...Tina McCray Professor Williams English 111-800 November 14, 2013 The Need to Address Social Issues Affecting Abortion Abortion discussion in the public domain has most often centered on the policy and failed to address the major causes, which are the social issues. There is minimal focus on social reasons why 1.3 million women abort each year in the United States (Finer and Benshaw 15). Most of the reasons for carrying out abortion are addressed on two pillars alone: health complications and rape or incest. A third and a much bigger pillar, social reasons, have been ignored. Statistics show that a whopping 93% of abortions are due to social reasons (Finer and Benshaw 13). More attention should be focused on addressing the social aspects affecting abortion in contemporary society. The social reasons that make women want to abort include poverty, fear of heavy emotional and financial responsibility, and Incrimination of Teen pregnancy and unwanted pregnancy. Poverty trims down a mother’s capability to provide for a child, increasing the incentive to abort. As much as this may be reduced by existing social or welfare aid programs, abortion is still stigmatized as the problem of the poor. The less money one has, the less likely one will be able to afford bringing up a child, making abortion the only plausible option. This is made worse by the heavy emotional and financial responsibility to provide for children with little resources that poor people possess. Statistics show that...
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...i Abortion Controversy: Conflicting Beliefs and Values In American Society By: Joseph B. Tamney, Stephen D. Johnson, and Ronald Burton Submitted By: Thomala J. Hollingsworth Sociology 100 Professor: Gwendolyn Royal-Smith February 26, 2013 ii Abstract This study examines the ideological and structured basis for attitudes and political action relating to abortion. A sample from “Middletown” in fall of 1989 showed that most people believed that abortion begins at conception, a belief in privacy rights, and religion. Social traditionalism also played an important role in a pro-life stand, which is only influential for conservative Protestants and not for Catholics. Catholics believe in abstinence and refraining from taking anyone’s life as it relates to abortion. The political action, the data showed that the pro-life movement was more important in 1989 than the pro-choice movement. Party identification was not used for abortion as a political litmus test. However, attending pro-life churches did increase the likelihood of using abortion for voting decisions. I am interested in this particular article because the subject of legalized abortion or the lack thereof, hits home for me. I feel that women everywhere should have the right to say what happens to their bodies, which is in the United States, even in other countries where women are not allowed to have freedom of speech and treated unequally. Legalized Abortion I Women...
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...For my Social Justice Paper I will be researching Abortion in the two religions Christianity and Judaism. For Christianity I selected to research the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity. Abortion is not a modern issue. It dates back to the early days of religion, where the Ancient Jews believed that God created the child in the mother, and brought it to life. The Palestinians, and later, the Greeks and Romans practiced infanticide, sacrifice and abortion. In the Roman Empire, a child had no legal status until accepted by the head of the family. The anti-abortion stance of the Catholic Church began in its early days (The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles) states "You shall not procure abortion. You shall not destroy the newborn child". Christianity...
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...Teenage Abortion and How Parental Involvement Affects Risk Kenneth F. Cyrus Over the past several decades, the issue of abortion has evoked controversy, hostility and even violence. The church, State and special interest organizations expound on the pros and cons of abortion rights. Often these abortion rights are fueled by moral, ethical, religious and legal arguments both in favor of Right to Life, as well as Pro-Choice. The issues become more complex where abortion involves a teenager, as the teenager's rights vs. parental involvement contributes to the hot debate on who has the legal right to choose. The woman has every right to decide whether she wants to carry the pregnancy to full term or to have an abortion. However, since unprotected sex results in unplanned pregnancy, parents should have a say in abortion decision. The physical health risk of abortion is very low when done in the early stages of pregnancy and in qualified abortion clinic. Ninety Seven percent of women who have abortion in their first trimester have no complications, and the risk for adolescents is low if done in the first trimester. (O'Keeffe & Jones.) The physical risks of abortion for teens is greater than that of their adult counterpart because teens have a longer approval process that increase the risk of the abortion been done in the second trimester. If the parents are a part of the decision then the approval process maybe shorter, eliminating the complications associated with late...
