though, of course, there are possible circumstances that might cause me to reconsider). In short, a decided preference for one over many does not by itself entail, or even strongly suggest, a clear denial of the personhood of the many.

In the end, though, the larger problem with Greasley's approach is not merely competing intuitions. The personhood question really cannot be convincingly settled by this sort of intuition pumping. Indeed, it is precisely the intractability of the personhood question that leads so many pro-choice writers to embrace a women's right approach that putatively allows them to prescind from the question.

To her credit, after presenting her thought experiments Greasley does at least make some effort to engage personhood arguments. However, she is unsuccessful because her criticisms make clear that she doesn't really understand what she is criticizing. While there are a number of approaches to arguing for the personhood of the unborn child (and both authors discuss Don Marquis' famous "future like ours" argument at length) the key one here is Christopher Kaczor's "Personhood as Endowment" argument.

Kaczor begins by distinguishing a "functional" view of personhood from his "endowment" (or sometimes "substance") view. The functional view (of which Warren's and Greasley's accounts are examples) makes personhood dependent on the occurrent exercise of certain (especially rational) powers. By contrast, on the endowment view "it is sufficient for moral status to be capable of sentience or capable of rational functioning. An appeal is made here not to actual functioning but to the kind of thing the being is, the kind of being capable of sentience or rational functioning" (135). So, what matters for the personhood of the unborn child (or anyone else, such as a sleeping adult) is not whether that individual is currently exercising or demonstrating the powers characteristic of a person, but whether that individual is the kind of being that is rational (or sentient, etc.) by nature.

On this view, any and all human beings, from conception onwards, are rational creatures. If all rational creatures (human or otherwise) are persons, then all human beings are persons. As Kaczor puts it, the "substance view rests on the claim that each and every human being (born and unborn) actually (not just potentially) possesses a rational nature, and therefore merits fundamental respect as a rational being" (135-6, emphasis added).

That Greasley misunderstands the view is clear from her attempt to criticize it. She claims that "if we award [the young] equal moral status, this can only be on the basis of their potential to exercise those capacities in the future " (50, emphasis added). In short, they have a right to life not because they are actual persons, but because "they are at least potential persons in that they are individual human organisms that will, if they survive and develop, eventually become persons" (50). However, she notes that this "potentiality principles suffers . . . from an obvious logical problem . . . [that] there is no reason why being a potential person ought to endow a creature with the very same rights as an actual person" (51). Given that obvious problem, one would think Greasley should give more thought to why pro-life writers, Kaczor included, have continued to insist on the point.

In his initial response, Kaczor notes that he has "never encountered a single scholar who defends the view that the prenatal human being has a right to live because he or she is a potential person . . . The classic pro-life view is not that the prenatal human being is a potential person , but rather that the prenatal human being is a person with potential " (196). Unfortunately, after saying this, he does not go on to explain what it means or why exactly, which is the greatest defect in his part of the book.

In fact, the substance view is rooted in Aristotle's philosophy of nature. While contemporary neo-Aristotelians and Thomists have developed the view considerably, the relevant issue here is that any (putative) potential must belong to a substance with a particular nature. To say that a particular substance has a potential to develop in some way is not to make a prediction about the future , but to make a claim about that thing's nature right now . On this view, no non-rational being can ever develop rational powers ( de novo ) and remain the same thing. [1] Rather, insofar as a rational being begins to exercise those powers at some point in its life it does so precisely because they were always already latent in its nature. To say that a fetus is "potentially rational" is not to say that it will become a rational being when it begins to exercise those powers; it is rather to say that its (latent) rational nature will (likely, but not necessarily) become more fully actualized. [2]

Greasley's putative counterexamples show that she doesn't understand this. She claims that just "as a caterpillar that metamorphoses into a butterfly appears to go through a fundamental and substantial change in nature while remaining the same thing , so it seems true to say of human beings that when the go through a fundamental change in nature as when they become persons, while remaining the same numerical entity" (183). Similarly, she claims her imagined interlocutor "presumably would not agree that dead human bodies are persons . . . even though they are . . . numerically identical with the human being that was alive" (183).

For the substance theorist, neither example makes sense. The caterpillar cannot undergo "a fundamental and substantial change" and yet remain "the same thing" because a substantial change, by definition, involves the destruction of the original thing. The substance theorist would say that the caterpillar has not undergone a substantial change at all (and therefore is numerically identical to the butterfly) but has, well, metamorphosed (i.e., literally, "changed shape"). In Greasley's other case, the substance theorist does not regard a corpse as numerically identical with the human being that was alive, precisely because death is a substantial change .

On this view, the identity of a substance across the actualization of some potency just means that the change in question is not (and cannot be) a substantial change. Instead, such a (developmental) change is the actualization of a latent potency that was always already there in the nature of that substance. This is exactly how a substance theorist understands the human being from conception: as a substance of a rational nature. While the zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, etc. cannot occurrently exercise any rational powers, he or she is a rational creature from the moment of his or her substantial existence. Furthermore, since classical substance theorists hold organisms to be paradigmatic substances, the beginning of the rational substance is identical with the beginning of the organism. Accordingly, the human organism cannot become a person, because that would constitute a substantial change. So, if the being capable of exercising rational powers at some point (say, t + 7 years) is numerically identical with the fetus at t, that just means no substantial change can have occurred between t and t+7.

Of course, this just scratches the surface in articulating the substance view and none of this shows that it is correct. Like any other serious philosophical view, it requires development and defense from a variety of possible objections. My point is simply that Greasley has not raised the right kind of objections, because her criticisms reveal that she's attacking a straw man. As I noted above, however, I also think Kaczor can be legitimately criticized for failing to make clear why this is so. While he often notes Greasley's misunderstandings, he doesn't really show why she's failing to engage the substance view.

Ultimately, this is what I mean when I say the book reflects how "moral philosophers" do argue about abortion, rather than how they should. The kinds of criticisms Greasley offers of potentiality reflect the same kind of misunderstanding of the substance view that Michael Tooley has been offering since the early 70's. There isn't a real dialectic here because Greasley doesn't adequately understand the view she's criticizing and Kaczor hasn't adequately articulated and defended its deeper basis. Greasley's arguments fall flat largely because she's attempting to establish the non-personhood of the unborn child through superficial thought experiments without even grappling with the deeper metaphysical issues at hand. In short, Greasley is talking past Kaczor, not actually identifying and attacking putatively false premises or fallacious reasoning. For Kaczor's part, while I think he does a better job of actually engaging various pro-choice arguments overall, he still leaves much too much unsaid.

