abortion essay body

Roe v Wade: a philosopher on the true meaning of ‘my body, my choice’

Professor of Philosophy, University of Southampton

Disclosure statement

Fiona Woollard held a Non-Residential Fellowship in Philosophy of Transformative Experience at the Experience Project (September 2016-February 2017), funded by the Templeton Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has also received funding from the Mind Association, the ESRC, the AHRC, and been on a project funded by the European Research Council.

University of Southampton provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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The overturning of Roe v Wade harms all women and all who can get pregnant around the world by making their body-ownership merely conditional. This undermines their equality with others.

Many people are reeling from the recent decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, so that states may now make it illegal to obtain or perform an abortion. For many of us, even if we do not live in the US, this feels like a personal blow. I use my work in moral philosophy to explain this feeling. If we feel personally affected it is because we are personally affected. The ruling diminishes the self-ownership of all women (even if they cannot get pregnant) and all those who can get pregnant, wherever they live.

The decision is likely to leave 33 million people in the US without access to abortion. These are the people most directly affected by the ruling. Evidence shows that being denied an abortion harms a person’s health, finances and family life . Those in the US who are forced to continue pregnancy may lose their dreams, or even their lives .

But the effects of the US ruling are global. Anyone who can get pregnant now knows that they cannot travel or move to the US and be recognised as an equal with equal rights. The same is not true for our male compatriots.

Of course, the US is not the only place where access to abortion is restricted so the development in the US amounts to an additional blow to equality, rather than a loss of what had been perfect equality. But the size and influence of the US make this additional blow very significant.

What is body ownership and why does it matter?

You own your body when you have the authority to make decisions about what is done to it and how it is used on the basis of your own interests and desires.

Body ownership is a fundamental part of moral standing for humans . It is through my body that I act on the world: when I bake a cake, write a book or build a house, I use my body. It is through my body that the world acts on me. When I am struck by the beauty of a sunrise, enjoy a cool breeze, find myself convinced by an argument, these effects on me need to go through my body. How my body is, makes up a major part of how I am: if my body is hurt, I am hurt. Body ownership is needed to respect the unique relationship between me and my body.

Body ownership is needed for a valuable kind of agency that I call full-fledged agency – the freedom to select one’s own ends and adopt a settled course of action in line with those ends. Maybe I value helping the sick and want to become a doctor. This requires me to commit to study for many years. I can only do this if I have at least some authority to decide what happens to my body.

None of this means that you are never required to use your body for others: it’s pretty uncontroversial that I am required to call an ambulance if the person next to me has a heart attack and this does not undermine self-ownership. However, for me to genuinely own my body, there must be limits on these requirements. I must have a say in how my body is used for the benefit of others.

Lack of access to abortion can undermine your body ownership even if you never actually need an abortion. If you can get pregnant but access to abortion is limited, then you only get to decide what happens to your body so long as you are not pregnant. You are not entirely free to decide on the actions needed to achieve your goals.

Indeed, I believe legal restrictions on abortion undermine body ownership for any woman, even if she cannot get pregnant and even if she never plans to travel to the US. Her control over her body still depends on the ability or inability to get pregnant and on where she is in the world. A woman’s right to control her body should not rest on such accidents.

Philosopher T.M. Scanlon discusses a “friend” who would steal a kidney for you if you needed one. Scanlon argues that this person is not a true friend to you, because of what his view must be of your right to your own body parts: “He wouldn’t steal them [from you], but that is only because he happens to like you.”

We need our friends to recognise that we have rights to our body parts because we are people, not just because they happen to like us. As a woman, I need recognition that my body belongs to me because I am a person, not merely because I happen not to be able to get pregnant or happen not to need to go to the US.

So all women and all those who can get pregnant are personally affected by the overturning of Roe v Wade – and all threats to abortion access. Recognition of why this is might help us understand otherwise puzzling feelings, both in ourselves and others. It might also help us to work together to defend reproductive rights .

• US politics
• Abortion rights
• Moral philosophy
• Women's rights
• Abortion access
• bodily autonomy

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Is Abortion Sacred?

By Jia Tolentino

Twenty years ago, when I was thirteen, I wrote an entry in my journal about abortion, which began, “I have this huge thing weighing on me.” That morning, in Bible class, which I’d attended every day since the first grade at an evangelical school, in Houston, my teacher had led us in an exercise called Agree/Disagree. He presented us with moral propositions, and we stood up and physically chose sides. “Abortion is always wrong,” he offered, and there was no disagreement. We all walked to the wall that meant “agree.”

Then I raised my hand and, according to my journal, said, “I think it is always morally wrong and absolutely murder, but if a woman is raped, I respect her right to get an abortion.” Also, I said, if a woman knew the child would face a terrible life, the child might be better off. “Dead?” the teacher asked. My classmates said I needed to go to the other side, and I did. “I felt guilty and guilty and guilty,” I wrote in my journal. “I didn’t feel like a Christian when I was on that side of the room. I felt terrible, actually. . . . But I still have that thought that if a woman was raped, she has her right. But that’s so strange—she has a right to kill what would one day be her child? That issue is irresolved in my mind and it will eat at me until I sort it out.”

I had always thought of abortion as it had been taught to me in school: it was a sin that irresponsible women committed to cover up another sin, having sex in a non-Christian manner. The moral universe was a stark battle of virtue and depravity, in which the only meaningful question about any possible action was whether or not it would be sanctioned in the eyes of God. Men were sinful, and the goodness of women was the essential bulwark against the corruption of the world. There was suffering built into this framework, but suffering was noble; justice would prevail, in the end, because God always provided for the faithful. It was these last tenets, prosperity-gospel principles that neatly erase the material causes of suffering in our history and our social policies—not only regarding abortion but so much else—which toppled for me first. By the time I went to college, I understood that I was pro-choice.

America is, in many ways, a deeply religious country—the only wealthy Western democracy in which more than half of the population claims to pray every day. (In Europe, the figure is twenty-two per cent.) Although seven out of ten American women who get abortions identify as Christian, the fight to make the procedure illegal is an almost entirely Christian phenomenon. Two-thirds of the national population and nearly ninety per cent of Congress affirm a tradition in which a teen-age girl continuing an unplanned pregnancy allowed for the salvation of the world, in which a corrupt government leader who demanded a Massacre of the Innocents almost killed the baby Jesus and damned us all in the process, and in which the Son of God entered the world as what the godless dare to call a “clump of cells.”

For centuries, most Christians believed that human personhood began months into the long course of pregnancy. It was only in the twentieth century that a dogmatic narrative, in which every pregnancy is an iteration of the same static story of creation, began both to shape American public policy and to occlude the reality of pregnancy as volatile and ambiguous—as a process in which creation and destruction run in tandem. This newer narrative helped to erase an instinctive, long-held understanding that pregnancy does not begin with the presence of a child, and only sometimes ends with one. Even within the course of the same pregnancy, a person and the fetus she carries can shift between the roles of lover and beloved, host and parasite, vessel and divinity, victim and murderer; each body is capable of extinguishing the other, although one cannot survive alone. There is no human relationship more complex, more morally unstable than this.

The idea that a fetus is not just a full human but a superior and kinglike one—a being whose survival is so paramount that another person can be legally compelled to accept harm, ruin, or death to insure it—is a recent invention. For most of history, women ended unwanted pregnancies as they needed to, taking herbal or plant-derived preparations on their own or with the help of female healers and midwives, who presided over all forms of treatment and care connected with pregnancy. They were likely enough to think that they were simply restoring their menstruation, treating a blockage of blood. Pregnancy was not confirmed until “quickening,” the point at which the pregnant person could feel fetal movement, a measurement that relied on her testimony. Then as now, there was often nothing that distinguished the result of an abortion—the body expelling fetal tissue—from a miscarriage.

Ancient records of abortifacient medicine are plentiful; ancient attempts to regulate abortion are rare. What regulations existed reflect concern with women’s behavior and marital propriety, not with fetal life. The Code of the Assura, from the eleventh century B.C.E., mandated death for married women who got abortions without consulting their husbands; when husbands beat their wives hard enough to make them miscarry, the punishment was a fine. The first known Roman prohibition on abortion dates to the second century and prescribes exile for a woman who ends her pregnancy, because “it might appear scandalous that she should be able to deny her husband of children without being punished.” Likewise, the early Christian Church opposed abortion not as an act of murder but because of its association with sexual sin. (The Bible offers ambiguous guidance on the question of when life begins: Genesis 2:7 arguably implies that it begins at first breath; Exodus 21:22-24 suggests that, in Old Testament law, a fetus was not considered a person; Jeremiah 1:5 describes God’s hand in creation even “before I formed you in the womb.” Nowhere does the Bible clearly and directly address abortion.) Augustine, in the fourth century, favored the idea that God endowed a fetus with a soul only after its body was formed—a point that Augustine placed, in line with Aristotelian tradition, somewhere between forty and eighty days into its development. “There cannot yet be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation when it is not formed in flesh, and so not yet endowed with sense,” he wrote. This was more or less the Church’s official position; it was affirmed eight centuries later by Thomas Aquinas.

In the early modern era, European attitudes began to change. The Black Death had dramatically lowered the continent’s population, and dealt a blow to most forms of economic activity; the Reformation had weakened the Church’s position as the essential intermediary between the layman and God. The social scientist Silvia Federici has argued, in her book “ Caliban and the Witch ,” that church and state waged deliberate campaigns to force women to give birth, in service of the emerging capitalist economy. “Starting in the mid-16th century, while Portuguese ships were returning from Africa with their first human cargoes, all the European governments began to impose the severest penalties against contraception, abortion, and infanticide,” Federici notes. Midwives and “wise women” were prosecuted for witchcraft, a catchall crime for deviancy from procreative sex. For the first time, male doctors began to control labor and delivery, and, Federici writes, “in the case of a medical emergency” they “prioritized the life of the fetus over that of the mother.” She goes on: “While in the Middle Ages women had been able to use various forms of contraceptives, and had exercised an undisputed control over the birthing process, from now on their wombs became public territory, controlled by men and the state.”

Martin Luther and John Calvin, the most influential figures of the Reformation, did not address abortion at any length. But Catholic doctrine started to shift, albeit slowly. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V labelled both abortion and contraception as homicide. This pronouncement was reversed three years later, by Pope Gregory XIV, who declared that abortion was only homicide if it took place after ensoulment, which he identified as occurring around twenty-four weeks into a pregnancy. Still, theologians continued to push the idea of embryonic humanity; in 1621, the physician Paolo Zacchia, an adviser to the Vatican, proclaimed that the soul was present from the moment of conception. Still, it was not until 1869 that Pope Pius IX affirmed this doctrine, proclaiming abortion at any point in pregnancy to be a sin punishable by excommunication.

When I found out I was pregnant, at the beginning of 2020, I wondered how the experience would change my understanding of life, of fetal personhood, of the morality of reproduction. It’s been years since I traded the echo chamber of evangelical Texas for the echo chamber of progressive Brooklyn, but I can still sometimes feel the old world view flickering, a photographic negative underneath my vision. I have come to believe that abortion should be universally accessible, regulated only by medical codes and ethics, and not by the criminal-justice system. Still, in passing moments, I can imagine upholding the idea that our sole task when it comes to protecting life is to end the practice of abortion; I can imagine that seeming profoundly moral and unbelievably urgent. I would only need to think of the fetus in total isolation—to imagine that it were not formed and contained by another body, and that body not formed and contained by a family, or a society, or a world.

As happens to many women, though, I became, if possible, more militant about the right to an abortion in the process of pregnancy, childbirth, and caregiving. It wasn’t just the difficult things that had this effect—the paralyzing back spasms, the ragged desperation of sleeplessness, the thundering doom that pervaded every cell in my body when I weaned my child. And it wasn’t just my newly visceral understanding of the anguish embedded in the facts of American family life. (A third of parents in one of the richest countries in the world struggle to afford diapers ; in the first few months of the pandemic , as Jeff Bezos’s net worth rose by forty-eight billion dollars, sixteen per cent of households with children did not have enough to eat.) What multiplied my commitment to abortion were the beautiful things about motherhood: in particular, the way I felt able to love my baby fully and singularly because I had chosen to give my body and life over to her. I had not been forced by law to make another person with my flesh, or to tear that flesh open to bring her into the world; I hadn’t been driven by need to give that new person away to a stranger in the hope that she would never go to bed hungry. I had been able to choose this permanent rearrangement of my existence. That volition felt sacred.

Abortion is often talked about as a grave act that requires justification, but bringing a new life into the world felt, to me, like the decision that more clearly risked being a moral mistake. The debate about abortion in America is “rooted in the largely unacknowledged premise that continuing a pregnancy is a prima facie moral good,” the pro-choice Presbyterian minister Rebecca Todd Peters writes . But childbearing, Peters notes, is a morally weighted act, one that takes place in a world of limited and unequally distributed resources. Many people who get abortions—the majority of whom are poor women who already have children—understand this perfectly well. “We ought to take the decision to continue a pregnancy far more seriously than we do,” Peters writes.

I gave birth in the middle of a pandemic that previewed a future of cross-species viral transmission exacerbated by global warming, and during a summer when ten million acres on the West Coast burned . I knew that my child would not only live in this degrading world but contribute to that degradation. (“Every year, the average American emits enough carbon to melt ten thousand tons of ice in the Antarctic ice sheets,” David Wallace-Wells writes in his book “ The Uninhabitable Earth .”) Just before COVID arrived, the science writer Meehan Crist published an essay in the London Review of Books titled “Is it OK to have a child?” (The title alludes to a question that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once asked in a live stream, on Instagram.) Crist details the environmental damage that we are doing, and the costs for the planet and for us and for those who will come after. Then she turns the question on its head. The idea of choosing whether or not to have a child, she writes, is predicated on a fantasy of control that “quickly begins to dissipate when we acknowledge that the conditions for human flourishing are distributed so unevenly, and that, in an age of ecological catastrophe, we face a range of possible futures in which these conditions no longer reliably exist.”

In late 2021, as Omicron brought New York to another COVID peak, a Gen Z boy in a hoodie uploaded a TikTok , captioned “yall better delete them baby names out ya notes its 60 degrees in december.” By then, my baby had become a toddler. Every night, as I set her in the crib, she chirped good night to the elephants, koalas, and tigers on the wall, and I tried not to think about extinction. My decision to have her risked, or guaranteed, additional human suffering; it opened up new chances for joy and meaning. There is unknowability in every reproductive choice.

As the German historian Barbara Duden writes in her book “ Disembodying Women ,” the early Christians believed that both the bodies that created life and the world that sustained it were proof of the “continual creative activity of God.” Women and nature were aligned, in this view, as the material sources of God’s plan. “The word nature is derived from nascitura , which means ‘birthing,’ and nature is imagined and felt to be like a pregnant womb, a matrix, a mother,” Duden writes. But, in recent decades, she notes, the natural world has begun to show its irreparable damage. The fetus has been left as a singular totem of life and divinity, to be protected, no matter the costs, even if everything else might fall.

The scholar Katie Gentile argues that, in times of cultural crisis and upheaval, the fetus functions as a “site of projected and displaced anxieties,” a “fantasy of wholeness in the face of overwhelming anxiety and an inability to have faith in a progressive, better future.” The more degraded actual life becomes on earth, the more fervently conservatives will fight to protect potential life in utero. We are locked into the destruction of the world that birthed all of us; we turn our attention, now, to the worlds—the wombs—we think we can still control.

By the time that the Catholic Church decided that abortion at any point, for any reason, was a sin, scientists had identified the biological mechanism behind human reproduction, in which a fetus develops from an embryo that develops from a zygote, the single-celled organism created by the union of egg and sperm. With this discovery, in the mid-nineteenth century, women lost the most crucial point of authority over the stories of their pregnancies. Other people would be the ones to tell us, from then on, when life began.

At the time, abortion was largely unregulated in the United States, a country founded and largely populated by Protestants. But American physicians, through the then newly formed American Medical Association, mounted a campaign to criminalize it, led by a gynecologist named Horatio Storer, who once described the typical abortion patient as a “wretch whose account with the Almighty is heaviest with guilt.” (Storer was raised Unitarian but later converted to Catholicism.) The scholars Paul Saurette and Kelly Gordon have argued that these doctors, whose profession was not as widely respected as it would later become, used abortion “as a wedge issue,” one that helped them portray their work “as morally and professionally superior to the practice of midwifery.” By 1910, abortion was illegal in every state, with exceptions only to save the life of “the mother.” (The wording of such provisions referred to all pregnant people as mothers, whether or not they had children, thus quietly inserting a presumption of fetal personhood.) A series of acts known as the Comstock laws had rendered contraception, abortifacient medicine, and information about reproductive control widely inaccessible, by criminalizing their distribution via the U.S. Postal Service. People still sought abortions, of course: in the early years of the Great Depression, there were as many as seven hundred thousand abortions annually. These underground procedures were dangerous; several thousand women died from abortions every year.

This is when the contemporary movements for and against the right to abortion took shape. Those who favored legal abortion did not, in these years, emphasize “choice,” Daniel K. Williams notes in his book “ Defenders of the Unborn .” They emphasized protecting the health of women, protecting doctors, and preventing the births of unwanted children. Anti-abortion activists, meanwhile, argued, as their successors do, that they were defending human life and human rights. The horrors of the Second World War gave the movement a lasting analogy: “Logic would lead us from abortion to the gas chamber,” a Catholic clergyman wrote, in October, 1962.

Ultrasound imaging, invented in the nineteen-fifties, completed the transformation of pregnancy into a story that, by default, was narrated to women by other people—doctors, politicians, activists. In 1965, Life magazine published a photo essay by Lennart Nilsson called “ Drama of Life Before Birth ,” and put the image of a fetus at eighteen weeks on its cover. The photos produced an indelible, deceptive image of the fetus as an isolated being—a “spaceman,” as Nilsson wrote, floating in a void, entirely independent from the person whose body creates it. They became totems of the anti-abortion movement; Life had not disclosed that all but one had been taken of aborted fetuses, and that Nilsson had lit and posed their bodies to give the impression that they were alive.

In 1967, Colorado became the first state to allow abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or medical emergency. A group of Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis began operating an abortion-referral service led by the pastor of Judson Memorial Church, in Manhattan; the resulting network of pro-choice clerics eventually spanned the country, and referred an estimated four hundred and fifty thousand women to safe abortions. The evangelical magazine Christianity Today held a symposium of prominent theologians, in 1968, which resulted in a striking statement: “Whether or not the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed, but about the necessity and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” Meanwhile, the priest James McHugh became the director of the National Right to Life Committee, and equated fetuses to the other vulnerable people whom faithful Christians were commanded to protect: the old, the sick, the poor. As states began to liberalize their abortion laws, the anti-abortion movement attracted followers—many of them antiwar, pro-welfare Catholics—using the language of civil rights, and adopted the label “pro-life.”

W. A. Criswell, a Dallas pastor who served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1968 to 1970, said, shortly after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade , that “it was only after a child was born and had life separate from his mother that it became an individual person,” and that “it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and the future should be allowed.” But the Court’s decision accelerated a political and theological transformation that was already under way: by 1979, Criswell, like the S.B.C., had endorsed a hard-line anti-abortion stance. Evangelical leadership, represented by such groups as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority , joined with Catholics to oppose the secularization of popular culture, becoming firmly conservative—and a powerful force in Republican politics. Bible verses that express the idea of divine creation, such as Psalm 139 (“For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb,” in the New International Version’s translation), became policy explanations for prohibiting abortion.

In 1984, scientists used ultrasound to detect fetal cardiac activity at around six weeks’ gestation—a discovery that has been termed a “fetal heartbeat” by the anti-abortion movement, though a six-week-old fetus hasn’t yet formed a heart, and the electrical pulses are coming from cell clusters that can be replicated in a petri dish. At six weeks, in fact, medical associations still call the fetus an embryo; as I found out in 2020, you generally can’t even schedule a doctor’s visit to confirm your condition until you’re eight weeks along.

So many things that now shape the cultural experience of pregnancy in America accept and reinforce the terms of the anti-abortion movement, often with the implicit goal of making pregnant women feel special, or encouraging them to buy things. “Your baby,” every app and article whispered to me sweetly, wrongly, many months before I intuited personhood in the being inside me, or felt that the life I was forming had moved out of a liminal realm.

I tried to learn from that liminality. Hope was always predicated on uncertainty; there would be no guarantees of safety in this or any other part of life. Pregnancy did not feel like soft blankets and stuffed bunnies—it felt cosmic and elemental, like volcanic rocks grinding, or a wild plant straining toward the sun. It was violent even as I loved it. “Even with the help of modern medicine, pregnancy still kills about 800 women every day worldwide,” the evolutionary biologist Suzanne Sadedin points out in an essay titled “War in the womb.” Many of the genes that activate during embryonic development also activate when a body has been invaded by cancer, Sadedin notes; in ectopic pregnancies, which are unviable by definition and make up one to two per cent of all pregnancies, embryos become implanted in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus, and “tunnel ferociously toward the richest nutrient source they can find.” The result, Sadedin writes, “is often a bloodbath.”

The Book of Genesis tells us that the pain of childbearing is part of the punishment women have inherited from Eve. The other part is subjugation to men: “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you,” God tells Eve. Tertullian, a second-century theologian, told women, “You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of the (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack.” The idea that guilt inheres in female identity persists in anti-abortion logic: anything a woman, or a girl, does with her body can justify the punishment of undesired pregnancy, including simply existing.

If I had become pregnant when I was a thirteen-year-old Texan , I would have believed that abortion was wrong, but I am sure that I would have got an abortion. For one thing, my Christian school did not allow students to be pregnant. I was aware of this, and had, even then, a faint sense that the people around me grasped, in some way, the necessity of abortion—that, even if they believed that abortion meant taking a life, they understood that it could preserve a life, too.

One need not reject the idea that life in the womb exists or that fetal life has meaning in order to favor the right to abortion; one must simply allow that everything, not just abortion, has a moral dimension, and that each pregnancy occurs in such an intricate web of systemic and individual circumstances that only the person who is pregnant could hope to evaluate the situation and make a moral decision among the options at hand. A recent survey found that one-third of Americans believe life begins at conception but also that abortion should be legal. This is the position overwhelmingly held by American Buddhists, whose religious tradition casts abortion as the taking of a human life and regards all forms of life as sacred but also warns adherents against absolutism and urges them to consider the complexity of decreasing suffering, compelling them toward compassion and respect.

There is a Buddhist ritual practiced primarily in Japan, where it is called mizuko kuyo : a ceremony of mourning for miscarriages, stillbirths, and aborted fetuses. The ritual is possibly ersatz; critics say that it fosters and preys upon women’s feelings of guilt. But the scholar William LaFleur argues, in his book “ Liquid Life ,” that it is rooted in a medieval Japanese understanding of the way the unseen world interfaces with the world of humans—in which being born and dying are both “processes rather than fixed points.” An infant was believed to have entered the human world from the realm of the gods, and move clockwise around a wheel as she grew older, eventually passing back into the spirit realm on the other side. But some infants were mizuko , or water babies: floating in fluids, ontologically unstable. These were the babies who were never born. A mizuko , whether miscarried or aborted—and the two words were similar: kaeru , to go back, and kaesu , to cause to go back—slipped back, counterclockwise, across the border to the realm of the gods.

There is a loss, I think, entailed in abortion—as there is in miscarriage, whether it occurs at eight or twelve or twenty-nine weeks. I locate this loss in the irreducible complexity of life itself, in the terrible violence and magnificence of reproduction, in the death that shimmered at the edges of my consciousness in the shattering moment that my daughter was born. This understanding might be rooted in my religious upbringing—I am sure that it is. But I wonder, now, how I would square this: that fetuses were the most precious lives in existence, and that God, in His vision, already chooses to end a quarter of them. The fact that a quarter of women, regardless of their beliefs, also decide to end pregnancies at some point in their lifetimes: are they not acting in accordance with God’s plan for them, too? ♦

More on Abortion and Roe v. Wade

In the post-Roe era, letting pregnant patients get sicker— by design .

The study that debunks most anti-abortion arguments .

Of course the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion .

How the real Jane Roe shaped the abortion wars.

Black feminists defined abortion rights as a matter of equality, not just “choice.”

Recent data suggest that taking abortion pills at home is as safe as going to a clinic. 

When abortion is criminalized, women make desperate choices .

