ABORTION Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

ABORTION - Essay Example The wealthy were able to travel abroad or pay high fees to a local doctor willing to perform the procedure for a price. Poor women had to resort to less safe options. Prohibiting abortions does not and has never stopped them from occurring; it just acts to harm women. People opposed to legal abortions are also in the same camp that opposes programs that aid the impoverished and abused children who are the result of unwanted pregnancies. They point to ‘Christian morals’ and ‘family values’ as justification for the loss of liberty, discrimination of the poor and the increased cases of injured women. This divide of morals and concepts will never be bridged but the debate whether abortion should be legal or not is a matter for the courts. This discussion considers the legal aspects of the abortion issue. The arguments for and against are significant in a social context yet don’t really mean anything because they will not decide whether or not abortions remain safe and lawful. The Roe v. Wade case, brought before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, resulted in the Court’s determination that women have the constitutional right to have an abortion prior to when the fetus is viable, meaning when it can survive on its own outside the woman’s womb. The decision removed any state law that restricted a woman to have an abortion or a doctor to perform an abortion during the first three months (first trimester) of a pregnancy. It also restricted abortions during the second-trimester unless a woman’s health was in danger (â€Å"Roe v. Wade†, 1997: 312). Though the case was then and is still strongly debated, the Court’s decision was correct from a constitutional context. Critics of the decision have generally made arguments based on personal moral beliefs which don’t count when the language of the Constitution is examined. Their moral arguments against the Roe decision can be quickly dismissed by weighing the