Consider this: a teenage girl has sexual intercourse using contraception and later finds that it fails. With hope of a future college degree, she is in search of options. She knows that she will be judged if she makes the announcement that she is pregnant to her family and friends, so she chooses to get an abortion. This situation displays only one of the variety of reasons that women will consider abortion. Recently, the debate on the prohibition of abortion has become more prevalent. When it comes to this topic, people will take one of two stances: pro-life, or pro-choice.

According to the University of California, Santa Barbara human sexuality students’ research, the pro-life rhetoric entails the idea that “The fetus is a human being from the moment of conception; this means abortion is murder, which is immoral and should be illegal.”  From this perspective, people believe that if the pregnancy was the result of carelessness, the mother should have to deal with the consequences. Darrien Smith from Kenwood Academy ‘17 states that “everything happens for a reason, and if you weren’t meant to have a baby, you wouldn’t have gotten pregnant.” Many people believe a child is the most beautiful addition you can contribute to this planet. These pro-life advocates feel that there are so many people in this world who are incapable of having babies, that women should not take their pregnancy for granted and kill their offspring.

Providing an argument against pro-life, the pro-choice rhetoric states that people should have the ability to decide for themselves what to do about their pregnancy. These people are more considerate of the mother and what she may have gone through too have to consider abortion in the first place. Would one want to have a baby if it was the product of rape? Or incest? The child would be a constant reminder of a horrible memory. Abortion is not just a choice being made in favor of the parent, but of the child as well. If they go through with the birth with no intention of loving the child, the young man or woman will have childhood of neglect. Sarah Williams ‘18 argues, “people who cannot take care of themselves should not be forced to take care of others and banning abortion is making someone conform to unrealistic lifestyles.” If we tell women to refrain from sex in order to not have a baby, we are depriving them of their rights.

In an article for the New York Times, an article was posted about the story of Meredith Isaksen, who decided to have a late-term abortion. She found out that her child would have heart problems after birth and decided not to put him through that. It was expressed in the article that she had love for him and was sad about the decision, but she wanted to do what was best. If the abortion prohibition was achieved, her baby would have had to go through multiple surgeries in the first few years of life and most likely in the following years as well.

Recently, Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed the “heartbeat bill.” This bill would have banned mothers from aborting their babies once doctors could detect a heartbeat. Kasich however signed the 20-week abortion bill, which takes mother’s right to an abortion away after 20 weeks, something that 15 other states have adopted. Kasich calls the bill “best, most legally sound and sustainable approach to protecting the sanctity of human life.” However, this can be seen as a negative step to overturning Roe v. Wade, which gives mothers until 22-24 weeks. DePaul University Student, Keyshawn Aytch ‘19 believes “abortion rights are constitutional, however, it is not moral in every case.” He thinks that some people take advantage of their right to abort and use abortion like contraception, instead of protecting themselves beforehand.

The topic of abortion is trivial. While some can take advantage of it’s access, others can use it to prevent a child from having a low quality of life. The question of if abortion is a good decision can have varied answers based on the specific case. All that can be said is that if abortion becomes illegal, similar to what happened with alcohol, people will still make attempts to stop their pregnancies and these methods are likely to cause multiple deaths.