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Abortion - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Abortion is a highly contentious issue with significant moral, legal, and social implications. Essays on abortion could explore the various aspects of the debate including the ethical dimensions, the legal frameworks governing abortion, and the social attitudes surrounding it. They might delve into historical changes in public opinion, the different arguments presented by pro-life and pro-choice advocates, and the impact of legal rulings on the accessibility and safety of abortion services. Discussions could also explore the intersection of abortion with issues like gender equality, religious freedom, and medical ethics. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Abortion you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Abortion: a Woman’s Choice

Women have long been criticized in every aspect of their lives. They have even little to no choice about how to live their lives. Much like, abortion, which is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. It has been one of the most sensitive topics, society sees it as a murderous act. On, January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled on making the availability of abortion […]

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Every person in the United States is granted inalienable rights, whether it be to practice their own religion or vote, which should include autonomy over their own bodies.  A woman should have the right to choose what she does with her own body, and in 1973 that became a possibility for American women.  In 1973 Roe v. Wade made it possible for women to legally choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies within their first two trimesters.  The government finally took into […]

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Don Marquis begins his argument of abortion being immoral by mentioning the pro-choice premise, which was that the statement of a fetus is never a person being too narrow. It's too narrow because if the fetus is never a person, then what would be the difference of a 9-month-old fetus and a newborn baby? That would just mean that infanticide isn't considered murder because a 9-month-old fetus and newborn weren't ever considered to be a person. Marquis further mentions that […]

Effects of Abortion on Young Women

Abortion is defined as the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. It is a controversial conversation that most people avoid having.  Abortion is different than most issues in politics, because it directly impacts women, rather than men. Young women being targeted over the last forty-five years, has changed the way the public views abortion and what it does to women. A rise in physical complications, mental health problems, and the modern wave of feminism are the effects of legalized abortion […]

The Murder of Innocence

Abortion is a new generation's way of shrugging off accountability of their action at the cost of human life agreeing to the first revision to the structure that says we have the proper way to give of discourse. Me personally for one beyond any doubt that most of us would agree to the reality that ready to say and do what we need and select. For it is our choice to control of speech our conclusions. In connection, moms at […]

The History of Abortion

The history of abortion' is more complex than most people realize. There has been a lot of debate in the past few years about abortion being murder/not murder. Abortion has become illegal in most states. There are several women who believe in "pro-choice" which means they want to have a choice taking care of the baby. I, personally, believe abortion is murder. You are killing a fetus that is going to be born within months and they don't have a […]

Abortion: Go or no Go

Premature birth ends a pregnancy by killing an actual existence yet the mother isn't accused of homicide. Is this right? Shockingly, this has happened roughly twenty million times in the previous twenty years. Tragically, in South Africa, an unborn human has been slaughtered lawfully because of the nation's insufficient laws! The enemy of a honest unprotected human is a killer, accordingly, the individual merits the discipline proportional to a killer by law. Premature birth on interest just gives a mother […]

Abotion: Right or Wrong

When does a person learn right from wrong?  Is someone that knows right from wrong, different from someone who does not? These questions bring up the topic of the difference between a "Human" and a "Person". A human would be of human genetics and have a certain build. On the other hand, a human can also not be a person at certain points in the stage of life. If you can distinguish right from wrong, and are able to make […]

Let’s Talk about my Abortion Article

Why is something that requires two people, almost always considered the woman's problem? Every answer to this question is different, more aggressive in some cases, but it narrows down to basic human rights. Now you may be asking "What the hell is she talking about?" and I can assure you, we will get to that. I'd like for you to first put yourself in a situation: You're given a puppy, yet you're allergic to dogs and absolutely do not have […]

Debates on Abortion Theme

Abortion has proved to be a highly controversial topic in religion, politics, and even ethics. Its debate has caused division between factions with some supporting and others opposing its practice. This issue has also landed in the realm of philosophy where several ethicists have tried to explain why they think the method should either be supported or opposed. This essay looks at the works of Judith Thomson and Don Marquis as a representation of both sides of arguments (advocates and […]

Abortion on Teens should be Abolished

Am sure we have all heard of the girl meets boy story, where the girl falls in love with the boy despite receiving plenty of warnings and criticism from any person who has ever mattered in the girl's life. Everything is merry and life is good for the girl until one day she realizes she has missed her period and rushes to her man's home telling herself that everything will be okay. Reality checks in, hard, when the boy declines […]

The Mother and Abortion

For Gwendolyn Brooks, writing poetry that would be considered out of the ordinary and frowned upon was a common theme for her. Her widespread knowledge on subjects like race, ethnicity, gender, and even abortion placed this African American poet apart from many others. Like many poets, Brooks based many of her works on her own life experiences. Although it's unclear whether or not Brooks had an abortion herself, she creates hints and provokes strong feelings towards the issue, revealing the […]

An Issue of Women’s Reproductive Rights

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that men and women are created equal (Elizabeth Cady Stanton). In America this has been the basis of what our nation stands for. It is stated that every citizen has the right to equality that shall not be stripped away, in many cases that is not true. Whether man or women you should possess the same rights, but more often than not the women's rights are taken away. There are many instances in […]

What is Abortion

Every year, approximately 40-50 million abortions are conducted. That's about 125,000 little human beings being vacuumed, sucked out, and dissolved, everyday. That's 1 baby being aborted every 26 seconds. As of 58% of Americans think abortion should be legal.. Only 37% thinks it should be illegal in all, Or most cases. Abortion should be eliminated because it is murder, gives women mental health issues, and can cause high risks in the mother's future baby's health. There are two different types […]

The Complex Debate: Exploring Abortion Laws and their Implications

There has been a disputed discussion in history among religious, political, ethical, moral and practical grounds when it comes to the case about abortion. Abortion law forbids, allows, limits and governs the availability of abortion. Abortion laws alter to a high degree by country. For example, three countries in Latin America and two others in Europe ban the act of abortion altogether. In other countries like the United Kingdom contains the abortion act of 1967 that clarifies and prescribes abortion […]

My Beliefs on Abortion

Society today condones the killing of a life, they call it abortion, but I will try to show you why this is wrong.  Life begins at conception.  The Bible provides proof that God knew us before we were even formed.  This provides truth that what is inside a woman's body is a human life. I believe that when you decide to have an abortion, you are deciding to kill an innocent baby.  Whether you're doing it because the baby may […]

Research on Abortion Issues

The raging battle for women's rights can be found in almost every avenue of American culture. Whether it be in the workplace, in the government, in churches, or within families, females are fighting for their freedom to control their own lives. They want to work in whichever field they desire, to love whomever they want, and to make decisions for themselves. One of the biggest cases in the quarrel for feminism is the legalization of abortion. Women argue that it […]

Reasons the Constitution of Texas should be Rewritten

The constitution of Texas was written in 1876 but this constitution is not successful in this modern time. Rules and set of protocols which are written in this constitution are not valid for urban Texas these rules need to be amended. From the time of the adoption of this constitution, a total number of 653 amendments were proposed and out of these 653 a total of 474 amendments were approved by the voters and 179 were rejected. Some ?urrent political […]

Get Rid of Abortion or Not?

The world includes a huge variety of people who share different beliefs and morals, however, the Bible states that no one should judge others. One is supposed to respect another for whom they are as a person. The people in this world are beginning to divide because of the debate concerning if abortion is right, or if it is wrong. People identifying themselves to be pro-choice are in support of abortion because they believe a woman should be allowed to […]

Abortion Issues in Modern World

Premature birth alludes to the end of a pregnancy by evacuating or removing the baby or fetus from the uterus before it is prepared for birth. There are two noteworthy types of premature birth: unconstrained, which is regularly alluded to as an unsuccessful labor or the intentional fetus removal, which is frequently instigated fetus removal. The term fetus removal is normally used to allude to the prompted premature birth, and this is the premature birth, which has been loaded up […]

My Understanding of Abortion

Life has a beginning and an end and every individual knows this, as much as they may not want to know or understand it. An abortion, however, brings a thought to many people within our modern society: Is a baby alive before it is born? There are many ways to look at this but scientist have found out that there is an age of viability, where a baby is considered alive after a certain period of a woman's pregnancy. Before […]

Potential Factors that Influence Abortion

When it comes to women and unplanned pregnancies, there are alternatives other than abortions that a woman can use who and go for who isn't interested in having a child. Adoptions could be one of those alternatives; however, some women can't bear the thought of actually carrying a child. Therefore, they turn to their only option which is the abortion. For women, there are several reasons that may lead to them wanting to have an abortion. According to Stacey (2018), […]

The Status of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights

The consequences of sexual behaviour between women and men have driven a desire and determination of women to control their fertility, yet in an environment in which anti-choice legislators and organizations do not protect women's reproductive rights, there is an ongoing dispute on who decides the fate of such rights. The status of women's sexual and reproductive rights remains controversial and while there have been many attempts to gain such basic human right, the fight for reproductive freedoms remains intense. […]

Abortion and Fathers Rights

In this section I will be focusing on the fathers' situation before and after conception, and bring out arguments how he could effectively avoid becoming a parent in any way (biological, bearer of financial costs, emotional). The father after conception has no alternatives left, unlike the mother has. She is in a position that can terminate the pregnancy by opting for an abortion, or she can carry out (or at least try to) the pregnancy until the end. The father […]

Abstinence only Vs. Abortion Rates

If an individual decides to have premarital sex and becomes pregnant it is likely that they will be shamed by someone no matter what decision they make.  If they decide to keep the baby they will be shamed.  If they decided to put the baby up for adoption they will be shamed.  If they decide to get an abortion they will be shamed.  Although the United States of America was founded on the ideas of freedom of religion and the […]

Why Abortion should be Illegal

Abortion is an issue in today’s society, people that agree or disagree about taking an innocent life away. Even though women now have the legal right to decide what to do with their bodies and to decide whether to end a baby’s life, there are options other than abortions. Each and every life is valuable, and babies should be able to experience a future ahead of them. Abortions should be illegal. Making abortion illegal could allow children to live a […]

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why abortion is legal.

Due to the outcome of a Supreme Court hearing, abortion is completely legal. In 1973, the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe vs Wade provided people legal access to abortion across the entire country. While legal, some doctors will not perform abortions.

How Abortion Affects Economy?

Women who have access to legal abortion will have the ability to continue their education and careers. Women denied an abortion because of gestational limits are more than 80% more likely to experience bankruptcy or face eviction.

Where Abortion is Illegal?

Abortion is legal in the entire country of the US, but some states have restrictions based on gestational status, fetal fatal conditions, and even rape. Other countries around the world have different laws and some have completely outlawed abortion, including Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.

Will Abortion Affect Health?

Women who have an abortion by a medical professional are at no risk for future pregnancies and there are no risks to overall health. Abortions do not increase any risk of breast cancer or have any effect on fertility.

Is Abortion Morally Justifiable?

This will depend on the person and their beliefs. Many women find abortion to be moral and a choice they are allowed to make in regards to their own bodies. Some religions have a strict stance on abortion and deem it immoral, regardless of the reason.

How To Write an Essay About Abortion

Introduction to the topic of abortion.

Abortion is a deeply complex and often controversial topic, encompassing a range of ethical, legal, and social issues. In your essay's introduction, it is important to define abortion and the various viewpoints and ethical considerations surrounding it. This introduction should establish the scope of your essay, whether you are focusing on the moral arguments, the legal aspects, the impact on individuals and society, or a combination of these. Your introduction should set a respectful and scholarly tone, acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic and the diverse opinions held by different groups.

Developing a Balanced Argument

The body of your essay should be dedicated to presenting a balanced and well-reasoned argument. Whether your essay is persuasive, analytical, or exploratory in nature, each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the abortion debate. This could include the ethical implications of abortion, the legal history and current laws regarding abortion in different regions, the psychological and physical effects on individuals, or the societal impacts. It's crucial to back up your points with evidence, such as statistical data, legal texts, ethical theories, medical research, and sociological studies. Addressing counterarguments is also important to show that you have considered multiple viewpoints and to strengthen your own argument.

Exploring Ethical and Societal Implications

An essay on abortion should also delve into the ethical dilemmas and societal implications surrounding the topic. This might involve discussing the moral philosophies related to the right to life, bodily autonomy, and the definition of personhood. The societal perspective might include the impact of abortion laws on different socio-economic groups, public health considerations, and the role of education and family planning. This section of your essay should challenge readers to think critically about their own values and the role of societal norms and laws in shaping the abortion debate.

Concluding the Discussion

In your conclusion, bring together all the threads of your argument, emphasizing the complexity of the abortion debate. This is your final opportunity to reinforce your main points and leave a lasting impression on your readers. Reflect on the broader implications of the debate and the ongoing challenges in finding a consensus in such a polarized issue. You might also offer recommendations for future policy, research, or public discourse. Remember, a strong conclusion doesn't just restate what has been said; it provides closure and offers new insights, prompting readers to continue thinking about the topic long after they have finished reading your essay.

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There’s a Better Way to Debate Abortion

Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach.

If Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization becomes law, we will enter a post– Roe v. Wade world in which the laws governing abortion will be legislatively decided in 50 states.

In the short term, at least, the abortion debate will become even more inflamed than it has been. Overturning Roe , after all, would be a profound change not just in the law but in many people’s lives, shattering the assumption of millions of Americans that they have a constitutional right to an abortion.

This doesn’t mean Roe was correct. For the reasons Alito lays out, I believe that Roe was a terribly misguided decision, and that a wiser course would have been for the issue of abortion to have been given a democratic outlet, allowing even the losers “the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight,” in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Instead, for nearly half a century, Roe has been the law of the land. But even those who would welcome its undoing should acknowledge that its reversal could convulse the nation.

From the December 2019 issue: The dishonesty of the abortion debate

If we are going to debate abortion in every state, given how fractured and angry America is today, we need caution and epistemic humility to guide our approach.

We can start by acknowledging the inescapable ambiguities in this staggeringly complicated moral question. No matter one’s position on abortion, each of us should recognize that those who hold views different from our own have some valid points, and that the positions we embrace raise complicated issues. That realization alone should lead us to engage in this debate with a little more tolerance and a bit less certitude.

Many of those on the pro-life side exhibit a gap between the rhetoric they employ and the conclusions they actually seem to draw. In the 1990s, I had an exchange, via fax, with a pro-life thinker. During our dialogue, I pressed him on what he believed, morally speaking , should be the legal penalty for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who performs one.

My point was a simple one: If he believed, as he claimed, that an abortion even moments after conception is the killing of an innocent child—that the fetus, from the instant of conception, is a human being deserving of all the moral and political rights granted to your neighbor next door—then the act ought to be treated, if not as murder, at least as manslaughter. Surely, given what my interlocutor considered to be the gravity of the offense, fining the doctor and taking no action against the mother would be morally incongruent. He was understandably uncomfortable with this line of questioning, unwilling to go to the places his premises led. When it comes to abortion, few people are.

Humane pro-life advocates respond that while an abortion is the taking of a human life, the woman having the abortion has been misled by our degraded culture into denying the humanity of the child. She is a victim of misinformation; she can’t be held accountable for what she doesn’t know. I’m not unsympathetic to this argument, but I think it ultimately falls short. In other contexts, insisting that people who committed atrocities because they truly believed the people against whom they were committing atrocities were less than human should be let off the hook doesn’t carry the day. I’m struggling to understand why it would in this context.

There are other complicating matters. For example, about half of all fertilized eggs are aborted spontaneously —that is, result in miscarriage—usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Focus on the Family, an influential Christian ministry, is emphatic : “Human life begins at fertilization.” Does this mean that when a fertilized egg is spontaneously aborted, it is comparable—biologically, morally, ethically, or in any other way—to when a 2-year-old child dies? If not, why not? There’s also the matter of those who are pro-life and contend that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being but allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That is an understandable impulse but I don’t think it’s a logically sustainable one.

The pro-choice side, for its part, seldom focuses on late-term abortions. Let’s grant that late-term abortions are very rare. But the question remains: Is there any point during gestation when pro-choice advocates would say “slow down” or “stop”—and if so, on what grounds? Or do they believe, in principle, that aborting a child up to the point of delivery is a defensible and justifiable act; that an abortion procedure is, ethically speaking, the same as removing an appendix? If not, are those who are pro-choice willing to say, as do most Americans, that the procedure gets more ethically problematic the further along in a pregnancy?

Read: When a right becomes a privilege

Plenty of people who consider themselves pro-choice have over the years put on their refrigerator door sonograms of the baby they are expecting. That tells us something. So does biology. The human embryo is a human organism, with the genetic makeup of a human being. “The argument, in which thoughtful people differ, is about the moral significance and hence the proper legal status of life in its early stages,” as the columnist George Will put it.

These are not “gotcha questions”; they are ones I have struggled with for as long as I’ve thought through where I stand on abortion, and I’ve tried to remain open to corrections in my thinking. I’m not comfortable with those who are unwilling to grant any concessions to the other side or acknowledge difficulties inherent in their own position. But I’m not comfortable with my own position, either—thinking about abortion taking place on a continuum, and troubled by abortions, particularly later in pregnancy, as the child develops.

The question I can’t answer is where the moral inflection point is, when the fetus starts to have claims of its own, including the right to life. Does it depend on fetal development? If so, what aspect of fetal development? Brain waves? Feeling pain? Dreaming? The development of the spine? Viability outside the womb? Something else? Any line I might draw seems to me entirely arbitrary and capricious.

Because of that, I consider myself pro-life, but with caveats. My inability to identify a clear demarcation point—when a fetus becomes a person—argues for erring on the side of protecting the unborn. But it’s a prudential judgment, hardly a certain one.

At the same time, even if one believes that the moral needle ought to lean in the direction of protecting the unborn from abortion, that doesn’t mean one should be indifferent to the enormous burden on the woman who is carrying the child and seeks an abortion, including women who discover that their unborn child has severe birth defects. Nor does it mean that all of us who are disturbed by abortion believe it is the equivalent of killing a child after birth. In this respect, my view is similar to that of some Jewish authorities , who hold that until delivery, a fetus is considered a part of the mother’s body, although it does possess certain characteristics of a person and has value. But an early-term abortion is not equivalent to killing a young child. (Many of those who hold this position base their views in part on Exodus 21, in which a miscarriage that results from men fighting and pushing a pregnant woman is punished by a fine, but the person responsible for the miscarriage is not tried for murder.)

“There is not the slightest recognition on either side that abortion might be at the limits of our empirical and moral knowledge,” the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in 1985. “The problem starts with an awesome mystery: the transformation of two soulless cells into a living human being. That leads to an insoluble empirical question: How and exactly when does that occur? On that, in turn, hangs the moral issue: What are the claims of the entity undergoing that transformation?”

That strikes me as right; with abortion, we’re dealing with an awesome mystery and insoluble empirical questions. Which means that rather than hurling invective at one another and caricaturing those with whom we disagree, we should try to understand their views, acknowledge our limitations, and even show a touch of grace and empathy. In this nation, riven and pulsating with hate, that’s not the direction the debate is most likely to take. But that doesn’t excuse us from trying.

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Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Crafting a Convincing Persuasive Essay About Abortion

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Are you about to write a persuasive essay on abortion but wondering how to begin?

Writing an effective persuasive essay on the topic of abortion can be a difficult task for many students. 

It is important to understand both sides of the issue and form an argument based on facts and logical reasoning. This requires research and understanding, which takes time and effort.

In this blog, we will provide you with some easy steps to craft a persuasive essay about abortion that is compelling and convincing. Moreover, we have included some example essays and interesting facts to read and get inspired by. 

So let's start!

• 1. How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?
• 2. Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples
• 3. Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion
• 4. Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics
• 5. Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Abortion is a controversial topic, with people having differing points of view and opinions on the matter. There are those who oppose abortion, while some people endorse pro-choice arguments. 

It is also an emotionally charged subject, so you need to be extra careful when crafting your persuasive essay .

Before you start writing your persuasive essay, you need to understand the following steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Position

The first step to writing a persuasive essay on abortion is to decide your position. Do you support the practice or are you against it? You need to make sure that you have a clear opinion before you begin writing. 

Once you have decided, research and find evidence that supports your position. This will help strengthen your argument. 

Check out the video below to get more insights into this topic:

Step 2: Choose Your Audience

The next step is to decide who your audience will be. Will you write for pro-life or pro-choice individuals? Or both? 

Knowing who you are writing for will guide your writing and help you include the most relevant facts and information.

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Step 3: Define Your Argument

Now that you have chosen your position and audience, it is time to craft your argument. 

Start by defining what you believe and why, making sure to use evidence to support your claims. You also need to consider the opposing arguments and come up with counter arguments. This helps make your essay more balanced and convincing.

Step 4: Format Your Essay

Once you have the argument ready, it is time to craft your persuasive essay. Follow a standard format for the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. 

Make sure that each paragraph is organized and flows smoothly. Use clear and concise language, getting straight to the point.

Step 5: Proofread and Edit

The last step in writing your persuasive essay is to make sure that you proofread and edit it carefully. Look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or factual errors and correct them. This will help make your essay more professional and convincing.

These are the steps you need to follow when writing a persuasive essay on abortion. It is a good idea to read some examples before you start so you can know how they should be written.

Continue reading to find helpful examples.

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples

To help you get started, here are some example persuasive essays on abortion that may be useful for your own paper.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Persuasive Essay about legalizing abortion

You can also read m ore persuasive essay examples to imp rove your persuasive skills.

Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents both sides of an argument. These essays rely heavily on logic and evidence.

Here are some examples of argumentative essay with introduction, body and conclusion that you can use as a reference in writing your own argumentative essay. 

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Abortion - Introduction

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

If you are looking for some topics to write your persuasive essay on abortion, here are some examples:

• Should abortion be legal in the United States?
• Is it ethical to perform abortions, considering its pros and cons?
• What should be done to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions?
• Is there a connection between abortion and psychological trauma?
• What are the ethical implications of abortion on demand?
• How has the debate over abortion changed over time?
• Should there be legal restrictions on late-term abortions?
• Does gender play a role in how people view abortion rights?
• Is it possible to reduce poverty and unwanted pregnancies through better sex education?
• How is the anti-abortion point of view affected by religious beliefs and values? 

These are just some of the potential topics that you can use for your persuasive essay on abortion. Think carefully about the topic you want to write about and make sure it is something that interests you. 

Check out m ore persuasive essay topics that will help you explore other things that you can write about!

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Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments.

• According to the Guttmacher Institute , 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion.
• The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.
• Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
• In the United States, 14 states have laws that restrict or ban most forms of abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
• Seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
• In places where abortion is illegal, more women die during childbirth and due to complications resulting from pregnancy.
• A majority of pregnant women who opt for abortions do so for financial and social reasons.
• According to estimates, 56 million abortions occur annually.

In conclusion, these are some of the examples, steps, and topics that you can use to write a persuasive essay. Make sure to do your research thoroughly and back up your arguments with evidence. This will make your essay more professional and convincing. 

Need the services of a persuasive essay writing service ? We've got your back!

MyPerfectWords.com that provides help to students in the form of professionally written essays. Our persuasive essay writer can craft quality persuasive essays on any topic, including abortion. 

So, just ask our experts ' do my essay ' and get professional help.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should i talk about in an essay about abortion.

When writing an essay about abortion, it is important to cover all the aspects of the subject. This includes discussing both sides of the argument, providing facts and evidence to support your claims, and exploring potential solutions.

What is a good argument for abortion?

A good argument for abortion could be that it is a woman’s choice to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is also important to consider the potential risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.

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Keep reading

Abortion Essay Example

05 January, 2020

11 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

Composing essays is a must during your college studies. Sometimes, you might get a topic that you aren’t fully aware of. Or, you can fail to grasp the idea of what a particular essay topic requires you to reveal in your essay. An abortion essay, for example, has become one of the very on-going issues these days. Professors believe that elaborating an essay on such a topic can help a student learn how to develop appropriate arguments and ideas, even in the most sensitive essays. If you experience any difficulty with the abortion essay writing, you just need to take a few points into account. Regardless of your title, which can be either why abortion should be supported or why abortion should be illegal essay, you can master your writing just by acknowledging several essential facts about it.

Abortion Essay: Definitions, Goals & Topics

An abortion argumentative essay reveals the arguments for or against pregnancy termination. The main peculiarity of such an essay is that one can write it from different points of view. While one may strongly feel like composing an abortion arguments essay and advancing their positioning in terms of healthcare and research, others may think of this essay in terms of psychology and sociology. Regardless of the stance, it is necessary to carry out some preliminary research and make sure you operate on both your arguments and data accurately. 

Abortion essays require the essay writer to stay tolerant and open-minded. The topic, the selection of arguments, vocabulary – all of these indicators should not offend people who are sensitive to the outlined topic. 

All in all, the ultimate goal of an argumentative essay on abortion is to present the topic and provide arguments for and against it. It is likewise essential to give an insight into the subject, reveal its current state, and include most recent findings. 

Abortion Essay Titles 

When composing a title for an abortion essay, the first critical thing to keep in mind is transparency. The title should not create confusion or offend the reader. To select a title you would like to develop in your essay, decide whether you know why abortion is wrong essay, or if you favor supporting the topic. Here are some of the topics that will be easy to elaborate on in your essay about abortion:

• Reasons why women in underdeveloped countries are inclined to abortions
• Potential health hazard as a consequence of abortion
• How different countries approach abortions 
• The reasons why calling abortion murder is inappropriate
• Depriving a woman of the right to make an abortion is equal to depriving a woman of her freedom

Abortion Essay Structure  

As you have already learned, a classical essay comprises three parts: an introduction, several body paragraphs (3-5), and concluding remarks. The abortion essay isn’t an exception. But a structure of an abortion essay should be very specific as it contains several fundamental points that differ from other essay types. 

Introduction 

First, you need to define abortion as soon as you start writing an abortion essay. Even though almost everyone in the world knows what abortion is, it is essential to state its interpretation. Later, you can mention recent findings or events that fairly make an abortion a topic of heated debate. At the end of an introduction, your primary task is to demonstrate your attitude to the topic. Namely, you need to write a short thesis statement that will mention your opinion. For instance, a thesis statement can be: “Should society decide for women what to do with their lives and bodies?”. 

If you decide to support abortion in the essay, you may write the body part in the following way: 2-3 paragraphs supporting abortion + one counter-argument against abortion. Remember to provide arguments and support them, not just admit that abortion is good or bad. 

Conclusion 

When writing a conclusion, briefly summarize everything you mentioned in the text. You should come back to the thesis you mentioned in the introduction while writing it. Don’t forget to mention your own vision and attitude to a problem. 

Best Tips For Writing Abortion Essay 

Research comes first.

First of all, explore what is already said and written on the topic of abortions. Namely, don’t just read what people say and don’t make conclusions based on what image abortion has in the media. Instead, you may refer to recent research, speeches, and scientific papers by people whose findings are objective and not based on their subjective, emotional perception. Afterward, try to figure out what your attitude on the topic of abortions is. Are you an opponent of the topic, or would you rather support it? 

Pay attention to introduction

An introduction is the most fundamental part of the whole paper. If writing an introduction seems to be too complicated, just refer to scientific papers. Find an attention-grabbing statement and feel free to use it in your paper. If possible, try to paraphrase it. 

Think of the implications

Suppose you decided to write an essay as an opponent of abortions. Think of some possible implications that termination of pregnancy may have. Also, consider the hazard of continuing an unwanted pregnancy. Doing so is essential if you want to strengthen your arguments. 

Be flexible

Since such a topic might be extremely sensitive, it is vital not to be critical. It isn’t a good idea to get emotional or, what is worse, judgemental in your paper. Demonstrate that even though you support a particular argument, you don’t exclude that the opposite argument may also hold true. 

Abortion Essay Examples  

Abortion implies a termination of pregnancy by removing the embryo from a woman’s uterus prior to its birth. Uncountable controversies and criticism have increasingly surrounded the topic of abortion. Even though most developed countries officially carry out a lot of abortions annually, this medical procedure is actively discussed in many countries. Today, a lot of people believe that pregnancies are terminated by women who are either underaged, poor, or promiscuous. A woman who terminates her pregnancy can also be mature, having kids already, married, happy, and wealthy. Women make this step due to multiple reasons. Should society take control over a female body and decide her and her kid’s fate, and does the prohibition of abortion indeed decrease the abortion rate?

Official prohibition of abortions isn’t likely to reduce the abortion rate. For example, gambling and prostitution have long ago been prohibited in many countries in the world. However, this doesn’t mean that the people don’t gamble and that particular women don’t make their living by engaging in prostitution. The same concerns abortions. Once abortions are prohibited on a state level, women will be left with nothing but a decision to find a person who will carry out an abortion illegally. Or, what is worse, women might induce a miscarriage on their own if they can’t find a specialist. While a medical abortion procedure is a safe way to terminate  pregnancy, the latter is not. The risk of terminating pregnancy elsewhere or even at home might be incompatible with life. A lot of women die because of an unsuccessful pregnancy termination, which is way worse than a safe abortion in a medical institution.  

A lot of infants in the US die during the first years, months, if not days of their life. This happens as a result of an inborn pathology. Pathology is usually diagnosed during pregnancy screenings. Since such screenings are performed at an early pregnancy phase, a woman can terminate pregnancy once such pathology is identified. The fact of the matter is that many pathologies are incompatible with life too. For each mother, watching her kid dying and knowing that she cannot help, even if she had all the money in the world, is devastating. And that’s even worse for a suffering child. This leads to the conclusion that terminating a pregnancy is the most humane decision in such a situation. 

Prohibiting abortions often equals to forcing a woman to give birth to a child she does not want. The reasons for such an unwillingness are uncountable. First, a woman might not be mature enough, she might have kids already and no money to afford this child. Besides, her pregnancy might be a mistake not because of her fault. Indeed, 2 in 1000 women in the US are raped annually. Why should a woman be judged by her decision to terminate pregnancy which is a result of a sexual assault? Even in cases when no sexual assault took place, it is still irrelevant to shame a woman and criticize her for knowing what will be better for her. It is better to terminate a pregnancy than to give life to a child who will never be loved and secure and be an unsuitable fit for a woman at the same time. 