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...10/21/2012 Abortion: Is it her choice or theirs While a woman should have the right to choose abortion without being criticized, the issue of abortion is very disputable. Everyone has their own individual opinion. Many people believe abortion is a moral issue, but it is also a constitutional issue. It is a woman's right to choose what she does with her body, and it should not be altered or influenced by anyone else Abortion represents a woman's right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy, and this is a fundamental human right and reproductive freedom that is protected by the United States Constitution. This basic and important reproductive choice should not be made by the government or any other outside force against the woman's wishes but solely by the individual woman herself. Abortion is quite the controversial matter in society today; however, it is not widely discussed, and therefore it is hard for one to express their opinions on the matter. Regardless, many people have their views on the subject, whether these views be educated and well thought up, or simply a general view as to why abortion should or should not be practiced. However, for the most part, it seems that certain social groups of society tend to think the same way on abortion. Many forms of religion are opposed to abortion. In their eyes, abortion is a form of murder in that it involves the taking of an innocent life. Issues of life and death are closely linked to spiritual issues and should...
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...I. INTRODUCTION Background Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by removing or taking off the fetus or embryo. It is very dangerous and the risk of killing the victims in progress is high and it will bring after effect. An abortion is ensued due to most teenagers have limited knowledge in sex and without proper safety precaution, unwanted pregnancy might occur. Besides that, taking care of children can be a difficult task for teenagers as they are still students and their parents might choose abortion for their daughters. Moreover, crimes of rape happen in our society increasingly nowadays and this leads to abortion problem among the females. Other than that, the health condition of a pregnant woman/mother could also be one of the factors to cause congenital death of unborn baby or even worse and forced to abort. Statement of the Problem According to the report from Index Mundi towards Malaysia birth rate, the birth rate in the country has declined steadily year by year; one of the reasons would be the rise in the number of abortion. This phenomenon should be viewed with concern and the researchers want to discover the reasons that make women to induce abortion. Abortion is considered illegal in Malaysia (however, there are some exception). Hence it causes many women to delay undergoing abortion and encourages the proliferation of such services to conduct illegal abortions in the black market. There was a report by Kosmo The Star, said...
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...| Abortion | A Social Problem | | Raven Sutton | 8/1/2012 | | Abortion Abortion is a social problem. The important ways of looking at the issue of abortion are most easily categorized into five major points, legal precedence, birth control issues, human rights, religion and when life begins. In all of these categories there are issues with abortion that people that based on both empirical and moral claims, a wide spectrum of views supporting either more or less legal restriction on abortions has emerged in America. Advocacy groups define the issue through its constitutionality and its moral views represented by their constituents, but politicians define the issue by party lines, generally with liberals as “pro-choice” and conservatives as “pro-life.” The media defines the issue morally, presenting to the nation the views of various “pro-life” and “pro-choice” organizations with little empirical evidence from both sides. Ever since the landmark Roe v. Wade, abortion law has continued to protect the woman’s right to choose. Supreme Court cases have placed the woman’s right to choose under the right to privacy and therefore they have considered it protected by the US constitution. Also, when Norma McCorvey (also known as Jane Roe) tried to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision in her 2005 Supreme Court Case, McCorvey v. Hill (2005), the Supreme Court denied the case thus supporting the statute that Roe v. Wade had created. The precedent set in Roe v. Wade has...
