Abortion

The ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights. Take away her reproductive choice and you step onto a slippery slope. If the government can force a woman to continue a pregnancy, what about forcing a woman to use contraception or undergo sterilization?

Pro-choicers argue that "It's our choice, it's a woman's choice, you can't force me to have a baby." However, those claiming that the government has no right to "force" a woman to continue a pregnancy, and that illegalizing abortion will only lead to forcing women to use contraception or sterilization have a major flaw in their argument. The government is simply denying the right to abort, whereas the government forcing contraception or sterilization means the government is taking the initiative. The woman took the initiative already--getting pregnant, having unprotected sex. She isn't being forced into something, she got herself into it. The government would simply be denying her a "get out of jail free" card, not placing her in jail in the first place. NOw, what if a woman was raped? She didn't take any initiative, she was a victim. Less than 5% of abortions are of babies that are the products of rape, and beyond that, rape very rarely results in pregancy. However, in the instances that it does, that doesn't change my stance on abortion. Since when has being victimized by one person made it okay for that victim to subsequently victimize another? Never. Furthermore, there are other options for rape victims. For example, the "morning after pill," which does not abort a baby, but merely prevents the egg from implanting in the uterine wall. Back to the victimizing another human being argument--what if someone tells me that the unborn baby isn't a person, it is simply a tissue mass? I would respond with the fact that an unborn child is still a person, just as much a person as an infant, based on the "SLED" acronym. The only differences between an unborn child and an infant are 1. their size, 2. their level of development, 3. environment, and 4. dependency. None of these criteria are enough to separate a child from an adult, or a baby from a child, in the case of murder--murder is murder, no matter the age, size, level of development, environment, or dependency of the person. So, abortion is murder, and a result ofthe mother's initiative (except in the rare rape cases), meaning that if the government legalized it, it would not lead to forced sterilization or contraception, because the government is not taking initiative, only denying one person's alleged "right" to murder another.