Thesis:
In this essay, I will argue that abortion is should be both morally and legally permissible based on the idea that abortion is a form of self-defense and security.
Background:
For the purposes of comparison: imagine a home. Within that home is a family consisting of a mother, father and child. This family has always felt safe and secure within the confines of their home. So safe, in fact, that they never felt the need to have a home security system because they are located within a gated community wherein nonresidents cannot gain access past the community’s gates. On evening, the family invites a regular guest into their home for a social gathering. However, unbeknownst to the family, their trusted guest steals a spare key to the family’s house. The missing spare key goes unnoticed by the family for weeks. One evening, the regular guest’s brother steals the key and sneaks into the home. The father, considered the head of this household, hears the guest’s brother, who is an intruder, rummaging through their belongings downstairs. This immediately causes the father to fear for his family’s lives. With the intention of protecting his family, the father grabs his gun and proceeds downstairs. The father realizes that it is his guest’s brother, however the brother is armed, and appears to reach for his weapon upon seeing the father. Fearing for his family’s life the father reacts by aiming the gun at the intruder and shooting him. The gunshot wound was fatal and the intruder died instantly. The threat of the intruder was removed and the family’s immediate sense of security is restored. The father calls the police who follow the proper procedure intruders and death. The neighbors are uneasy at the family’s continued presence in the neighborhood. This is due to their outrage at the father killing a man, and they want to see him legally punished. However, the legal system decides that the father was within his rights to protect both himself and his family by any means necessary due to the immediate danger of the situation. The judge also comments that the neighbors have no legal right to punish or act against the father or family since their lives were not at stake, nor where they involved in the process of the invasion.
Argument:
A woman’s body can be compared to this home. A woman having sexual intercourse with a man can be interpreted as her inviting a guest into her body. With that consistent guest, or sexual partner comes eventual trust with that sexual relationship and familiarity. If one day, her guest betrays her or either of them are not careful, her partner can ejaculate inside of the woman and one of the woman’s eggs can began to be fertilized. If the woman feels that her body is weakening, she has the right to defend it. If the pregnancy was not intentional, the fetus can be viewed as an intruder. Because pregnancy takes a toll on a woman’s body, mental health and/or life, a woman has the right to stop this process.
When a woman gets pregnant, a woman’s body changes in a plethora of ways. While pregnant, a woman can experience, “exhaustion, altered appetite and senses of taste and smell, nausea and vomiting, heartburn and indigestion, weight gain, dizziness and light-headedness, bloating, swelling, fluid retention, hemorrhoids, abdominal cramps, yeast infections… difficulty sleeping, and discomfort while sleeping… breast pain and discharge, swelling of joints, leg cramps, joint pain, difficulty sitting, [and difficulty in] standing in later pregnancy” (The Liz Library). Pregnancy can be extremely uncomfortable for women and can prevent them from carrying on with their daily life, even in the early stages. Pregnancy can make a woman feel like her body is under attack because, essentially, it is. The weight of carrying a fetus inside of a woman and having to share her blood, oxygen and food with it can physically drain the woman. It is unfair for a woman to be forced to continue to let her body be forcefully taken over.
Not only does pregnancy heavily affect a woman’s body during the three trimesters, but it can also permanently impact the woman. According to The Liz Library, after pregnancy a woman is likely to experience, “stretch marks, loose skin, permanent weight gain or redistribution, abdominal and vaginal muscle weakness, pelvic floor disorder, changes to breasts, increased foot size, varicose veins, scarring from episiotomy or C-section, increased proclivity for hemorrhoids, loss of dental and bone calcium (cavities and osteoporosis), [and] higher lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s.” Some of the listed effects, such as increased proclivity for hemorrhoids and a higher risk of Alzheimer, are beyond uncomfortable; they are dangerous. Some occasional risks, such as ectopic pregnancy, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, are even fatal. Pre-eclampsia affects 7-10% of pregnant woman. Pregnancy is a huge risk to a woman’s health and entire life. To ban a woman from stopping these physical, life-changing, and even dangerous changes to her physical health, body, and life is to ban a woman from defending herself and her security. That is like banning the father of the household from protecting his family from the intruder. If a man can defend his family from a familiar figure is completely moral, why is a woman protecting her body against a foreign feeling a problem?