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...In the world today that abortion takes place every second of every day. Abortion is a big topic in this generation because of have uncontrolled hormones the miss connection of love and responsibility and what it brings to the table. They lack to fully understand the presents and laws to childhood care because yet they are still children themselves. When we misuse this we tend to fall into wrong decision making of abortion. Abortion ties into what some say the killing of a human life. We fail to realize the fact of when does life begin. Many may claim that life begins as we form in our mother’s uterus. (According to prolife physicians.com) human life begins as we are able to adapt, reproduce, organized, have energy etc. Does this really define that we are able to still take a life that has never displayed these actions but will. Many people will agree that during every abortion and innocent human being is killed. They also stop to think that when does life begin or is abortion just abortion. According to pro-choice network human life begins as a baby / fetus begins to breathe on its own without the mothers support (Pro-choice network). In the world today laws have been developed in many states that there is a set time for a women to abort her child or fetus. Women can only have abortion between eight to twelve weeks of pregnancy. This comeback to the question when are we considered human beings viewpoints regarding this issue vary wildly, but after clarification of why one should...
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...teenagers in various ways. Friends impact teenagers almost the same amount as their parents. Teenagers go to their friends for help or to ask questions that they could not ask their parents about. Most of the time their friends give them good advice but then there is the down side when they put pressure on their friends to do something like to smoke, drink, and do drugs. In most cases they tell their friends how to dress and act when around certain people. Love relationships just make it even harder for a teenager to get a good education. Some start to fail in school because they are hanging out with their boyfriend or girlfriend instead of doing their work. Throughout adolescence, teenagers are positively and negatively impacted by several relationships such as friends, family, and love relationships. Friends have a big influence on teenagers because they can say and do many of things to teenagers who think they were friends. They also start rumors and take their friends girlfriend or boyfriend and have them cheat on their friend. Some go out to drink, smoke, or to do drugs just to have fun but some think of driving home and most teenagers do not even make it to their driveways. Some teenagers who are so depressed about their social problems even think about committing suicide. Most start to hurt others turn into “goth’s” by dressing in all black. Many of depressed people show how they feel by dressing differently by acting out and hurting others in school. Parents have a big...
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...The issue of abortion has been a widely debated issue over the past twenty years. In fact, it is probably still the most controversial of all the current contemporary social issues heading into the twenty-first century. Abortion poses a moral, social, and medical dilemma that stirs up emotional responses among disputants of the topic. Usually, there are two points of views on abortion, those that are “pro-choice” and those that are “pro-life.” Pro-lifers would argue that from the moment of conception, a fetus, or human embryo, is a living person. Abortion deprives this fetus of a chance to live and can be considered murder. The Catholic Church advocates this stance, since we have a moral obligation to preserve all forms of life. Pro-choicers, on the other hand, may feel that the decision to abort a pregnancy is that of the mother and the state has no right to interfere. Actually, about half of the U.S. populations are for abortion and the other half are against it. Clearly, what’s at stake in the issue is the fetus right to life. The actual procedure involved in abortion can be done in a number of ways. As early as the day after having unprotected sexual intercourse, a woman can be given drugs to halt fetal development, such as the “morning after pill.” One of the most common methods of abortion is the vacuum aspiration method. This is usually performed within the first trimester (first three months) of pregnancy. A tube, called a cannula, is simply inserted into the female’s...
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...and Nicholas L. Danigelis. 2002. Changing Frameworks in Attitudes Toward Abortion. Sociological Forum, Vol. 17, No. 2, 187-201. The article looks at the issue of legal abortion, and attitudes have changed over the years. The researchers examine how the determinants of abortion attitudes have changed between 1977 and 1996, using data from the General Social Surveys. There are several reasons to explain how the approval of abortion has increased between 1977 and 1996. By the 90s, abortion had been legal for two decades, the population had become more educated and more secular, and other sociodemographic trends were consistent with increasing desire for contraceptive methods. For the study, the 20 years are divided into four periods of relatively equal duration and subsample size: 1977–80, 1982–85, 1987–91, and 1993–96. From this, it is noted that early time periods, whites were more approving of abortion than blacks, that pattern had reversed by the late 1980s. As part of their research study, they used weights to control for the effects of over sampling blacks in 1982 and 1987. The dependent variable was a summated Abortion Approval Scale based on the number of “yes” answers to six situation-specific questions about abortion which ranges from a low of 0 that represents complete opposition to abortion in all described situations (“no” to all questions) to a high of 6 that represents tolerance of abortion in all situations (“yes” to all questions). Ten independent variables have...