In the end, it's not clear what philosophical purpose this book best serves. It does not offer any significantly new arguments (nor do the authors claim otherwise). Neither is it an attempt to summarize the state of the abortion debate, as large parts of that debate are elided or ignored (e.g. the women's rights arguments and the more recent virtue ethics discussions). Even just with regards to the views of the two authors, it's unnecessary in that each of them has a more complete monograph on the subject. I find these sorts of "for and against" books are rarely that successful, and I fear this one will only tend to confirm that judgment.

[1] If Michael Tooley’s famous kitten example (a magic serum that makes a normal kitten into a rational cat) were actually possible, it would constitute a substantial change.

[2] On this view, the claim “human beings are rational” is an example of what Michael Thompson has called an “Aristotelian Categorical.” It is parallel to the claim that “human beings are bipedal” and would not be falsified by adducing an example of a human being born without legs, nor by a normal infant who cannot (yet and may never) walk. Needless to say, much more can and should be said that space does not permit.

How To Win Any Argument About Abortion

So you're talking to someone who says something ignorant . And while you know that they're in the wrong, your words escape you. To make sure that doesn't happen, we've compiled a series of reference guides with the most common arguments — and your counter-arguments — for the most hot-button issues. Ahead, how to argue the pro-choice position .

Common Argument #1: A fetus is a human being, and human beings have the right to life, so abortion is murder.

The Pro-Choice Argument: I'm probably not going to convince you that a fetus isn't a life, as that's basically the most intractable part of this whole debate, so I'll be brief:

A fetus can't survive on its own. It is fully dependent on its mother's body, unlike born human beings.
Even if a fetus was alive, the "right to life" doesn't imply a right to use somebody else's body. People have the right to refuse to donate their organs , for example, even if doing so would save somebody else's life.
The "right to life" also doesn't imply a right to live by threatening somebody else's life. Bearing children is always a threat the life of the mother (see below).
A "right to life" is, at the end of the day, a right to not have somebody else's will imposed upon your body. Do women not have this right as well?

Common Argument #2: If a woman is willing to have sex, she's knowingly taking the risk of getting pregnant, and should be responsible for her actions.

The Pro-Choice Argument: You're asserting that giving birth is the "responsible" choice in the event of a pregnancy, but that's just your opinion. I'd argue that if a mother knows she won't be able to provide for her child, it's actually more responsible to have an abortion, and in doing so prevent a whole lot of undue suffering and misery.

But let's look at this argument a bit further. If you think getting an abortion is "avoiding responsibility," that implies that it's a woman's responsibility to bear a child if she chooses to have sex. That sounds suspiciously like you're dictating what a woman's role and purpose is, and a lot less like you're making an argument about the life of a child.

Common Reply : No, because women can practice safe sex and avoid getting pregnant. If she refuses to use contraception and gets pregnant as a result, that's her fault, and her responsibility.

Your Rebuttal: Not everyone has easy access to contraception , nor does everyone have a good enough sex education class to know how to use it or where to obtain it. But let's just suppose, for the sake of argument, that everyone had access to free contraception and knew how to use it correctly.

Even then, no contraception is 100% effective. Presumably, you oppose abortions even in cases where contraception fails (and it does sometimes fail, even when used perfectly). If that's true, you're saying that, by merely choosing to have sex — with or without a condom — a woman becomes responsible for having a child. And that's a belief that has everything to do with judging a woman's behavior, and nothing to do with the value of life.

Common Argument #3: But I'm OK with abortions in cases of rape .

The Pro-Choice Argument: Why only in those cases? Are the lives of children who were conceived by rape worth less than the lives of children who were willfully conceived? If preserving the life of the child takes primacy over the desires of the mother — which is what you're saying if you if you oppose any legal abortions — then it shouldn't matter how that life was conceived.

Common Argument #4: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Your Response: Go home, Todd Akin , you're drunk.

Common Argument #5: Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion.

The Pro-Choice Argument: This implies that the only reason a woman would want to get an abortion is to avoid raising a child, and that isn't the case. Depending on the circumstances, the mere act of having a child in a hospital can cost between $3,000 and $37,000 in the United States. Giving birth is dangerous, too: In the United States, pregnancy complications are the sixth most common cause of death for women between the ages of 20 and 34.

Even before birth, there are costs to pregnancy. In addition to the whole "carrying another human being around in your stomach for nine months" thing, many women, particularly teens, are shunned and shamed for their pregnancies — not only by friends, families, employers, and classmates, but also by advertisements in the subway . There's also the risk of violent retribution from abusive partners and parents.

In short, there are a lot of reasons a woman might seek an abortion. Adoption doesn't address all of them.

Common Argument #6: When abortion is legal, women just use it as a form of birth control.

The Pro-Choice Argument: Do you have evidence of this? Considering that contraceptives are cheaper, easier, less painful, less time-consuming, less emotionally taxing, and more readily available than abortions, it seems odd to suggest that women who've already decided to use birth control would select abortion as their preferred method. It's more likely the opposite: Historical and contemporary data suggests that women will seek abortions regardless of whether or not they're legal, but that when birth control and contraceptives are more widely accessible, abortion rates go down.

Common Argument #7: Abortions are dangerous.

The Pro-Choice Argument: When performed by trained professionals, abortions are one of the safest procedures in medicine, with a death rate of less than 0.01%. The risk of dying while giving birth is roughly 13 times higher. Abortions performed by people without the requisite skills and training, however, are extremely unsafe. An estimated 68,000 women die every year from back alley abortions, which are generally most common when abortion is illegal and/or inaccessible.

If you'd like to examine the health impact of banning abortion, consider Romania, which banned abortions in 1966. That policy remained in place for about 23 years, during which time over 9,000 women died from unsafe abortions , and countless others were permanently injured. That's around two women dying every day. When the policy was reversed, maternal mortality rate plummeted to one-eighth of what it was at its peak under the no-abortion policy.

Abortions and maternal death rates in Romania, 1965-2010. Image credit: BMJ Group

The negative health effects of prohibiting abortion don't end with the mothers. Romania's abortion ban sparked a nationwide orphan crisis, as roughly 150,000 unwanted newborns were placed in nightmarish state-run orphanages . Many of those orphans now suffer from severe mental and physical health problems, including reduced brain size, schizoaffective disorder, and sociopathy.

When abortion is illegal, it becomes exponentially more unsafe for both women and their children. You may not like the fact that women will seek abortions even when they're illegal, but it is undeniably a fact nonetheless.

