Pro-life and pro-choice on women reproductive choices
The pro-life movement is both social and political and it focuses mainly on opposition to abortion. It also supports legal bans on elective abortion. The pro-life practitioners believe and maintain that embryos and fetuses are human beings and for that reason, they have a right of existence. The movement supporters are also against practices like human cloning, death penalty and euthanasia. This movement is generally supported amongst the Muslims and Christians. The movement opposes the belief that women have reproductive rights (Peters, Para 5). On the other hand, pro-choice is a movement that gives a description to the ethical and political view that women should have the rights and control over their fertility. It also supports that women should be the ones to decide whether to continue with a pregnancy or terminate it (MegaEssays ,com., Para 3). Pro-choice movement believes that women should have guaranteed rights to reproduction. This is inclusive of access to lawful security from compelled abortion, fertility treatment, contraception, legal and safe abortion and sexual education. This movement is made up of organizations and individuals supporting the named positions (Barans, Para 5).
The issue of abortion becomes a problem because people have different views as to where life begins. According to the Websters dictionary, abortion is defined as the act of terminating a pregnancy after the fetus or embryo is dead. Pro-life defines abortion as murder while pro-choice takes it as the termination of an unwanted pregnancy. According to pro-lifers, life begins once fertilization takes place. If a woman decides to abort, she is killing an already existing life. However, some people in pro-choice supports the belief that during conception, the cells that are joining were already alive so that means that fertilization is not the beginning of a new life. They feel that life began 3 million years ago and it continues as a chain. When a woman is born, so are her egg cells (Head, Para 10).
Pro-life movement accepts as true that any practice which ends up violating human lifes sanctity is immoral. It goes ahead to seek legal steps to ensure that such practices are declared illegal. This movement believes that all aspects of human life irrespective of whether it is of a terminally ill patient, disabled person, crippled, born or unborn should be respected. According to the movement, all persons are worth of dignity. They should therefore be respected from time of conception until they die. It supports the view that if a decision is to be made about the death or life of another person, no human being has a right to make such a decision. This is where they come into confrontation with pro-choice. Pro-choice supports the idea of people having the freedom and the right to make choices in all life aspects and that is inclusive of abortion. Pro-choice avails a climate where all families and individuals are enabled to be responsible over their reproductive destiny (ChristianNet, Para 2).
Both pro-life and pro-choice make many assumptions regarding the reproductive choices of women. Pro-life assumes that women want to have children, have family ties and family life must include children. What would the lesbians and homosexuals say to this They also make the assumption that those women who abort do not care about the life of the unborn child. They assume that the people who abort are just young women who are sexually irresponsible. They forget that at times, the health of the mother may demand that the unborn child be aborted. In addition to that, pro-life assumes that for any unwanted pregnancy, the mother is responsible. The man who caused the pregnancy is not considered as a wrong doer. It also assumes that unwanted pregnancy is as a result of irresponsible behavior, it never considers that it could be as a result of failed contraceptives. Another assumption by pro-lifers is that after abortion, women regret having undergone the process. Well, studies show that most of the women who abort do not regret having done so (Peters, Para 15). The question however remains, is there a chance that the people who go ahead with a pregnancy regret What about the parents who adopt a child then they realize that they made a mistake
On the other hand, pro-choice assumes that worlds population needs to be decreased and therefore, abortion can be one of the ways to solve the problem. It also assumes that the men responsible for the pregnancy have no say regarding what should be done about it. Pro-choice assumes that a woman is an independent being and the decision about abortion should be solely hers. It does not give room for what the other family members may feel about the issue. It disregards all issues of morality or lack of it by only considering the choice and freedom of the woman aborting (Peters, Para 13).
The writers of the pro- life and pro-choice websites are the supporters of the respective movements. They therefore give their views according to what they believe and in accordance with the movement that they are supporting. For example, writers in pro-life are mostly religious bound with rigid beliefs. They seem to be giving views that are full of church doctrines. However, the writers in pro-choice seem more flexible and free. They talk of freedom and they give their views so freely that you can feel that is what they believe. They do not seem to care much about what other people in terms of religion, government and family think about them rather, they express their stand.
Regarding the issue of giving women choice, the pro-life and pro-choice websites differ slightly. Pro-life websites are more concerned with what a woman should not do as far as reproductive rights are concerned and they therefore give women limited choice that protects the unborn child. They support adoption and in their movement, they have pro-adoption among the issues they handle. The issue of contraceptives is a bit tricky for them because they support them although the Christian members of pro-life have their reservations. They put a condition that the accepted contraceptives should not cause abortion and they are therefore against the ones that are alleged to do so (Merritt, Para 9).The controversy comes in because Catholics do not support the use of contraceptives and since most pro-lifers are Catholics, this continues to be an issue (ChristianNet, Para 7).
Pro-choice gives women choice regarding the control they should have over their bodies. It supports the view that women have rights to decide on what do with their bodies pregnant or not. They claim that when a woman is pregnant, she is the one to bear all the stress that comes with it. If she feels that she is not ready to, then she has the choice to terminate the pregnancy. Pregnancy comes with responsibility. If a woman feels that she is not financially stable to support the pregnancy or the child, she is given a choice by pro-choice to abort. If she wants to continue with education without the hassle of a child, she can terminate the pregnancy. It also gives freedom to women who conceive out of unfortunate events like rape. According to Pro-choice, such women do not have to carry the responsibility of something they were forced to do. Basically, pro-choice advocates for freedom of choice and the ones concerned with reproduction. It believes that every choice comes with repercussions and whatever choice a woman takes, people may still feel that she made the wrong choice. It is therefore dependent on her to make the choices she feels are right as far as her life is concerned (Barans, Para 7).
The articles presented in the pro-life and pro-choice websites have a variety of information. Some are scholarly others are informative while some are out rightly dogmatic. Some of the scholarly and informative ones expound on the issues of abortion whereby doctors explain the different types of abortion, the reasons as to why it might be necessary to carry abortion and also information about contraceptives. They do so without taking either the pro-choice or pro-life side hence they can be used to clear the misconceptions regarding the issue and especially from the medical perspective. There are also articles with dogmatic issues like where life begins. There is basically to proof as to when life begins and there is much controversy regarding the same. Biologists might feel that it begins with conception while other people may feel that conception is just a continuation of life rather than its beginning (Peters, Para 6).
The information provided in the websites can be very confusing and especially for a pregnant woman who needs to make a choice about terminating or maintaining the pregnancy. If one reads only the pro-life articles, chances are that they would not abort. However, if one reads the pro-choice articles only, they might end up aborting (FuseTalk Inc., Para 5). In conclusion, reproductive choices are personal choices whether one has read the articles or not. As long as one has the information about abortions medical complications and wants to make the choice, then they should look within for what they believe in and stand for. They should however be ready to cope with the repercussions of the decision they have made.
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