Abortion, Right or Wrong?

To most people life is a gift. Some people live each day as if it were their last. Others take life for granted and assume that what they put off today they can do tomorrow. What about the life of the unborn child, the human being that is growing and developing inside its mother’s womb. Is it the right of the mother to say this child shall be born, or is it the right of the government? Does the developing fetus have a voice on this issue? These questions have been asked as far back as ancient times. Today, the question whether abortion is right or wrong still has many people on different sides of the issue.

Abortions have been performed throughout history for many different reasons. Laws and their enforcement on the issue have fluctuations through many eras. Many of the methods used in early and primitive cultures were non-surgical. Common techniques were making the woman perform strenuous physical activities such as climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving. Women could also use irritant leaves, fasting, bloodletting, and pouring hot water onto the abdomen. Each culture had its own ways of dealing with unwanted pregnancies. For centuries, South Asia has practiced the technique of massage abortion, the application of pressure to the pregnant abdomen. During the nineteenth century in the United States, the use of candles and other objects, such as glass rods, penholders, curling irons, spoons, sticks, knives, and catheters were used. Dangerous methods such as these carried on into the twentieth century, making abortion more dangerous than childbirth. During the twentieth century, one in every six of the estimated 150,000 abortions that occurred annually resulted in the mother’s death. These dangerous practices and deaths made abortion a political issue rather than a moral issue.

There are two