Common Argument #8: What if Winston Churchill or Martin Luther King had been aborted?

Your Response: Are you saying abortion policy should be influenced by how good of a person a fetus ends up becoming? If that's the case, what if Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot had been aborted?

Common Argument #9: Many women who get abortions regret their decision later on.

The Pro-Choice Argument: This is a pretty common argument. As with shaming of teen moms, it pops up in subway ads.

This is a bad argument. Should the government ban people from doing things they sometimes regret? Think of everything you've ever regretted — not moving after college, dating the wrong person — and ask yourself if you wish there had been a law to prevent you from doing that thing. You probably don't, because you probably believe people should be able to choose their own paths in life regardless of whether they regret those choices later on. I agree, which is part of why I'm pro-choice .

Common Argument #10: Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for things they find morally disagreeable.

The Pro-Choice Argument: By that rationale, America also shouldn't have a military, since that's funded by taxes, and many taxpayers find American foreign policy morally disagreeable. Also, the Hyde Amendment prevents most public funds from going toward abortions. But that's a moot point, because these are two separate arguments. Believing that abortion should be legal doesn't require you to also believe that taxpayer dollars should fund abortions.

Common Argument #11: What if your mother had aborted you?

The Pro-Choice Argument: Well, if I'd never come into existence in the first place, I probably wouldn't have any strong feelings on the matter. Anyway, I love my mother very much and respect her right to make whatever decisions are right for her body and life.

The best pro-choice arguments , in summary:

A "right to life" doesn't imply a right to use someone else's body to sustain a life.
Women do not have a "responsibility" to have children, and certainly don't assume such a responsibility by virtue of deciding to have sex.
Outlawing abortion is very dangerous, both for women and their children.
Adoption still requires women to carry a baby to term and then give birth, both of which are also inherently dangerous.
Abortions, on the other hand, are quite safe.
Banning abortion violates a woman's right to control her own body.

This article was originally published on March 5, 2014

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Argumentative Essay Outline On Abortion

Argumentative Essay Outline on Abortion

Categories: Abortion

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Words: 665 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 665 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Introduction, thesis statement, paragraph 1: the right to bodily autonomy, paragraph 2: the health and safety of women, paragraph 3: reproductive freedom and economic justice.

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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

A woman receives medication to terminate her pregnancy at a reproductive health clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 23, 2022, the day before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade – the decision that had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years – has shifted the legal battle over abortion to the states, with some prohibiting the procedure and others moving to safeguard it.

As the nation’s post-Roe chapter begins, here are key facts about Americans’ views on abortion, based on two Pew Research Center polls: one conducted from June 25-July 4 , just after this year’s high court ruling, and one conducted in March , before an earlier leaked draft of the opinion became public.

This analysis primarily draws from two Pew Research Center surveys, one surveying 10,441 U.S. adults conducted March 7-13, 2022, and another surveying 6,174 U.S. adults conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. Here are the questions used for the March survey , along with responses, and the questions used for the survey from June and July , along with responses.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. About six-in-ten adults (57%) disapprove of the court’s decision that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion and that abortion laws can be set by states, including 43% who strongly disapprove, according to the summer survey. About four-in-ten (41%) approve, including 25% who strongly approve.

A bar chart showing that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade draws more strong disapproval among Democrats than strong approval among Republicans

About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (82%) disapprove of the court’s decision, including nearly two-thirds (66%) who strongly disapprove. Most Republicans and GOP leaners (70%) approve , including 48% who strongly approve.

Most women (62%) disapprove of the decision to end the federal right to an abortion. More than twice as many women strongly disapprove of the court’s decision (47%) as strongly approve of it (21%). Opinion among men is more divided: 52% disapprove (37% strongly), while 47% approve (28% strongly).

About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the summer survey – little changed since the March survey conducted just before the ruling. That includes 29% of Americans who say it should be legal in all cases and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases. About a third of U.S. adults (36%) say abortion should be illegal in all (8%) or most (28%) cases.

A line graph showing public views of abortion from 1995-2022

Generally, Americans’ views of whether abortion should be legal remained relatively unchanged in the past few years , though support fluctuated somewhat in previous decades.

Relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the legality of abortion – either supporting or opposing it at all times, regardless of circumstances. The March survey found that support or opposition to abortion varies substantially depending on such circumstances as when an abortion takes place during a pregnancy, whether the pregnancy is life-threatening or whether a baby would have severe health problems.

While Republicans’ and Democrats’ views on the legality of abortion have long differed, the 46 percentage point partisan gap today is considerably larger than it was in the recent past, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling. The wider gap has been largely driven by Democrats: Today, 84% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 72% in 2016 and 63% in 2007. Republicans’ views have shown far less change over time: Currently, 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, nearly identical to the 39% who said this in 2007.

A line graph showing that the partisan gap in views of whether abortion should be legal remains wide

However, the partisan divisions over whether abortion should generally be legal tell only part of the story. According to the March survey, sizable shares of Democrats favor restrictions on abortion under certain circumstances, while majorities of Republicans favor abortion being legal in some situations , such as in cases of rape or when the pregnancy is life-threatening.

There are wide religious divides in views of whether abortion should be legal , the summer survey found. An overwhelming share of religiously unaffiliated adults (83%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do six-in-ten Catholics. Protestants are divided in their views: 48% say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 50% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Majorities of Black Protestants (71%) and White non-evangelical Protestants (61%) take the position that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while about three-quarters of White evangelicals (73%) say it should be illegal in all (20%) or most cases (53%).

A bar chart showing that there are deep religious divisions in views of abortion

In the March survey, 72% of White evangelicals said that the statement “human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights” reflected their views extremely or very well . That’s much greater than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (32%), Black Protestants (38%) and Catholics (44%) who said the same. Overall, 38% of Americans said that statement matched their views extremely or very well.

Catholics, meanwhile, are divided along religious and political lines in their attitudes about abortion, according to the same survey. Catholics who attend Mass regularly are among the country’s strongest opponents of abortion being legal, and they are also more likely than those who attend less frequently to believe that life begins at conception and that a fetus has rights. Catholic Republicans, meanwhile, are far more conservative on a range of abortion questions than are Catholic Democrats.

Women (66%) are more likely than men (57%) to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling.

More than half of U.S. adults – including 60% of women and 51% of men – said in March that women should have a greater say than men in setting abortion policy . Just 3% of U.S. adults said men should have more influence over abortion policy than women, with the remainder (39%) saying women and men should have equal say.

