Dealing With The Pros and Cons of Legalized Abortion

The pros and cons of legalized abortion is an on-going saga that has spanned several generations. The Supreme Court victory in Roe v. Wade was somewhat of a Constitutional Trojan Horse.

Since its onset, legalized abortion has set in motion a menagerie of assertions and dissensions. Thirty years later, the battle is still raging with no concession in sight, not even on the Bench.

Honorable Judge Robert H. Bork, argues in “Inconvenient Lives,@ First Things (December 1996), that “Even the most embryonic human fetus must inescapably be defined as human life and that most abortions are performed merely to suit the convenience of the women.”

Mary Gordon, “A Moral Choice,” The Atlantic Monthly (March 1990), asserts that “The fetus removed in most abortions may not be considered a person and that women must retain the right to make decisions regarding their sexual lives.” (281)^[1]

“Their respective arguments use different methods of proof. Bork reasons from the biological premise that sperm and egg, each with 23 chromosomes, produce a fertilized human organism with the human’s full 46 chromosomes; what occurs after that is simply human growth, which no one has the right to interrupt. Gordon reasons from the appearance of the fetus and how people normally react.” (298).

However, my reasoning is that if both sides, Pro-Choice and Pro-Life, take into context certain variables of the others point of view, I am confident that they will be able to identify new perspectives from which they will find both moral and legal ways in which to abate the argument. Unfortunately, neither side is willing to let go of their stronghold.

I, personally, share dual-concern where this topic is concerned, because as a teen-aged mother of twins, I subjected myself to the annals of abortion, when I became pregnant just two years later and literally had no place to call home or no concept of where life was leading us. Almost twenty years later, I am still being absorbed in battle by my moral ethics, sense of deprivation, and the physical demeanor that lead me to that decision. At the time, I felt exonerated by putting to an end the physical demands of an unexpected pregnancy. However, over the years, there have been continuous reminders and succinct elements of circumstance that provoke my memory and convinced me that abortion was not the only option. Unfortunately, for me, and for the thousands of other women who succumb to the spritely demon of presumed innocence, abortion is FINAL.

[1]  Unless duly noted in relative paragraph, all quotations are taken from “Taking Side: Clashing views on Controversial Political Issues,” Twelfth Edition, George McKenna. Stanley Feingold, Copyright 2001 by McGraw Hill/Dushkin