Abortion: The ‘Pro-Life Vs. Pro-Choice’ Debate

Aanya Nagpal
Nov 16, 2019
11 min read

Updated: Jun 3, 2020

“A ban [on abortion] places women, by accident of their biology, in permanently and irrevocably subordinate positions to men”

It can be justified to hold beliefs that allow fulfilment in one’s life, however, it's inappropriate to allow those beliefs to dictate the decisions others are allowed to make regarding themselves and their personhood. In recent years, the latter has become the reality for many women in America, particularly on May 15th 2019, when the Alabama abortion law passed, conveniently titled the ‘Human Life Protection Act’, implying a lack of concern and humanity instilled within women who seek to have abortions. This law aims to overturn the Roe vs. Wade law of 1973, which allowed women across the country to have abortions, returning the bodily autonomy they’d been stripped of from 1880 onwards when abortions were illegalised. These recent events have fuelled the controversial Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice debate, the former of which argues against the practice of abortion and it's legality while the latter advocates for women having the right to choose to have an abortion. This debate has brought into question whether or not a foetus can be considered a person, as well as proposing the theological question of what ‘being human’ entails. Much of the Pro-Life argument stems from the perspective that life begins at conception, whereas the Pro-Choice argument holds a more abstract perspective: some believe certain developments dictate ‘the beginning of life’, though the general consensus places the importance on women making decisions regarding their personhood rather than on an embryo being granted autonomy and life.

Pro-Life

The Pro-Life position is rooted in the idea that human life begins at the point of conception. It serves as the fundamental argument in this side of the debate, where people argue that an embryo is potentially a viable organism that can turn into a baby, and therefore having an abortion is the ending of a unique life, some may even go as far to say that it can be considered ‘murder’. This belief in protecting the sanctity of human life has led to the passing of legislation like Heartbeat Laws in America, which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, beginning with North Dakota in 2013, and rippling across the nation as a way to further restrict the procedure. Another prevailing belief is that if an embryo is considered a baby, then the woman who will become their mother shouldn’t be able to make a decision that dictates whether or not that baby gets to live, because the foetus has a right to life and abortion could be considered killing an innocent child. This belief assumes that women should take responsibility for a child they bring into the world and that an abortion is an “easy way out” of this responsibility. People who hold this belief argue that sexually active couples should be using contraception and if the woman falls pregnant, she should carry the foetus to term.

Additionally, the case against abortion considering religion differs slightly depending on which religious lens abortion is being viewed through, though they all intersect in agreeing that abortion to some degree is incorrect because it does lead to the ending of a life. For example, in Islam, abortions are generally considered ‘haram’ (forbidden) though in some cases it is permitted, and not necessarily considered a punishable wrong, such as if the mother or foetus’s life would be placed in danger, at which point an abortion before 120 days of the pregnancy is accepted. This idea is shared in Hinduism which preaches the idea of non-violence in consideration of the parents, the foetus and society. Therefore, Hinduism is generally opposed to abortions except in the case of saving the mother’s life, a notion also supported in Sikhism. Judaism doesn’t particularly forbid abortions, though it isn’t openly advocated either - rather the belief once again is that abortion is permitted if continuing the pregnancy would put the mother's life in danger, as the mother’s life is considered more important than that of the foetus. Finally, in Christianity, the most popular religion across America, standing at 73.7% (2016), human life is considered sacred as it’s a gift from God, and the Bible teaches that humans are made in the image of God and that murder is forbidden, which implies that abortion is morally wrong because of their belief that human life begins at conception, and therefore abortions are unethical. However, many religious folks do assume the position of ‘relative moral’ where abortions are permitted in certain circumstances. Therefore, the Pro-Life argument is one that protects a given perception of what ‘life’ can be defined as.