Physical health is not the only thing at risk when a woman is pregnant. Women who are or were recently pregnant often experience changes and drops in their mental health. “According to The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), between 14-23% of women will struggle with some symptoms of depression during pregnancy.” Some of these symptoms include, “Persistent sadness, difficulty concentrating, sleeping too little or too much, loss of interest in activities that you usually enjoy, recurring thoughts of death, suicide, or hopelessness, anxiety, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, [and] change[s] in eating habits” (American Pregnancy Association). Some women are so depressed during pregnancy, they may miss their doctor’s appointments, which could possibly lead to poor physical health for the mother and child. Mental health is just as important to a being as their physical health. Depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses are just as harmful as ectopic pregnancy and eclampsia.
Mary Anne Warren, a published philosophy professor whom studied and wrote articles on the morality of abortion, argues that fetuses are not people, yet, because they fail to meet the five requirements of a person. Those requirements are listed below:
1. consciousness and in particular the ability to feel pain
2. reasoning; the capacity to solve new and complex problems
3. self-motivated activity: activity that is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control
4. the capacity to communicate (on indefinitely many topics)
5. the presence of self-concepts and self-awareness
Warren also states, “If the rights of a person conflict with the rights of a non-person, the rights of the person take precedence; therefore, abortion (the killing of a fetus) is morally permissible when the rights of a pregnant woman conflict with the rights of her fetus” (Warren). Since the fetus is violating the rights of the woman, such as life, happiness and security, the fetus’s right to live is invalid. Since the woman is a person and the fetus is a non-person, the woman has the right to fully protect her body and rights no matter what may happen to the fetus in the process.
Objection:
Critics of this argument would argue my premise, the fact that abortion is a form of self-defense, is invalid because the woman made the choice to have sex with the knowledge that she may get pregnant, therefore, she brought pregnancy upon herself.
The woman should’ve been on birth control and she had the option of using a condom. She also could’ve ensured that her partner did not ejaculate inside of her, putting her at risk of pregnancy. Getting pregnant is hard to do while practicing proper protected sex. If a woman is not ready for ready for a child, she should not be having unprotected or even sex in general and she would not be in the situation to even contemplate an abortion.
Rebuttal:
Sex does not necessarily equate to wanting a child. Just because a woman has sex does not mean that she should be in a position to take care of another human being. That is like saying that the family from my original argument should’ve been in a position to be harmed since they were not watching the guest closely enough when the guest stole the key. The chances of someone stealing their key and someone else stealing that key is very slim, although very real and possible. Likewise, even if you are not practicing safe sex, a woman’s chances of getting pregnant is very slim.
Your chances depend on your cycle and your timing. According to Menstrual Cycle Calculator, an online source to calculate your chances of getting pregnant, at certain points of your cycle, “You will have the highest risk of pregnancy by having unprotected sex one or two days before your ovulation starts; when the ovary releases the egg. This is a 30% chance. The risk of having unprotected sex and getting pregnant three days prior to ovulation is 15%. You will have a 12% chance on the ovulation day. In the real world, large studies show that women who engage in unprotected sex during mid-cycle have a much lower chance of getting pregnant as the risk is around 5.8%. This is because you will have a much lower risk of getting pregnant if you engage in any sexual relations on the ovulation day and any day besides the three days prior to.” Since most of a woman’s life is not the three days prior to ovulation, a woman’s chance of getting pregnant on a random day is almost a miracle. It is understandable that a woman does not expect to get pregnant while practicing unsafe sex.
A lot of women, however, do practice safe sex, but contraceptives do not always work. Oral birth control has a 5% failure rate, female condoms have a 21% failure rate, and male condoms have a 14% failure rate (American Pregnancy Association). There is still a possibility that a woman can get pregnant while using a contraceptive.
Therefore, if a woman does happen to get pregnant, it may come as a surprise to her. She may not be ready and she may not want her body to change because of a mutual choice of pleasure with her partner. Because of this, she has the right to protect her body from these changes by choosing to get an abortion. Her health should not be forced to be at risk because of an everyday activity. Abortion is morally permissible.