The March survey also found that by some measures, women report being closer to the abortion issue than men . For example, women were more likely than men to say they had given “a lot” of thought to issues around abortion prior to taking the survey (40% vs. 30%). They were also considerably more likely than men to say they personally knew someone (such as a close friend, family member or themselves) who had had an abortion (66% vs. 51%) – a gender gap that was evident across age groups, political parties and religious groups.

Relatively few Americans view the morality of abortion in stark terms , the March survey found. Overall, just 7% of all U.S. adults say having an abortion is morally acceptable in all cases, and 13% say it is morally wrong in all cases. A third say that having an abortion is morally wrong in most cases, while about a quarter (24%) say it is morally acceptable in most cases. An additional 21% do not consider having an abortion a moral issue.

A table showing that there are wide religious and partisan differences in views of the morality of abortion

Among Republicans, most (68%) say that having an abortion is morally wrong either in most (48%) or all cases (20%). Only about three-in-ten Democrats (29%) hold a similar view. Instead, about four-in-ten Democrats say having an abortion is morally acceptable in most (32%) or all (11%) cases, while an additional 28% say it is not a moral issue.

White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly say having an abortion is morally wrong in most (51%) or all cases (30%). A slim majority of Catholics (53%) also view having an abortion as morally wrong, but many also say it is morally acceptable in most (24%) or all cases (4%), or that it is not a moral issue (17%). Among religiously unaffiliated Americans, about three-quarters see having an abortion as morally acceptable (45%) or not a moral issue (32%).

Religion & Abortion

Carrie Blazina is a former digital producer at Pew Research Center .

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many places, especially in Europe

Public opinion on abortion, americans overwhelmingly say access to ivf is a good thing, broad public support for legal abortion persists 2 years after dobbs, what the data says about abortion in the u.s., most popular.

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How To Create A Best Abortion Argumentative Essay?

Table of Contents

How To Create A Best Abortion Argumentative Essay

The topic of abortion is highly debated among various groups of people all around the world. Abortion is a synthetic way of ending a pregnancy by extraction or removal of an embryo before it can live outside the womb.

Because of the moral subsoil of the question, it is fiercely discussed even in the countries where such medical procedure is allowed by the government.

Argumentative essay on abortion: what’s the thing about?

First and foremost you need to remember that the topic which has a medical aspect requires a careful and attentive approach to the research and presentation. Examine the question diligently in order to operate with the terminology you may need freely.

Keep in mind that many people are sensitive to your abortion argumentative essay topic, so be careful with the word choice in your essay not to offend anybody.

The structure for the essay on abortion is the same as for any of a kind.

You begin your essay with the introduction . Here you give the main definitions in case the reader is not aware of the topic. You also include some background information on the problem, describe the reason for your work and end the entry with a thesis. As a rule, a thesis contains your point of view on the subject.

A useful hint: to write a good thesis statement for abortion, you definitely have to be well acquainted with the topic, but also you need to be honest with what you write.

In the main body of your college research paper , you express all the points for and against the abortions. That means you will have two paragraphs for each group of statements. In this part, you place all the ideas you have.

Finally, you write a conclusion for the essay. Here you have to sum up all the thoughts you’ve already written, without adding anything new. Express your own point of view on the question of abortion.

In some cases, you may be asked to write an outline for your essay. It is a table of contents where you enumerate the paragraphs of your essay.

To make it as well-directed as possible, select the main ideas of every paragraph and note them down. It may look like this:

Introduction: The problem of abortions.

Main body: Everything considered on the topic of abortions, namely

Paragraph 1: Advantages an abortion can provide.
Paragraph 2: Disadvantages and negative consequences of an abortion.

Conclusion: Inference and personal point of view on the problem.

Argumentative essay on abortion examples and ideas

How about some examples and ideas for your research paper writing needs? Try one of the following topics:

Will abortion illegalization increase the number of backstreet abortions?
The attitude to abortion in different cultures.
What are the effects of abortion on a woman’s health?
What should be the lowest age for abortion?
What are the reasons behind the decision of married couples to do an abortion?
Can the unborn fetus feel pain during the procedure of abortion?
Should abortion be considered as a murder?
Why women do abortions?

A general argumentative essay on abortion pro-choice which fits the outline above may have the following structure:

Introduction.

The definition of an abortion.
The analysis of the social aspect.
Thesis: “Should society’s disapproval break not only the women’s, but also the families and unwanted children’s lives?”
Paragraph 1. An argument in favor of abortion (two, three, or more).
Paragraph 2: An argument against abortion (same as in the previous paragraph).

Conclusion.

A general deduction that confirms the thesis in the introduction.
Expression of a personal vision of a problem.

What’s more, it may be of great help for you to search for some full free argumentative essays on abortion. This will help you to get a complete picture of an essay.

Supporting arguments for abortion

Here are some ideas of pro-abortion thesis statements. You may use them in your essay or make up your unique arguments.

Everybody has a basic fundamental right to do anything with own body.
It is crucial for a woman’s independence to decide whether she wants to have a child.
Some scientists claim that personhood starts when a fetus is able to live outside the womb, so after the birth.
Most neuroscientists believe that fetuses can’t feel pain when the abortion is done.
Legal and professional abortions reduce women’s injury or even death from illegal backstreet abortions.
Modern methods of abortion won’t cause infertility and other lasting health problems.
Abortion is the chance not to give birth to a child with deviations.
Women who can’t do an abortion may become unemployed, live below the poverty line, or become a victim of domestic violence.
A child may not come to the world unwanted.
Abortion is considered to be one of the methods of population control.

What to say against abortion?

If you’ve decided to adhere to the opposite side, here are some useful arguments against abortion. Take one of these or come up with own.

Abortion is a murder of the innocent creature.
Life begins in the womb of a woman, so the unborn child is a human who has the right to live.
Many scientists believe that fetuses feel sufferings while abortion is done.
Abortion contradicts God’s commandments.
Abortion causes psychological problems.
Abortions may reduce the number of children available for adoption.
Abortion, because of the embryo’s abnormalities, can be regarded as discrimination of a physical feature.
Abortion is not a form of contraception.
Women have to accept the responsibilities that come with pregnancy.
Originally, the Hippocratic Oath forbids abortion.
Abortion popularizes the disrespect of life.
According to the investigations of a Guttmacher Institute, black women are doing abortions more frequently than white, which means that it violates the balance of African babies.
Abortion destroys the possible social contribution of an unborn child.
Abortion may cause future health problems of a woman.