Pro-Choice

On the other hand, the Pro-Choice argument holds the belief that abortion should continue to be legal and accessible to women, allowing them to make decisions regarding their reproductive organs. Many people who identify as Pro-Choice argue against the Pro-life belief that life begins at conception, and instead believe that a foetus cannot be equivalent to a baby just because it may have the potential to grow into one. The false belief that many women have abortions carelessly is based on the idea that women who abort later in their pregnancy, are killing something that is growing. According to Planned Parenthood, this belief is inaccurate. They estimate that“66% of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 92% are performed within the first 13 weeks. Only 1.2% occur at or after 21 weeks’ at which point an abortion has to be carried out for the safety of the mother or the foetus.Also, ‘the number of abortions after the first trimester might be even smaller if women had greater access to safe and legal abortion. Most women who’ve had an abortion say they would have preferred to have it earlier, but financial limitations and/or lack of knowledge about pregnancy caused them to delay’. Also, many women are unable to financially or emotionally raise a child, or simply do not want to, and would rather not bring them into the world to fulfil the societal expectations which reduce women down to be vessels for gestation, ultimately leading to the child being neglected or placed into the already dysfunctional and overworked foster care system that is in desperate need of reform. Additionally, the debate around abortions has been accused of being fundamentally misogynistic: it attempts to legislate women’s freedom around their reproductive health and bodily autonomy, including women’s rights to birth control, both of which are not burdens that men are subjected to. Currently, legislation is being passed in Alabama with their ‘Human Life Protection Act’, and in Georgia and Ohio which banned all abortions after 6 weeks, before many women even know they're pregnant. Despite this growing national intention to criminalise and illegalise women’s ability to make decisions regarding their own bodies, it’s been proven numerous times that “laws that forbid abortion fail...making abortion illegal does not end abortion and, in fact, does not even reduce the number of abortions that take place in a given nation...rates of abortion are higher in countries with the most restrictive abortion laws”, according to Author Michelle Oberman. For example, in Northern European countries like Norway or Netherlands, abortion is completely integrated into their healthcare system and is paid for by the government, just like all other medical procedures, and more than 90% of abortions take place in their specialized clinics. This consequently means they have some of the lowest abortion rates in the world: 9.7 and 16.2 per 1000 women aged 15-44, respectively. This is likely because having a comprehensive system of reproductive healthcare and rights, including open socio-political dialogue about contraception, pregnancy, and birth, means women are better equipped to prevent pregnancy before it occurs and to make informed choices about their reproductive health.

This sharply contrasts with the reality that only about 5% of all abortions performed in the United States occur in hospitals, and even these relatively few procedures are increasingly under attack. Essentially, when abortions are banned, it gets rid of safe abortions, leading to a higher mortality rate and forcing women to retreat to dangerous and potentially fatal backstreet abortions via unqualified doctors. These bans are also an attack on marginalised and poor women who don’t have the option to travel internationally to get an abortion as upper-class women do. The laws recently being passed evidently place the importance of the embryo over the woman’s life, a microcosmic representation of how women’s lives are often viewed as disposable in society, leading women to endure the experience of pregnancy, potentially against their will, due to the belief that it is their biological duty to have the child. The National Women’s Health Network argues that ‘the right to an abortion is an inalienable right of all women to control their own bodies and lives. Even if the fetus has a right to life, the right to exist in the body of the woman is not guaranteed. If there is no consent to pregnancy, or even if there was but that consent is withdrawn, then the fetus has no claim to the woman’s body. In this way, it is necessary to imagine consent as temporary and always dependent on the authority of that consent.’

Finally, a perspective exists within Christianity, the most dominant religion in America, which supports the Pro-Choice movement, as proposed by Jes Kast, a minister in the United Church of Christ. The verse“your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,”can be interpreted, according to Ms Kast, as “I have the right to choices over my body, and the freedom to make the decisions that are right for me”. She explains: “I believe every person...has the right to their body. When that bodily autonomy is taken away, to me, that is against Christian scripture and is against the Gospel I believe in”. Moreover, according to the bible, life begins at birth, when a baby draws its first breath. It defines life as "breath" in several significant passages, including the story of Adam's creation in Genesis 2:7, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Many people who hold the anti-abortion stance quote the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13) as evidence that the bible is anti-abortion, though this doesn’t consider the Bible's definition of life (breath), and the Mosaic law in Exodus 21:22-25 makes it clear that an embryo isn’t a human being, therefore there isn’t any scriptural evidence to claim that Christianity condemns abortions. Therefore, the belief that "life begins at conception" is a belief rooted in faith, not fact, and philosophy and theology shouldn’t be used as justification to pass legislation as there isn’t objective evidence that confirms abstract thinking or faith. It’s also important to be aware that American constitution is secular, not scriptural, thus technically supporting the right to autonomy on the grounds of science, not religion. Therefore, Women shouldn’t be required to remain pregnant because their personal decisions go against what another person believes. They owe you nothing.

