Voluntary Abortion or Compulsory Sterilization? :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Voluntary Abortion orCompulsory Sterilization? Starting in the mid-1960s, some erosion of the anti-abortion laws began to take place. But these efforts open not been back up by many of the more vocal groups who atomic number 18 trying to do something about excess population growth to them, compulsory birth construe and compulsory sterilization are apparently more palatable than conscious abortion. The result is legal chaos--which has been the situation with reference to abortion since it was first make felonious in this country. Contrary to popular belief, the legal strictures against abortion are of comparatively recent origin. Until the early nineteenth century--at common law both(prenominal) in England and in the United States--abortion before quickening was not illegal at all. It became so besides in the early 1800s. And according to prof Cyril Means and others who have studied the problem, the reason for the enactment of the laws was not safeguard of morals or of the soul of the fetus, but rather a reflectance of the fact that at the time all surgical procedures were highly dubious because of the probability of contagious disease (this was before Lister). Abortions were made illegal for this reason barely where they were necessary to save the life of the mother that is, where the great risk of infection which every operation involved was outweighed by the risk of carrying that particular gestation to term. The situation is today reversed abortion under modern hospital conditions is safer than childbirth. Nor is there any evidence that abortion involves psychological health hazards. A poll of the American Psychiatric Association in the mid-1960s revealed overwhelming choke for more easily available abortions and a conviction that adverse psychological sequelae from abortion are negligible both on an absolute well-worn and as compared with such sequelae from childbirth and unwanted children. Though the population experts have not yet ali gned themselves on the side of abortion-law reform, something is beginning to happen. sevensome states--Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Carolina--have amended their laws to permit abortion not only to save life but also to protect the health, mental and physical, of the mother, in cases of rape and incest, and to avert the birth of defective offspring (Governor Reagan forced the disregard of this ground in the California law). Many other states have been and are now considering abortion reform or repeal bills but normally without the support of the powerful groups who are backing other forms of population control.