Abortions Should Be Stopped :: Abortion Pro Choice Essays

Abortions are one of the many things that everyone has an opinion on. As defined by the 2012 Merriam-Webster dictionary, an Encyclopedia Britannica Company, an abortion is, â€Å"the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus as a spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation--miscarriage, the induced expulsion of a human fetus, or the expulsion of a fetus by a domestic animal often due to infection at any time before completion of pregnancy.† Abortions have always been and will probably always be a controversial topic in which everyone will not agree upon. In the midst of the controversy, two groups have emerged. These groups are referred to as pro-life and pro-choice. According to Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context, pro-life supporters claim that life begins at conception, therefore, abortion at any stage in the pregnancy is murder. They believe that life is valuable and the life of the unborn baby has the same rights as the mother. Pro-choice supporters, on the other hand, claim that it is the woman’s right to choose what she does with her body. These pro-abortionists claim that anti-abortionists are truly against the rights of women and free choice rather than the termination of the fetus. Pro-life and pro-choice advocates differ in many of their opinions, specifically, concerning when life begins, affects abortions have on the mother, and how politics and religion play a role in abortions. In order to fully understand any topic, a complete explanation is required. Therefore, the history of abortions and different procedures used are no exception. Abortions have been around for thousands of years. However, in the eighteen hundreds abortions in the United States became illegal. Due to the lack of medical education, procedures and surgeries such as abortions were very dangerous. As medical advancements were made, women still had to rely on back ally abortions which usually resulted in the harm of thousands of women. Abortions remained illegal, despite the medical advancements largely impart to the fact that physicians did not want to share their patients with other practitioners. The American Medical Association stated that abortions were wrong and unsafe. Therefore, according to the National Abortion Federation, abortions were then made into a â€Å"physicians-only† practice because they could be performed legally in order to save the woman’s life.