Abortion

Individual Rights and Common Good

My position that abortion should be illegal would be good for the country in many ways. It would protect the rights of the unborn and prevent slippery moral slopes.

Abortionists are a type of doctor, and doctors are all required to take the Hippocratic Oath. The oath specifically forbids abortion, so abortionists are directly violating the vow they made when promising to be a doctor. Many abortionists are also targeted by extremists. With no abortionists, this would not be an issue.

Lots of women suffer trauma and health problems after an abortion. Some are no longer able to bear children due to the effects of the operation. Scientists have discovered that abortions can lead to mental instability. Younger women who have abortions may have a higher risk of being diagnosed with depression. An example of a slippery moral slope is the widespread abortion of female babies in China due to a cultural preference for boys. This has resulted in an unbalanced ratio of boys to girls in their society.

An unborn child can feel pain during an abortion. When their lives are being brutally taken (many abortions take a while to complete) the baby is feeling excruciating pain and discomfort, which is in direct violation of the right to general welfare.

Partial birth abortion is killing the baby while it is being born. In 2003, President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, in an effort to outlaw this appalling form of abortion. Partial birth abortion is made even more terrible because premature babies have been surviving at younger and younger stages of gestation, the youngest being born at 21 weeks. This makes abortion even more unethical.