Abortion - political or emotional issue?

Question

A question my teacher asked in class has me thinking. Why is it that people don't like to talk about abortion and if they do, they get all worked up about it? Personally, I am against it, believe it is wrong, and that it is out-right murder. Now that you're worked up, is it really about so called "women's rights" (a political issue) or is it something deeper and more personal?

If it is completely political, then why do people get so worked up?
If it is completely emotional, why does the government get involved (1973)?

This is not the question to debate on whether a woman has a right to if she is in danger of her health (that is a completely different question I may ask later).

One more thing... whatever happened to personal responsibility?

The heart begins to beat... so how can someone assume the job of stopping little, innocent hearts from beating and thus ending life (at any stage in development)?

Answer 1

I think that if you consider it solely a moral, or personal, or political issue, you're simplifying it.

I am a therapist, and I did an intake evaluation yesterday of a 13-year old girl from a poor family who had an abortion. Her family couldn't have supported the child, and she wouldn't have continued school if she had had to carry it to term.

She was so young and naive that she might've asked her friends how to end the pregnancy on her own, and that could have been dangerous advice to follow.

As a therapist, I'm not allowed to make a judgment about it. And that's for the best. I don't think it should be up to me or anybody else to decide what's moral or immoral when it comes to women's lives, their education, and ultimately their overall wellbeing.

[Edit to your comments] Personal responsibility is a debatable issue too. It's people's responsibility not to do illegal drugs and become junkies, but does that mean we should turn our backs and not help them? The personal responsibility issue is a slippery slope to saying pregnancy and parenthood is a punishment for unprotected sex. The debate starts to get reeaaally emotional around that issue, and hence less rational.

The other side to your position is this: People's mistakes can affect the rest of their lives. If you have absolute compassion for the unborn, you inevitably lose compassion for the young, naive, ignorant women who become pregnant when they shouldn't.

Answer 2

Neither. It's a personal issue.

I find that it is often those who are most emotional about this issue that declare it to be a political issue. Abortion is (and in my opinion should be) a choice that is made between a woman and her medical provider. Not politicians and courts.

You don't have to agree with abortion, that is your choice. Others, such as myself, agree with legal abortion being available to women who need it, that is my choice.

The keyword involved....is choice. Under the current law, we are both allowed to exercise our personal choices without imposing rules on how other people should choose.

btw, 1973 is far from correct as to when the government became involved in abortion, the opposite is true.

Abortion laws began to appear in america in the 1800's and by the early 1900's was mostly outlawed. By 1965, all US states banned abortion, with a few exceptions here and there for medical reasons.

Roe v. Wade declared most state abortion laws to be unconstitutional, and kept legislation out of the picture during the first trimester of pregnancy.

If anything, 1973 was the year the government was forced to become less involved in abortion.

Answer 3

Political, because the people had no vote in the matter.
Emotional, because it really is an issue where there are no clear cut answers.
Moral and religious, because even most of the biggest supporters of abortion, hate the fact that it occurs.


"Dr. Bernard Nathanson, cofounder of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), who helped legitimize the claim that 10,000 women were dying each year from illegal abortions admitted years ago that the number was completely fabricated for PR purposes. He writes in his expos"© aborting America (193):

How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L., we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the "morality" of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible."

Answer 4

I loved discussions like this in my women's studies classes, but there was always some idiot who ended up spewing their hate-filled agenda and ruined a perfectly good, educated debate. Here's my two cents from someone who has had relevant coursework:
I think it is an emotional, personal issue that has become politicized. I think we all get worked up because women have become empowered socially and in the workplace and I still think that some men don't like that. I am a feminist in the sense that I just want to make my own decisions. For example, I am college educated, but I like being a stay at home mom for the time being. And, I don't think a bunch of old white men on Capitol Hill or the Supreme Court or the White House should tell me what I can and cannot do with my life and body.
I digress.......
After reading up a little better, Roe v Wade is about our right to privacy and that women should be able to have an abortion for any reason she chooses.
I also believe it is about controlling our sexuality and all of our reproductive rights. The neo-cons want us all back in the 1950s and are afraid of empowered women, which is something that the Pill provided for us psychologically back in 1969. I was born in 1973, the same year that the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal. And although I hope never to have to have one, it is reassuring to know that if I ever had to have one, I didn't have to travel to Europe or Canada to have one.
I do not think abortion is a good course of action either. There are many proactive forms of birth control like the condom, the Pill, even abstenence (although asking people to abstain from sex is naive). And now that I have two children of my own, and love children dearly, it is still not my place to tell another woman what to do with her body. Nor do I believe that being pro-choice is being pro abortion as one of the respondants mentioned above.
I used the Pill sucessfully for 11 years, and when it was time to have children, my husband and I planned for them perfectly. But obviously, not everyone is a planner like me.
There was an article I read a couple of years ago in either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, I can't remember which, that many college coeds across the country were interviewed and believed that Roe v. Wade is unnecessary and should be overturned, but in the same breath admitted to using the morning after Pill, which coincedently, many states, including Texas, are allowing pharmacists refusal to fill the prescription for the morning after pill on moral grounds because so many evangelical Christians believe that life begins at conception.