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...Abortion and Free Markets A social problem or issue is something that people believe should be corrected into a legal action; one social problem that has been on the government’s agenda for several years, abortion. It involves the fundamental rights for all women and teens when deciding whether or not to abort a child. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011 reported that abortions accounted for 9.3 percent (CDC, 2011). This percentage of takes into account rape, incest, abusive relationships, and the health or life of the mother and baby. The reasons for abortions are what the government considers the most important for an abortion to be considered legal. Although limited reasons, other reasons were found for wanting an abortion such as not wanting a child or the inability to afford a child could possibly be a legitimate reasons. In fact, during that time the case of Roe v. Wade was being heard in court, nearly 55 million abortions were performed in the United States legally – which averages of about 1.5 million per year (Pazol, Creanga, Burley, & Jamieson, 2014). Thanks to Roe v. Wade abortion became partly legal because it was considered unconstitutional to women and violated their human rights (ProCon, 2015). It is clear that the government believes in their interests of protecting life versus the personal rights of women around the world. Women of all ages have the right to make critical decisions about their own bodies and when the government steps...
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...Background Information Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced. The term abortion most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy. Induced abortion has long history, and can be traced back to civilizations as varied as China under Shennong, Ancient Egypt with its Ebers Papyrus and the Roman Empire in the time of Juvenal. There is evidence to suggest that pregnancies were terminated through a number of methods, including the administration of abortifacient herbs, the use of sharpened implements, the application of abdominal pressure, and other techniques. Introduction The ethics of abortion is a highly controversial issue that had been going continually argued over for the past few years and probably many years to come. Usually, debates about abortion focus on politics and the law: should abortion be outlawed and treated like the murder of a human person, or remain a legal choice available to all women? Behind the debates are more fundamental ethical questions which aren’t always given the specific attention they deserve. Some believe that the law shouldn’t legislate morality, but all good law is based upon moral values. A failure to openly discuss those values can obscure important discussions. The labels “Pro-life” and “Pro-choice” imply that...
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...Abortion Case Study (Part Two) Abortion legalization in our society is a social problem. This is classified as a social problem in our society because it affects individuals in our society negatively and is talked about often. There are two claims that I will talk about in this case study, the two are Pro-Life Action League and NARAL Pro-Choice America. Pro-Life Action League suggests that the legalization of abortion is not the right way to handle it and that abortions are considered murders. On the other hand, NARAL Pro-Choice suggests that abortion is a choice that all women should have for themselves. The first I will talk about is the Pro-Life Action League. The big message that they want to get across is that abortion should be considered...
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...Abortion is a very controversial social issue that has existed for many decades. The controversy behind this issue is caused by the different views that people and societies have regarding abortion. The social science disciplines of political science and religion will be used in getting a better understanding of the opposing views of abortion. In discussing the religious aspects of abortion, this paper will focus on the Jewish and Catholic views of abortion and how the two faiths effect an individual s decision upon having an abortion. When discussing the political controversy regarding abortion, this paper will discuss the abortion laws in Canada and the United States as well as the pro-choice and anti-choice movements of abortion. Society is greatly affected both socially and politically by abortions due to the different moralistic views regarding abortions and the controversies surrounding abortions. What are the views of the Catholic and Jewish religions on having abortions and how do their different views effect society? How is society effected by the political controversies behind abortions? Religion and Abortion Abortion is an issue that causes extreme divisions among various religious groups due to the laws of the religions, in particular, those of the Jewish and Christian religions. The Jewish religion is based on the belief in one G-d as well as respecting the laws that G-d imposed on the Jews. The Jewish people are expected to do what is just and merciful in the...
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