Terminating pregnancy, on the other hand, is not just depriving an unborn child of a right to live a life he or she deserves. Regardless of the woman’s motives, she imposes risks on her health. First of all, an abortion undermines a woman’s emotional and mental health. Additionally, it might set risks for her physical health. Indeed, she might reduce her chances of getting pregnant again or increase further pregnancy complications. Besides, 7 in every 100 women face a risk of having parts of a fetus remaining in her womb. 

Overall, abortion is solely a woman’s issue. It should not have anything to do with politics, religion, and disgrace. Bringing a child to the world is the responsibility of a woman who has enough grounds for making an appropriate decision. Although terminating a pregnancy might bring severe health risks, it erases the problems that might be even more severe, such as watching a child suffer and not being able  to give them a childhood they deserve. 

Write an Abortion Essay with HandmadeWriting 

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Abortion Argumentative Essay: Definitive Guide

Academic writing

Abortion remains a debatable issue even today, especially in countries like the USA, where a controversial ban was upheld in 13 states at the point this article was written. That’s why an essay on abortion has become one of the most popular tasks in schools, colleges, and universities. When writing this kind of essay, students learn to express their opinion, find and draw arguments and examples, and conduct research.

It’s very easy to speculate on topics like this. However, this makes it harder to find credible and peer-reviewed information on the topic that isn’t merely someone’s opinion. If you were assigned this kind of academic task, do not lose heart. In this article, we will provide you with all the tips and tricks for writing about abortion.

Where to begin?

Conversations about abortion are always emotional. Complex stories, difficult decisions, bitter moments, and terrible diagnoses make this topic hard to cover. Some young people may be shocked by this assignment, while others would be happy to express their opinion on the matter.

One way or another, this topic doesn't leave anyone indifferent. However, it shouldn’t have an effect on the way you approach the research and writing process. What should you remember when working on an argumentative essay about abortion?

• Don’t let your emotions take over. As this is an academic paper, you have to stay impartial and operate with facts. The topic is indeed sore and burning, causing thousands of scandals on the Internet, but you are writing it for school, not a Quora thread.
• Try to balance your opinions. There are always two sides to one story, even if the story is so fragile. You need to present an issue from different angles. This is what your tutors seek to teach you.
• Be tolerant and mind your language. It is very important not to hurt anybody with the choice of words in your essay. So make sure you avoid any possible rough words. It is important to respect people with polar opinions, especially when it comes to academic writing. 
• Use facts, not claims. Your essay cannot be based solely on your personal ideas – your conclusions should be derived from facts. Roe v. Wade case, WHO or Mayo Clinic information, and CDC are some of the sources you can rely on.

Speaking of Outline

An argumentative essay on abortion outline is a must-have even for experienced writers. In general, each essay, irrespective of its kind or topic, has a strict outline. It may be brief or extended, but the major parts are always the same:

• Introduction. This is a relatively short paragraph that starts with a hook and presents the background information on the topic. It should end with a thesis statement telling your reader what your main goal or idea is.
• Body. This section usually consists of 2-4 paragraphs. Each one has its own structure: main argument + facts to support it + small conclusion and transition into the next paragraph.
• Conclusion. In this part, your task is to summarize all your thoughts and come to a general conclusive idea. You may have to restate some info from the body and your thesis statement and add a couple of conclusive statements without introducing new facts.

Why is it important to create an outline?

• You will structure your ideas. We bet you’ve got lots on your mind. Writing them down and seeing how one can flow logically into the other will help you create a consistent paper. Naturally, you will have to abandon some of the ideas if they don’t fit the overall narrative you’re building.
• You can get some inspiration. While creating your outline, which usually consists of some brief ideas, you can come up with many more to research. Some will add to your current ones or replace them with better options.
• You will find the most suitable sources. Argumentative essay writing requires you to use solid facts and trustworthy arguments built on them. When the topic is as controversial as abortion, these arguments should be taken from up-to-date, reliable sources. With an outline, you will see if you have enough to back up your ideas.
• You will write your text as professionals do. Most expert writers start with outlines to write the text faster and make it generally better. As you will have your ideas structured, the general flow of thoughts will be clear. And, of course, it will influence your overall grade positively.

Abortion Essay Introduction

The introduction is perhaps the most important part of the whole essay. In this relatively small part, you will have to present the issue under consideration and state your opinion on it. Here is a typical introduction outline:

• The first sentence is a hook grabbing readers' attention.
• A few sentences that go after elaborate on the hook. They give your readers some background and explain your research.
• The last sentence is a thesis statement showing the key idea you are building your text around.

Before writing an abortion essay intro, first thing first, you will need to define your position. If you are in favor of this procedure, what exactly made you think so? If you are an opponent of abortion, determine how to argue your position. In both cases, you may research the point of view in medicine, history, ethics, and other fields.

When writing an introduction, remember:

• Never repeat your title. First of all, it looks too obvious; secondly, it may be boring for your reader right from the start. Your first sentence should be a well-crafted hook. The topic of abortion worries many people, so it’s your chance to catch your audience’s attention with some facts or shocking figures.
• Do not make it too long. Your task here is to engage your audience and let them know what they are about to learn. The rest of the information will be disclosed in the main part. Nobody likes long introductions, so keep it short but informative.
• Pay due attention to the thesis statement. This is the central sentence of your introduction. A thesis statement in your abortion intro paragraph should show that you have a well-supported position and are ready to argue it. Therefore, it has to be strong and convey your idea as clearly as possible. We advise you to make several options for the thesis statement and choose the strongest one.

Hooks for an Abortion Essay

Writing a hook is a good way to catch the attention of your audience, as this is usually the first sentence in an essay. How to start an essay about abortion? You can begin with some shocking fact, question, statistics, or even a quote. However, always make sure that this piece is taken from a trusted resource.

Here are some examples of hooks you can use in your paper:

• As of July 1, 2022, 13 states banned abortion, depriving millions of women of control of their bodies.
• According to WHO, 125,000 abortions take place every day worldwide.
• Is abortion a woman’s right or a crime?
• Since 1994, more than 40 countries have liberalized their abortion laws.
• Around 48% of all abortions are unsafe, and 8% of them lead to women’s death.
• The right to an abortion is one of the reproductive and basic rights of a woman.
• Abortion is as old as the world itself – women have resorted to this method since ancient times.
• Only 60% of women in the world live in countries where pregnancy termination is allowed.

Body Paragraphs: Pros and Cons of Abortion

The body is the biggest part of your paper. Here, you have a chance to make your voice concerning the abortion issue heard. Not sure where to start? Facts about abortion pros and cons should give you a basic understanding of which direction to move in.

First things first, let’s review some brief tips for you on how to write the best essay body if you have already made up your mind.

Make a draft

It’s always a good idea to have a rough draft of your writing. Follow the outline and don’t bother with the word choice, grammar, or sentence structure much at first. You can polish it all later, as the initial draft will not likely be your final. You may see some omissions in your arguments, lack of factual basis, or repetitiveness that can be eliminated in the next versions.

Trust only reliable sources

This part of an essay includes loads of factual information, and you should be very careful with it. Otherwise, your paper may look unprofessional and cost you precious points. Never rely on sources like Wikipedia or tabloids – they lack veracity and preciseness.

Edit rigorously

It’s best to do it the next day after you finish writing so that you can spot even the smallest mistakes. Remember, this is the most important part of your paper, so it has to be flawless. You can also use editing tools like Grammarly.

Determine your weak points

Since you are writing an argumentative essay, your ideas should be backed up by strong facts so that you sound convincing. Sometimes it happens that one argument looks weaker than the other. Your task is to find it and strengthen it with more or better facts.

Add an opposing view

Sometimes, it’s not enough to present only one side of the discussion. Showing one of the common views from the opposing side might actually help you strengthen your main idea. Besides, making an attempt at refuting it with alternative facts can show your teacher or professor that you’ve researched and analyzed all viewpoints, not just the one you stand by.

If you have chosen a side but are struggling to find the arguments for or against it, we have complied abortion pro and cons list for you. You can use both sets if you are writing an abortion summary essay covering all the stances.

Why Should Abortion Be Legal

If you stick to the opinion that abortion is just a medical procedure, which should be a basic health care need for each woman, you will definitely want to write the pros of abortion essay. Here is some important information and a list of pros about abortion for you to use:

• Since the fetus is a set of cells – not an individual, it’s up to a pregnant woman to make a decision concerning her body. Only she can decide whether she wants to keep the pregnancy or have an abortion. The abortion ban is a violation of a woman’s right to have control over her own body.
• The fact that women and girls do not have access to effective contraception and safe abortion services has serious consequences for their own health and the health of their families.
• The criminalization of abortion usually leads to an increase in the number of clandestine abortions. Many years ago, fetuses were disposed of with improvised means, which included knitting needles and half-straightened metal hangers. 13% of women’s deaths are the result of unsafe abortions.
• Many women live in a difficult financial situation and cannot support their children financially. Having access to safe abortion takes this burden off their shoulders. This will also not decrease their quality of life as the birth and childcare would.
• In countries where abortion is prohibited, there is a phenomenon of abortion tourism to other countries where it can be done without obstacles. Giving access to this procedure can make the lives of women much easier.
• Women should not put their lives or health in danger because of the laws that were adopted by other people.
• Girls and women who do not have proper sex education may not understand pregnancy as a concept or determine that they are pregnant early on. Instead of educating them and giving them a choice, an abortion ban forces them to become mothers and expects them to be fit parents despite not knowing much about reproduction.
• There are women who have genetic disorders or severe mental health issues that will affect their children if they're born. Giving them an option to terminate ensures that there won't be a child with a low quality of life and that the woman will not have to suffer through pregnancy, birth, and raising a child with her condition.
• Being pro-choice is about the freedom to make decisions about your body so that women who are for termination can do it safely, and those who are against it can choose not to do it. It is an inclusive option that caters to everyone.
• Women and girls who were raped or abused by their partner, caregiver, or stranger and chose to terminate the pregnancy can now be imprisoned for longer than their abusers. This implies that the system values the life of a fetus with no or primitive brain function over the life of a living woman.
• People who lived in times when artificial termination of pregnancy was scarcely available remember clandestine abortions and how traumatic they were, not only for the physical but also for the mental health of women. Indeed, traditionally, in many countries, large families were a norm. However, the times have changed, and supervised abortion is a safe and accessible procedure these days. A ban on abortion will simply push humanity away from the achievements of the civilized world.

Types of abortion

There are 2 main types of abortions that can be performed at different pregnancy stages and for different reasons:

• Medical abortion. It is performed by taking a specially prescribed pill. It does not require any special manipulations and can even be done at home (however, after a doctor’s visit and under supervision). It is considered very safe and is usually done during the very first weeks of pregnancy.
• Surgical abortion. This is a medical operation that is done with the help of a suction tube. It then removes the fetus and any related material. Anesthesia is used for this procedure, and therefore, it can only be done in a hospital. The maximum time allowed for surgical abortion is determined in each country specifically.

Cases when abortion is needed

Center for Reproductive Rights singles out the following situations when abortion is required:

• When there is a risk to the life or physical/mental health of a pregnant woman.
• When a pregnant woman has social or economic reasons for it.
• Upon the woman's request.
• If a pregnant woman is mentally or cognitively disabled.
• In case of rape and/or incest.
• If there were congenital anomalies detected in the fetus.

Countries and their abortion laws

• Countries where abortion is legalized in any case: Australia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.
• Countries where abortion is completely prohibited: Angola, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Paraguay, Palau, Jamaica, Laos, Haiti, Honduras, Andorra, Aruba, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, Senegal, etc.
• Countries where abortion is allowed for medical reasons: Afghanistan, Israel, Argentina, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Bahamas, Central African Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Algeria, Monaco, Pakistan, Poland, etc. 
• Countries where abortion is allowed for both medical and socioeconomic reasons: England, India, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Finland, Taiwan, Zambia, Iceland, Fiji, Cyprus, Barbados, Belize, etc.

Why Abortion Should Be Banned

Essays against abortions are popular in educational institutions since we all know that many people – many minds. So if you don’t want to support this procedure in your essay, here are some facts that may help you to argument why abortion is wrong:

• Abortion at an early age is especially dangerous because a young woman with an unstable hormonal system may no longer be able to have children throughout her life. Termination of pregnancy disrupts the hormonal development of the body.
• Health complications caused by abortion can occur many years after the procedure. Even if a woman feels fine in the short run, the situation may change in the future.
• Abortion clearly has a negative effect on reproductive function. Artificial dilation of the cervix during an abortion leads to weak uterus tonus, which can cause a miscarriage during the next pregnancy.
• Evidence shows that surgical termination of pregnancy significantly increases the risk of breast cancer.
• In December 1996, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics concluded that a fetus is considered a human being on the 14th day after conception.

You are free to use each of these arguments for essays against abortions. Remember that each claim should not be supported by emotions but by facts, figures, and so on.

Health complications after abortion

One way or another, abortion is extremely stressful for a woman’s body. Apart from that, it can even lead to various health problems in the future. You can also cover them in your cons of an abortion essay:

• Continuation of pregnancy. If the dose of the drug is calculated by the doctor in the wrong way, the pregnancy will progress.
• Uterine bleeding, which requires immediate surgical intervention.
• Severe nausea or even vomiting occurs as a result of a sharp change in the hormonal background.
• Severe stomach pain. Medical abortion causes miscarriage and, as a result, strong contractions of the uterus.
• High blood pressure and allergic reactions to medicines.
• Depression or other mental problems after a difficult procedure.

Abortion Essay Conclusion

After you have finished working on the previous sections of your paper, you will have to end it with a strong conclusion. The last impression is no less important than the first one. Here is how you can make it perfect in your conclusion paragraph on abortion:

• It should be concise. The conclusion cannot be as long as your essay body and should not add anything that cannot be derived from the main section. Reiterate the key ideas, combine some of them, and end the paragraph with something for the readers to think about.
• It cannot repeat already stated information. Restate your thesis statement in completely other words and summarize your main points. Do not repeat anything word for word – rephrase and shorten the information instead.
• It should include a call to action or a cliffhanger. Writing experts believe that a rhetorical question works really great for an argumentative essay. Another good strategy is to leave your readers with some curious ideas to ponder upon.

Abortion Facts for Essay

Abortion is a topic that concerns most modern women. Thousands of books, research papers, and articles on abortion are written across the world. Even though pregnancy termination has become much safer and less stigmatized with time, it still worries millions. What can you cover in your paper so that it can really stand out among others? You may want to add some shocking abortion statistics and facts:

• 40-50 million abortions are done in the world every year (approximately 125,000 per day).
• According to UN statistics, women have 25 million unsafe abortions each year. Most of them (97%) are performed in the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 14% of them are especially unsafe because they are done by people without any medical knowledge.
• Since 2017, the United States has shown the highest abortion rate in the last 30 years.
• The biggest number of abortion procedures happen in the countries where they are officially banned. The lowest rate is demonstrated in the countries with high income and free access to contraception.
• Women in low-income regions are three times more susceptible to unplanned pregnancies than those in developed countries.
• In Argentina, more than 38,000 women face dreadful health consequences after unsafe abortions.
• The highest teen abortion rates in the world are seen in 3 countries: England, Wales, and Sweden.
• Only 31% of teenagers decide to terminate their pregnancy. However, the rate of early pregnancies is getting lower each year.
• Approximately 13 million children are born to mothers under the age of 20 each year.
• 5% of women of reproductive age live in countries where abortions are prohibited.

We hope that this abortion information was useful for you, and you can use some of these facts for your own argumentative essay. If you find some additional facts, make sure that they are not manipulative and are taken from official medical resources.

Abortion Essay Topics

Do you feel like you are lost in the abundance of information? Don’t know what topic to choose among the thousands available online? Check our short list of the best abortion argumentative essay topics:

• Why should abortion be legalized essay
• Abortion: a murder or a basic human right?
• Why we should all support abortion rights
• Is the abortion ban in the US a good initiative?
• The moral aspect of teen abortions
• Can the abortion ban solve birth control problems?
• Should all countries allow abortion?
• What consequences can abortion have in the long run?
• Is denying abortion sexist?
• Why is abortion a human right?
• Are there any ethical implications of abortion?
• Do you consider abortion a crime?
• Should women face charges for terminating a pregnancy?

Want to come up with your own? Here is how to create good titles for abortion essays:

• Write down the first associations. It can be something that swirls around in your head and comes to the surface when you think about the topic. These won’t necessarily be well-written headlines, but each word or phrase can be the first link in the chain of ideas that leads you to the best option.
• Irony and puns are not always a good idea. Especially when it comes to such difficult topics as abortion. Therefore, in your efforts to be original, remain sensitive to the issue you want to discuss.
• Never make a quote as your headline. First, a wordy quote makes the headline long. Secondly, readers do not understand whose words are given in the headline. Therefore, it may confuse them right from the start. If you have found a great quote, you can use it as your hook, but don’t forget to mention its author.
• Try to briefly summarize what is said in the essay. What is the focus of your paper? If the essence of your argumentative essay can be reduced to one sentence, it can be used as a title, paraphrased, or shortened.
• Write your title after you have finished your text. Before you just start writing, you might not yet have a catchy phrase in mind to use as a title. Don’t let it keep you from working on your essay – it might come along as you write.

Abortion Essay Example

We know that it is always easier to learn from a good example. For this reason, our writing experts have complied a detailed abortion essay outline for you. For your convenience, we have created two options with different opinions.

Topic: Why should abortion be legal?

Introduction – hook + thesis statement + short background information

Essay hook: More than 59% of women in the world do not have access to safe abortions, which leads to dreading health consequences or even death.

Thesis statement: Since banning abortions does not decrease their rates but only makes them unsafe, it is not logical to ban abortions.

Body – each paragraph should be devoted to one argument

Argument 1: Woman’s body – women’s rules. + example: basic human rights.

Argument 2: Banning abortion will only lead to more women’s death. + example: cases of Polish women.

Argument 3: Only women should decide on abortion. + example: many abortion laws are made by male politicians who lack knowledge and first-hand experience in pregnancies.

Conclusion – restated thesis statement + generalized conclusive statements + cliffhanger

Restated thesis: The abortion ban makes pregnancy terminations unsafe without decreasing the number of abortions, making it dangerous for women.

Cliffhanger: After all, who are we to decide a woman’s fate?

Topic: Why should abortion be banned?

Essay hook: Each year, over 40 million new babies are never born because their mothers decide to have an abortion.

Thesis statement: Abortions on request should be banned because we cannot decide for the baby whether it should live or die.

Argument 1: A fetus is considered a person almost as soon as it is conceived. Killing it should be regarded as murder. + example: Abortion bans in countries such as Poland, Egypt, etc.

Argument 2: Interrupting a baby’s life is morally wrong. + example: The Bible, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics decision in 1996, etc.

Argument 3: Abortion may put the reproductive health of a woman at risk. + example: negative consequences of abortion.

Restated thesis: Women should not be allowed to have abortions without serious reason because a baby’s life is as priceless as their own.

Cliffhanger: Why is killing an adult considered a crime while killing an unborn baby is not?

Examples of Essays on Abortion

There are many great abortion essays examples on the Web. You can easily find an argumentative essay on abortion in pdf and save it as an example. Many students and scholars upload their pieces to specialized websites so that others can read them and continue the discussion in their own texts.

In a free argumentative essay on abortion, you can look at the structure of the paper, choice of the arguments, depth of research, and so on. Reading scientific papers on abortion or essays of famous activists is also a good idea. Here are the works of famous authors discussing abortion.

A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson

Published in 1971, this essay by an American philosopher considers the moral permissibility of abortion. It is considered the most debated and famous essay on this topic, and it’s definitely worth reading no matter what your stance is.

Abortion and Infanticide by Michael Tooley

It was written in 1972 by an American philosopher known for his work in the field of metaphysics. In this essay, the author considers whether fetuses and infants have the same rights. Even though this work is quite complex, it presents some really interesting ideas on the matter.

Some Biological Insights into Abortion by Garret Hardin

This article by American ecologist Garret Hardin, who had focused on the issue of overpopulation during his scholarly activities, presents some insights into abortion from a scientific point of view. He also touches on non-biological issues, such as moral and economic. This essay will be of great interest to those who support the pro-choice stance.

H4 Hidden in Plain View: An Overview of Abortion in Rural Illinois and Around the Globe by Heather McIlvaine-Newsad 

In this study, McIlvaine-Newsad has researched the phenomenon of abortion since prehistoric times. She also finds an obvious link between the rate of abortions and the specifics of each individual country. Overall, this scientific work published in 2014 is extremely interesting and useful for those who want to base their essay on factual information.

H4 Reproduction, Politics, and John Irving’s The Cider House Rules: Women’s Rights or “Fetal Rights”? by Helena Wahlström

In her article of 2013, Wahlström considers John Irving’s novel The Cider House Rules published in 1985 and is regarded as a revolutionary work for that time, as it acknowledges abortion mostly as a political problem. This article will be a great option for those who want to investigate the roots of the abortion debate.

FAQs On Abortion Argumentative Essay

• Is abortion immoral?

This question is impossible to answer correctly because each person independently determines their own moral framework. One group of people will say that abortion is a woman’s right because only she has power over her body and can make decisions about it. Another group will argue that the embryo is also a person and has the right to birth and life.

In general, the attitude towards abortion is determined based on the political and religious views of each person. Religious people generally believe that abortion is immoral because it is murder, while secular people see it as a normal medical procedure. For example, in the US, the ban on abortion was introduced in red states where the vast majority have conservative views, while blue liberal states do not support this law. Overall, it’s up to a person to decide whether they consider abortion immoral based on their own values and beliefs.

• Is abortion legal?

The answer to this question depends on the country in which you live. There are countries in which pregnancy termination is a common medical procedure and is performed at the woman's request. There are also states in which there must be a serious reason for abortion: medical, social, or economic. Finally, there are nations in which abortion is prohibited and criminalized. For example, in Jamaica, a woman can get life imprisonment for abortion, while in Kenya, a medical worker who volunteers to perform an abortion can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.

• Is abortion safe?

In general, modern medicine has reached such a level that abortion has become a common (albeit difficult from various points of view) medical procedure. There are several types of abortion, as well as many medical devices and means that ensure the maximum safety of the pregnancy termination. Like all other medical procedures, abortion can have various consequences and complications.

Abortions – whether safe or not - exist in all countries of the world. The thing is that more than half of them are dangerous because women have them in unsuitable conditions and without professional help. Only universal access to abortion in all parts of the world can make it absolutely safe. In such a case, it will be performed only after a thorough assessment and under the control of a medical professional who can mitigate the potential risks.

• How safe is abortion?

If we do not talk about the ethical side of the issue related to abortion, it still has some risks. In fact, any medical procedure has them to a greater or lesser extent.

The effectiveness of the safe method in a medical setting is 80-99%. An illegal abortion (for example, the one without special indications after 12 weeks) can lead to a patient’s death, and the person who performed it will be criminally liable in this case.

Doctors do not have universal advice for all pregnant women on whether it is worth making this decision or not. However, many of them still tend to believe that any contraception - even one that may have negative side effects - is better than abortion. That’s why spreading awareness on means of contraception and free access to it is vital.

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The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States (2018)

Chapter: 5 conclusions, 5 conclusions.

This report provides a comprehensive review of the state of the science on the safety and quality of abortion services in the United States. The committee was charged with answering eight specific research questions. This chapter presents the committee’s conclusions by responding individually to each question. The research findings that are the basis for these conclusions are presented in the previous chapters. The committee was also asked to offer recommendations regarding the eight questions. However, the committee decided that its conclusions regarding the safety and quality of U.S. abortion care responded comprehensively to the scope of this study. Therefore, the committee does not offer recommendations for specific actions to be taken by policy makers, health care providers, and others.

1. What types of legal abortion services are available in the United States? What is the evidence regarding which services are appropriate under different clinical circumstances (e.g., based on patient medical conditions such as previous cesarean section, obesity, gestational age)?

Four legal abortion methods—medication, 1 aspiration, dilation and evacuation (D&E), and induction—are used in the United States. Length of gestation—measured as the amount of time since the first day of the last

___________________

1 The terms “medication abortion” and “medical abortion” are used interchangeably in the literature. This report uses “medication abortion” to describe the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved prescription drug regimen used up to 10 weeks’ gestation.

menstrual period—is the primary factor in deciding what abortion procedure is the most appropriate. Both medication and aspiration abortions are used up to 10 weeks’ gestation. Aspiration procedures may be used up to 14 to 16 weeks’ gestation.

Mifepristone, sold under the brand name Mifeprex, is the only medication specifically approved by the FDA for use in medication abortion. The drug’s distribution has been restricted under the requirements of the FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy program since 2011—it may be dispensed only to patients in clinics, hospitals, or medical offices under the supervision of a certified prescriber. To become a certified prescriber, eligible clinicians must register with the drug’s distributor, Danco Laboratories, and meet certain requirements. Retail pharmacies are prohibited from distributing the drug.

When abortion by aspiration is no longer feasible, D&E and induction methods are used. D&E is the superior method; in comparison, inductions are more painful for women, take significantly more time, and are more costly. However, D&Es are not always available to women. The procedure is illegal in Mississippi 2 and West Virginia 3 (both states allow exceptions in cases of life endangerment or severe physical health risk to the woman). Elsewhere, access to the procedure is limited because many obstetrician/gynecologists (OB/GYNs) and other physicians lack the requisite training to perform D&Es. Physicians’ access to D&E training is very limited or nonexistent in many areas of the country.

Few women are medically ineligible for abortion. There are, however, specific contraindications to using mifepristone for a medication abortion or induction. The drug should not be used for women with confirmed or suspected ectopic pregnancy or undiagnosed adnexal mass; an intrauterine device in place; chronic adrenal failure; concurrent long-term systemic corticosteroid therapy; hemorrhagic disorders or concurrent anticoagulant therapy; allergy to mifepristone, misoprostol, or other prostaglandins; or inherited porphyrias.

Obesity is not a risk factor for women who undergo medication or aspiration abortions (including with the use of moderate intravenous sedation). Research on the association between obesity and complications during a D&E abortion is less certain—particularly for women with Class III obesity (body mass index ≥40) after 14 weeks’ gestation.

A history of a prior cesarean delivery is not a risk factor for women undergoing medication or aspiration abortions, but it may be associated

2 Mississippi Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, Mississippi HB 519, Reg. Sess. 2015–2016 (2016).

3 Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, West Virginia SB 10, Reg. Sess. 2015–2016 (2016).

with an increased risk of complications during D&E abortions, particularly for women with multiple cesarean deliveries. Because induction abortions are so rare, it is difficult to determine definitively whether a prior cesarean delivery increases the risk of complications. The available research suggests no association.

2. What is the evidence on the physical and mental health risks of these different abortion interventions?

Abortion has been investigated for its potential long-term effects on future childbearing and pregnancy outcomes, risk of breast cancer, mental health disorders, and premature death. The committee found that much of the published literature on these topics does not meet scientific standards for rigorous, unbiased research. Reliable research uses documented records of a prior abortion, analyzes comparable study and control groups, and controls for confounding variables shown to affect the outcome of interest.

