Abortion Alternatives Outweigh the Risks - Essay Example

Abortion Alternatives Outweigh the Risks The argument on the issue of abortion is too often clouded by the labels we use to describe the controversial views. One side is labeled pro-choice as if to indicate the anti-abortion group is against choice. The truth gets lost in the mislabeling of these ideas. In fact, everyone is pro-life and everyone is pro-choice. Given the alternatives of abstinence, adoption, and having a baby, the emotional and physical risks are not worth taking. While some people label themselves as pro-choice, when we examine the environment that abortion takes place in, we find that it is a choice that takes place out of desperation.

The meaning of a woman's right to choose is "notoriously vague" (Porter, 69). Abolishing abortion would result in more adoptions, mothers with reduced mental illness, and would lower the medical risk to pregnant women.There is never any valid argument for the ethics of abortion. The argument always centers on when conception begins and there is no way that anyone that can say when that takes place. We know that it is previous to birth. Is it in the eighth month The seventh No one can say for sure and no one can lay an arbitrary number to it.

It requires that we, "move beyond the language of my rights and into the language of the sacred" (Zenya). There is no disagreement to the belief that abortion is undesirable. Just ask anyone that says they are pro-choice if they would prefer their daughter to have an abortion or practice abstinence. The overwhelming response would be to pursue a course that would not result in an unwanted pregnancy.The inability to determine when life begins leaves the woman who has had an abortion to face a lifetime of doubt and anxiety.

The knowledge that the child could have been adopted into a happy home results in depression, tension, and emotional anxiety. According to a recent study, women who have had an abortion increase there chances for mental health problems by 50% (Throckmorton). Failure to make a life for the child through adoption leaves the woman at severe risk of mental illness.A woman that has had an abortion also places herself at greater physical risk than the woman who takes a child to term. Any surgery, including an abortion, carries a certain amount of medical risk.

However, abortion has some long lasting physical effects. Even if the woman never gets pregnant again, her lifetime risk of future medical complications increases by 30 to 50 percent (Francis). This risk comes in the form of reproductive complications, an increased chance of breast cancer, and premature births in subsequent pregnancies (Brind, 109). Taking the child to term and raising the baby alleviates these unnecessary medical risks.Without a clear knowledge of when our most precious possession, life, begins there can be no moral justification for setting an arbitrary time.

No one can argue that abortion is a good thing and most people would favor the alternative of adoption. Abstinence is an attractive strategy when compared to the uncertainty that haunts a woman after she has an abortion and lives a lifetime with emotional distress. In addition, the complications from the surgery and the lasting medical effects of future physical problems makes taking the child to term the only sane alternative. There is no doubt that abortion is a vague and uncertain avenue when we consider the long-term medical risks, the emotional risks, and the ample alternatives that are available to having an abortion.

Works CitedBrind, Joel . "The Abortion-Breast Cancer Connection." Issues in Law and Medicine 21.2 (2005): 109-35. Ebsco. 10 Nov. 2006.Francis, Charles. "A Review of the Medical Standards in Abortion Services and Some Resulting Problems." National Observer - Australia and World Affairs 64 (2005): 35-42. Ebsco. 10 Nov. 2006.Porter, Elizabeth. "Abortion Ethics: Rights and Responsibilities." Hypatia 9.3 (1994): 66-87. Ebsco. 10 Nov. 2006.Throckmorton, Warren. "Abortion and Mental Health." Washington Times 21 Jan. 2006. 10 Nov. 2006 .Zenya, Ama.

"Speaking About Abortion." Tikkun 20.6 (2006). Ebsco. 10 Nov. 2006.