During the last twenty-five years, abortion has been one of the most heated topics being debated in the United States and Canada. The only topics that equal the abortion debate are race and war. Abortion is a discussion of human interaction where ethics, emotions, and law come together. There are people that have different views of abortion but no matter what their view is they fall under a thin line. There is the pro-choice and the pro-life. These are the only two categories that people’s views fall into. A pro-choice person would feel that the decision to abort a pregnancy is that of the mothers and the government has no right to interfere. A pro-lifer would hold that from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive. Since this embryo or fetus is alive and is a person you have no moral right to abort a life. If you aborted the life (person) you would be committing murder.

The word “murder” is mainly used by pro-lifers to describe what happens when you abort an embryo/fetus. Murder means deliberate and unjustified killing of another person containing intent. How can anyone tell a woman that they can’t abort an embryo/fetus to interrupt a pregnancy if it is a result of rape or incest? A women cannot bear the thought of having a child that would be a constant reminder of what happened on such and such a day, such and such number of years ago.

The mother doesn’t want to kill a baby; she wants to interrupt the growth of an embryo so that it will not become a baby. The mother interrupts potential life. If the mother aborts the embryo at a very early stage it’s not even recognizable as human and that’s why potential life is just that, potential.

My personal belief is that each woman has the right to decide whether she wants to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Remember the termination of the pregnancy might have to do with the health of the mother herself, maybe the mother is unable to attend to the child’s needs after its born, resulting in child abuse and mental disease. In these situations abortion is a must in my opinion. Most abortions occur because contraception fails, because of a rape or because of a serious medical condition of the mother, which could lead to her death. In these situations abortion is often the only way that prevents the birth of an unwanted child or saves a mothers life.

In the world today pregnancy often has catastrophic effects on adolescents. They drop out of school, have nervous breakdowns, and even commit suicide. Research shows that it can be unsafe for young teenagers to go through with pregnancy, they can die because their bodies aren’t mature enough. Many teenagers cannot provide the right conditions for raising a child for they are still children themselves. The effects of having a baby can result in an end to a future career, meaning that there is a high possibility of the mother and baby living in poverty. The pro-lifer would say that the teenager should have the baby for reasons being that the mother could become more mature. They also would go on to say that the mother could give the baby up for adoption and preserve a life.

Another issue on the topic of abortion is when pregnant women are older. They no longer have the energy to efficiently take care of the child. Most of these women already have grown-up children and possibly even grand children. From a medical standard these women are at a very high risk that health problems for the mother and the baby could happen. Some people are opposed to aborting the child for reasons that if that mother is capable of getting pregnant that she should have the responsibility of having the child.

There is also the issue of rape that has to be considered when we discuss the importance for women of having a right to a safe and legal abortion. It seems obvious to most people that they shouldn’t force a woman who has become pregnant as a result of being raped to give birth to the baby. The pro-lifers don’t see the same picture; they use the same old “murder” argument to not allow the pregnant women to get an abortion in a case of rape. They say that the child could be born and if the mother doesn’t want the baby that she could give the baby up for adoption. What the pro-lifers don’t see is the affect that will be upon on the women that is involved. The pro-lifers are only concerned for the fetus and not what will happen to the mother or the mother’s family that has to deal with the incident. If the mother gives birth to the baby she might be unable to bear the psychological trauma of the event and so getting the abortion would prevent her that grief.

Opponents of abortion seem to think that women who choose to have abortions typically do so thoughtlessly. They do not know that a decision in itself is already agonizing and a very painful thing for a women. Can you really understand the issue of abortion unless you have been in the situation of possibly having one? What some people don’t seem to understand is that abortion is not an easy way out. A woman herself has to make a decision on which is better for her. Many people try to force their beliefs on others and judge them for their decision on which is which. Many people try to force their beliefs on others and judge them for their actions. These people need to judge themselves before they start to judge others.

The reasons why women have abortions vary. It may be a case of rape, physical or psychological condition. A choice needs to be available to prevent the birth of unwanted children, to avoid damage to the child as well as to safeguard the emotional and physical health of women. Preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they really want is control. Control over our behavior and power over women’s choices. Abortion is a tough choice and the decision should be a personal one, with out interference of government or special interest groups. Losing safe and legal abortion would mean reducing women to “ childbearing machines” It would mean turning our backs on the technology we have, and it would also devalue women as independent human beings. It would bring more meaningless deaths from the illegal and self-induced abortions and more pain for women.

There also is another war that is brewing but its not as public as abortion, it is to do with genetic engineering. As of right now there are two types of engineering being worked on. They are positive and negative genetic engineering. Positive genetic engineering is when scientists use their research to benefit humanity. Negative genetic engineering is when advances in genetic technology are detrimental to society in general.

When a person has a deadly disease like leukemia, in today’s world there is no cure, but maybe in the future by the use of positive engineering the person would be disease free and be able to live healthy for the rest of his/her life. With this method there will be a lot less people dieing of horrible diseases. The negative thing that would be bad for humanity is that if scientists are keeping people healthy of all diseases there will be a dramatic rise in the amount of people that live in the world. If we keep doing this type of positive engineering the world could come to a state of overcrowding.

As people in this world there are no two alike, there are smart people and average people, good-looking people and just people etc. Think about it if we had all the newborn babies being genetic engineered so that they are very smart, good looking, and athletic, everything a parent wants in their baby. Our society would become much smarter and there would be great advances in all area that make humanity run. We could have one person do a job that took five normal people to do, these “smart” people could learn two or three times as fast as a “normal” person could. All of these ideas sound just beautiful. What parents would like to see in their child, but there are problems that could arise with that. Think about what would happen to the parents of the “smart” kids. The parents would most likely lose their jobs because the new generation of “smart” kids could do their job more efficiently then they could. What would happen if all parents in the world got their kid genetically engineered to be good looking or smart there will be no diversity in our society. Maybe with two or three generations of the same gene pool, problems could arise with deformities that even “smart” scientists in that day couldn’t fix. For the sake up humanity lets not let negative genetic engineering come into our society, lets force governments to ban research into this area. Humanity has been running perfectly for thousands of years and why would we want to change it, its always work and so it will keep working.

When looking at abortions and genetic engineering there are many pros and cons for each. What it mainly comes down to is how each individual perceives each situation of abortion and genetic engineering. If one person sees abortion as a women’s choice and can back up his views with proof that it would be better for the mother, then do not try to destroy their views. If a person sees abortion as killing a life and they want to abolish abortion, then let them have a chance to voice their opinions. Remember that it is good to have views from both sides because then people aren’t always seeing in tunnel vision. When looking at genetic engineering I hope people realize that this field of science could be very good to society and also very detrimental. So what ever our society decides to do with abortion and genetic engineering, remember the effects that could happen to the world as a whole.

God gave us freedom of choice and if He, as a God, gives all of us this freedom, what right do we have to take it away from peoples opinions?

Bibliography