Physical health effects The committee identified high-quality research on numerous outcomes of interest and concludes that having an abortion does not increase a woman’s risk of secondary infertility, pregnancy-related hypertensive disorders, abnormal placentation (after a D&E abortion), preterm birth, or breast cancer. Although rare, the risk of very preterm birth (<28 weeks’ gestation) in a woman’s first birth was found to be associated with having two or more prior aspiration abortions compared with first births among women with no abortion history; the risk appears to be associated with the number of prior abortions. Preterm birth is associated with pregnancy spacing after an abortion: it is more likely if the interval between abortion and conception is less than 6 months (this is also true of pregnancy spacing in general). The committee did not find well-designed research on abortion’s association with future ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or stillbirth, or long-term mortality. Findings on hemorrhage during a subsequent pregnancy are inconclusive.

Mental health effects The committee identified a wide array of research on whether abortion increases women’s risk of depression, anxiety, and/or posttraumatic stress disorder and concludes that having an abortion does not increase a woman’s risk of these mental health disorders.

3. What is the evidence on the safety and quality of medical and surgical abortion care?

Safety The clinical evidence clearly shows that legal abortions in the United States—whether by medication, aspiration, D&E, or induction—are

safe and effective. Serious complications are rare. But the risk of a serious complication increases with weeks’ gestation. As the number of weeks increases, the invasiveness of the required procedure and the need for deeper levels of sedation also increase.

Quality Health care quality is a multidimensional concept. Six attributes of health care quality—safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity—were central to the committee’s review of the quality of abortion care. Table 5-1 details the committee’s conclusions regarding each of these quality attributes. Overall, the committee concludes that the quality of abortion care depends to a great extent on where women live. In many parts of the country, state regulations have created barriers to optimizing each dimension of quality care. The quality of care is optimal when the care is based on current evidence and when trained clinicians are available to provide abortion services.

4. What is the evidence on the minimum characteristics of clinical facilities necessary to effectively and safely provide the different types of abortion interventions?

Most abortions can be provided safely in office-based settings. No special equipment or emergency arrangements are required for medication abortions. For other abortion methods, the minimum facility characteristics depend on the level of sedation that is used. Aspiration abortions are performed safely in office and clinic settings. If moderate sedation is used, the facility should have emergency resuscitation equipment and an emergency transfer plan, as well as equipment to monitor oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure. For D&Es that involve deep sedation or general anesthesia, the facility should be similarly equipped and also have equipment to provide general anesthesia and monitor ventilation.

Women with severe systemic disease require special measures if they desire or need deep sedation or general anesthesia. These women require further clinical assessment and should have their abortion in an accredited ambulatory surgery center or hospital.

5. What is the evidence on what clinical skills are necessary for health care providers to safely perform the various components of abortion care, including pregnancy determination, counseling, gestational age assessment, medication dispensing, procedure performance, patient monitoring, and follow-up assessment and care?

Required skills All abortion procedures require competent providers skilled in patient preparation (education, counseling, and informed consent);

TABLE 5-1 Does Abortion Care in the United States Meet the Six Attributes of Quality Health Care?

a These attributes of quality health care were first proposed by the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Quality of Health Care in America in the 2001 report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century.

b Elsewhere in this report, effectiveness refers to the successful completion of the abortion without the need for a follow-up aspiration.

clinical assessment (confirming intrauterine pregnancy, determining gestation, taking a relevant medical history, and physical examination); pain management; identification and management of expected side effects and serious complications; and contraceptive counseling and provision. To provide medication abortions, the clinician should be skilled in all these areas. To provide aspiration abortions, the clinician should also be skilled in the technical aspects of an aspiration procedure. To provide D&E abortions, the clinician needs the relevant surgical expertise and sufficient caseload to maintain the requisite surgical skills. To provide induction abortions, the clinician requires the skills needed for managing labor and delivery.

Clinicians that have the necessary competencies Both trained physicians (OB/GYNs, family medicine physicians, and other physicians) and advanced practice clinicians (APCs) (physician assistants, certified nurse-midwives, and nurse practitioners) can provide medication and aspiration abortions safely and effectively. OB/GYNs, family medicine physicians, and other physicians with appropriate training and experience can perform D&E abortions. Induction abortions can be provided by clinicians (OB/GYNs,

family medicine physicians, and certified nurse-midwives) with training in managing labor and delivery.

The extensive body of research documenting the safety of abortion care in the United States reflects the outcomes of abortions provided by thousands of individual clinicians. The use of sedation and anesthesia may require special expertise. If moderate sedation is used, it is essential to have a nurse or other qualified clinical staff—in addition to the person performing the abortion—available to monitor the patient, as is the case for any other medical procedure. Deep sedation and general anesthesia require the expertise of an anesthesiologist or certified registered nurse anesthetist to ensure patient safety.

6. What safeguards are necessary to manage medical emergencies arising from abortion interventions?

The key safeguards—for abortions and all outpatient procedures—are whether the facility has the appropriate equipment, personnel, and emergency transfer plan to address any complications that might occur. No special equipment or emergency arrangements are required for medication abortions; however, clinics should provide a 24-hour clinician-staffed telephone line and have a plan to provide emergency care to patients after hours. If moderate sedation is used during an aspiration abortion, the facility should have emergency resuscitation equipment and an emergency transfer plan, as well as equipment to monitor oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure. D&Es that involve deep sedation or general anesthesia should be provided in similarly equipped facilities that also have equipment to monitor ventilation.

The committee found no evidence indicating that clinicians that perform abortions require hospital privileges to ensure a safe outcome for the patient. Providers should, however, be able to provide or arrange for patient access or transfer to medical facilities equipped to provide blood transfusions, surgical intervention, and resuscitation, if necessary.

7. What is the evidence on the safe provision of pain management for abortion care?

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are recommended to reduce the discomfort of pain and cramping during a medication abortion. Some women still report high levels of pain, and researchers are exploring new ways to provide prophylactic pain management for medication abortion. The pharmaceutical options for pain management during aspiration, D&E, and induction abortions range from local anesthesia, to minimal sedation/anxiolysis, to moderate sedation/analgesia, to deep sedation/

analgesia, to general anesthesia. Along this continuum, the physiological effects of sedation have increasing clinical implications and, depending on the depth of sedation, may require special equipment and personnel to ensure the patient’s safety. The greatest risk of using sedative agents is respiratory depression. The vast majority of abortion patients are healthy and medically eligible for all levels of sedation in office-based settings. As noted above (see Questions 4 and 6), if sedation is used, the facility should be appropriately equipped and staffed.

8. What are the research gaps associated with the provision of safe, high-quality care from pre- to postabortion?

The committee’s overarching task was to assess the safety and quality of abortion care in the United States. As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the committee decided that its findings and conclusions fully respond to this charge. The committee concludes that legal abortions are safe and effective. Safety and quality are optimized when the abortion is performed as early in pregnancy as possible. Quality requires that care be respectful of individual patient preferences, needs, and values so that patient values guide all clinical decisions.

The committee did not identify gaps in research that raise concerns about these conclusions and does not offer recommendations for specific actions to be taken by policy makers, health care providers, and others.

The following are the committee’s observations about questions that merit further investigation.

Limitation of Mifepristone distribution As noted above, mifepristone, sold under the brand name Mifeprex, is the only medication approved by the FDA for use in medication abortion. Extensive clinical research has demonstrated its safety and effectiveness using the FDA-recommended regimen. Furthermore, few women have contraindications to medication abortion. Nevertheless, as noted earlier, the FDA REMS restricts the distribution of mifepristone. Research is needed on how the limited distribution of mifepristone under the REMS process impacts dimensions of quality, including timeliness, patient-centeredness, and equity. In addition, little is known about pharmacist and patient perspectives on pharmacy dispensing of mifepristone and the potential for direct-to-patient models through telemedicine.

Pain management There is insufficient evidence to identify the optimal approach to minimizing the pain women experience during an aspiration procedure without sedation. Paracervical blocks are effective in decreasing procedural pain, but the administration of the block itself is painful, and

even with the block, women report experiencing moderate to significant pain. More research is needed to learn how best to reduce the pain women experience during abortion procedures.

Research on prophylactic pain management for women undergoing medication abortions is also needed. Although NSAIDs reduce the pain of cramping, women still report high levels of pain.

Availability of providers APCs can provide medication and aspiration abortions safely and effectively, but the committee did not find research assessing whether APCs can also be trained to perform D&Es.

Addressing the needs of women of lower income Women who have abortions are disproportionately poor and at risk for interpersonal and other types of violence. Yet little is known about the extent to which they receive needed social and psychological supports when seeking abortion care or how best to meet those needs. More research is needed to assess the need for support services and to define best clinical practice for providing those services.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure that has been provided to millions of American women. Since the Institute of Medicine first reviewed the health implications of national legalized abortion in 1975, there has been a plethora of related scientific research, including well-designed randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews, and epidemiological studies examining abortion care. This research has focused on examining the relative safety of abortion methods and the appropriateness of methods for different clinical circumstances. With this growing body of research, earlier abortion methods have been refined, discontinued, and new approaches have been developed.

The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States offers a comprehensive review of the current state of the science related to the provision of safe, high-quality abortion services in the United States. This report considers 8 research questions and presents conclusions, including gaps in research.

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The one point abortion rights activists need to keep making

Nobody should be forced to sacrifice their body.

Last month, in Atlanta, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams told the audience attending her panel discussion that “there is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”

Her remark became a thing, and it’s not hard to see why. Abortion arguments often coalesce around the question of heartbeats. If you’re antiabortion, then you might be deeply invested in the idea that embryos have signs of life at a few weeks’ development. Conversely, if you support abortion rights, then you’ll want to make Abrams’s argument: Embryos at this stage might show “cardiac activity” but not a heartbeat. What a patient hears at the doctor’s office is actually the electrical impulses of pre-heart infrastructure, translated into sound by a sonography machine. A genuine heartbeat doesn’t appear until around week 10.

And this is where the abortion debates have landed, three months after the fall of Roe v. Wade . Quibbling over terminology, hairsplitting the medicine and trying to litigate when life begins, a question that science and spirituality haven’t even begun to sort out. We’re in the weeds.

We need to get out of the weeds.

I will happily accept any sound science that keeps abortion legal, but “embryos don’t technically have heartbeats” is not the most compelling point to make in discussions about abortion rights. (When I had my emotional seven-week sonogram for my now-daughter, after multiple early miscarriages, I did not tearfully exclaim, “listen to that pre-heart infrastructure!”) Nor is “can we at least agree on rape and incest exceptions?” Nor the arguments about whether abortion patients regret ending their pregnancies (even though, overwhelmingly, they don’t ), or about whether abortion is dangerous (even though, overwhelmingly, it isn’t ).

The point to begin with is this: Regardless of when life begins, in the United States, nobody can force you to donate your own body to save another person. Even if you are physically capable of doing so. Even if that person will die.

The United States does not require you to donate your kidney or liver to a person in need of a transplant, even if you are a perfect match. If the president himself was going to perish unless he was surgically attached to a citizen’s abdomen for nine months, nobody could force that citizen to agree to this assignment. You might argue that agreeing would be the noble thing or the moral thing or the humane thing, but it would not be a compulsory thing.

It wouldn’t be compulsory even if we were talking not about a president but about a child. The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson, in 1971, put forth the most famous version of this argument as it related to abortion: Imagine that a woman woke in bed intravenously hooked up to a famous violinist, Thomson wrote in her seminal and controversial essay, “ A Defense of Abortion .” The musician in this scenario suffered from a rare medical ailment, and only this woman’s circulatory system could keep him alive. His survival requires her to sacrifice her own bodily autonomy. Must she? Is she a murderer if she does not?

Detractors of Thomson’s argument pointed out the obvious differences between a famous violinist and an unborn fetus: The woman did not choose to be hooked up to the violinist, whereas she did choose to have sex, and pregnancy is a possible outcome of sex. Thus, she must now see the pregnancy through. She asked for it.

Over the years, philosophers have found more nuanced ways to express their disagreement. In the New York Times , Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren recently wrote, eloquently and poetically, that “no human has complete bodily autonomy from birth to death. The natural state of human beings is to be deeply and irrevocably interdependent on one another.” (Of course the burden of “interdependence” placed on a pregnant person is, as Warren does acknowledge, vastly greater than pretty much any other example we might find in the real world. There is a difference between an elderly person needing help getting into the bathtub and a woman being required to donate her body, 24/7, to a pregnancy.)

Warren aside, even the most poetic phrasings often end up concealing an unpoetic argument: that a woman should be forced to birth a child because she asked for it. She asked for it by slipping up on birth control, or she asked for it by not immediately knowing to get the morning-after pill, or she asked for it simply by daring to be a sexual being. And “she asked for it” is the unofficial slogan of misogyny.

It’s worthwhile to note that even the folks arguing that heartbeats do exist at six weeks often support rape and incest exceptions. Meaning, they’re making one of two incoherent arguments: 1) Life begins when there’s a heartbeat except in cases of rape, or 2) Life does begin when there’s a heartbeat but if a woman was raped then murdering the fetus is fine.

Does personhood begin with a heartbeat? If your answer is yes, as many antiabortion activists say it does, then Thomson’s argument follows that the six-week-old “person” inside a woman’s uterus should have the same claim to that woman’s body as does any other person, which is to say, limited claim, even if, in your opinion, she asked for it. In Thomson’s view, a pregnant individual’s right to bodily autonomy permits them to unhook from the violinist, so to speak, no matter anyone else’s view of what is noble or moral or humane. Therefore they should be allowed to terminate the pregnancy if they wish.

If your answer is no, personhood does not begin with a heartbeat, then an embryo at six weeks of pregnancy is not a person yet. Therefore the pregnant person should be allowed to terminate the pregnancy if they wish.

Of course, it’s more complicated than that. Pregnancy is the most liminal of states, a nine-month-long transition into existence. A growing of bones, of fingernails, of the lungs whose first cry of life comes during a mother’s last cry of labor, the moment at which the two beings are, at last, fully two beings . For centuries, before we knew of Dopplers and ultrasounds, a pregnancy became real only at the point of “quickening,” the moment when an expectant mother first felt her baby move, somewhere in the second trimester. “Quick,” in old English, used to mean “alive.” I am not exaggerating when I tell you that experiencing that first movement is, for a person who wants a baby, a lightning bolt to the soul.

But the starting places for discussions about abortion should not be the weeds. The starting place should be above the weeds, at eye level with the person who owns the body where these mysteries are meant to unfold. The debate about the legality of abortion should begin with that person’s right to bodily autonomy even in the face of decisions that others might personally disagree with, or believe they would make differently.

As I started writing this column, I thought I should try to interview Judith Jarvis Thomson, to see how she felt her argument had aged, to see what she would make of this current era in which the potential lives of fetuses are increasingly (if certain lawmakers and legislative bodies have their way) viewed as more important than the actual lives of women. It turns out she died in 2020, at the age of 91, leaving behind a staggeringly important body of work related to what it means to make moral decisions.

I would have loved her guidance on how to think through this moment: when heartbeats become heartbeats, or when a heartbeat constitutes life, or when embryos might become people with rights. I would have loved her guidance on what you do when so many politicians are so good at making the argument that six-week pregnancies are people, but so bad at making the argument that women are people, too.

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Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion: An Argument for Abortion Rights Featuring the Rev. Carlton Veazey

Since the Supreme Court’s historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade , the issue of a woman’s right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America. Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception – making abortion tantamount to homicide. Abortion rights advocates, in contrast, maintain that women have a right to decide what happens to their bodies – sometimes without any restrictions.

To explore the case for abortion rights, the Pew Forum turns to the Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, who for more than a decade has been president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition advocates for reproductive choice and religious freedom on behalf of about 40 religious groups and organizations. Prior to joining the coalition, Veazey spent 33 years as a pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

A counterargument explaining the case against abortion rights is made by the Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

Featuring: The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, President, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Interviewer: David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Question & Answer

Can you explain how your Christian faith informs your views in support of abortion rights?

I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a Baptist minister for many years in Memphis, Tenn. One of the things that he instilled in me – I used to hear it so much – was free will, free will, free will. It was ingrained in me that you have the ability to make choices. You have the ability to decide what you want to do. You are responsible for your decisions, but God has given you that responsibility, that option to make decisions.

I had firsthand experience of seeing black women and poor women being disproportionately impacted by the fact that they had no choices about an unintended pregnancy, even if it would damage their health or cause great hardship in their family. And I remember some of them being maimed in back-alley abortions; some of them died. There was no legal choice before Roe v. Wade .

But in this day and time, we have a clearer understanding that men and women are moral agents and equipped to make decisions about even the most difficult and complex matters. We must ensure a woman can determine when and whether to have children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs and without governmental interference or coercion. We must also ensure that women have the resources to have a healthy, safe pregnancy, if that is their decision, and that women and families have the resources to raise a child with security.

The right to choose has changed and expanded over the years since Roe v. Wade . We now speak of reproductive justice – and that includes comprehensive sex education, family planning and contraception, adequate medical care, a safe environment, the ability to continue a pregnancy and the resources that make that choice possible. That is my moral framework.

You talk about free will, and as a Christian you believe in free will. But you also said that God gave us free will and gave us the opportunity to make right and wrong choices. Why do you believe that abortion can, at least in some instances, be the right choice?

Dan Maguire, a former Jesuit priest and professor of moral theology and ethics at Marquette University, says that to have a child can be a sacred choice, but to not have a child can also be a sacred choice.

And these choices revolve around circumstances and issues – like whether a person is old enough to care for a child or whether a woman already has more children than she can care for. Also, remember that medical circumstances are the reason many women have an abortion – for example, if they are having chemotherapy for cancer or have a life-threatening chronic illness – and most later-term abortions occur because of fetal abnormalities that will result in stillbirth or the death of the child. These are difficult decisions; they’re moral decisions, sometimes requiring a woman to decide if she will risk her life for a pregnancy.

Abortion is a very serious decision and each decision depends on circumstances. That’s why I tell people: I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice. And that’s an important distinction.

You’ve talked about the right of a woman to make a choice. Does the fetus have any rights?

First, let me say that the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.

From a religious perspective, it’s more important to consider the moral issues involved in making a decision about abortion. Also, it’s important to remember that religious traditions have very different ideas about the status of the fetus. Roman Catholic doctrine regards a fertilized egg as a human being. Judaism holds that life begins with the first breath.

What about at the very end of a woman’s pregnancy? Does a fetus acquire rights after the point of viability, when it can survive outside the womb? Or let me ask it another way: Assuming a woman is healthy and her fetus is healthy, should the woman be able to terminate her pregnancy until the end of her pregnancy?

There’s an assumption that a woman would end a viable pregnancy carelessly or without a reason. The facts don’t bear this out. Most abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Late abortions are virtually always performed for the most serious medical and health reasons, including saving the woman’s life.

But what if such a case came before you? If you were that woman’s pastor, what would you say?

I would talk to her in a helpful, positive, respectful way and help her discuss what was troubling her. I would suggest alternatives such as adoption.

Let me shift gears a little bit. Many Americans have said they favor a compromise, or reaching a middle-ground policy, on abortion. Do you sympathize with this desire and do you think that both sides should compromise to end this rancorous debate?

I have been to more middle-ground and common-ground meetings than I can remember and I’ve never been to one where we walked out with any decision.

That being said, I think that we all should agree that abortion should be rare. How do we do that? We do that by providing comprehensive sex education in schools and in religious congregations and by ensuring that there is accurate information about contraception and that contraception is available. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has not been willing to pass a bill to fund comprehensive sex education, but they are willing to put a lot of money into failed and harmful abstinence-only programs that often rely on scare tactics and inaccurate information.

Former Surgeon General David Satcher has shown that abstinence-only programs do not work and that we should provide young people with the information to protect themselves. Education that stresses abstinence and provides accurate information about contraception will reduce the abortion rate. That is the ground that I stand on. I would say that here is a way we can work together to reduce the need for abortions.

Abortion has become central to what many people call the “culture wars.” Some consider it to be the most contentious moral issue in America today. Why do many Catholics, evangelical Christians and other people of faith disagree with you?

I was raised to respect differing views so the rigid views against abortion are hard for me to understand. I will often tell someone on the other side, “I respect you. I may disagree with your theological perspective, but I respect your views. But I think it’s totally arrogant for you to tell me that I need to believe what you believe.” It’s not that I think we should not try to win each other over. But we have to respect people’s different religious beliefs.

But what about people who believe that life begins at conception and that terminating a pregnancy is murder? For them, it may not just be about respecting or tolerating each other’s viewpoints; they believe this is an issue of life or death. What do you say to people who make that kind of argument?

I would say that they have a right to their beliefs, as do I. I would try to explain that my views are grounded in my religion, as are theirs. I believe that we must ensure that women are treated with dignity and respect and that women are able to follow the dictates of their conscience – and that includes their reproductive decisions. Ultimately, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that women have the ability to make decisions of conscience and have access to reproductive health services.

Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view?

Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that will have serious health consequences.

Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.

So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.

This transcript has been edited for clarity, spelling and grammar.

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• Rom J Morphol Embryol
• v.61(1); Jan-Mar 2020

A research on abortion: ethics, legislation and socio-medical outcomes. Case study: Romania

Andreea mihaela niţă.

1 Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Craiova, Romania

Cristina Ilie Goga

This article presents a research study on abortion from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The theoretical part is based on the method of social documents analysis, and presents a complex perspective on abortion, highlighting items of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic and legal elements. The empirical part presents the results of a sociological survey, based on the opinion survey method through the application of the enquiry technique, conducted in Romania, on a sample of 1260 women. The purpose of the survey is to identify Romanians perception on the decision to voluntary interrupt pregnancy, and to determine the core reasons in carrying out an abortion.

The analysis of abortion by means of medical and social documents

Abortion means a pregnancy interruption “before the fetus is viable” [ 1 ] or “before the fetus is able to live independently in the extrauterine environment, usually before the 20 th week of pregnancy” [ 2 ]. “Clinical miscarriage is both a common and distressing complication of early pregnancy with many etiological factors like genetic factors, immune factors, infection factors but also psychological factors” [ 3 ]. Induced abortion is a practice found in all countries, but the decision to interrupt the pregnancy involves a multitude of aspects of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic, and legal order.

In a more simplistic manner, Winston Nagan has classified opinions which have as central element “abortion”, in two major categories: the opinion that the priority element is represented by fetus and his entitlement to life and the second opinion, which focuses around women’s rights [ 4 ].

From the medical point of view, since ancient times there have been four moments, generally accepted, which determine the embryo’s life: ( i ) conception; ( ii ) period of formation; ( iii ) detection moment of fetal movement; ( iv ) time of birth [ 5 ]. Contemporary medicine found the following moments in the evolution of intrauterine fetal: “ 1 . At 18 days of pregnancy, the fetal heartbeat can be perceived and it starts running the circulatory system; 2 . At 5 weeks, they become more clear: the nose, cheeks and fingers of the fetus; 3 . At 6 weeks, they start to function: the nervous system, stomach, kidneys and liver of the fetus, and its skeleton is clearly distinguished; 4 . At 7 weeks (50 days), brain waves are felt. The fetus has all the internal and external organs definitively outlined. 5 . At 10 weeks (70 days), the unborn child has all the features clearly defined as a child after birth (9 months); 6 . At 12 weeks (92 days, 3 months), the fetus has all organs definitely shaped, managing to move, lacking only the breath” [ 6 ]. Even if most of the laws that allow abortion consider the period up to 12 weeks acceptable for such an intervention, according to the above-mentioned steps, there can be defined different moments, which can represent the beginning of life. Nowadays, “abortion is one of the most common gynecological experiences and perhaps the majority of women will undergo an abortion in their lifetimes” [ 7 ]. “Safe abortions carry few health risks, but « every year, close to 20 million women risk their lives and health by undergoing unsafe abortions » and 25% will face a complication with permanent consequences” [ 8 , 9 ].

From the ethical point of view, most of the times, the interruption of pregnancy is on the border between woman’s right over her own body and the child’s (fetus) entitlement to life. Judith Jarvis Thomson supported the supremacy of woman’s right over her own body as a premise of freedom, arguing that we cannot force a person to bear in her womb and give birth to an unwanted child, if for different circumstances, she does not want to do this [ 10 ]. To support his position, the author uses an imaginary experiment, that of a violinist to which we are connected for nine months, in order to save his life. However, Thomson debates the problem of the differentiation between the fetus and the human being, by carrying out a debate on the timing which makes this difference (period of conception, 10 weeks of pregnancy, etc.) and highlighting that for people who support abortion, the fetus is not an alive human being [ 10 ].

Carol Gilligan noted that women undergo a true “moral dilemma”, a “moral conflict” with regards to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, such a decision often takes into account the human relationships, the possibility of not hurting the others, the responsibility towards others [ 11 ]. Gilligan applied qualitative interviews to a number of 29 women from different social classes, which were put in a position to decide whether or not to commit abortion. The interview focused on the woman’s choice, on alternative options, on individuals and existing conflicts. The conclusion was that the central moral issue was the conflict between the self (the pregnant woman) and others who may be hurt as a result of the potential pregnancy [ 12 ].

From the religious point of view, abortion is unacceptable for all religions and a small number of abortions can be seen in deeply religious societies and families. Christianity considers the beginning of human life from conception, and abortion is considered to be a form of homicide [ 13 ]. For Christians, “at the same time, abortion is giving up their faith”, riot and murder, which means that by an abortion we attack Jesus Christ himself and God [ 14 ]. Islam does not approve abortion, relying on the sacral life belief as specified in Chapter 6, Verse 151 of the Koran: “Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred (inviolable)” [ 15 ]. Buddhism considers abortion as a negative act, but nevertheless supports for medical reasons [ 16 ]. Judaism disapproves abortion, Tanah considering it to be a mortal sin. Hinduism considers abortion as a crime and also the greatest sin [ 17 ].

From the socio-economic point of view, the decision to carry out an abortion is many times determined by the relations within the social, family or financial frame. Moreover, studies have been conducted, which have linked the legalization of abortions and the decrease of the crime rate: “legalized abortion may lead to reduced crime either through reductions in cohort sizes or through lower per capita offending rates for affected cohorts” [ 18 ].

Legal regulation on abortion establishes conditions of the abortion in every state. In Europe and America, only in the XVIIth century abortion was incriminated and was considered an insignificant misdemeanor or a felony, depending on when was happening. Due to the large number of illegal abortions and deaths, two centuries later, many states have changed legislation within the meaning of legalizing voluntary interruption of pregnancy [ 6 ]. In contemporary society, international organizations like the United Nations or the European Union consider sexual and reproductive rights as fundamental rights [ 19 , 20 ], and promotes the acceptance of abortion as part of those rights. However, not all states have developed permissive legislation in the field of voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

Currently, at national level were established four categories of legislation on pregnancy interruption area:

( i )  Prohibitive legislations , ones that do not allow abortion, most often outlining exceptions in abortion in cases where the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. In some countries, there is a prohibition of abortion in all circumstances, however, resorting to an abortion in the case of an imminent threat to the mother’s life. Same regulation is also found in some countries where abortion is allowed in cases like rape, incest, fetal problems, etc. In this category are 66 states, with 25.5% of world population [ 21 ].