Answer 5

Abortion is resulting from sex between two people in which despair overcomes hope ... making it a political issue.

The despair/ hope starts with the woman & her self esteem. She may have had sex too early, been rapped, or during a transition time in a relationship. So, instead of looking at her qualities and how to accomplish managing a life change, despair can take over.

It's not the woman's issue alone. The man has as much to say (spoken or silent through actions) that give the woman signals about future hope or despair. I remember an "I love Lucy" episode where she had a fantasy about telling Ricky that a baby was coming ... Well, Ricky's actions and life circumstances (think he got fired or lost a big show) kept Lucy from telling him for an amusing skit ... I wonder, had abortion be available ... might Lucy have had an abortion based off her reading of Ricky???

Then the family's get involved (mom's, mom-in-laws) ... and if they feed more despair than hope ... well, abortion starts to look like a quick fix ... without regard to her self-esteem or the love with her bf. What I'm always amazed at is hearing stories about 15-17 year females & their parents saying "don't have babies" ... "u'r too young to have babies" ... "don't ruin your life" ... "don't ruin u'r baby's life" ... "motherhood sucks" ... I mean if we discoraged the same female against being a doctor (u'r to young to want to be a doctor ... you're not smart enough ... u'r too poor ... u can't help u'rself, why would you want to be a doctor???)... well, imagine the screaming "fowl" ... both roads (motherhood & doctor) are hard ... long hours ... and sacrifice ... yet for some reason, there's a hate against babies and acceptance of giving your life to eduation. IDK WHY??? Society I guess.

Lastly, there is the cultural. Imagine living in a war zone ... how would you picuture the future for the baby??? Then many women are freaked over the enviroment and don't see life as valuable. So, the local news can also be a factor. Laws, and social programs (government & private) also can add hope or despair. Returning to the mother/ doctor theme ... well, there's we give $$$ to colleges for doctors ... but less for mothers ... so, here's a political reality revealing the social acceptance.

To sum up ... hope is the way to give a baby/fetus a fighting chance to live Without it, despair & abortion take over.

Answer 6

It is emotional in that women who want abortion refuse to be held accountable for their actions. It is only political in the sense that the issue was forced to it's current conclusion to enable any girl or woman exemption from another, previous error.

The basis is emotional. The purpose of abortion is almost entirely that of irresponsibility of the individual. That it has been broadened into politics came later and only to make the killing legal.

Answer 7

Its both not just one or the other its political because it has to do with women's rights but its emotional because there is an internal struggle of whether people would abort a baby or not that is the cause of the work up.
I think there is no reason for abortion if you are too poor you can walk into a fire station hand them the baby and leave no questions ask you dont really have to tell them anything outside of medical problems and such. If its because you got raped and you dont want to think of the baby then that is being selfish because for 9 months of your life(after birth you can give up for adoption) you cant sacrifice a little pain so your going to kill the baby. That is my view

Answer 8

I feel that it is a Moral issue and an emotional one that people have made political. We get all worked up because it is not an easy thing. Even though some people are for it I think that deep down they know it is wrong and they are trying to justify it in their own way. Anyone can look at an Ultrasound picture at even 8 weeks after conception to see that what has been created in their bodies is alive. The more the infant body is studied in the womb; the more science proves it is a living human being.

Answer 9

The fact is, regardless of the back and forth debate, the abortion issue will never be in the hands of the President or Congress. The Supreme Court will decide, as they already have, if it will be legal or not.

Answer 10

Both I think.
On the political side, my right to choose is guaranteed by a little something called the Bill of Rights. And you can go right on believing that abortion is wrong, your beliefs are guaranteed by the same thing.
On a more emotional level, I firmly believe that my body is MINE. It is not an incubator for a child I don't want. (not that I can really imagine not wanting my children) When you start to see this side of the argument, that forcing me to carry a child I don't want is akin to slavery, you start to understand the reasoning of the pro-choice camp. Forcing pregnancy is rape, you are making me do something with my body that I don't want to do. (the defination of rape) And once you do that, where does it end?
You can't get too much more personal than someone's body. Or more political than someone's rights.
One or the other? No, it's both.

Personal responsibility went out the window when we decided that everybody is responsible for everybody else. Look to the frivolous lawsuits if you want proof of that. Common sense should tell you if the coffee is hot and not to drink it. But we drink it anyway and sue the vendor for not saying its hot. The idiot who won that case is the reason we aren't responsible for ourselves anymore. (and the idiots who let it even come to trial)