On balance…

The topic of abortion is highly discussed nowadays so it won’t be too difficult to make up your mind about the issue you’d want to cover in your essay.

No inspiration to write another essay? Hand it to one of our writers and enjoy the free time. Your top-notch paper would be crafted for you by the deadline!

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Reproductive rights in America

7 persistent claims about abortion, fact-checked.

Jaclyn Diaz

Koko Nakajima

Nick Underwood

Anti-abortion demonstrators watch as abortion rights protestors chant in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 5. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Anti-abortion demonstrators watch as abortion rights protestors chant in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 5.

Since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision ruled that women have a constitutional right to end their pregnancies, proponents and opponents of abortion rights have worked to own the conversation over the issue.

In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 629,898 legal induced abortions were reported across the United States.

Lingering claims circulate about abortion, including about the safety of it, who gets abortions and even who supports or opposes access to abortion.

Below, seven popular claims surrounding abortion get fact-checked.

According to the Pew Research Center's polls , 37% of Americans want abortion illegal in all or most cases.

But an even bigger fraction — around 6 in 10 Americans — think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Current abortion rates are lower than what they were in 1973 and are now less than half what they were at their peak in the early 1980s, according to the Guttmacher Institute , a reproductive health research organization that supports abortion rights.

In 2017, pregnancy rates for females age 24 or below hit their lowest recorded levels, reflecting a long-term decline in pregnancy rates among females 24 or below.

Overall, in 2017, pregnancy rates for females of reproductive age hit their lowest recorded levels, with 87 pregnancies per 1,000 females ages 15 to 44, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The annual number of deaths related to legal induced abortion has fluctuated from year to year since 1973, according to the CDC.

An analysis of data from 2013 to 2018 showed the national case-fatality rate for legal induced abortion was 0.41 deaths per 100,000 legal induced abortions, lower than in the previous five years.

The World Health Organization said people obtaining unsafe abortions are at a higher risk of death. Annually, 4.7% to 13.2% "of maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion," the WHO said. In developing regions of the world, there are 220 deaths per 100,000 unsafe abortions.

Trans and nonbinary people have undergone abortions as well.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates in 2017 an estimated 462 to 530 transgender or nonbinary individuals in the U.S. had abortions. That same year, the CDC said, 609,095 total abortions were carried out in the country.

The Abortion Out Loud campaign has collected stories from thousands of people who have had an abortion. Included are stories from trans and nonbinary people who have had an abortion — such as Jae, who spoke their experience.

"Most abortions in 2019 took place early in gestation," according to the CDC . Nearly 93% of abortions were performed at less than 13 weeks' gestation.

Abortion pills, which can typically be used up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, made up 54% of abortions in 2020. These pills were the primary choice in the U.S. for the first time since the Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion drug mifepristone more than 20 years ago.

State legislatures have been moving to adopt 20-week abortion bans, with abortion opponents claiming fetuses can feel pain at that point. Roughly a third of states have implemented an abortion ban around 20 weeks .

But this contradicts widely accepted medical research from 2005. This study , published in the Journal of the American Medical Association , concluded that a fetus is not capable of experiencing pain until somewhere between 29 or 30 weeks.

Researchers wrote that fetal awareness of pain requires "functional thalamocortical connections." Those thalamocortical fibers begin appearing between 23 and 30 weeks' gestational age, but the capacity for pain perception comes later.

The argument against abortion has frequently been based on religion.

Data shows that the majority of people who get an abortion have some sort of religious affiliation, according to the most recent Guttmacher Institute data , from 2014.

The Pew Research Center also shows that attitudes on whether abortion should be legal vary among evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics.

Here's what could happen now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade and the future of reproductive rights in America

Here's what could happen now that roe v. wade is overturned.

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The meaning, history and political rhetoric surrounding the term abortion ‘ban’

Experts say ‘ban’ has emerged as shorthand for nearly all abortion prohibitions. the blunt term often leaves room for political spin..

Ban: Merriam-Webster defines it as “a legal or formal prohibition.”

But in the 2024 election cycle — the first general election since Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that enshrined a constitutional right to an abortion, was overturned — the term has morphed into polarizing political rhetoric. “Ban” has become synonymous with abortion and the wave of anti-abortion laws enacted in states across the country.

For example, on President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign website, the abortion policy page’s title reads: “Donald Trump wants to ban abortion nationwide. Re-elect Joe Biden to stop him and protect reproductive freedom.”

Trump appointed three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe. After years of inconsistency, Trump most recently has said that laws on abortion should be left to the states and that he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban.

Many Democrats and abortion rights activists have also zeroed in on down-ballot Republicans, accusing them of supporting abortion “bans,” even if their position allows for some access.

“Yesterday, we celebrated Mother’s Day. Today, I remind you that politicians like Bernie Moreno, who supports a national abortion ban, don’t want moms making their own healthcare decisions. Abortion rights are on Ohio’s ballot again in 2024,” Ohio Democrat Allison Russo wrote May 13 on X .

Moreno, who has Trump’s support, is a Republican running for Senate in Ohio against Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown. Moreno has said that he would vote for a 15-week national abortion ban.

Political discourse experts say “ban” has emerged as shorthand for nearly all abortion prohibitions. The blunt term, nuanced in its myriad interpretations, often leaves room for political spin.

What exactly is a ban?

“Ban” is not a medical term; people across the political spectrum on abortion define it differently.

The word has two main rhetorical functions, political discourse experts said. When people talk to like-minded people about a particular issue, it can reinforce the group’s beliefs. Or, it can label opponents as “extreme.”

“For example, when Joe Biden talks about an assault weapon ban, he’s not trying to convert skeptics — he’s signaling to people who already agree with them that they’re on the same team,” said Ryan Skinnell, an associate professor of rhetoric and writing at San Jose State University. “But the other way ‘ban’ works is to identify someone you disagree with as extreme. Groups who want to keep certain books out of libraries, for instance, rarely describe themselves as in support of book banning. Their opponents adopt that language.”

This dual usage reflects in the abortion fight. Abortion-rights activists use “ban” to signal an infringement on personal freedom and autonomy over medical decisions. Anti-abortion proponents may use “ban” to signal a protection of fetal life. For example, when introducing legislation that ban abortion at various stages, Republican politicians have often framed the bills as moral imperatives that protect unborn life.

Peter Loge, a George Washington University professor who directs the school’s Project on Ethics in Political Communication, said ban has historically meant “to eliminate” or “not have,” but politicians employ a strategic ambiguity that allows listeners to assign their own meaning. Loge, who served as a senior adviser in former President Barack Obama’s Food and Drug Administration, said Obama did this with one of his campaign slogans: “Change We Can Believe In.”