( ii )  Restrictive legislation that allow abortion in cases of health preservation . Loosely, the term “health” should be interpreted according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition as: “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” [ 22 ]. This type of legislation is adopted in 59 states populated by 13.8% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iii )  Legislation allowing abortion on a socio-economic motivation . This category includes items such as the woman’s age or ability to care for a child, fetal problems, cases of rape or incest, etc. In this category are 13 countries, where we have 21.3% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iv )  Legislation which do not impose restrictions on abortion . In the case of this legislation, abortion is permitted for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions (Romania – 14 weeks, Slovenia – 10 weeks, Sweden – 18 weeks), the interruption of pregnancy after this period has some restrictions. This type of legislation is adopted in 61 countries with 39.5% of the world population [21].

The Centre for Reproductive Rights has carried out from 1998 a map of the world’s states, based on the legislation typology of each country (Figure ​ (Figure1 1 ).

The analysis of states according to the legislation regarding abortion. Source: Centre for Reproductive Rights. The World’s Abortion Laws, 2018 [ 23 ]

An unplanned pregnancy, socio-economic context or various medical problems [ 24 ], lead many times to the decision of interrupting pregnancy, regardless the legislative restrictions. In the study “Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2008” issued in 2011 by the WHO , it was determined that within the states with restrictive legislation on abortion, we may also encounter a large number of illegal abortions. The illegal abortions may also be resulting in an increased risk of woman’s health and life considering that most of the times inappropriate techniques are being used, the hygienic conditions are precarious and the medical treatments are incorrectly administered [ 25 ]. Although abortions done according to medical guidelines carry very low risk of complications, 1–3 unsafe abortions contribute substantially to maternal morbidity and death worldwide [ 26 ].

WHO has estimated for the year 2008, the fact that worldwide women between the ages of 15 and 44 years carried out 21.6 million “unsafe” abortions, which involved a high degree of risk and were distributed as follows: 0.4 million in the developed regions and a number of 21.2 million in the states in course of development [ 25 ].

Case study: Romania

Legal perspective on abortion

In Romania, abortion was brought under regulation by the first Criminal Code of the United Principalities, from 1864.

The Criminal Code from 1864, provided the abortion infringement in Article 246, on which was regulated as follows: “Any person, who, using means such as food, drinks, pills or any other means, which will consciously help a pregnant woman to commit abortion, will be punished to a minimum reclusion (three years).

The woman who by herself shall use the means of abortion, or would accept to use means of abortion which were shown or given to her for this purpose, will be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years, if the result would be an abortion. In a situation where abortion was carried out on an illegitimate baby by his mother, the punishment will be imprisonment from six months to one year.

Doctors, surgeons, health officers, pharmacists (apothecary) and midwives who will indicate, will give or will facilitate these means, shall be punished with reclusion of at least four years, if the abortion took place. If abortion will cause the death of the mother, the punishment will be much austere of four years” (Art. 246) [ 27 ].

The Criminal Code from 1864, reissued in 1912, amended in part the Article 246 for the purposes of eliminating the abortion of an illegitimate baby case. Furthermore, it was no longer specified the minimum of four years of reclusion, in case of abortion carried out with the help of the medical staff, leaving the punishment to the discretion of the Court (Art. 246) [ 28 ].

The Criminal Code from 1936 regulated abortion in the Articles 482–485. Abortion was defined as an interruption of the normal course of pregnancy, being punished as follows:

“ 1 . When the crime is committed without the consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 2 to 5 years. If it caused the pregnant woman any health injury or a serious infirmity, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 years, and if it has caused her death, reformatory imprisonment from 7 to 10 years;

2 . When the crime was committed by the unmarried pregnant woman by herself, or when she agreed that someone else should provoke the abortion, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 months, and if the woman is married, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 6 months to one year. Same penalty applies also to the person who commits the crime with the woman’s consent. If abortion was committed for the purpose of obtaining a benefit, the punishment increases with another 2 years of reformatory imprisonment.

If it caused the pregnant woman any health injuries or a severe disablement, the punishment will be reformatory imprisonment from one to 3 years, and if it has caused her death, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 5 years” (Art. 482) [ 29 ].

The criminal legislation from 1936 specifies that it is not considered as an abortion the interruption from the normal course of pregnancy, if it was carried out by a doctor “when woman’s life was in imminent danger or when the pregnancy aggravates a woman’s disease, putting her life in danger, which could not be removed by other means and it is obvious that the intervention wasn’t performed with another purpose than that of saving the woman’s life” and “when one of the parents has reached a permanent alienation and it is certain that the child will bear serious mental flaws” (Art. 484, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 29 ].

In the event of an imminent danger, the doctor was obliged to notify prosecutor’s office in writing, within 48 hours after the intervention, on the performance of the abortion. “In the other cases, the doctor was able to intervene only with the authorization of the prosecutor’s office, given on the basis of a medical certificate from hospital or a notice given as a result of a consultation between the doctor who will intervene and at least a professor doctor in the disease which caused the intervention. General’s Office Prosecutor, in all cases provided by this Article, shall be obliged to maintain the confidentiality of all communications or authorizations, up to the intercession of any possible complaints” (Art. 484) [ 29 ].

The legislation of 1936 provided a reformatory injunction from one to three years for the abortions committed by doctors, sanitary agents, pharmacists, apothecary or midwives (Art. 485) [ 29 ].

Abortion on demand has been legalized for the first time in Romania in the year 1957 by the Decree No. 463, under the condition that it had to be carried out in a hospital and to be carried out in the first quarter of the pregnancy [ 30 ]. In the year 1966, demographic policy of Romania has dramatically changed by introducing the Decree No. 770 from September 29 th , which prohibited abortion. Thus, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy became a crime, with certain exceptions, namely: endangering the mother’s life, physical or mental serious disability; serious or heritable illness, mother’s age over 45 years, if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest or if the woman gave birth to at least four children who were still in her care (Art. 2) [ 31 ].

In the Criminal Code from 1968, the abortion crime was governed by Articles 185–188.

The Article 185, “the illegal induced abortion”, stipulated that “the interruption of pregnancy by any means, outside the conditions permitted by law, with the consent of the pregnant woman will be punished with imprisonment from one to 3 years”. The act referred to above, without the prior consent from the pregnant woman, was punished with prison from two to five years. If the abortion carried out with the consent of the pregnant woman caused any serious body injury, the punishment was imprisonment from two to five years, and when it caused the death of the woman, the prison sentence was from five to 10 years. When abortion was carried out without the prior consent of the woman, if it caused her a serious physical injury, the punishment was imprisonment from three to six years, and if it caused the woman’s death, the punishment was imprisonment from seven to 12 years (Art. 185) [ 32 ].

“When abortion was carried out in order to obtain a material benefit, the maximum punishment was increased by two years, and if the abortion was made by a doctor, in addition to the prison punishment could also be applied the prohibition to no longer practice the profession of doctor”.

Article 186, “abortion caused by the woman”, stipulated that “the interruption of the pregnancy course, committed by the pregnant woman, was punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years”, quoting the fact that by the same punishment was also sanctioned “the pregnant woman’s act to consent in interrupting the pregnancy course made out by another person” (Art. 186) [ 26 ].

The Regulations of the Criminal Code in 1968, also provided the crime of “ownership of tools or materials that can cause abortion”, the conditions of this holding being met when these types of instruments were held outside the hospital’s specialized institutions, the infringement shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to one year (Art. 187) [ 32 ].

Furthermore, the doctors who performed an abortion in the event of extreme urgency, without prior legal authorization and if they did not announce the competent authority within the legal deadline, they were punished by imprisonment from one month to three months (Art. 188) [ 32 ].

In the year 1985, it has been issued the Decree No. 411 of December 26 th , by which the conditions imposed by the Decree No. 770 of 1966 have been hardened, meaning that it has increased the number of children, that a woman could have in order to request an abortion, from four to five children [ 33 ].

The Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and the Decree No. 770/1966 on the interruption of the pregnancy course have been abrogated by Decree-Law No. 1 from December 26 th , 1989, which was published in the Official Gazette No. 4 of December 27 th , 1989 (Par. 8 and Par. 12) [ 34 ].

The Criminal Code from 1968, reissued in 1997, maintained Article 185 about “the illegal induced abortion”, but drastically modified. Thus, in this case of the Criminal Code, we identify abortion as “the interruption of pregnancy course, by any means, committed in any of the following circumstances: ( a ) outside medical institutions or authorized medical practices for this purpose; ( b ) by a person who does not have the capacity of specialized doctor; ( c ) if age pregnancy has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment laid down was the imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years” (Art. 185, Par. 1) [ 35 ]. For the abortion committed without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment consisted in strict prison conditions from two to seven years and with the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 2) [ 35 ].

For the situation of causing serious physical injury to the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from three to 10 years and the removal of certain rights, and if it had as a result the death of the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from five to 15 years and the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 3) [ 35 ].

The attempt was punished for the crimes specified in the various cases of abortion.

Consideration should also be given in the Criminal Code reissued in 1997 for not punishing the interruption of the pregnancy course carried out by the doctor, if this interruption “was necessary to save the life, health or the physical integrity of the pregnant woman from a grave and imminent danger and that it could not be removed otherwise; in the case of a over fourteen weeks pregnancy, when the interruption of the pregnancy course should take place from therapeutic reasons” and even in a situation of a woman’s lack of consent, when it has not been given the opportunity to express her will, and abortion “was imposed by therapeutic reasons” (Art. 185, Par. 4) [ 35 ].

Criminal Code from 2004 covers abortion in Article 190, defined in the same way as in the prior Criminal Code, with the difference that it affects the limits of the punishment. So, in the event of pregnancy interruption, in accordance with the conditions specified in Paragraph 1, “the penalty provided was prison time from 6 months to one year or days-fine” (Art. 190, Par. 1) [ 36 ].

Nowadays, in Romania, abortion is governed by the criminal law of 2009, which entered into force in 2014, by the section called “aggression against an unborn child”. It should be specified that current criminal law does not punish the woman responsible for carrying out abortion, but only the person who is involved in carrying out the abortion. There is no punishment for the pregnant woman who injures her fetus during pregnancy.

In Article 201, we can find the details on the pregnancy interruption infringement. Thus, the pregnancy interruption can be performed in one of the following circumstances: “outside of medical institutions or medical practices authorized for this purpose; by a person who does not have the capacity of specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the right of free medical practice in this specialty; if gestational age has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment is the imprisonment for six months to three years, or fine and the prohibition to exercise certain rights (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

Article 201, Paragraph 2 specifies that “the interruption of the pregnancy committed under any circumstances, without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, can be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 7 years and with the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

If by facts referred to above (Art. 201, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 37 ] “it has caused the pregnant woman’s physical injury, the punishment is the imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights, and if it has had as a result the pregnant woman’s death, the punishment is the imprisonment from 6 to 12 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 3) [ 37 ]. When the facts have been committed by a doctor, “in addition to the imprisonment punishment, it will also be applied the prohibition to exercise the profession of doctor (Art. 201, Par. 4) [ 37 ].

Criminal legislation specifies that “the interruption of pregnancy does not constitute an infringement with the purpose of a treatment carried out by a specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, until the pregnancy age of twenty-four weeks is reached, or the subsequent pregnancy interruption, for the purpose of treatment, is in the interests of the mother or the fetus” (Art. 201, Par. 6) [ 37 ]. However, it can all be found in the phrases “therapeutic purposes” and “the interest of the mother and of the unborn child”, which predisposes the text of law to an interpretation, finally the doctors are the only ones in the position to decide what should be done in such cases, assuming direct responsibility [ 38 ].

Article 202 of the Criminal Code defines the crime of harming an unborn child, pointing out the punishments for the various types of injuries that can occur during pregnancy or in the childbirth period and which can be caused by the mother or by the persons who assist the birth, with the specification that the mother who harms her fetus during pregnancy is not punished and does not constitute an infringement if the injury has been committed during pregnancy or during childbirth period if the facts have been “committed by a doctor or by an authorized person to assist the birth or to follow the pregnancy, if they have been committed in the course of the medical act, complying with the specific provisions of his profession and have been made in the interest of the pregnant woman or fetus, as a result of the exercise of an inherent risk in the medical act” (Art. 202, Par. 6) [ 37 ].

The fact situation in Romania

During the period 1948–1955, called “the small baby boom” [ 39 ], Romania registered an average fertility rate of 3.23 children for a woman. Between 1955 and 1962, the fertility rate has been less than three children for a woman, and in 1962, fertility has reached an average of two children for a woman. This phenomenon occurred because of the Decree No. 463/1957 on liberalization of abortion. After the liberalization from 1957, the abortion rate has increased from 220 abortions per 100 born-alive children in the year 1960, to 400 abortions per 100 born-alive children, in the year 1965 [ 40 ].

The application of provisions of Decrees No. 770 of 1966 and No. 411 of 1985 has led to an increase of the birth rate in the first three years (an average of 3.7 children in 1967, and 3.6 children in 1968), followed by a regression until 1989, when it was recorded an average of 2.2 children, but also a maternal death rate caused by illegal abortions, raising up to 85 deaths of 100 000 births in the year of 1965, and 170 deaths in 1983. It was estimated that more than 80% of maternal deaths between 1980–1989 was caused by legal constraints [ 30 ].

After the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 and after the communism fall, with the abrogation of Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and of the Decree No. 770/1966, by the Decree of Law No. 1 of December 26 th , 1989, abortion has become legal in Romania and so, in the following years, it has reached the highest rate of abortion in Europe. Subsequently, the number of abortion has dropped gradually, with increasing use of birth control [ 41 ].

Statistical data issued by the Ministry of Health and by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in Romania show corresponding figures to a legally carried out abortion. The abortion number is much higher, if it would take into account the number of illegal abortion, especially those carried out before 1989, and those carried out in private clinics, after the year 1990. Summing the declared abortions in the period 1958–2014, it is to be noted the number of them, 22 037 747 exceeds the current Romanian population. A detailed statistical research of abortion rate, in terms of years we have exposed in Table ​ Table1 1 .

The number of abortions declared in Romania in the period 1958–2016

Source: Pro Vita Association (Bucharest, Romania), National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania), EUROSTAT [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]

Data issued by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in June 2016, for the period 1989–2014, in matters of reproductive behavior, indicates a fertility rate for Romania with a continuous decrease, in proportion to the decrease of the number of births, but also a lower number of abortion rate reported to 100 deliveries (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Reproductive behavior in Romania in 1989–2014

Source: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Transformative Monitoring for Enhanced Equity (TransMonEE) Data. Country profiles: Romania, 1989–2015 [ 45 ].

By analyzing data issued for the period 1990–2015 by the International Organization of Health , UNICEF , United Nations Fund for Population Activity (UNFPA), The World Bank and the United Nations Population Division, it is noticed that maternal mortality rate has currently dropped as compared with 1990 (Table ​ (Table3 3 ).

Maternal mortality estimation in Romania in 1990–2015

Source: World Health Organization (WHO), Global Health Observatory Data. Maternal mortality country profiles: Romania, 2015 [ 46 ].

Opinion survey: women’s opinion on abortion

Argument for choosing the research theme

Although the problematic on abortion in Romania has been extensively investigated and debated, it has not been carried out in an ample sociological study, covering Romanian women’s perception on abortion. We have assumed making a study at national level, in order to identify the opinion on abortion, on the motivation to carry out an abortion, and to identify the correlation between religious convictions and the attitude toward abortion.

Examining the literature field of study

In the conceptual register of the research, we have highlighted items, such as the specialized literature, legislation, statistical documents.

Formulation of hypotheses and objectives

The first hypothesis was that Romanian women accept abortion, having an open attitude towards this act. Thus, the first objective of the research was to identify Romanian women’s attitude towards abortion.

The second hypothesis, from which we started, was that high religious beliefs generate a lower tolerance towards abortion. Thus, the second objective of our research has been to identify the correlation between the religious beliefs and the attitude towards abortion.

The third hypothesis of the survey was that, the main motivation in carrying out an abortion is the fact that a woman does not want a baby, and the main motivation for keeping the pregnancy is that the person wants a baby. In this context, the third objective of the research was to identify main motivation in carrying out an abortion and in maintaining a pregnancy.

Another hypothesis was that modern Romanian legislation on the abortion is considered fair. Based on this hypothesis, we have assumed the fourth objective, which is to identify the degree of satisfaction towards the current regulatory provisions governing the abortion.

Research methodology

The research method is that of a sociological survey by the application of the questionnaire technique. We used the sampling by age and residence looking at representative numbers of population from more developed as well as underdeveloped areas.

Determination of the sample to be studied

Because abortion is a typical women’s experience, we have chosen to make the quantitative research only among women. We have constructed the sample by selecting a number of 1260 women between the ages of 15 and 44 years (the most frequently encountered age among women who give birth to a child). We also used the quota sampling techniques, taking into account the following variables: age group and the residence (urban/rural), so that the persons included in the sample could retain characteristic of the general population.

By the sample of 1260 women, we have made a percentage of investigation of 0.03% of the total population.

The Questionnaires number applied was distributed as follows (Table ​ (Table4 4 ).

The sampling rates based on the age, and the region of residence

Source: Sample built, based on the population data issued by the National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania) based on population census conducted in 2011 [ 47 ].

Data collection

Data collection was carried out by questionnaires administered by 32 field operators between May 1 st –May 31 st , 2018.

The analysis of the research results

In the next section, we will present the main results of the quantitative research carried out at national level.

Almost three-quarters of women included in the sample agree with carrying out an abortion in certain circumstances (70%) and only 24% have chosen to support the answer “ No, never ”. In modern contemporary society, abortion is the first solution of women for which a pregnancy is not desired. Even if advanced medical techniques are a lot safer, an abortion still carries a health risk. However, 6% of respondents agree with carrying out abortion regardless of circumstances (Table ​ (Table5 5 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion

Although abortions carried out after 14 weeks are illegal, except for medical reasons, more than half of the surveyed women stated they would agree with abortion in certain circumstances. At the opposite pole, 31% have mentioned they would never agree on abortions after 14 weeks. Five percent were totally accepting the idea of abortion made to a pregnancy that has exceeded 14 weeks (Table ​ (Table6 6 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion after the period of 14 weeks of pregnancy

For 53% of respondents, abortion is considered a crime as well as the right of a women. On the other hand, 28% of the women considered abortion as a crime and 16% associate abortion with a woman’s right (Table ​ (Table7 7 ).

Opinion on abortion: at the border between crime and a woman’s right

Opinions on what women abort at the time of the voluntary pregnancy interruption are split in two: 59% consider that it depends on the time of the abortion, and more specifically on the pregnancy development stage, 24% consider that regardless of the period in which it is carried out, women abort a child, and 14% have opted a fetus (Table ​ (Table8 8 ).

Abortion of a child vs. abortion of a fetus

Among respondents who consider that women abort a child or a fetus related to the time of abortion, 37.5% have considered that the difference between a baby and a fetus appears after 14 weeks of pregnancy (the period legally accepted for abortion). Thirty-three percent of them have mentioned that the distinction should be performed at the first few heartbeats; 18.1% think it is about when the child has all the features definitively outlined and can move by himself; 2.8% consider that the difference appears when the first encephalopathy traces are being felt and the child has formed all internal and external organs. A percentage of 1.7% of respondents consider that this difference occurs at the beginning of the central nervous system, and 1.4% when the unborn child has all the features that we can clearly see to a newborn child (Table ​ (Table9 9 ).

The opinion on the moment that makes the difference between a fetus and a child

We noticed that highly religious people make a clear association between abortion and crime. They also consider that at the time of pregnancy interruption it is aborted a child and not a fetus. However, unexpectedly, we noticed that 27% of the women, who declare themselves to be very religious, have also stated that they see abortion as a crime but also as a woman’s right. Thirty-one percent of the women, who also claimed profound religious beliefs, consider that abortion may be associated with the abortion of a child but also of a fetus, this depending on the time of abortion (Tables ​ (Tables10 10 and ​ and11 11 ).

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion seen as a crime or a right

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion procedure conducted on a fetus or a child

More than half of the respondents have opted for the main reason for abortion the appearance of medical problems to the child. Baby’s health represents the main concern of future mothers, and of each parent, and the birth of a child with serious health issues, is a factor which frightens any future parent, being many times, at least theoretically, one good reason for opting for abortion. At the opposite side, 12% of respondents would not choose abortion under any circumstances. Other reasons for which women would opt for an abortion are: if the woman would have a medical problem (22%) or would not want the child (10%) (Table ​ (Table12 12 ).

Potential reasons for carrying out an abortion

Most of the women want to give birth to a child, 56% of the respondents, representing also the reason that would determine them to keep the child. Morality (26%), faith (10%) or legal restrictions (4%), are the three other reasons for which women would not interrupt a pregnancy. Only 2% of the respondents have mentioned other reasons such as health or age.

A percentage of 23% of the surveyed people said that they have done an abortion so far, and 77% did not opted for a surgical intervention either because there was no need, or because they have kept the pregnancy (Table ​ (Table13 13 ).

Rate of abortion among women in the sample

Most respondents, 87% specified that they have carried out an abortion during the first 14 weeks – legally accepted limit for abortion: 43.6% have made abortion in the first four weeks, 39.1% between weeks 4–8, and 4.3% between weeks 8–14. It should be noted that 8.7% could not appreciate the pregnancy period in which they carried out abortion, by opting to answer with the option “ I don’t know ”, and a percentage of 4.3% refused to answer to this question.

Performing an abortion is based on many reasons, but the fact that the women have not wanted a child is the main reason mentioned by 47.8% of people surveyed, who have done minimum an abortion so far. Among the reasons for the interruption of pregnancy, it is also included: women with medical problems (13.3%), not the right time to be a mother (10.7%), age motivation (8.7%), due to medical problems of the child (4.3%), the lack of money (4.3%), family pressure (4.3%), partner/spouse did not wanted. A percentage of 3.3% of women had different reasons for abortion, as follows: age difference too large between children, career, marital status, etc. Asked later whether they regretted the abortion, a rate of 69.6% of women who said they had at least one abortion regret it (34.8% opted for “ Yes ”, and 34.8% said “ Yes, partially ”). 26.1% of surveyed women do not regret the choice to interrupted the pregnancy, and 4.3% chose to not answer this question. We noted that, for women who have already experienced abortion, the causes were more diverse than the grounds on which the previous question was asked: “What are the reasons that determined you to have an abortion?” (Table ​ (Table14 14 ).

The reasons that led the women in the sample to have an abortion

The majority of the respondents (37.5%) considered that “nervous depression” is the main consequence of abortion, followed by “insomnia and nightmares” (24.6%), “disorders in alimentation” and “affective disorders” (each for 7.7% of respondents), “deterioration of interpersonal relationships” and “the feeling of guilt”(for 6.3% of the respondents), “sexual disorders” and “panic attacks” (for 6.3% of the respondents) (Table ​ (Table15 15 ).

Opinion on the consequences of abortion

Over half of the respondents believe that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances, as currently provided by law, 39% say it should be always legal, and only 6% opted for the illegal option (Table ​ (Table16 16 ).

Opinion on the legal regulation of abortion

Although the current legislation does not punish pregnant women who interrupt pregnancy or intentionally injured their fetus, survey results indicate that 61% of women surveyed believe that the national law should punish the woman and only 28% agree with the current legislation (Table ​ (Table17 17 ).

Opinion on the possibility of punishing the woman who interrupts the course of pregnancy or injures the fetus

For the majority of the respondents (40.6%), the penalty provided by the current legislation, the imprisonment between six months and three years or a fine and deprivation of certain rights for the illegal abortion is considered fair, for a percentage of 39.6% the punishment is too small for 9.5% of the respondents is too high. Imprisonment between two and seven years and deprivation of certain rights for an abortion performed without the consent of the pregnant woman is considered too small for 65% of interviewees. Fourteen percent of them think it is fair and only 19% of respondents consider that Romanian legislation is too severe with people who commit such an act considering the punishment as too much. The imprisonment from three to 10 years and deprivation of certain rights for the facts described above, if an injury was caused to the woman, is considered to be too small for more than half of those included in the survey, 64% and almost 22% for nearly a quarter of them. Only 9% of the respondents mentioned that this legislative measure is too severe for such actions (Table ​ (Table18 18 ).

Opinion on the regulation of abortion of the Romanian Criminal Code (Art. 201)

Conclusions

After analyzing the results of the sociological research regarding abortion undertaken at national level, we see that 76% of the Romanian women accept abortion, indicating that the majority accepts only certain circumstances (a certain period after conception, for medical reasons, etc.). A percentage of 64% of the respondents indicated that they accept the idea of abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy (for solid reasons or regardless the reason). This study shows that over 50% of Romanian women see abortion as a right of women but also a woman’s crime and believe that in the moment of interruption of a pregnancy, a fetus is aborted. Mostly, the association of abortion with crime and with the idea that a child is aborted is frequently found within very religious people. The main motivation for Romanian women in taking the decision not to perform an abortion is that they would want the child, and the main reason to perform an abortion is the child’s medical problems. However, it is noted that, in real situations, in which women have already done at least one abortion, most women resort to abortion because they did not want the child towards the hypothetical situation in which women felt that the main reason of abortion is a medical problem. Regarding the satisfaction with the current national legislation of the abortion, the situation is rather surprising. A significant percentage (61%) of respondents felt as necessary to punish the woman who performs an illegal abortion, although the legislation does not provide a punishment. On the other hand, satisfaction level to the penalties provided by law for various violations of the legal conditions for conducting abortion is low, on average only 25.5% of respondents are being satisfied with these, the majority (average 56.2%) considering the penalties as unsatisfactory. Understood as a social phenomenon, intensified by human vulnerabilities, of which the most obvious is accepting the comfort [ 48 ], abortion today is no longer, in Romanian society, from a legal or religious perspective, a problem. Perceptions on the legislative sanction, moral and religious will perpetual vary depending on beliefs, environment, education, etc. The only and the biggest social problem of Romania is truly represented by the steadily falling birth rate.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

“My Body, My Decision!” : Abortion, Bodily Autonomy, and Reproductive Rights Activism in Turkey

SEDA SALUK is assistant professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of medical anthropology, feminist studies of science and technology, and Middle East studies. Contact: [email protected] .

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Seda Saluk; “My Body, My Decision!” : Abortion, Bodily Autonomy, and Reproductive Rights Activism in Turkey . Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 1 November 2023; 19 (3): 379–400. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-10815525

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This article examines the discourses and strategies used by reproductive rights activists in Turkey to counter the state’s antiabortion policies. Drawing on a critical genealogical analysis, the article first traces the concept of “bodily autonomy” in feminist mobilizations against sexual and ethnoracial violence from the 1980s to the first decade of the 2000s. It then focuses on the slogan of the 2012 abortion rights mobilizations, “My body, my decision!,” which relies on bodily autonomy as the central trope of claim making. The article argues that the slogan is limited, not because it draws on a liberal, individualistic framework but because it represents the bodily autonomy of the white reproductive subject, assuming that it is an ethnoracially unmarked, universal subject. In doing so, the article demonstrates how feminist strategies that build on bodily autonomy obscure the state’s stratified reproductive policies, which have historically promoted a Turkish majority at the expense of non-Turkish lives.

