Some countries recognize abortion, while in others, it is deemed illegal. In any case, abortion is a controversial topic because it is regarded as a serious moral issue. As such, this argumentative paper seeks to critique an op-ed paper by Anton which is entitled, “Abortion Should Be Legal”. Antoni argues that the choice to have an abortion or not should be left to the women concerned. However, he also suggested that abortion should be illegal. The author of this paper’s stand is to make abortion illegal except for unusual circumstances which will be discussed in this paper.
This paper will start by summarising the points made in this op-ed paper. The second part seeks to critique why abortion should not be legalised. A synthesis of the whole discussion will be carried out at the end of the paper in order to articulate the position taken by this writer. According to the Antoni’s op-ed article entitled “Abortion Should be Legal”, there are different reasons why women should be given the opportunity to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Mandy Warton supports Antoni’s view of free choice to abort (6) and suggests that abortion should be seen as the last resort for women to gain control of their lives after horrific situations leading to their pregnancies.
In some cases, pregnancy is a result of incest or rape. It is advocated that the woman should have a choice of terminating the pregnancy in such a situation. . In some circumstances, pregnancy may be terminated if it endangers the life of the fetus or the mother, and the author shares this view. It may not be a noble idea to have a deformed child as he or she may not enjoy the life of a normal human being. In some instances, if the life of the mother is endangered as a result of the pregnancy, it can be terminated to avoid death.
However, in most instances, pregnancies are not a result of accident or crime. Teen pregnancies in particular are very common in different societies. In America, it is estimated that more than one million teenagers get pregnant each year (Gutman 2). According to the information obtained from this website, Teen pregnancy rates in USA, the US has the highest number of teen pregnancies in the industrialized world. Whilst there are about 750,000 teen pregnancies reported annually, about eight out of ten of these pregnancies are not planned (http://www.
livestrong.com/article/12504-teen-pregnancy-rates-usa/). It can therefore be strongly argued that abortion is not a solution to unwanted pregnancies. The root cause of unwanted pregnancies should be addressed, which brings the author to the suggestion that abortion should not be legalized in these cases. It can also be seen that the trend of increased teen pregnancies is similar in many other countries where youths in particular get involved in sexual activities without properly considering the consequences.
According to statistics given above, it is unimaginable that close to a million lives can be terminated through abortion as a result of reckless behavior by the teenagers. Carelessness is the main root cause of teen pregnancies given that some of them have misguided conceptions that
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