The Abortion Debate In The United States

Abortion is an on-going debate throughout the United States. Americans divide 50% as pro-choice and 44% on pro-life. (Saad, 2015) Majority of women side with pro-choice, and being a woman myself, I stand with pro-choice. I believe that it’s an individual’s right to decide what they’re doing to their bodies, and no one else should be allowed to deny them of said right. There are many different reasons as to why someone would get an abortion. Whether it be from results of rape, birth control failure, teen pregnancy, or whatever the case may be, every abortion is thought out and no option is an easy option. Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, it was even once legal in the United States. Around the time the Constitution was adopted,
Imagine replacing all abortions with adoption. There would be thousands of children sitting in foster care waiting for a family to adopt them, while wondering why their biological family didn’t want them. Not to mention the foster care system would be more flooded than it already is. Studies find that one in five kids who were in foster care will become homeless after 18; at 24 only half will be employed; less than 3% would have earned a college degree; 71% of women will be pregnant by 21; and one in four will have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of United States war veterans. And often many are at risk of moving back into government systems – from juvenile centers to prison. (Soronen, 2014) The foster care system in America isn’t the most appealing. Most stories you hear from children who have lived through it often are about abuse and neglect in their foster care homes. Not to forget how adoption can negatively affect the biological parents. Most go through an immense grieving process that may last for decades. In one study by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, three-quarters of birth mothers still experience feelings of loss 12 to 20 years after placing their newborns. With carrying the baby for nine months you grow an attachment and bond. Many women are put in a position where they can’t provide for their baby or give them a good life, so they selflessly give them up for adoption hoping for the baby to have a better life than what they could have given them. There is a big chance that their baby doesn’t get that better life, and they end up staying in the foster care system, getting all of the downfalls of it. The way the foster care system is today it would be more selfish to put your child through that than to abort