In May 2012, in the closing remarks at the International Conference on Population and Development in Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then the prime minister, unexpectedly stated that he considered abortion murder and that no one should have the right to allow murder to happen. Until then abortion was legal up to ten weeks of gestation, and the legal period would be extended in cases of medical complications. While Erdoğan’s speech dominated the news the following days, he repeated his antiabortion statements during the annual conference of the Women’s Branch of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In this second speech, he equated abortion with a recent air strike on the Kurdish border village of Roboski. During this attack, also known as the Uludere Massacre, the Turkish military killed thirty-four Kurdish civilians, most of them children, in the name of the “war on terror” (Yağmur 2011 ). 1 In response to the ongoing public criticism of the attack, Erdoğan stated in his speech: “You live and breathe Uludere. I say every abortion is an Uludere” ( Hürriyet 2012). In the following week, Recep Akdağ, then minister of health, announced that the AKP cabinet, on Erdoğan’s orders, would draft a new abortion bill in Parliament. The new legislation, Akdağ continued, would change the ten-week statutory period. He added that there needed to be a discussion about the rights of the baby rather than the rights of the woman ( Bianet 2012b).

Fear of a possible setback in the abortion legislation started an ongoing public debate and fueled an era of unprecedented reproductive rights activism in Turkey. In the days after the ruling government’s antiabortion statements, hundreds of women’s and feminist groups throughout the country mobilized and organized countrywide demonstrations. Istanbul-based feminist activists later established an initiative called Kürtaj Haktır, Karar Kadınların Platformu (Abortion Is a Right, Decision Belongs to Women Platform) to coordinate these mobilizations and initiate a large-scale abortion rights campaign. The platform set the political framework of reproductive rights activism by producing campaign materials and played a leading role in the withdrawal of the government’s antiabortion proposal that same year. The most prominent slogans of this era were “Kürtaj haktır, Uludere katliam” (Abortion is a right, Uludere is a massacre) and “Benim bedenim, benim kararım!” (My body, my decision!). The first slogan, which simultaneously highlighted the right not to be forced into pregnancy and the right to life, disappeared from the mobilizations over time. The second slogan, “My body, my decision!,” which relied on personal bodily autonomy as the central trope of claim making, later became the most circulated one.

Frameworks such as “rights,” “choice,” and “autonomy” have long occupied a contested space among feminist activists in Turkey and elsewhere fighting for access to safe and affordable reproductive health services. The global struggle to promote women’s reproductive rights dates back to the 1984 International Women and Health Meeting in Amsterdam, which developed the term reproductive rights to link gender equality to reproductive freedoms (Briggs 2022 ). The struggle gained momentum with the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the 1995 Fourth World United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing. These meetings have facilitated the view of reproductive rights as a universal human rights issue, replacing earlier Cold War logics that primarily focused on population control measures (Morgan and Roberts 2012 ; Singer 2019 ). Although abortion was part of the agenda in these meetings, it was primarily discussed as a public health issue rather than in terms of women’s agency and autonomy, and the discussion was limited to preventing unsafe abortions (Zampas 2016 ). Despite these early efforts to expand the scope of reproductive rights, elective termination of pregnancies remained criminalized by states and religious actors in many parts of the world. Women’s and feminist groups continued to fight against repressive abortion policies, arguing that the choice not to have children was a fundamental human rights issue.

Some of these early abortion rights mobilizations ignored that choice as a framework was embedded in a consumerist paradigm and did not apply to all women in the same way (Briggs 2022 ). Also known as prochoice activism, these mobilizations were predominantly led by middle-class, white feminists in the global North. Frustrated by the limited approach of the prochoice framework within the mainstream reproductive rights movement, Black and women-of-color activists in the United States coined the term reproductive justice in 1994 and called themselves the movement for reproductive justice. Reproductive justice as a framework for political activism was broadly defined as “the right not to have a child; the right to have a child; and the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments” (Ross and Solinger 2017 : 9). The main goal of reproductive justice activists was to move beyond liberal feminism’s singular focus on abortion and draw attention to how reproductive rights were intimately connected to other social issues such as housing, employment, immigration, and the environment (Ross 2006 ; Ross and Solinger 2017 ; Silliman et al. 2004 ).

Reproductive justice activists also argued that the fight for reproductive freedoms should shift the debate about autonomy away from the reductionist rhetoric of choice and toward the recognition that individual “choices” were always made under particular social, political, and economic conditions. They built their activism on the pillars of collective liberation and communal autonomy as opposed to an individualistic understanding of bodily autonomy (Ross et al. 2017 ). Feminist activism and scholarship on abortion rights have since moved away from liberal frameworks such as “choice” that do not consider how interlocking systems of oppression limit securing women’s reproductive freedoms. Instead, they have foregrounded an intersectional social justice approach to emphasize how gender and sexuality interact with race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and disability to affect people’s reproductive experiences (Fried 2008 ; Price 2010 ). Yet bodily autonomy has remained a pillar of abortion rights discussions to signal the importance of governing one’s own body and the transformative potential of individual action (Denbow 2015 ). Although critical of the liberal assumptions underlying bodily autonomy, many feminist activists and scholars still consider the concept an essential part of reproductive rights struggles.

This article builds on and contributes to reproductive justice activists’ and scholars’ critiques of liberal feminism and its overemphasis on abortion rights and personal bodily autonomy. It argues, however, that the concept of bodily autonomy is limited when it comes to expanding reproductive freedoms in Turkey not because it relies on a liberal, individualistic framework but because it represents the bodily autonomy of the white reproductive subject, assuming that it is an ethnoracially unmarked, universal subject. Unlike reproductive rights activists elsewhere, feminists and women’s groups in Turkey have used the concept mostly through a more communal, collectivist framework since the early 1980s. The language of bodily autonomy has helped draw attention to the state-sanctioned restrictions on women’s sexual and reproductive freedoms, especially when discussing the limitations in abortion legislation. Yet it has been insufficient to acknowledge how women’s experiences with reproductive discourses and policies have been unevenly shaped across the lines of race and ethnicity. While feminist claims of the right to bodily autonomy have helped articulate the right not to have children, they have ignored the right to have children and raise them in safe and healthy environments—a fundamental right that Kurdish women have been stripped of due to long-standing state violence. As a result, the language of bodily autonomy has obscured the Turkish state’s stratified reproductive policies that have historically promoted a Turkish majority at the expense of non-Turkish lives.

Methodologically, I draw on a critical genealogical analysis of the concept of “bodily autonomy” in feminist debates in Turkey from the late 1980s to the present. Building on Michel Foucault’s ( 1984 ) work, genealogical analysis is a methodology that deploys a historical and discursive analysis model to critically interrogate the origin and emergence of a commonly accepted phenomenon to problematize its present. In other words, it uses “historical [and discursive analysis] . . . to disturb contemporary conceptions” (Garland 2014 : 371). A genealogical analysis starts with a present-day phenomenon and examines continuities and discontinuities in its historical trajectory. It reveals how the phenomenon evolved through time, what was emphasized and omitted, and how it emerged from specific exercises of power. Therefore a critical genealogy of bodily autonomy explores the concept’s historical and discursive precursors and trajectory to defamiliarize (and problematize) what might be taken for granted in contemporary debates about reproductive rights and freedoms.

To do this, I compile an archive of activist texts, including, among others, feminist journals from different periods, such as Amargi , Feminist Politika , Jineoloji , Jujin , Pazartesi , and Yazko ; online blogs and websites such as Amargi Istanbul, Çatlak Zemin, and Sosyalist Feminist Kolektif; and campaign materials of the Istanbul-based Abortion Is a Right Platform, which became a pivotal actor in the abortion rights struggle in 2012. These are texts produced by women’s and feminist groups that grew out of the leftist tradition in the 1980s but organized independently outside state institutions and political parties. Bringing together this wide range of texts from different historical periods, I map out and trace when and how feminist activists have used the language of bodily autonomy, how this language has shifted over time, and what other concepts and frameworks have accompanied this language. This analysis illuminates the taken-for-granted yet problematic aspects of the slogan “My body, my decision!,” which relies on bodily autonomy as the central frame of reference.

In the following pages, I first trace the notion of bodily autonomy in feminist mobilizations against sexual and ethnoracial violence from the 1980s to the 2000s. I then focus on the slogan “My body, my decision!,” which draws on bodily autonomy as the primary trope of claim making. After discussing this slogan’s history and current uses, I reflect on the following questions: What kind of political subject does this slogan imagine? What possibilities and alternative visions does it create or foreclose? What role does the individual body (and bodily autonomy) play in people’s fight for reproductive rights and freedoms?

• “Our Bodies Belong to Us”: Early Feminist Mobilizations around Bodily Autonomy

While the history of the women’s movement in Turkey dates back to the late Ottoman era, many feminist scholars view the 1980s as a turning point. The early 1980s was a time of state repression, and feminists started to organize independently from the state and leftist groups. This resulted in the emergence of the women’s movement as an important civil society actor in Turkey by the late 1980s (Arat 1994 ). Many formerly taboo subjects such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, and abortion came to public discussion with the help of translations, journals, and street protests of feminist groups organized particularly in Ankara and Istanbul (Öztürkmen 2013; Sirman 1989 ). Slogans using bodily autonomy as an overarching framework date to early feminist writings of this period. These writings highlighted women’s bodily autonomy and argued that reproductive health matters, such as the right to abortion, should be considered a societal issue.

Unlike in other countries (e.g., the United States, the United Kingdom, or Brazil), in Turkey the popular demand for reproductive health services such as abortion, birth control, or humanized birth did not happen as part of the broader feminist movement. Regulations in reproductive health were often designed by republican elites, populist politicians, and modernist physicians, legitimized by religious leaders, and carried out as state-imposed top-down policies (Benezra 2014 ). Abortion was legalized in Turkey in 1983, after the 1980 coup d’état, as part of the state’s antinatalist population policies. Women’s and feminist groups at the time approached the legalization of abortion with suspicion. They argued that the ruling government changed the law not because they wanted to give women the right to be agents of their own destinies or because women themselves fought to legalize abortion. Abortion was legalized, feminists claimed, only to curb population growth in the country for economic and social reasons (Günel 2013 ; Gürsoy 1996 ; Tekeli 1983 ).

Feminists first used the notion of bodily autonomy in their mobilization within the context of the newly passed abortion law in 1983. They opposed the law by saying, “Kadın, bedeninin sahibi olmalıdır” (A woman should own her body). The 1983 law that legalized abortion in Turkey made it mandatory for married women to have their husbands’ permission before undergoing abortion (Gürsoy 1996 ; Tekeli 2012 ). When feminist groups discussed the law, they drew attention to the problems of this requirement: women first had to be married and then ask permission from their husbands. This requirement, feminists argued, prohibited or ignored all nonmarital sexual relationships and pushed the problems that might arise from such relationships outside society’s responsibility. They also argued that the restrictions in the abortion law should be seen as part of a larger attack on women’s integrity, similar to cases of domestic violence and sexual harassment (Aytaç 2013 ).

In later years the right to bodily autonomy became a central organizing strategy for the feminist movement as part of campaigns against sexual harassment. In February 1989 feminists from different cities gathered in Ankara for a meeting called Feminist Hafta Sonu (Feminist Weekend). Attendees discussed various issues that affected women such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape legislation, and strategies for broader feminist organizing. One meeting agenda item was to organize a nationwide campaign against sexual harassment. The campaign idea was put into practice during the fall of the same year, first in Ankara in October and then in Istanbul in November (Karakuş 2022b ; Timisi and Gevrek 2002).

Following the Feminist Weekend, Istanbul-based feminists started to gather in awareness-raising groups and organized two major campaigns. The first was Siyah Protesto (Black Protest) in August 1989, during which they dressed in black and organized marches to protest increasing state violence toward leftist political prisoners. The second was a campaign against sexual harassment in November 1989 titled “Bedenimiz bizimdir; cinsel tacize hayır!” (Our bodies belong to us; no to sexual harassment!). Also known as the Mor İğne Kampanyası (Purple Needle Campaign), this second campaign included performative protests selling purple needles on public transportation; making collective visits to places dominated mostly by men, such as coffeehouses and taverns; and printing and distributing bulletins on sexual harassment on the streets. The campaign organizers explained that they chose a purple needle as the symbol of the campaign because “purple is a color that symbolizes women’s freedom all over the world, and the needle has been used [by women] against sexual harassment for a long time” (Karakuş 2021 ).

After the Purple Needle Campaign, the slogan “Our bodies belong to us” became popular among independent, Turkish-majority feminist circles to raise awareness of violence against women. It was used in many ways, for instance, during the mass protests of 1992 against state-imposed virginity examinations in high schools, dormitories, and hospitals (Altınay 2002 ). These protests, which were organized against the virginity examinations routinely performed on young women charged with “immoral” behavior by the state, used the slogan “Our bodies belong to us; no to virginity examinations!” (Karakuş 2022a ; Parla 2001 ). Right-wing groups at the time were also using a similar slogan, “Our bodies belong to God,” to attack the sexual empowerment motto of the feminist movement. “Our bodies belong to us,” therefore, was also a response to these conservative movements (Koç 2006 ).

At first glance, the slogan “Our bodies belong to us” resembles the name of the famous feminist health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves , published by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective in the 1970s. The early feminist groups in Turkey had considered translating the book into Turkish in the late 1980s but decided against it (Özdemir 2016). A different feminist group called Mavi Kalem Derneği (Blue Pen Association) took up the project once again in 2007. The book is still being translated, but the project website titles the book in translation as Bedenim ve ben ( My Body and I ) (Olgun 2007 ). Interestingly, though initially framed and circulated as a more collectivized motto in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the slogan had become individual based by the early 2000s. Rather than merely being a translation issue, this change reflects the individualization of sexual and reproductive health politics at the time. Although the initial framework was a more collectivist one, feminist activists later prioritized women as autonomous individuals as opposed to socially embedded subjects. 2

When feminist activists opposed state-sanctioned violence against Kurdish women in the 1990s, they reinvoked the right to bodily autonomy in their mobilization. This time, however, they framed the subject on the receiving end of the violence as women other than themselves. In 1994 a group of feminists and human rights activists adopted the slogan to draw attention to the forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Turkey’s Kurdistan. They launched a campaign titled “Against war, nationalism, and racism: Do not touch my friend” (Günaysu 2014 ). The campaign was a gesture of solidarity among women whose experiences with state violence were unevenly shaped across race and ethnicity. Yet the slogan “Do not touch my friend” signaled that the gendered and ethnoracialized state intervention into bodily autonomy was happening to “other” women’s bodies.

• Stratified Reproduction and the Limits of Claims for Bodily Autonomy

A close look at the above-mentioned early feminist mobilizations around bodily autonomy demonstrates that feminist activists in Turkey have often approached issues of sexual, reproductive, and ethnoracial violence separately rather than in conversation with each other. However, categories of difference such as gender, race, and ethnicity have historically been mutually constitutive of reproductive policies and practices. In other words, gendered and gendering reproductive politics in Turkey, as elsewhere, have always been entangled with ethnoracialized inequalities (Saluk 2023 ). This situation eventually entered the broader feminist movement’s agenda through Kurdish women’s writings and activism.

By the 1980s Kurdish feminists, both in and outside the Kurdish liberation movement, had also started to organize around women’s issues. The 1990s in Turkey were marked by an intense war between the Turkish state and the PKK, the Kurdish guerrilla organization, and the war magnified state violence toward Kurdish communities. As a result, Kurdish women struggled during this period not only against domestic violence and sexual harassment but also against ongoing forms of state violence, such as the ban on the Kurdish language, forced displacement and disappearances, mass incarceration and torture, and sexual assault and rape in custody (Çağlayan 2007, 2013). Simultaneously, they voiced their criticisms of Turkish feminists’ “Turkishness” and partial approach to gender-based violence, as the latter largely ignored or dismissed the violence to which the Turkish state subjected Kurdish women. 3

By the mid-1990s the Turkish state’s demographic concerns and “replacement anxieties” (Marchesi 2012 ) around Kurdish families’ perceived high fertility rates accelerated. In 1996 the Turkish newspaper Milliyet reported that the National Security Council had prepared an eighty-page report on the Kurdish issue and submitted it to the government in a closed meeting. The report argued that the population rates in Kurdish-inhabited areas exceeded those of other parts of the country and that the Kurdish population would increase to more than 50 percent of the overall population by 2025. This situation, the report claimed, would, in the long run, create a hierarchical superiority in the number of Kurdish deputies and politicians in Parliament. The suggested solution in the report was to carry out selective population planning campaigns in Turkey’s Kurdistan, such as granting bonuses to families with fewer children and taxing those with more than three children (Kul 1996 ; Şahin 2011). 4

The same period also witnessed a mushrooming of state-run mother and child health and family planning centers (Ana Çocuk Sağlığı ve Aile Planlaması Merkezi; AÇSAP) and multipurpose community centers (Çok Amaçlı Toplum Merkezi; ÇATOM) in Turkey’s Kurdistan. These institutions aimed to decrease population rates in the region by promoting and distributing family planning services. Similarly, nongovernmental organizations of the time played an essential role in disseminating contraceptive methods and knowledge through projects run especially in the Kurdish region or Kurdish-populated neighborhoods of big cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara (Saluk 2009 ). Sometimes these organizations granted financial aid packages to young Kurdish girls for their education provided their mothers received birth control training and documented their use of one method of family planning (Alataş and Cerav 2001 ; Koçali 2003 ). Akin to many state-sponsored modernization projects in different parts of the world (Bridges 2011 ; Chaparro-Buitrago 2019 ; Kanaaneh 2002 ), these state and nonstate entities were accomplishing what Shellee Colen ( 1995 ) calls “stratified reproduction,” framing Kurdish women’s reproduction as “less than desirable” for the Turkish nation.

In the 1990s these issues were discussed at length in Turkish and Kurdish feminist journals such as Pazartesi and Jujin . While some Turkish feminists viewed the multipurpose community centers’ Turkish-language classes and sterilization services as assimilationist state projects (Düzkan 1998 ), others celebrated these centers for providing free language education and birth control materials to Kurdish women (Karayazgan 1998 ). Kurdish feminists later criticized the celebratory accounts for aligning themselves with the Turkish state’s colonialist policies (Sema 1998 ). They argued that these institutions’ promotion of birth control and sterilization in Kurdish regions should be seen as part of ethnoracialized state violence toward their bodies (Canan 1998 ). In their writings Kurdish feminists also criticized Turkish feminists for equating procreation, motherhood, and childbearing with traditional and patriarchal values. They argued that Turkish feminists should not frame their antinatalist stance as a universal feminist claim. Inspired by Black feminism’s critiques toward second-wave white feminism, Kurdish feminists claimed that the debates on reproductive rights should consider women’s ethnoracialized as well as gendered experiences regarding reproduction and mothering (Açık 2002 ; Kutluata 2002 ).

In 1995 and 1996, respectively, the Cumartesi Anneleri (Saturday Mothers) and the Barış Anneleri (Peace Mothers) were founded in Istanbul and Diyarbakır. Inspired by the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, the Saturday Mothers demanded the truth about their children who had been forcibly disappeared or killed by the Turkish military regime for their participation in leftist organizations. Similarly, the Peace Mothers gathered in protests and sit-ins to demand peace and justice for their children who had been killed during the fight against the Turkish state as members of the PKK (Karaman 2016 ; Üstündağ 2019). Both groups have faced criminalization by the state and Turkish media, yet they have also made a long-lasting impact on the feminist movement. Although neither the Saturday Mothers nor the Peace Mothers explicitly articulate their demands in terms of reproductive rights and freedoms, their claims are similar to the claims of the reproductive justice movement in the United States. Their activism reveals how some women strive for the right to have children and raise them in a safe and healthy environment free from state violence rather than the right not to have children. In other words, the Saturday Mothers’ and the Peace Mothers’ activism shows how the fight for the lives of children historically deemed expendable should be a central part of the fight for reproductive rights and freedoms.

• “Abortion Is a Right, Uludere Is a Massacre”: Reproductive Rights at the Nexus of Gender, Race, and Ethnicity

The 2000s witnessed increasing conversations between Kurdish and Turkish women, particularly during the Kadın Sığınakları Kurultayı (Women’s Shelters Assembly) organized annually by the Mor Çatı Kadın Sığınağı Vakfı (Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation), during the International Women’s Day demonstrations in different parts of the country every year on March 8, and within feminist initiatives such as Amargi Kadın Akademisi (Amargi Women’s Academy) and Barış için Kadın Girişimi (Women’s Peace Initiative). These encounters and Kurdish women’s anticolonial struggles have reshaped the women’s movement in Turkey and brought the issue of war to the center of feminist activism (Al-Ali and Taṣ 2017 , 2019; Diner and Toktaş 2010 ). The 2012 mobilizations after Erdoğan’s statement equating abortion with the Uludere Massacre built on this long and contested intersectional feminist history.

When Erdoğan’s comparison of abortion to the Uludere Massacre dropped like a bombshell in the media, the future was still uncertain. In the days after the speech, nobody was sure about what would come next concerning abortion regulations. However, women’s and feminist groups immediately mobilized and launched several countrywide campaigns. They knew that abortion legislation would be retracted if nobody responded to the government officials’ growing antiabortion sentiments. The Istanbul Feminist Kolektif (Istanbul Feminist Collective), an independent feminist organization, was the first to take to the streets. On May 27, 2012, more than fifty women from the collective interrupted traffic and organized a sit-in in front of the Prime Ministry’s Office in the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul (Şakir 2018). They issued a press statement criticizing the government’s attack on women’s abortion rights in front of a banner saying, “Kürtaj hakkımdan başbakana ne?” (What has my right to abortion got to do with the prime minister?). They also carried protest signs such as “Uludere, not abortion, is murder,” condemning the state violence in Roboski (Tarlığ 2012 ).

This first protest received little attention from the media, but feminists and women’s groups continued to strategize against the government’s attacks on abortion rights. On May 30 several Istanbul-based organizations came together again and decided to launch a website and circulate an online petition titled “Kürtaj Yasaklanamaz” (“Abortion Cannot Be Banned”). The petition opposing the impending antiabortion legislation was soon signed by thousands of individuals and organizations around the country and later sent to members of Parliament (Ekmekci et al. 2013 ). The activist network Abortion Is a Right, Decision Belongs to Women Platform was founded around the same time after a meeting organized by various women’s groups in Istanbul. The platform launched a countrywide campaign titled “Kürtaj Yasağına Hayır” (“Say No to the Abortion Ban”). On the invitation of the campaign organizers, hundreds of individuals, grassroots groups, and civil society organizations took to the streets throughout Turkey in June 2012. Chanting “Kürtaj haktır, Uludere katliam” (Abortion is a right, Uludere is a massacre) and “Benim bedenim, benim kararım!” (My body, my decision!), they condemned both the government’s attack on women’s abortion rights and the state violence toward Kurdish lives in Roboski. These protests received widespread attention from the media, and public support for abortion rights activists grew exponentially (Ekmekci et al. 2013 ).

The slogan “My body, my decision!,” which quickly became one of the most circulated ones during the summer of 2012, did not come directly from the members of the Abortion Is a Right Platform. It was coined by a group of journalists who had decided to launch a campaign on May 31 to counter the AKP government’s antiabortion statements. After researching protests against similar situations elsewhere, the journalists, working for the independent news platform Bianet, decided to use visuals to make their campaigns more visible. They called on their readers to photograph themselves with the slogan and send the photos to the newspaper (Bianet 2012a). The campaign organizers extended the same invitation to celebrities, including artists, actresses, and other public figures. The invitation to support women’s ownership of their bodies and lives attracted countless responses in a short amount of time. People flooded the newspaper’s email account and social media with colorful images showing the slogan written on different parts of their bodies.

The international media followed the issue closely at the time, reporting Erdoğan’s statements and the activists’ claims. This was before similarly conservative and authoritarian leaders in Poland, Hungary, and the United States took to the world’s stage just a decade later with the same antiabortion rhetoric. Many international news outlets approached the abortion debate in Turkey through the prism of the “cultural difference” of a non-Western, Muslim country. They attributed the impending abortion ban to the Islamist inclination of Erdoğan’s government. According to them, there was a culture war between the religious government and secular groups. The message was that the current moment constituted a direct break from the country’s earlier secular-nationalist regimes (Christie-Miller 2012 ; Matthews 2012 ; Tuysuz and Ozbek 2012 ). The international media fell into the typical Orientalist tropes that pit Islamist against secular-nationalist gender ideologies and flattened out the nuances of the situation. In their coverage, international news outlets also mistranslated the activists’ famous slogan as “My body, my choice!” instead of “My body, my decision!” However, karar (decision) in Turkish is different from tercih and seçenek , which both mean “choice.” While karar implies an act of making up one’s mind, tercih and seçenek refer to a right or opportunity to choose.

Activists of the Abortion Is a Right Platform produced more nuanced analyses in their activism. They moved beyond the widely used “Islamic versus secular” dichotomies (Frank and Çelik 2017 ; Korkman 2016 ) and restrictive “choice” frameworks (Mutlu and Saluk 2021 ; Özgüler and Yarar 2017). From the very beginning, they drew attention to the neoliberal policies of the AKP government, which has long promoted childbirth and mothering while defunding public health services as part of its health care reforms. They also highlighted the intertwined nature of heteropatriarchal and ethnoracialized state violence toward nonnormative lives. In their press statements, which were made in Turkish and Kurdish, the platform members drew attention to the discriminatory and militarist nature of Erdoğan’s declaration, “Every abortion is an Uludere,” a statement that “calls into question the human rights of both Kurds and women.” They argued that “the primary responsibility of any state should be to ensure that its citizens lead a decent life and to guarantee equal rights and freedoms to all” ( Amargi Istanbul 2012). In their written materials, they claimed that the connection Erdoğan made between Roboski and abortion resulted from racism and misogyny. The slogan “Abortion is a right, Uludere is a massacre,” as a result, was “meaningful and unifying” as “discrimination against women and discrimination against Kurds [were] so blatantly linked” (Baytok 2012 ).

• “My Body, My Decision!”: The Making of the Liberal-Secular, White Reproductive Subject

These multilayered responses, however, later disappeared from the abortion rights protests. The slogan “Abortion is a right, Uludere is a massacre” faded; instead, “My body, my decision!” became the central slogan of feminist mobilizations. The initial campaigns of the summer of 2012 included many constituencies at the front line of the protests, including the Kurdish Peace Mothers, as an intentional feminist strategy to build a broad and inclusive coalition. The protests lost this multiconstituency approach over time, as the issue of abortion rights fell off the agenda of activist groups later when the proposed antiabortion legislation did not materialize. The abortion rights protests in later years featured exclusively the bodies of middle-class, secular, supposedly unmarked feminists as the vehicles for representing the reproductive subject under attack.

Despite its success in mobilizing large crowds within a short amount of time, the slogan “My body, my decision!” failed to acknowledge how women’s conceptualizations of “body” and “autonomy” differ based on their class, race, ethnicity, and religion. As a result, abortion rights activists drew criticism due to their reliance on a middle-class, secular-liberal understanding of the body and autonomy. Some feminist scholars criticized the activists’ mobilization strategies and argued that they approached abortion through the prism of individual-based rights, which has close ties to the liberal tradition. According to them, abortion should have been considered a societal health issue rather than a matter of individual rights. Therefore, they argued, the activists should have foregrounded their discussion on class-based stratifications and (un)equal access to free and safe abortion services rather than exclusively focusing on legal regulations (Bora 2012a ; E. Demir 2012 ).