The following is a list debunking the myths surrounding abortion:

Abortions are an easy alternative to adoption and women get them all the time

- False: adoptions aren’t alternatives to abortion, but an alternative to keeping the baby. Abortion is an alternative to keeping the foetus (step 1), and then if the woman goes through with the pregnancy, then the two options are either keeping the baby or putting it up for adoption (step 2)

- Women don’t get abortions all the time: 59% of women who have abortions already have 1 child, and 48% said it was because they weren’t ready to have a child or couldn’t afford to.

Banning abortion will stop them from happening

- Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed America’s strictest abortion law, banning the procedure at every stage of pregnancy and could send doctors who carry out the procedure to prison for life, with no exception for rape or incest.

- Abortion bans will not stop abortions from happening. They will only stop safe abortions and ensure that some groups, specifically, poor people and people of colour, are disproportionately punished when seeking access to abortions.

- People who get abortions are disproportionately likely to have low incomes — in 2014, 14.8% of American family incomes were below the poverty line.

Women always have abortions extremely late in their pregnancy

- Over 90% of abortions happen within the first trimester (first three months).

- Only 1.4% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later (source: Planned Parenthood)

- Patients who seek abortion later in pregnancy may have recently found out about a serious fetal abnormality, some of which are not discovered until 20 weeks or later.

Women are getting abortions without considering the foetus’s rights

- A foetus is in a woman’s womb by permission not by right. Therefore, she needs to be giving her continuous consent to allow it to remain. If she withdraws this consent then she has the right to remove the foetus.

- If someone needs someone else’s body parts to live, they should be allowed the freedom to deny that person whatever they require, even if it could potentially save them, due to autonomy and consent.

- Therefore, making the assumption that the foetus has the right to the woman’s body until their birth gives her fewer rights over her own body in comparison to the foetus.

Women’s reproductive health should be regulated

- Women are told that it is their responsibility to take on the burden of ensuring that an unwanted pregnancy shouldn’t occur, via birth control that alters their hormone levels

- However, if this is the case, this responsibility should be placed on men too - Vasectomies are reversible and hold a 90% success rate.

Medicine and Science

- Bill Nye: "Insisting on abstinence has been completely ineffective. Closing abortion clinics, not giving women access to birth control, has not been an effective way to lead to healthier societies."

- Many more eggs are fertilized than become humans. Ova accepts sperm a lot, but this fertilised egg needs to get to the uterus. By the fifth day, it reaches the uterus where it implants itself in the endometrium (the uterine lining). If this fertilised egg doesn’t implant, the woman cannot be pregnant. Therefore, a fertilised egg cannot be said to have the same rights as an individual.

- Many scientists agree that human life doesn't actually begin until about 24 weeks after fertilization when our brains start producing wave patterns specific to humans - Scott Gilbert

- At six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect "a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future "pacemaker" of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals" said Dr Saima Aftab. However, “by no means does this flutter translate to the viability of the heart or pregnancy. “The heart still has a lot of development to undergo before it is fully formed...after the detection of the flutter at six weeks, the heart muscle continues to develop over the next four to six weeks”

- Researchers have estimated that 40% to 65% of conceptions end in miscarriages, more than half of which occur so early that pregnancy is not even suspected yet

- A foetus at first trimester is a tiny mass of cells, which exists as part of the woman’s body. It cannot exist on its own because it is not a biologically complete organism.

In conclusion, whilst there are valid arguments for either side of the debate, and both can be viewed as convincing to a certain extent, it ultimately comes down to whether or not you, the reader, support the attempt to legislate women’s freedom and autonomy. Do you believe women’s bodies are property? That their sexuality and personhood can be owned? That their lives are up for debate? It is understandable that the Pro-Life argument is fundamentally an attempt to protect people, or rather what the perception of a “person” is, and the Pro-Choice perspective gives women the free will to make their own decisions regarding their bodies, however, a woman’s body shouldn’t be up for legal debate. She is not a political playground through which people can traipse through, putting laws into motion that are rooted in ignorance and a lack of scientific understanding. It is justified if you personally don’t support abortions and would not get one yourself, but it shouldn’t be decided for someone else. Above all, while the question of whether or not a foetus is a person can be open to interpretation, the question of whether a woman is a person is definitive, and therefore her personhood, rather than fetal personhood, should come first in the discussion for basic bodily autonomy. It’s as simple or as complicated as that.