Free Abortion and Society Essay Sample
Abortion refers to the termination of a pregnancy through the expulsion of fetus or embryo from a woman’s womb prior to its viability. An abortion can either be spontaneous (referred to as miscarriage), or induced intentionally. This paper focuses on induced abortion.
Functionalism holds that everybody and everything that makes up the society has a significant contribution to the society. That implies that abortion too has its role in the society. Abortion is a very controversial issue that has generated heated debates over the years from its supporters and opponents. Numerous anti abortion activists argue that life starts at conception and aborting a pregnancy is terminating a life that is sacred, which only God has the prerogative to end. The act is considered morally wrong in the societies, and women who abort their children are usually harshly judged. My question is; do these activists consider the reason why women abort before condemning them?
It is a fact that women has a right over their bodies and therefore, should be left to decide whether they want to carry a pregnancy to full term or abort it. For instance, in the case of rape or incest, a woman should not be forced to give birth to a child that she does not want. In addition, when a woman feels she has had enough number of children, and does not have the resources to take care of an additional child, she should have the liberty to terminate the pregnancy.
According to W., 22.4 % of the 6 million pregnancies reported in the United States in 1996 ended up in abortions. This is a clear indication that abortion is being done despite the fact that many people have not accepted it. Many death and complication cases have also been reported due to unsafe abortions that are being carried out by untrained quacks parading themselves as doctors. By legalizing abortion, only trained doctors will be allowed to perform abortions, hence such deaths and health complications will be minimized.
Research question
- Do you think abortion should be legalized? If yes, give reasons why?
Since women are the ones affected by abortion, my data sample will be drawn from women between the age of 15- 18 (teenagers), 19- 29 and 29-39. I choose these age ranges because they are the most affected by abortion. Women below 15 years and above 39 years are less likely to abort, and therefore will not be important to this study. The data type I will use for this research is quantitative data because people (women) are measurable and this will require a survey to conduct the research. I will construct simple questionnaires containing the three age groups, and the above questions, which I will then give to 500 randomly selected women in my campus. I will expect that the respondents will tick their respective age groups then answer the above question. This will be followed by an analysis of the responses, which will show the take of women on the issue.