When abortion rights activism used an individualized rights rhetoric, it positioned women’s groups in opposition to the state and triggered specific moral claims. Arguments favoring a woman’s right to abortion were confronted with arguments supporting the unborn’s right to life. When the slogan “My body, my decision!” gained traction, Erdoğan argued that the “body is mine” approach had no moral, philosophical, or religious basis: “The body is yours, but the embryo is not yours anymore. It is a life and a person from now on. You cannot kill it; it becomes murder when you kill” ( Bloomberg HT 2012). Following this statement, newspaper columnists, TV hosts, and progovernment associations discussed various ideas about when life begins. They argued that the embryo’s rights ranked as equal in priority with the mother’s ( Dünya Bülteni 2012). In a way, right-bearing subjects were created and pitted against each other as a perfect example of “reproductive governance” (Morgan and Roberts 2012 ), which ultimately limited the public discussion to individualized rights claims.

Pious Muslim women activists criticized the ontological underpinnings of the slogan “My body, my decision!” Although they also opposed the governmental attack on abortion rights, they were not on board with the slogan’s secular-liberal approach to the body. “Our body is nobody’s; it is entrusted to us by Allah,” they said, and argued that, since they had not created this body, it was against their beliefs to think they could use it as they saw fit. In other words, they claimed that the slogan did not acknowledge their understanding of the body as a creation of and a sacred gift from Allah. They pointed out that the abortion rights activists’ discursive strategies framed the body as individual property by stressing bodily autonomy. Therefore it was not inclusive of everybody (Kubilay 2014 ; Unal 2019 ).

The slogan “My body, my decision!” also assumed that the body under attack by the government’s pronatalist discourses and practices was an ethnoracially unmarked, universal body. However, these attacks were not new nor applied to all bodies in the same way, as was evident in the Uludere Massacre, which took the lives of Kurdish children (Ayhan 2012 ; Bora 2012a , 2012b ). Although the government’s antiabortion rhetoric might seem to apply to all women on a discursive level, the stratified nature of reproductive citizenship in Turkey continues, as not all women are encouraged to be mothers in the same way, nor are all children considered equally valuable. State officials, popular media, and medical professionals, for instance, often marginalize the perceived hyperfertility of non-Turkish women and cast their reproduction as a threat to the nation (Erten 2015 ; Kılıçtepe 2021 ; Saluk 2022 ; Terzioğlu 2018 ). The supposedly ethnoracially unmarked, universal reproductive subject defined by the slogan “My body, my decision!” signals an ethnoracially marked, white Turkish subject. Therefore it does not sufficiently address how women’s experiences with stratified reproductive politics are differently shaped depending on their race and ethnicity.

Furthermore, the slogan and feminist strategies around bodily autonomy confined reproductive rights debates within an antinatalist feminist stance, ignoring that not all women share this stance. The slogan could be read as part of a long lineage of antinatalist Turkish feminism that considers procreation and childbearing as the subordination of women. This antinatalist feminist tradition, which dates back to Istanbul-based feminist groups of the 1980s, concentrates on questioning and problematizing motherhood (Sirman 2016 , 2020 ). While this tradition has long opposed the state- and society-imposed mandatory motherhood ideology, it has never discussed the right to mother and the right to give birth and raise children in safe environments. A close reading of current Kurdish feminist journals reveals that Kurdish women continue to pose their critiques of Turkish feminists’ antinatalist tendencies in the early 2000s, similar to those in the 1990s. In the Kurdish feminist journal Jineoloji ’s most recent issues, several authors discuss mainstream feminist campaigns and their tendency to put womanhood and motherhood in opposition to each other. “This narrow feminist approach,” one argues, “assumes that it will overcome sexist ideologies and institutions with a harsh rejection” (Emek 2020 : 24). The solution, according to the author, is neither accepting the imposed roles nor being against them. Instead, she invites the feminist movement not to reject motherhood but to politicize it and turn it into a central issue of the political struggle (Emek 2020 ).

Although the slogan and the activism that revolved around it had limitations, they also produced critical insights and lessons for organizing in the long run. In November 2012 a group of Kurdish and Turkish feminists left the Amargi Women’s Academy with a public statement in which they criticized the organization for drifting away from its initial antimilitarist, intersectional stance and adopting a (white) liberal framework over the recent years (Al-Ali and Taṣ 2019 ; Fakfukfon 2012). Amargi closed its organization following these departures and published a declaration agreeing with the earlier critiques. It stated that the organization had become embedded in the hegemonic system and could not produce new, radical politics, for example, when defining abortion as an individual right and reducing freedom to gaining “liberty.” Amargi concluded its declaration by saying that the organization’s disbanding should be read as a new beginning for the feminist movement in Turkey rather than a failure and that their self-reflections should contribute to productive discussions for the future ( Amargi Istanbul 2013). Similarly, in a workshop in Ankara in 2012, different feminist groups came together to discuss that year’s abortion rights mobilizations and brainstorm future strategies to fight against state pronatalism. The workshop discussions highlighted the need to establish more inclusive networks by considering women’s various experiences and concerns based on their class, ethnic, and religious positionalities. Without this, the workshop participants claimed, the abortion rights movement in Turkey could not move beyond being a “polarizing group formed by middle-class white women” (Y. Demir 2012 ).

• Conclusion: In Pursuit of Reproductive Justice

What does the trajectory of the slogan “My body, my decision!” tell us about using bodily autonomy as a central trope of claim making for reproductive rights struggles? This article has shown that the concept of bodily autonomy was initially used through a more collectivist framework within the feminist movement in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s. With the slogan “My body, my decision!,” however, it turned into an individualistic, atomistic framework by the 2000s. The slogan has situated a middle-class, liberal-secular reproductive subject at the center of abortion discussions. The discursive formation of the individualized rights language has limited the ways to critique the historically ingrained and already existing stratifications in reproductive health policy and practice. However, I have argued that the slogan is limited not because it draws on a liberal, individualizing framework but because it represents the bodily autonomy of the white reproductive subject, assuming that it is an ethnoracially unmarked, universal subject. The slogan confined reproductive rights debates within an antinatalist feminist framework while neglecting that not all women hold this viewpoint due to their differential experiences with the state’s stratified reproductive policies. As a result, claims to individual bodily autonomy foreclosed the possibility of forming more extensive and inclusive coalitions that could acknowledge marginalized experiences and voices.

Despite its drawbacks and limitations, the slogan also paved the way for fruitful discussions and self-reflection, opening future possibilities for creating alternative discourses and new ways of collective action. For this reason, I would like to conclude with hope rather than depict the 2012 reproductive rights mobilizations through the prism of success or failure. I have chosen to do so not despite the slogan but because of it, as Lisa Duggan and José Esteban Muñoz (2009: 281) suggest, “in the hopes to better describe actually existing and potential [feminist] worlds that thrive with, through and because of the negative.” To fulfill this hope, however, feminist strategies using bodily autonomy as the central trope of claim making need to take into account the mutually constitutive nature of gender, race, and ethnicity in reproductive policies and practices. Acknowledging how reproductive politics have always been entangled with ethnoracialized inequalities remains essential in emergent reproductive rights struggles, especially in the context of Turkey’s selective state pronatalism.

• Acknowledgments

I presented earlier versions of this article to the National Women’s Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, the Political Anthropology Working Group at Harvard University, and the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program Article Workshop at Northwestern University. I thank the organizers, participants, and discussants at those events, especially Khiara Bridges, Nadje Al-Ali, and Ayça Alemdaroğlu, for their valuable feedback. I would also like to thank Siri Suh, Julia McReynolds-Pérez, Ezgi Güner, and the anonymous JMEWS reviewers for their helpful comments.

Government officials later announced that the military forces had mistaken the group for members of the Kurdish guerrilla organization Partîya Karkerên Kurdistanê (Kurdistan Workers’ Party; PKK). The border has long witnessed an informal trade of goods by a vast number of villagers between Iraq and Turkey, in an area where employment is scarce. The authorities on both sides usually deliberately ignore these villagers and the socioeconomic conditions that render “smuggling” the only source of income for them. Immediately after the attack, Erdoğan claimed that the “villagers and smugglers have been in touch with terrorists, helping them and carrying guns instead of small goods” ( Milliyet 2012).

This transformation also reflects Turkey’s recent “neoliberal turn” (Acar and Altunok 2013 ), which crystallized in the health care sector by the early 2000s. The Turkish Ministry of Health launched the Health Transformation Program in 2003 with funds from the World Bank. As a perfect example of neoliberal transformation, the program resulted in a significant reorganization of the public health care system, transferred public funds to the private sector, introduced market-driven performance measures, and paved the way for a patient-as-consumer model of health care (Dayı 2019 ; Saluk 2022 ).

Similarly, pious Muslim women’s struggle against the long-standing attacks on their bodies in the form of the headscarf ban received little attention from secular feminists at that time (Eraslan 2002 ). Although there were occasional conversations and solidarities between secular and Islamist women’s groups in the 1990s (Arat 2016 ; Düzkan 1997 ; Pazartesi 1995), by the early 2000s the headscarf ban was recognized as gender-based violence and became part of a collective women’s struggle through groups such as Amargi, Birbirimize Sahip Çıkıyoruz (We Are Looking after Each Other), and Feministler Uyumuyor (Feminists Are Not Sleeping) (Akınerdem 2012 ).

The Turkish state’s demographic anxieties around non-Turkish populations date to the late Ottoman and early Republican eras and should be read as part of a long history of eugenics in Turkey’s nation building (Alemdaroğlu 2005 ). In 1936 Abidin Özmen, a high-ranking state official working in Turkey’s Kurdistan, prepared a similar report and presented his findings to the Turkish government. The report argued that the Kurdish population had been increasing at an “abnormal rate,” drew attention to “the magnitude and urgency of the Kurdish problem,” and claimed that the assimilation of Kurds should be accelerated through the state’s education and settlement policies (Dündar 2012 : 79).

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With abortion banned in at least 11 states­ – with more about to prohibit or strictly limit the medical procedure soon – it will likely increase the proportion of women who are single mothers, with a greater burden falling onto those who are low-income and a minority, says Stanford economist Luigi Pistaferri .

What the field of economics reveals about the overturning of Roe v. Wade . (Image credit: Getty Images)

Here, Pistaferri summarizes some of the large body of scholarship in his field that shows the economic consequences the legalization of abortion has had in the United States, and what that research reveals about a future where reproductive health choices are severely limited. Research by his colleagues shows that restrictions will lead to lower educational attainment, which is associated with lower labor force participation, lower wages, and lower career prospects – ultimately leading, most likely, to an increase in inequality.

Pistaferri, whose research examines family consumption, family labor supply, welfare reform, and inequality issues, is a professor of economics in the School of Humanities and Sciences and is the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research .

Can you give a brief overview of the economic effects Roe v. Wade has had over the past 50 years?

Luigi Pistaferri (Image credit: Courtesy Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences)

Some researchers have estimated that the legalization of abortion that took place across U.S. states during the 1970s (and eventually culminated in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision) led to an approximately 5 percentage point reduction in the aggregate birth rate. The reversal of Roe is unlikely to reverse the birthrate by as much, because of new medical technologies (abortion medication and birth control methods such as IUD) offering safer alternatives for reducing the risk of unwanted pregnancies.

Others have looked at economic outcomes for children born in the era when abortion was legal compared to those of children who would have been born only (or primarily) because of abortion restrictions or bans. They have concluded that the legalization of abortion led to significant improvements in the economic circumstances of children born into generations where abortion had been legalized. These children lived in households less likely to be headed by a single mother, less likely to have incomes below the poverty line or to be welfare recipient, and with lower infant mortality than children of nearby generations. These children were also more likely to complete college, and, as adults, experienced lower odds of being single parents or on welfare themselves.

Finally, several papers have studied the economic effect of legalizing abortion on women, especially focusing on the reduction in teen fertility and teen out-of-wedlock births. These papers show that the decline in teen fertility was particularly relevant for black women, which led to greater investment in their human capital (schooling achievements) and better employment outcomes. Some new research finds that women who were denied an abortion were more likely to experience financial distress later in life, mostly because they tended to have greater parental obligations with no corresponding increase in support from the government or a male partner.

Do you think the end of Roe v. Wade will lead to more inequality in America, as some predict? Why or why not?

If we accept the premise that access to abortion (as well as broad availability of birth control methods) allows women better agency over fertility choices leading to greater labor force participation, investment in education, etc., it is clear that women who happen to live in states that make abortion illegal (or severely restrict it) will experience worse economic outcomes than those living in states where abortion is still legal.

This was already the case before Dobbs; the Supreme Court decision will further exacerbate those differences.

Lower schooling attainment and lower labor force participation reduce earnings and career prospects. It is certainly true that women who live in states where abortion is illegal could overcome the restrictions by traveling to states where it is legal, rely on abortion medications, or using anti-conceptional methods more intensely. But these options are costly and/or require knowledge of complicated medical guidelines, which implies that the greatest burden of abortion restrictions will fall onto low-income women and minorities (and indeed, this was what researchers who studied the experience of the 1960s and 1970s had found).

I believe we will see an increase in the proportion of women who are single mothers. Being a single mother is a strong predictor of ending up poor; moreover, children born in one-parent households are more likely to perform poorly in school and have greater odds of poor adult outcomes. More broadly, women with (intended or unintended) children experience less favorable wage outcomes than those without ( the “motherhood penalty” ), which may weaken their “bargaining” position within a marriage or cohabiting relationship, increasing intra-household inequality.

Because of the motherhood penalty mentioned above, wage inequality is likely to increase both between states (for all women) and within states (for low- vs. high-income women). How large these effects are going to be it is hard to say – but while one may be uncertain about the magnitude, it is easier to predict the direction of the changes.

With the end of Roe v. Wade , what other impacts do you think it will have more broadly?

One way to answer this question is to extrapolate from studies that have looked at the pre- vs. post-abortion legalization era. One may expect more women, especially young women or minorities, to withdraw from the labor force or reduce their schooling attainment because of unintended pregnancies. The reduction in employment and educational investments has both a private and a social component, and it has been shown to reverberate across generations. Government budgets could also be affected through two channels: reduced government tax revenues due to lower employment of prime-age women, and higher safety net program spending. As discussed, abortion bans will likely increase the proportion of women who are single mothers. In the U.S., welfare programs are heavily skewed towards this segment of the population, but reforms enacted in the 1990s and 2000s have made access to welfare more burdensome and time-limited. Hence, it is difficult to predict the overall effects. It is possible that states that pass abortion bans might introduce pro-family legislation (such as more generous maternal leave policies or pre-k childcare, etc.); however, currently, it is the states with less restricted abortion laws that have more generous family leave laws which suggests that the increase in inequality across states is unlikely to be offset by public policies.

Argumentative Essay on Abortion – Sample Essay

Published by gudwriter on October 24, 2017 October 24, 2017

A Break Down of my Abortion Argumentative Essay

Styling format: APA 6th Edition

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Title: Abortion Should Be Legal

Introduction.

The introduction paragraph of an argumentative essay constitutes of 4 parts. Topic introduction, a reason why the topic is important, accepting there is a difference of opinion on this topic and lastly a statement that gives the writer’s main premises, popularly known as a thesis statement.

The body of my abortion argumentative essay contains reasons + evidence to support my thesis. I have also included opposing arguments to show the reader that I have considered both sides of the argument and that am able to anticipate and criticize any opposing arguments before they are even stated. I have made sure to show the reader that though I have written opposing arguments and that I do not agree with them.

The conclusion paragraph of this abortion essay constitutes of three main parts. The first part restates the main premises: The decision to terminate a pregnancy should generally lie with pregnant women. The second part presents 1 – 2 sentences which summarizes the arguments that support my thesis. And lastly my personal position.

I tried to use credible resources for this essay. Books from respectable publishers on this subject.  Peer reviewed articles and journals are also acceptable.

Argumentative Essay on Abortion

The abortion debate is an ongoing controversy, continually dividing Americans along moral, legal, and religious lines. Most people tend to assume one of two positions: “pro-life” (an embryo or fetus should be given the right to gestate to term and be born. Simply put, women should not be given the right to abort as that constitutes murder) or “pro-choice” (women should be given the right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy).

When you are writing an abortion  argumentative essay , you are free to support any side that you want. Whichever position you take, make sure you have good points and supporting facts.

In this abortion essay, I have decided to take the pro-choice position: a woman carrying a fetus should be given the right to abort it or carry the baby to term. In fact, my thesis statement for this argumentative essay is abortion should be legal and women should have the right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.

My essay is divided into three basic parts, the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Read till the end to find the brief analysis of the parts /sections.

Here is my abortion argumentative essay. Enjoy!

Abortion Should Be Legal

A heated debate continues to surround the question of whether or not abortion should be legal. Those who feel it should be legal have branded themselves “pro-choice” while those opposed to its legality fall under the banner of “pro-life.” In the United States of America, not even the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case (Parker, 2017) that declared abortion as a fundamental human right has served to bring this debate to an end. The pro-choice brigade front an argument that abortion is a right that should be enjoyed by all women and one that should not be taken away by religious authority or even governments. They claim that this right cannot be superseded by the perceived right that should be enjoyed by a fetus or embryo. If not legalized, the pro-choice claim, women would resort to unsafe means. However, to pro-life, the life of a human being begins at fertilization and therefore abortion condemns an innocent human being to immoral murder. They further argue that the practice exposes the unborn human to pain and suffering. This paper argues that abortion should be legal and women should have the right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.

Perhaps you may find comparing and contrasting the higher education between England and Kenya interesting .

Just as was observed by the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, an individual should be allowed certain privacy zones or areas. The decision of a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy or not should fall within this fundamental right (Parker, 2017). Interfering with this right is a kin to deciding for a person the kind of people they may associate with or the kind of a person they may fall in love with. These kinds of private matters are very sensitive and any decision touching on them should be left at the discretion of an individual. After all, it is the woman who knows why they would want to terminate a pregnancy. It could be that seeing the pregnancy to its maturity and eventual delivery would endanger the life of the bearer. It could also be that a woman is not comfortable with having a baby due to some reason(s). Whatever reason a woman might have, it is their private affair; they should be left to handle it in private.

On the same note, women get empowered by reproductive choice as they get the opportunity to freely exercise control over their bodies. Just like male members of the society, women should be allowed to be independent and be able to determine their future. This includes the freewill of determining whether or not to have children. The ability to control their productive lives would ensure that women are well placed to take part equally in the social and economic matters of the society (Mooney, 2013). It should not be that upon conceiving, a woman has no otherwise but to deliver the baby. What if the conception was accidental? Even if it was not accidental, a woman can realize or determine before delivery that she is just not ready to have the baby as she might have initially planned. At that point, they should have the freedom to terminate the pregnancy.

The pro-life’s argument that abortion is murder is a bit far fetched. The fetus or embryo may be innocent as they claim. However, it is noteworthy that it is only after the fetus becomes able to survive outside the womb that personhood begins (Ziegler, 2015). This is definitely after birth and not during the pregnancy or at conception. In this respect, the claim that abortion kills innocent human beings is actually not valid. On the contrary, this stance or statement culminates in the victimization of innocent women who have committed no wrong but exercised their right of controlling their reproductive life. Ideally, an embryo or fetus should not be considered a human being just yet. There   should thus be nothing like “unborn babies” but fetuses or embryos.

Legal abortion also ensures that women may avoid maternal injury or death by securing professional and safe means of performing abortion. The point here is that illegalizing abortion would compel some women to resort to unsafe abortion means. In the process, they might sustain life threatening injuries or even lose their lives (Schwarz & Latimer, 2012). Whether legal or not, a woman would make up their mind and terminate her pregnancy! The only difference is that in a “legal” environment, she would be safe. Why then endanger the lives of pregnant women who may like to have an abortion by illegalizing the practice? In addition, the pro-life argument that a fetus feels pain during the procedure of abortion is less convincing. It may be that the reason a mother is terminating a pregnancy is to prevent the yet to be born child from facing the pains of the world. If a mother feels she may not accord her child all the necessities of life, she would be right to subject the child to the “short-term pain” during abortion.

Those opposed to abortion further argue that the practice brews a traumatic experience for women as it involves the death of a human being. Specifically, they contend that the experience emanates from a woman witnessing how she intentionally and violently condemns her unborn child to death by physically destroying it. They hold that it also subjects the woman to unacknowledged grief and thoughts of severed maternal attachments and as well violates her parental responsibility and instinct (Major et al., 2009). According to this argument, this experience can be as traumatic as to plunge a woman into serious mental health problems, in what may be called post-abortion syndrome (PAS). This syndrome may attract symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they say. Anti-abortion crusaders further contend that the aftermath of undergoing the procedure may see a woman experience such PTSD related symptoms as substance abuse, guilt, shame, anger, grief, depression, denial, and flashbacks (Major et al., 2009). While all these may seem to be sensible to some extent, they fail to recognize that a woman who willfully secures an abortion would not have to worry about having “killed” her unborn baby. Instead, she would appreciate that she was able to successfully terminate the pregnancy before it could grow to maturity.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy should generally lie with pregnant women. It is a private decision that should not be interfered with. Women should be able to determine when to have a child. If she deems it not yet time, she should be allowed to abort. A woman actually kills nobody by aborting but rather prevents the fetus from being able to survive outside the womb. The reason for aborting should not be questioned, whether medical, involving incest or rape, or just personal. Whatever reason it might be, it falls within the right of a woman to determine and control their productive life.

Major, B. et al. (2009). Abortion and mental health.  American Psychologist , 64 (9), 863-890.

Mooney, C. (2013). Should abortion be legal? San Diego, CA: ReferencePoint Press, Incorporated.

Parker, W. (2017). Life’s work: a moral argument for choice . New York City, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Schwarz, S. D., & Latimer, K. (2012). Understanding abortion: from mixed feelings to rational thought . Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Ziegler, M. (2015). After Roe . Cambridge , MA: Harvard University Press.

Argumentative Essay against Abortion 2, with Outline

Abortion argumentative essay outline.

Thesis:  Abortion is wrong and should not be legalized since its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages, if any.

Paragraph 1:

It is wrong to condemn an innocent human being to murder.

• Human life begins at conception and this implies that at whatever stage a pregnancy may be terminated, an innocent being would have been killed.
• The fetus is a human being and should be allowed to grow and be born and live their life to the fullest.
• A fetus has a unique genetic code and thus it is a unique individual person.

Paragraph 2:

It is wrong to deliberately cause pain.

• Whatever process is used to secure an abortion subjects the developing human to untold suffering before they eventually die.
• By 18 weeks, a fetus has undergone sufficient development to feel pain.
• Aborting a fetus is the same as physically attacking an innocent person and causing them fatal physical bodily harm.

Paragraph 3:

Abortion increases tolerance of killing which is a wrong precedence for the human race.

• To legalize abortion and to view it as being right is like to legalize killing and see nothing wrong with it.
• The respect people have for human life would be reduced if killing would be legalized.
• Loss of society’s respect for human life may result into increased murder rates, genocide, and euthanasia.

Paragraph 4:

Abortion is can seriously harm a woman’s body and in some cases lead to the death of that woman.

• It yields both anticipated physical side effects as well as potentially more serious complications.
• In other instances, a woman may experience serious complications that may even threaten her life as a result of having an abortion.

Paragraph 5:

People who believe abortion is not morally wrong argue that the fetus should not necessarily be considered a person with the right to life.

• This is wrong because the collection of human cells that is the fetus, if given the opportunity to grow, eventually becomes a complete human being.
• The beginning of human life should be considered to be at conception.
• A conceived human should be allowed to see out their life.

Paragraph 6:

The pro-choice group argues that pregnant women have moral rights too and that these rights may override the right of the fetus to live.

• This argument fails to acknowledge that the moral rights of one human being should not deny another human being their moral rights.
• Both the woman and fetus’ rights should be respected.

Abortion is absolutely wrong and no arguments can justify its morality or legality. It kills innocent human beings before they can develop and experience life. It also causes untold pain and suffering to an innocent fetus. It further increases tolerance to killing.

Argumentative Essay against Abortion Example 2

People across the world have strong opinions for and against abortion. Those who argue for its legalization fall under the “pro-choice” group while those who oppose its legalization are under the “pro-life” group. Even after the practice was declared a fundamental human right in the United States by the  Roe v. Wade  Supreme Court case, the debate about it is still going on in the country. According to pro-choice arguments, all women should enjoy abortion as a human right and no religious and/or government authorities should take that away from them. On the other hand, pro-life brigade argue that abortion immorally murders innocent human beings since the life of a human being begins at fertilization. This paper argues that abortion is wrong and should not be legalized since its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages, if any.

The major reason why abortion is wrong is because it is wrong to condemn an innocent human being to murder.  Human life begins once they are conceived  and this implies that at whatever stage a pregnancy may be terminated, an innocent being would have been killed. The fetus is in itself a human being and should be allowed to grow and be born and live their life to the fullest. As pointed out by Kaczor (2014), a fetus has a unique genetic code and thus it is a unique individual person. It is a potential human being with a future just like people who are already born. It would be wrong to destroy their future on the account of being killed through abortion.

Abortion is also wrong because it is wrong to deliberately cause pain. Whatever process is used to secure an abortion subjects the developing human to untold suffering before they eventually die. By 18 weeks, a fetus has undergone sufficient development to feel pain (Meyers, 2010). Thus, aborting it would be the same as physically attacking an innocent person and causing them fatal physical bodily harm. Under normal circumstances, such an attack would attract condemnation and the person or people involved would be punished accordingly as per the law. This is the exact same way abortion should be viewed and treated. It should be legally prohibited and those who do it should be punished for causing pain on an innocent person.

Further, abortion increases tolerance of killing and this is a wrong precedence being created for the human race. Just as Kershnar (2017) warns, to legalize abortion and to view it as being right is like to legalize killing and see nothing wrong with it. The respect people have for human life would be reduced if killing was legalized. It would be wrong and detrimental to reduce society’s respect for human life as it may result in increased murder rates, genocide, and euthanasia. Just like such measures as vaccination and illegalization of murder are taken to preserve human life, prohibiting abortion should be considered an important way of increasing human respect for life. Society should not tolerate killing in whatever form and should discourage it through every available opportunity.

Another detrimental effect of abortion is that it can seriously harm a woman’s body and in some cases lead to the death of that woman. It yields both anticipated physical side effects as well as potentially more serious complications. Some of the side effects a woman is likely to experience after securing an abortion include bleeding and spotting, diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and cramping and abdominal pain. Worse is that these side effects can continue occurring two to four weeks after the procedure is completed (“Possible Physical Side Effects,” 2019). In other instances, a woman may experience serious complications that may even threaten her life as a result of having an abortion. These complications may include damage to other body organs, perforation of the uterus, the uterine wall sustaining scars, the cervix being damaged, sepsis or infection, and persistent or heavy bleeding. In the worst case scenario, a woman undergoing the abortion process might lose her life instantly (“Possible Physical Side Effects,” 2019). While such cases are rare, it is still not sensible to expose a woman to these experiences. A practice that has the potential to endanger human life in this manner should be considered wrong both legally and morally. It is the responsibility of individuals to care for and not expose their lives to harm.