“Well, what does ‘change’ mean? Clearly, it means whatever he thinks it means, but as a listener you will ascribe it to mean whatever you think it means,” Loge said. “So, if I think most abortions should be illegal and in some cases it’s OK, I can support a ban, because it’s a ban with exceptions. The listener plugs in whatever caveats they prefer and ascribes them to the speaker. This is a technique as far back as Aristotle, who wrote that the listener provides the reasoning for themselves.”

Loge, like Skinnell, said “ban” is often used in politics to showcase extremism and the threat of something being taken away.

“It’s the rhetoric of anger. ‘They want to take your rights from you. … Now it’s an ideological divide and it works because we’re going to be more motivated to vote,” Loge said. “People are more concerned about losing something they have than they are interested in getting something new. We are risk-averse.”

Nathan Stormer, a rhetoric professor at the University of Maine and an expert in abortion rhetoric, said the term usually shows up when people refer to making abortion illegal in pregnancy’s earlier stages. But, he added, although common usage typically refers to a first trimester threshold, there is “no set of rules.”

“Because it is not a consistently used term, I think when people do not specify what they are referring to, others may take them to mean at conception or very early, but one has to inquire about context,” Stormer wrote in an email.

How abortion ban rhetoric evolved

Before the 1970s, there was little discussion about abortion bans.

Although legal abortion existed in various states at various stages before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, the ruling’s enshrinement of abortion rights across the country, helped galvanize opposition and mobilize anti-abortion groups.

“There were book bans, pornography bans, dancing bans, and so on. But even most conservative politicians and church groups weren’t especially concerned with abortion as an issue, and there was virtually no concerted political interest in bans,” Skinnell, from San Jose University, said. “That began to change with Richard Nixon.”

Skinnell said the former president’s advisers, in coordination with evangelical Christian church leaders, determined they could connect abortion to left-wing social movements, such as feminism, by linking them consistently in speeches and campaign materials.

“The idea of abortion bans came directly out of that partnership,” Skinnell said, “and it gathered steam in right-wing and conservative circles throughout the next few decades.”

Republicans further popularized the term in the mid-1990s, when they advocated for the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003. The campaign to pass that legislation, experts said, introduced the term “ban” as the abortion restriction’s “stated intent.”

Political rhetoric experts said much of the medical literature and media coverage before Roe v. Wade often used terms such as “illegal” because abortion was considered a criminal act in most states.

“Even in the early stages of criminalizing abortion in the U.S., I don’t think ban was a common term,” Stormer said. “When a restriction is being put in place where before there was not one, people tend to resort to the word ban.”

Emily Winderman, a University of Minnesota professor specializing in the rhetorical study of health and medicine, said that over time abortion “bans” have manifested as “incremental” restrictions throughout gestational development to the complete prohibitions seen in multiple states today.

For instance, she said, “heartbeat bills,” which typically refer to laws that make abortion illegal as early as six weeks of pregnancy, were controversial when they emerged around 2010, but have become more prevalent since the Trump administration and Roe’s overturning.

Winderman also said bans can appear via code and ordinance restrictions, such as banning the type of use for a particular piece of real estate — making abortion clinics impossible to place.

“It’s important to understand bans as a complex strategy that includes gestational limits as well as limitations on who can provide care and where,” she said.

Shifting abortion laws across the U.S. have made “ban” an increasingly common term. Forty-one states now ban abortion at different points in pregnancy — 14 enforce total bans, three enforce six-week bans and others restrict abortion before fetal viability.

Stormer, from the University of Maine, pointed to Arizona’s Supreme Court reinstating an 1864 law that completely banned abortion. (It has since been repealed. ) At the time the law was written, conception was not well understood, and there was no clear sense of fertilization or how it worked.

“Reinstating that law was a great example of how the conflict over abortion has remained steady and largely recognizable, but its terms and understandings have been constantly moving, which says something,” Stormer said. “So, specific words do important work, but they do not capture what is happening rhetorically, in my opinion. The moving terminologies are the waves crashing, but the tides are the thing.”

This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact , which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here .

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School Education /

Essay on Abortion in English in 650 Words

Updated on
Feb 5, 2024

Essay on Abortion: Abortion is the termination of pregnancy. The termination happens due to the removal of the embryo or fetus.

The process of abortion can be natural as well as intentional. The intentional forces abortion involves a decision to end the pregnancy while when this process unfolds naturally without any external forces such as genetic abnormalities, maternal age, hormonal imbalances, or lifestyle, it is termed as miscarriage or spontaneous abortion. It is important to understand the difference between intentional abortion and miscarriage to explore reproductive health.

Master the art of essay writing with our blog on How to Write an Essay in English .

Table of Contents

1 Types of Abortion
2 Law in India for Abortion
3.1 1. Comprehensive Sex Education
3.2 2. Access to Contraceptives
3.3 3. Support System for Pregnant Women

Also Read: 3-Minute Speech on Motherhood and Education

Types of Abortion

Abortion procedures can be classified into two main types, Medical abortion and Surgical abortion. Medical abortion involves the termination of pregnancy using medications, such as the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol. This medication method is generally effective within nine weeks of pregnancy and does not involve any penetration or incision of the body or the insertion of instruments into the body.

On the other hand, surgical abortion involves a physical procedure to remove the pregnancy. The common surgical abortion method includes aspiration (suction) abortion, dilation and curettage (D&C), and dilation and evacuation (D&E) also called vacuum aspiration.

Law in India for Abortion

Laws of abortion play a vital role in the complexities of reproductive health. These laws aim to safeguard the well-being of women by ensuring that the abortion procedures are conducted under safe and medically supervised conditions.

In India, the legal framework for governing abortion primarily comes under the guidance of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act. The act was enacted in the year 1971 and aimed to liberalize the voluntary absorption largely decriminalized Section 312 of the IPC. To have safe and legal abortion services in India The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Regulations,2003 were issued under the MTP Act.

Further in the year 2021, certain amendments were passed for safe abortion services in case of failures of contraceptive failures, increase in gestation limit to 24 weeks, and the opinion of one abortion service provider up to 20 weeks of gestation. Moreover, the amendment also supported abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy. The amendment acknowledges 7 specific circumstances to the MTP Act where a female can go for an abortion and those include Minor pregnancies, rape survivors, women with mental and physical disabilities, and more.

