It is hard to put into words why I support abortion, but I'll do my best at expressing myself. First and foremost, I do not think the right to choose necessarily condones abortion. In fact, I personally cannot imagine myself choosing abortion, unless I became pregnant through rape or the pregnancy would endanger my health. But that is how I feel. For those people who are anti-abortion, I think that opinion is fine, but don't push your morality on others. You have no right. If you are willing to carry the baby to term and then take care of the child, then I think you could 'outlaw' abortion. However, all these groups spouting that abortion is wrong and is murder are not willing to take the responsibility to take care of these children.
No argument is complete without statistics, so I will include a few. From Planned Parenthood I found the following information. Women do not usually have abortion based on 1 reason alone. The average number of reasons is 3. Here is a list of the most common reasons for women having abortions:
Now, I can hear people telling me already that abortion is being used as birth control and that the reasons I've listed above prove that. Do I think it should be used as birth control? No. But what is the solution? Banning abortion? That would only send women determined enough into back alleys for illegal abortions, which in the end would risk the woman's life, not end the use of abortion. In the 50s and 60s, when abortions were illegal, it has been estimated that between 200,000 and 1,200,000 illegal abortions were performed. Does that show that illegalizing abortion will change things? Instead, the solution lies in education and finding ways to promote more effective birth control, and more communication in homes about sex to children!
Again, I feel it necessary to spout statistics, found at The Cradle-Adoption Resource. Before 1973, the Roe v. Wade ruling, 38% of abortions were performed at or before the 8th week of pregnancy. That means that 62% of abortions were done at or after the 9th week. Currently, 91% of abortions are performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. 96% of all abortions are done in the first 15 weeks. Only .05% of abortions are done after the first 20 weeks, and most of those are in weeks 21 and 22. Abortions today are safer and are done at a much earlier time than they were when they were illegal.
One thing I hear over and over by anti-abortion/pro-life forces is that all those aborted babies could be adopted. Wouldn't that be wonderful? But the truth is that if abortion was illegal, and the women gave those 'unborn' children up for adoption, there probably would not be enough families out there to adopt per year. There are 3.4 million women who become unintentionally pregnant each year. Out of those, 1.6 million women will have an abortion (i.e, only 47% of unintended pregnancies are aborted). Of the women who did not abort, only 8% (144,000) gave their children up for adoption On average, there are only 200,000 infertile couples a year. Yes, in this case, there is a shortage of children, but if all 1.6 million pregnancies were carried full-term (even if a small percentage miscarried or were still born), there wouldn't be enough families left to adopt. Besides which, we haven't even mentioned all those children born with AIDS or the Crack babies or the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome babies. These children suffer from being born. Wouldn't those statistics go up if abortion was illegal? Who would willing adopt children who need extra care from the time they are born? Not the pro-life groups.
Instead, I reemphasize the need to find solutions which will eventually lead women to decrease the use of abortion. If we make it illegal, then that will only make discussions of other options mute. I'm a card-carrying member of NARAL:the National Abortion Rights Action League, whose mission statement is the following: 'Securing and protecting safe, legal abortion AND Making abortion less necessary--not more difficult or dangerous.'