People who believe abortion is not morally wrong argue that the fetus should not necessarily be considered a person who has the right to life. They hold that the fetus is just a collection of human cells and thus does not deserve the express right to live (Bailey, 2011). This argument is misinformed because the fact is that this collection of human cells that is the fetus, if given the opportunity to grow, eventually becomes a complete human being. This is why the beginning of human life should be considered to be at conception and not at birth or after some time after conception. A conceived human should be allowed to see out their life and only die naturally.

Another argument by the pro-choice group is that pregnant women have moral rights too and that these rights may override the right of the fetus to live under certain circumstances. These rights, according to this argument, include the right to take decision without legal or moral interference, the right to decide one’s own future, the right to ownership of one’s own body, and the right to life (Bailey, 2011). This argument fails to acknowledge that the moral rights of one human being should not deny another human being their moral rights. Even in cases where carrying a pregnancy to delivery would endanger the life of a pregnant woman, the fetus should be separated from the mother and be allowed to grow through such other mechanisms as being placed in an incubator.

Abortion is absolutely wrong and no arguments can justify its morality or legality. It kills innocent human beings before they can develop and experience life. It also causes untold pain and suffering to an innocent fetus. It further increases tolerance to killing, a precedence that would make people throw away their respect to human life and kill without a second thought. Even worse is that the practice exposes aborting women to serious bodily harm and could even claim their lives. Those who do not consider the fetus as a moral person who deserves to live are wrong because upon complete development, the fetus indeed becomes a human being. Similarly, those who feel the moral rights of a pregnant woman should override those of the fetus ignore the fact that both the woman and the fetus are human beings with equal rights.

Bailey, J. (2011).  Abortion . New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Kaczor, C. (2014).  The ethics of abortion: women’s rights, human life, and the question of justice . New York, NY: Routledge.

Kershnar, S. (2017).  Does the pro-life worldview make sense?: Abortion, hell, and violence against abortion doctors . New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Meyers, C. (2010).  The fetal position: a rational approach to the abortion issue . Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

“Possible Physical Side Effects after Abortion”. (2019). In  American Pregnancy Association , Retrieved July 5, 2020.

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New Kansas abortion clinic will open to help meet demand from restrictive neighboring states

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A new abortion clinic will open in southeast Kansas this fall, bolstering the state’s role as a regional hub for reproductive health services whose neighbors have severely restricted access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains announced Tuesday that Pittsburg, Kansas, will be home to a new facility providing abortion procedures and pills, as well as pregnancy services, contraception, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

After the Roe reversal, Kansas was the first state where voters weighed in on abortion at the ballot box, resoundingly rejecting a constitutional amendment that could have led to an abortion ban in August 2022.

Since then, the state — which prohibits abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy — has become a destination for people from more restrictive nearby states seeking abortion.

In March 2023, 44% of abortion patients at Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas traveled more than 250 miles (402 kilometers), compared with just 1% two years earlier, according to the organization. More than half of abortion patients are now from Texas, and some have come from as far as Florida in recent weeks, said Emily Wales, president and chief executive officer of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

“You walk across the state line from Missouri to Kansas and you automatically become a freer person who can actually take care of your medical needs in a different way,” Wales said. “We see it on the faces of patients who literally breathe easier when they get into Kansas.”

The abortion landscape across the U.S. has been in flux after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that revoked a constitutional right to abortion nationwide.

New bans or restrictions have taken effect in most Republican-led states, including 14 where abortion is now outlawed in all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and three more where it’s banned after about six weeks of pregnancy – often before women realize they’re pregnant.

For people from those states seeking to end their pregnancies, the main options are either getting abortion pills via telehealth or underground networks , or traveling out of state for abortion pills or procedures .

There were roughly as many in-state residents as out-of-state residents seeking abortions in Kansas in the years before the Supreme Court decision, according to statistics reported to and published by the state’s health department. That’s largely because Kansas City, Kansas, is easily accessible from Missouri, which historically has been limited in providers of abortion services.

In 2022, the figure for out-of-state residents given consent forms more than doubled to 8,475, state data shows.

Pittsburg, Kansas, is more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Kansas City, and 150 miles (241 kilometers) east of Wichita. That means the new clinic location will be hours closer to patients who may be traveling from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma — and even as far as Louisiana or Texas — where the procedure is restricted.

Pittsburg itself has a dearth of providers for contraception and other sexual health services, Wales said, but it has the “added benefit of being so closely located to neighboring states.” The Pittsburg facility will later provide gender-affirming services as well.

Clinics are shifting to accommodate out-of-state demand elsewhere, too. New Mexico has pledged $10 million to a new facility in Las Cruces, near the Texas border; a clinic opened last year in Western Maryland , a few miles from West Virginia; and two new clinics have opened in the southern Illinois city of Carbondale .

Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for National Right to Life, said it’s not surprising to see new clinics pop up to meet out-of-state demand because of the financial opportunity for providers, she said.

“And it’s not surprising to know that people who want to get abortions would travel out of the state if it’s not being offered there,” she said. She said states should also offer resources that “hopefully persuade abortion-minded women to choose something different.”

Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policies, said she’s counted 78 abortion facilities opening across the U.S. between May 1, 2022, and April 1 of this year. That number includes 10 moved from another location in the same state, seven that moved across state lines and 61 new providers.

The growth in providers situated near state lines has generated new efforts from those opposed to abortion to restrict the practice, calling it “abortion trafficking.”

A Texas man is trying to force his former partner to say who helped her obtain an out-of-state abortion in a step toward civil enforcement of the Texas abortion ban.

Lawmakers in at least two states have taken aim at people who help minors access abortion without parental consent. Tennessee legislators last month passed a bill that would make it illegal to help minors obtain abortions without parental consent; Republican Gov. Bill Lee has not yet taken action on it. Idaho adopted a similar law last year, though a federal judge has blocked enforcement while its constitutionality is questioned.

Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is a strong supporter of abortion rights, but the GOP-controlled Legislature has veto-proof majorities and strong contingents opposed to abortion.

This year, the Legislature passed bills — and later overrode Kelly’s vetoes — for statutes that will require abortion providers to ask patients why they are terminating their pregnancies and report the answers to the state, and that will make it a specific crime to coerce someone into having an abortion.

Fingerhut reported from Oakland, New Jersey, and Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

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One of the budget papers will be all about women. Here's what you need to know

For the fourth consecutive year, the pile of budget papers deposited on the desks of journalists this afternoon will contain a booklet dedicated exclusively to women.

Inflation is making everything more expensive, including  essentials women can't avoid buying.

On top of that, on average women are  earning less than a man in the same sector and doing more of the work that they don't get paid for at home too.

And that's before you get to facing an increased risk of violence  and chronic shortages of essential products women need.

For women of colour, those with disabilities or from low-income backgrounds, these problems are even greater.

The booklet will detail how the government plans to improve their lives and how particular measures will help 51 per cent of the country's population.

But how much of a difference will that actually make to most women? And what do we know about what's already inside?

Shout-out to the ladies

The Women's Budget Statement, first introduced in the 1980s by the Hawke government, was a longtime fixture of budget day. It was then stopped by the Abbott government, resumed in the last years of the Morrison government, and has been a consistent feature under the Albanese government.

Most budget measures are not specific to women, so the women's budget statement is often used as a place for the government to spruik the ones that stand out as benefiting them, or to reframe general policies in terms of their benefit to women.

For example, the first item mentioned by Treasurer Jim Chalmers in a Mother's Day message about the women's statement was "a bigger tax cut for more than 90 per cent of women", a cut which also applies to men.

But the Albanese government has also used the statements to highlight targeted changes to address economic gender equality.

Super on paid parental leave

As first announced on International Women's Day, the government will pay superannuation on the publicly funded Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme starting in the 2025-26 financial year.

That's a proposal the government says will help close the gender gap in retirement incomes, since the vast majority of the 180,000 who receive the payment every year are women.

Labor first promised the move at the 2019 election, then ditched it at the 2022 election owing to its cost. Previous modelling suggested it would cost about $200 million a year, but the government confirmed on Sunday it would cost $623.1 million a year.

That's in part because the government is in the process of increasing the number of weeks that can be accessed under the scheme, up to 26 by 2026. There will also be incentives for parents to share more leave.

Higher wages in aged care and child care

The budget will also provision a "multi-billion-dollar" amount for higher wages in two female-dominated workforces, aged care and child care.

In both cases, its hand has been forced by the Fair Work Commission (FWC), which approved a pay rise for aged care workers in 2023 and is expected to do the same for childcare workers in June. The government supported both cases before the FWC.

Other female-dominated workforces will get support targeted at the trainee level through the introduction of paid placements in teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work courses, each to the value of $319.50 a week and benefiting an estimated 73,000 students.

But Students Against Placement Poverty has criticised the measure as insufficient, saying the commitment amounts to about $8 an hour for a full work week, and many students will miss out because it's means-tested.

Beyond that, the government has pointed to a range of general measures which will disproportionately benefit women, such as the decision to reduce indexation of HELP debts and other student loans, since 58.5 per cent of outstanding debt is held by women.

Endometriosis funding

The government has already announced that longer specialist consultations for women with endometriosis and other complex gynaecological conditions such as chronic pelvic pain and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) will now be covered under Medicare from July next year.

Two new rebates will be added to the Medicare Benefits Schedule, enabling extended consultation times and increased rebates for specialist care.

The $49.1 million investment is expected to provide about 430,000 more services to women across the country.

Including this new funding, the federal government has committed a total of $107 million in endometriosis support for women since coming to government, including by establishing endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics across the country and providing funding for research and awareness.

They've also flagged a scholarship fund to encourage nurses and midwives to get a higher qualification so they have the power to prescribe, order pathology and give their patients referrals.

The Primary Care Nursing and Midwifery Scholarship Program will run for four years, costing the government $50 million.

In May 2023, a Senate inquiry found women around Australia were facing major challenges to accessing abortion, contraception, pregnancy and birth care.

Health Minister Mark Butler and Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney said a recent Senate inquiry into access to reproductive and sexual healthcare would help inform how those commitments would be reached.

The government's response to the report's recommendations is now nearly a year overdue.

Violence against women and their children

The government has promised additional measures to support women's safety, building on the already-announced $915 million over five years to make permanent a trial program which has seen women fleeing violence paid up to $5,000 in financial support.

But this has been heavily criticised as not going far enough to protect some of those most vulnerable to violence because it only covers violence by an intimate partner — not a carer or family member.

Women with disabilities say they're being left behind , while the federal government says they should approach Centrelink or the NDIS  if they're being abused by a carer.

And Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has said the government has no plans to expand that eligibility.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has also said there will be "additional steps" on welfare payments, the level of which is often identified as a barrier to women seeking to leave violent relationships.

But it's not clear whether this will include an increase to the JobSeeker unemployment benefit or the Single Parenting Payment.

Instead, the government has hinted it is likely to increase the more narrowly available Commonwealth Rent Assistance payment.

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How Biden Adopted Trump’s Trade War With China

The president has proposed new barriers to electric vehicles, steel and other goods..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Donald Trump upended decades of American policy when he started a trade war with China. Many thought that President Biden would reverse those policies. Instead, he’s stepping them up. Today, my colleague, Jim Tankersley, explains.

It’s Monday, May 13.

Jim, it’s very nice to have you in the studio.

It’s so great to be here, Sabrina. Thank you so much.

So we are going to talk today about something I find very interesting and I know you’ve been following. We’re in the middle of a presidential campaign. You are an economics reporter looking at these two candidates, and you’ve been trying to understand how Trump and Biden are thinking about our number one economic rival, and that is China.

As we know, Trump has been very loud and very clear about his views on China. What about Biden?

Well, no one is going to accuse President Biden of being as loud as former President Trump. But I think he’s actually been fairly clear in a way that might surprise a lot of people about how he sees economic competition with China.

We’re going after China in the wrong way. China is stealing intellectual property. China is conditioning —

And Biden has, kind of surprisingly, sounded a lot, in his own Joe Biden way, like Trump.

They’re not competing. They’re cheating. They’re cheating. And we’ve seen the damage here in America.

He has been very clear that he thinks China is cheating in trade.

The bottom line is I want fair competition with China, not conflict. And we’re in a stronger position to win the economic competition of the 21st century against China or anyone else because we’re investing in America and American workers again. Finally.

And maybe the most surprising thing from a policy perspective is just how much Biden has built on top of the anti-China moves that Trump made and really is the verge of his own sort of trade war with China.

Interesting. So remind us, Jim, what did Trump do when he actually came into office? We, of course, remember Trump really talking about China and banging that drum hard during the campaign, but remind us what he actually did when he came into office.

Yeah, it’s really instructive to start with the campaign, because Trump is talking about China in some very specific ways.

We have a $500 billion deficit, trade deficit, with China. We’re going to turn it around. And we have the cards. Don’t forget —

They’re ripping us off. They’re stealing our jobs.

They’re using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing. So we’re losing our good jobs, so many.

The economic context here is the United States has lost a couple of million jobs in what was called the China shock of the early 2000s. And Trump is tapping into that.

But when the Chinese come in, and they want to make great trade deals — and they make the best trade deals, and not anymore. When I’m there, we turn it around, folks. We turn it around. We have —

And what he’s promising as president is that he’s going to bring those jobs back.

I’ll be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I’ll take them back from China, from Japan.

And not just any jobs, good-paying manufacturing jobs, all of it — clothes, shoes, steel, all of these jobs that have been lost that American workers, particularly in the industrial Midwest, used to do. Trump’s going to bring them back with policy meant to rebalance the trade relationship with China to get a better deal with China.

So he’s saying China is eating our lunch and has been for decades. That’s the reason why factory workers in rural North Carolina don’t have work. It’s those guys. And I’m going to change that.

Right. And he likes to say it’s because our leaders didn’t cut the right deal with them, so I’m going to make a better deal. And to get a better deal, you need leverage. So a year into his presidency, he starts taking steps to amass leverage with China.

And so what does that look like?

Just an hour ago, surrounded by a hand-picked group of steelworkers, President Trump revealed he was not bluffing.

It starts with tariffs. Tariffs are taxes that the government imposes on imports.

Two key global imports into America now face a major new barrier.

Today, I’m defending America’s national security by placing tariffs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum.

And in this case, it’s imports from a lot of different countries, but particularly China.

Let’s take it straight to the White House. The president of the United States announcing new trade tariffs against China. Let’s listen in.

This has been long in the making. You’ve heard —

So Trump starts, in 2018, this series of tariffs that he’s imposing on all sorts of things — washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum. I went to Delaware to a lighting store at that time, I remember, where basically everything they sold came from China and was subject to the Trump tariffs, because that’s where lighting was made now.

Interesting.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods now start falling under these Trump tariffs. The Chinese, of course, don’t take this lying down.

China says it is not afraid of a trade war with the US, and it’s fighting back against President Trump with its own tariffs on US goods.

They do their own retaliatory tariffs. Now American exports to China cost more for Chinese consumers. And boom, all of a sudden, we are in the midst of a full-blown trade war between the United States and Beijing.

Right. And that trade war was kind of a shock because for decades, politicians had avoided that kind of policy. It was the consensus of the political class in the United States that there should not be tariffs like that. It should be free trade. And Trump just came in and blew up the consensus.

Yeah. And Sabrina, I may have mentioned this once or 700 times before on this program, but I talk to a lot of economists in my job.

Yeah, it’s weird. I talk to a lot of economists. And in 2018 when this started, there were very, very, very few economists of any political persuasion who thought that imposing all these tariffs were a good idea. Republican economists in particular, this is antithetical to how they think about the world, which is low taxes, free trade. And even Democratic economists who thought they had some problems with the way free trade had been conducted did not think that Trump’s “I’m going to get a better deal” approach was going to work. And so there was a lot of criticism at the time, and a lot of politicians really didn’t like it, a lot of Democrats, many Republicans. And it all added up to just a real, whoa, I don’t think this is going to work.

So that begs the question, did it?

Well, it depends on what you mean by work. Economically, it does not appear to have achieved what Trump wanted. There’s no evidence yet in the best economic research that’s been done on this that enormous amounts of manufacturing jobs came back to the United States because of Trump’s tariffs. There was research, for example, on the tariffs on washing machines. They appear to have helped a couple thousand jobs, manufacturing jobs be created in the United States, but they also raised the price of washing machines for everybody who bought them by enough that each additional job that was created by those tariffs effectively cost consumers, like, $800,000 per job.

There’s like lots of evidence that the sectors Trump was targeting to try to help here, he didn’t. There just wasn’t a lot of employment rebound to the United States. But politically, it really worked. The tariffs were very popular. They had this effect of showing voters in those hollowed-out manufacturing areas that Trump was on their team and that he was fighting for them. Even if they didn’t see the jobs coming back, they felt like he was standing up for them.

So the research suggests this was a savvy political move by Trump. And in the process, it sort of changes the political economic landscape in both parties in the United States.

Right. So Trump made these policies that seemed, for many, many years in the American political system, fringe, isolationist, economically bad, suddenly quite palatable and even desirable to mainstream policymakers.

Yeah. Suddenly getting tough on China is something everyone wants to do across both parties. And so from a political messaging standpoint, being tough on China is now where the mainstream is. But at the same time, there is still big disagreement over whether Trump is getting tough on China in the right way, whether he’s actually being effective at changing the trade relationship with China.

Remember that Trump was imposing these tariffs as a way to get leverage for a better deal with China. Well, he gets a deal of sorts, actually, with the Chinese government, which includes some things about tariffs, and also China agreeing to buy some products from the United States. Trump spins it as this huge win, but nobody else really, including Republicans, acts like Trump has solved the problem that Trump himself has identified. This deal is not enough to make everybody go, well, everything’s great with China now. We can move on to the next thing.

China remains this huge issue. And the question of what is the most effective way to deal with them is still an animating force in politics.

Got it. So politically, huge win, but policy-wise and economically, and fundamentally, the problem of China still very much unresolved.

Absolutely.

So then Biden comes in. What does Biden do? Does he keep the tariffs on?

Biden comes to office, and there remains this real pressure from economists to roll back what they consider to be the ineffective parts of Trump’s trade policy. That includes many of the tariffs. And it’s especially true at a time when almost immediately after Biden takes office, inflation spikes. And so Americans are paying a lot of money for products, and there’s this pressure on Biden, including from inside his administration, to roll back some of the China tariffs to give Americans some relief on prices.

And Biden considers this, but he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t reverse Trump’s tariff policy. In the end, he’s actually building on it.

We’ll be right back.

So Jim, you said that Biden is actually building on Trump’s anti-China policy. What exactly does that look like?

So Biden builds on the Trump China policy in three key ways, but he does it with a really specific goal that I just want you to keep in mind as we talk about all of this, which is that Biden isn’t just trying to beat China on everything. He’s not trying to cut a better deal. Biden is trying to beat China in a specific race to own the clean-energy future.

Clean energy.

Yeah. So keep that in mind, clean energy. And the animating force behind all of the things Biden does with China is that Biden wants to beat China on what he thinks are the jobs of the future, and that’s green technology.

Got it. OK. So what does he do first?

OK. Thing number one — let’s talk about the tariffs. He does not roll them back. And actually, he builds on them. For years, for the most part, he just lets the tariffs be. His administration reviews them. And it’s only now, this week, when his administration is going to actually act on the tariffs. And what they’re going to do is raise some of them. They’re going to raise them on strategic green tech things, like electric vehicles, in order to make them more expensive.

And I think it’s important to know the backdrop here, which is since Biden has taken office, China has started flooding global markets with really low-cost green technologies. Solar panels, electric vehicles are the two really big ones. And Biden’s aides are terrified that those imports are going to wash over the United States and basically wipe out American automakers, solar panel manufacturers, that essentially, if Americans can just buy super-cheap stuff from China, they’re not going to buy it from American factories. Those factories are going to go out of business.

So Biden’s goal of manufacturing jobs in clean energy, China is really threatening that by dumping all these products on the American market.

Exactly. And so what he wants to do is protect those factories with tariffs. And that means increasing the tariffs that Trump put on electric vehicles in hopes that American consumers will find them too expensive to buy.

But doesn’t that go against Biden’s goal of clean energy and things better for the environment? Lots of mass-market electric vehicles into the United States would seem to advance that goal. And here, he’s saying, no, you can’t come in.

Right, because Biden isn’t just trying to reduce emissions at all costs. He wants to reduce emissions while boosting American manufacturing jobs. He doesn’t want China to get a monopoly in these areas. And he’s also, in particular, worried about the politics of lost American manufacturing jobs. So Biden does not want to just let you buy cheaper Chinese technologies, even if that means reducing emissions.

He wants to boost American manufacturing of those things to compete with China, which brings us to our second thing that Biden has done to build on Trump’s China policy, which is that Biden has started to act like the Chinese government in particular areas by showering American manufacturers with subsidies.

I see. So dumping government money into American businesses.

Yes, tax incentives, direct grants. This is a way that China has, in the past decades, built its manufacturing dominance, is with state support for factories. Biden is trying to do that in particular targeted industries, including electric vehicles, solar power, wind power, semiconductors. Biden has passed a bunch of legislation that showers those sectors with incentives and government support in hopes of growing up much faster American industry.

Got it. So basically, Biden is trying to beat China at its own game.

Yeah, he’s essentially using tariffs to build a fortress around American industry so that he can train the troops to fight the clean energy battle with China.

And the troops being American companies.

Yes. It’s like, we’re going to give them protection — protectionist policy — in order to get up to size, get up to strength as an army in this battle for clean energy dominance against the Chinese.

Got it. So he’s trying to build up the fortress. What’s the third thing Biden does? You mentioned three things.

Biden does not want the United States going it alone against China. He’s trying to build an international coalition, wealthy countries and some other emerging countries that are going to take on China and try to stop the Chinese from using their trade playbook to take over all these new emerging industrial markets.

But, Jim, why? What does the US get from bringing our allies into this trade war? Why does the US want that?

Some of this really is about stopping China from gaining access to new markets. It’s like, if you put the low-cost Chinese exports on a boat, and it’s going around the world, looking for a dock to stop and offload the stuff and sell it, Biden wants barriers up at every possible port. And he wants factories in those places that are competing with the Chinese.

And a crucial fact to know here is that the United States and Europe, they are behind China when it comes to clean-energy technology. The Chinese government has invested a lot more than America and Europe in building up its industrial capacity for clean energy. So America and its allies want to deny China dominance of those markets and to build up their own access to them.

And they’re behind, so they’ve got to get going. It’s like they’re in a race, and they’re trailing.

Yeah, it’s an economic race to own these industries, and it’s that global emissions race. They also want to be bringing down fossil-fuel emissions faster than they currently are, and this is their plan.

So I guess, Jim, the question in my mind is, Trump effectively broke the seal, right? He started all of these tariffs. He started this trade war with China. But he did it in this kind of jackhammer, non-targeted way, and it didn’t really work economically. Now Biden is taking it a step further. But the question is, is his effort here going to work?

The answer to whether it’s going to work really depends on what your goals are. And Biden and Trump have very different goals. If Trump wins the White House back, he has made very clear that his goal is to try to rip the United States trade relationship with China even more than he already has. He just wants less trade with China and more stuff of all types made in the United States that used to be made in China. That’s a very difficult goal, but it’s not Biden’s goal.

Biden’s goal is that he wants America to make more stuff in these targeted industries. And there is real skepticism from free-market economists that his industrial policies will work on that, but there’s a lot of enthusiasm for it from a new strain of Democratic economists, in particular, who believe that the only chance Biden has to make that work is by pulling all of these levers, by doing the big subsidies and by putting up the tariffs, that you have to have both the troops training and the wall around them. And if it’s going to work, he has to build on the Trump policies. And so I guess you’re asking, will it work? It may be dependent upon just how far he’s willing to go on the subsidies and the barriers.

There’s a chance of it.

So, Jim, at the highest level, whatever the economic outcome here, it strikes me that these moves by Biden are pretty remarkably different from the policies of the Democratic Party over the decades, really going in the opposite direction. I’m thinking of Bill Clinton and NAFTA in the 1990s. Free trade was the real central mantra of the Democratic Party, really of both parties.

Yeah, and Biden is a real break from Clinton. And Clinton was the one who actually signed the law that really opened up trade with China, and Biden’s a break from that. He’s a break from even President Obama when he was vice president. Biden is doing something different. He’s breaking from that Democratic tradition, and he’s building on what Trump did, but with some throwback elements to it from the Roosevelt administration and the Eisenhower administration. This is this grand American tradition of industrial policy that gave us the space race and the interstate highway system. It’s the idea of using the power of the federal government to build up specific industrial capacities. It was in vogue for a time. It fell out of fashion and was replaced by this idea that the government should get out of the way, and you let the free market drive innovation. And now that industrial policy idea is back in vogue, and Biden is doing it.

So it isn’t just a shift or an evolution. It’s actually a return to big government spending of the ‘30s and the ‘40s and the ‘50s of American industrialism of that era. So what goes around comes around.

Yeah, and it’s a return to that older economic theory with new elements. And it’s in part because of the almost jealousy that American policymakers have of China and the success that it’s had building up its own industrial base. But it also has this political element to it. It’s, in part, animated by the success that Trump had making China an issue with working-class American voters.

You didn’t have to lose your job to China to feel like China was a stand-in for the forces that have taken away good-paying middle-class jobs from American workers who expected those jobs to be there. And so Trump tapped into that. And Biden is trying to tap into that. And the political incentives are pushing every future American president to do more of that. So I think we are going to see even more of this going forward, and that’s why we’re in such an interesting moment right now.

So we’re going to see more fortresses.

More fortresses, more troops, more money.

Jim, thank you.

You’re welcome.

Here’s what else you should know today. Intense fighting between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of Northern Gaza over the weekend, an area where Israel had declared Hamas defeated earlier in the war, only to see the group reconstitute in the power vacuum that was left behind. The persistent lawlessness raised concerns about the future of Gaza among American officials. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the return of Hamas to the North left him concerned that Israeli victories there would be, quote, “not sustainable,” and said that Israel had not presented the United States with any plan for when the war ends.

And the United Nations aid agency in Gaza said early on Sunday that about 300,000 people had fled from Rafah over the past week, the city in the enclave’s southernmost tip where more than a million displaced Gazans had sought shelter from Israeli bombardments elsewhere. The UN made the announcement hours after the Israeli government issued new evacuation orders in Rafah, deepening fears that the Israeli military was preparing to invade the city despite international warnings.

Today’s episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Carlos Prieto, Sidney Harper, and Luke Vander Ploeg. It was edited by M.J. Davis Lin, Brendan Klinkenberg, and Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Diane Wong, Marion Lozano, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

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Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Produced by Nina Feldman ,  Carlos Prieto ,  Sydney Harper and Luke Vander Ploeg

Edited by M.J. Davis Lin ,  Brendan Klinkenberg and Lisa Chow

Original music by Diane Wong ,  Marion Lozano and Dan Powell

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

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Donald Trump upended decades of American policy when he started a trade war with China. Many thought that President Biden would reverse those policies. Instead, he’s stepping them up.

Jim Tankersley, who covers economic policy at the White House, explains.

On today’s episode

Jim Tankersley , who covers economic policy at the White House for The New York Times.

Background reading

Mr. Biden, competing with Mr. Trump to be tough on China , called for steel tariffs last month.

The Biden administration may raise tariffs on electric vehicles from China to 100 percent .

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