Alternative and Support of Abortion

Some alternative measures that will help to raise awareness about abortion are as follows:

1. Comprehensive Sex Education

The physical experience of abortion for women can be hazardous too, therefore, to provide an alternative it is necessary that comprehensive sex education should be provided in schools beyond subjects like Biology, healthy relationships, consent, and making responsible choices. Through this knowledge, students will not only be equipped with information but will also navigate relationships and avoid unintended pregnancies.

2. Access to Contraceptives

Easy access to contraceptives is another way to empower women to take charge of their reproductive health. Whether it is condoms, birth control pills, or any other methods of protection ensures to make responsible decisions and help in taking precautions against unplanned pregnancies.

3. Support System for Pregnant Women

To support women with unwanted pregnancies it is important to create a supportive environment for them mentally as well as emotionally. The government can offer counselling services, and access to healthcare information, and can provide resources to help pregnant women make informed choices or decisions about their future for example parenting classes, legal guidance and financial assistance programs.

In conclusion, we can say that the topic of abortion is complex as well as deep with emotions as well as with different perspectives. The ethical, religious, and legal debate on this sophisticated topic makes it challenging to find a common ground. Therefore it is necessary to have open and respectful communication, understanding empathy and healthcare options for the women.

Also Read: National Safe Motherhood Day 2023

Ans. 1 Abortion is the termination of pregnancy. The termination happens due to the removal of the embryo or fetus.

Ans. 2 As she was going through many health issues the family decided to go for an abortion.

The causes of abortion in the first trimester can be emotional or psychological, maternal health concerns, unintended pregnancies, contraceptive failure and more.

Ans. 4 The opposite of abortion is success, continuation, accomplishment, and achievement.

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Deepika Joshi

Deepika Joshi is an experienced content writer with expertise in creating educational and informative content. She has a year of experience writing content for speeches, essays, NCERT, study abroad and EdTech SaaS. Her strengths lie in conducting thorough research and ananlysis to provide accurate and up-to-date information to readers. She enjoys staying updated on new skills and knowledge, particulary in education domain. In her free time, she loves to read articles, and blogs with related to her field to further expand her expertise. In personal life, she loves creative writing and aspire to connect with innovative people who have fresh ideas to offer.

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guest essay

Is There a Constitutional Right to Talk About Abortion?

A woman peering over a barrier with an empty speech bubble coming out of her mouth.

By Linda Greenhouse

Ms. Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.

There has hardly ever been as fierce a defender of free speech as the current Supreme Court.

Since John Roberts became chief justice almost 19 years ago, the court has expanded the protective net of the First Amendment to cover such activities as selling videos depicting animal torture, spending unlimited amounts of money in support of political candidates and refusing to pay dues (or a dues-like fee) to a public employee union.

This last decision, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31, overturned a 41-year-old precedent and led a dissenting justice, Elena Kagan, to accuse the majority of “weaponizing the First Amendment.” In the 303 Creative case last year, the court gave a Christian web designer the First Amendment right not to do business with would-be customers whose same-sex wedding websites would violate her views about marriage.

The court’s version of free speech has become a powerful tool against government regulation. Six years ago, effectively striking down a California law, the court gave so-called crisis pregnancy centers — offices that try to imitate abortion clinics but strive to persuade women to continue their pregnancies — a First Amendment right not to provide information on where a woman could actually get an abortion. The state said the notice was needed to help women who came to such centers under the false impression that they provided abortions. In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the “unduly burdensome” requirement amounted to unconstitutionally compelled speech.

Now the question is whether the court’s solicitude toward those who would rather not talk about abortion extends in the other direction. What about state laws that prohibit rather than require offering information about where to get an abortion?

While there is not yet such a case on the Supreme Court’s docket, lower courts have been tightening a First Amendment noose around efforts by anti-abortion states to curb the flow of information about how to obtain legal abortion care across state lines. Federal District Courts in Indiana and Alabama both ruled this month that while states in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise can ban abortion, they cannot make it illegal to give abortion-related advice, including advice to minors seeking abortions without parental consent.

A federal magistrate judge issued a similar ruling last November on Idaho’s abortion law, one of the most extreme in the country, which makes it a crime to assist a minor in obtaining an abortion in any state without a parent’s consent. Idaho could criminalize abortion, the judge, Debora Grasham, wrote. “What the state cannot do,” she went on, “is craft a statute muzzling the speech and expressive activities of a particular viewpoint with which the state disagrees under the guise of parental rights.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard Idaho’s appeal on May 7.

With the Supreme Court extremely unlikely to revisit its decision 23 months ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eradicated the constitutional right to abortion, the question of how far states can go to prevent their citizens from finding alternative ways to terminate a pregnancy will become increasingly urgent. In his concurring opinion in the Dobbs case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised the question of whether a state could now “bar a resident of that state from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion.” The answer was “no,” he continued, “based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.” It is worth noting that Justice Kavanaugh wrote only for himself; none of the other conservatives who made up the Dobbs majority joined him. “Other abortion-related legal questions may emerge in the future,” Justice Kavanaugh offered noncommittally.

The future arrived quickly enough in the form of the two abortion-related cases awaiting decision before the court’s current term, which concludes at the end of June or in early July. Both are anomalous in that they involve questions of federal rather than state authority.

One, Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , concerns the government’s approval of the expanded use of the medication that first received F.D.A. approval 24 years ago. Medication abortion now accounts for more than half of abortions in the United States. The case contains an off-ramp for the court that, based on the argument in March, the justices appear likely to take: Because the anti-abortion doctors, dentists and medical groups who challenged the F.D.A. suffered no harm from the availability of the medication, and are unlikely to suffer harm in the future, they never had standing to bring the case in the first place.

The other, Moyle v. United States, results from a clash between the federal government and Idaho over whether federal law requires the state to provide emergency abortion care in its hospitals. The outcome largely depends on whether the court accepts the Biden administration’s view that there is no abortion exception to the law at issue, which prohibits hospitals from turning away people who need emergency care.

In the abortion cases in Indiana, Idaho and Alabama that may yet find their way to the Supreme Court, the justices would face the acute dilemma of reconciling their fealty to the First Amendment with the profound anti-abortion sentiment the Dobbs majority opinion displayed.

In defending their laws, the states argue that what they are prohibiting is not actually speech but conduct, namely inducing criminal activity. Rejecting this argument in the Indiana case, Judge Sarah Evans Barker of Federal District Court wrote that the Planned Parenthood affiliate that challenged the law simply “seeks to provide truthful information to clients regarding out-of-state options and medical referrals to out-of-state providers for abortion services that are legal in those states.” A prohibition on providing such information, the judge said, “does not further any interest Indiana may have in investigating criminal conduct within its borders.” In the Alabama case, another Federal District Court judge, Myron Thompson, observed that “unable to proscribe out-of-state abortions, the attorney general interprets state law as punishing the speech necessary to obtain them.”

From the cases they are in the process of deciding this term, the justices are well aware that their effort to wash their hands of the nettlesome business of abortion has failed. One or more of the First Amendment cases is likely to reach the court during its next term. I wonder if the justices have a clue about how much pain lies ahead when they have to decide whether the right to speak inevitably encompasses the right to choose.

Linda Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

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Abortion Essay Writing Guide with Examples
How to Write a Reflective Essay: Intro, Body, and Conclusion
⇉Persuasive about abortions Essay Example
≫ Legalization of Abortion Free Essay Sample on Samploon.com
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COMMENTS

Abortion Argumentative Essay: Writing Guide, Topics, Examples
Hooks for an Abortion Essay. Writing a hook is a good way to catch the attention of your audience, as this is usually the first sentence in an essay. How to start an essay about abortion? You can begin with some shocking fact, question, statistics, or even a quote. However, always make sure that this piece is taken from a trusted resource.
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Here are answers to frequently asked questions about writing pro choice abortion essays: Q: What are the key elements of a compelling pro choice abortion essay? A: A compelling pro choice abortion essay should possess a powerful thesis statement, well-researched arguments supported by credible evidence, and a clear logical structure ...
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Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion. The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester. Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
50 Abortion Essay Topics for In-Depth Discussion by
Abortion argumentative essay topics typically revolve around the ethical, legal, and societal aspects of this controversial issue. These topics often involve debates and discussions, requiring students to present well-reasoned arguments supported by evidence and persuasive language. The Bodily Autonomy vs. Fetal Rights Debate: A Balancing Act.
Debates on Abortion: Arguments Against and for
Abortion Argumentative Essay: Hook Examples. A Controversial Crossroads: In the heart of one of the most polarizing debates in our nation's history, the topic of abortion stands as a moral and ethical crossroads. As we delve into this complex issue, we'll explore the perspectives, the consequences, and the underlying principles that shape the discourse on abortion.
Abortion Essay Writing Guide That Will Help You Get A+ Grade
An example of a thesis on abortion could sound like "It is morally wrong and illegal to perform abortions since a developing fetus can already be viewed as a human being.". Writing an outline. It serves as means of organizing your notes and making a list of everything you would like to include in your essay.
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The argument is a balanced one; for every point supporting abortion there is a counter-point condemning abortion. This essay will delineate the controversy in one type of comparison/contrast essay form: the ""Argument versus Argument,"" or, ""Block-by-Block"" format. In this style of writing, first you present all the arguments ...
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Main body. If you decide to support abortion in the essay, you may write the body part in the following way: 2-3 paragraphs supporting abortion + one counter-argument against abortion. Remember to provide arguments and support them, not just admit that abortion is good or bad.
How Abortion Changed the Arc of Women's Lives
A frequently quoted statistic from a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which reports that one in four women will have an abortion before the age of forty-five, may strike you as high, but ...
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There's a Better Way to Debate Abortion. Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach. If Justice Samuel Alito's draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health ...
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Since the Supreme Court's historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the issue of a woman's right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America.Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception - making abortion tantamount to homicide.
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113 essay samples found. Abortion is a highly contentious issue with significant moral, legal, and social implications. Essays on abortion could explore the various aspects of the debate including the ethical dimensions, the legal frameworks governing abortion, and the social attitudes surrounding it. They might delve into historical changes in ...
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Greasley begins the central argumentative part of her essay in favor of abortion rights by conceding what she calls the "silver bullet," namely that "if the fetus is a person, equivalent in value to a born human being, then abortion is almost always morally wrong and legal abortion permissions almost entirely unjustified" (5). In other words ...
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Common Argument #4: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Your Response: Go home, Todd Akin, you're drunk. Common Argument #5: Adoption is a ...
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Paragraph 1: The Right to Bodily Autonomy. One of the main arguments in favor of abortion is the right to bodily autonomy. Every person has the right to make decisions about their own body, and this includes the right to make decisions about their reproductive health. Denying women the right to access abortion services is a violation of their ...
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The Case Against Abortion. Nov. 30, 2021. Crosses representing abortions in Lindale, Tex. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times. Share full article. 3367. By Ross Douthat. Opinion Columnist. A ...
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The wider gap has been largely driven by Democrats: Today, 84% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 72% in 2016 and 63% in 2007. Republicans' views have shown far less change over time: Currently, 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, nearly identical to the 39% who said this ...
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Abortion health information • An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It can be done two different ways: Medication abortion, which uses medicines to end the pregnancy. It is sometimes called a "medical abortion" or "abortion with pills." Procedural abortion, a procedure to remove the pregnancy from the uterus.
How To Create A Best Abortion Argumentative Essay?
Express your own point of view on the question of abortion. In some cases, you may be asked to write an outline for your essay. It is a table of contents where you enumerate the paragraphs of your essay. To make it as well-directed as possible, select the main ideas of every paragraph and note them down.
Abortion
Abortion is a common health intervention. It is very safe when carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the pregnancy duration and by someone with the necessary skills. However, around 45% of abortions are unsafe. Unsafe abortion is an important preventable cause of maternal deaths and morbidities.
7 persistent claims about abortion, fact-checked : NPR
Below, seven popular claims surrounding abortion get fact-checked. According to the Pew Research Center's polls, 37% of Americans want abortion illegal in all or most cases. But an even bigger ...
PDF SO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT ABORTION?
Step 1 - Prepare your "why". Story development and how to create your story for lasting impact. Step 2 - Know the Facts. Abortion facts and talking points to use in your conversations. Step 3 - Think About Who You Want to Speak With, When And How To Address Them. Crafting your conversations for success.
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An abortion rights advocate hoists a sign, Tuesday, May 21, 2019, at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., as they rally to voice their opposition to state legislatures passing abortion bans.
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Essay on Abortion: Abortion is the termination of pregnancy. The termination happens due to the removal of the embryo or fetus. The process of abortion can be natural as well as intentional. The intentional forces abortion involves a decision to end the pregnancy while when this process unfolds naturally without any external forces such as ...
Opinion
Federal District Courts in Indiana and Alabama both ruled this month that while states in the wake of Roe v. Wade's demise can ban abortion, they cannot make it illegal to give abortion-related ...