abortion essay pros

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

Publications
Our Methods
Short Reads
Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion: An Argument for Abortion Rights Featuring the Rev. Carlton Veazey

Since the Supreme Court’s historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade , the issue of a woman’s right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America. Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception – making abortion tantamount to homicide. Abortion rights advocates, in contrast, maintain that women have a right to decide what happens to their bodies – sometimes without any restrictions.

To explore the case for abortion rights, the Pew Forum turns to the Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, who for more than a decade has been president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition advocates for reproductive choice and religious freedom on behalf of about 40 religious groups and organizations. Prior to joining the coalition, Veazey spent 33 years as a pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

A counterargument explaining the case against abortion rights is made by the Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

Featuring: The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, President, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Interviewer: David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Question & Answer

Can you explain how your Christian faith informs your views in support of abortion rights?

I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a Baptist minister for many years in Memphis, Tenn. One of the things that he instilled in me – I used to hear it so much – was free will, free will, free will. It was ingrained in me that you have the ability to make choices. You have the ability to decide what you want to do. You are responsible for your decisions, but God has given you that responsibility, that option to make decisions.

I had firsthand experience of seeing black women and poor women being disproportionately impacted by the fact that they had no choices about an unintended pregnancy, even if it would damage their health or cause great hardship in their family. And I remember some of them being maimed in back-alley abortions; some of them died. There was no legal choice before Roe v. Wade .

But in this day and time, we have a clearer understanding that men and women are moral agents and equipped to make decisions about even the most difficult and complex matters. We must ensure a woman can determine when and whether to have children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs and without governmental interference or coercion. We must also ensure that women have the resources to have a healthy, safe pregnancy, if that is their decision, and that women and families have the resources to raise a child with security.

The right to choose has changed and expanded over the years since Roe v. Wade . We now speak of reproductive justice – and that includes comprehensive sex education, family planning and contraception, adequate medical care, a safe environment, the ability to continue a pregnancy and the resources that make that choice possible. That is my moral framework.

You talk about free will, and as a Christian you believe in free will. But you also said that God gave us free will and gave us the opportunity to make right and wrong choices. Why do you believe that abortion can, at least in some instances, be the right choice?

Dan Maguire, a former Jesuit priest and professor of moral theology and ethics at Marquette University, says that to have a child can be a sacred choice, but to not have a child can also be a sacred choice.

And these choices revolve around circumstances and issues – like whether a person is old enough to care for a child or whether a woman already has more children than she can care for. Also, remember that medical circumstances are the reason many women have an abortion – for example, if they are having chemotherapy for cancer or have a life-threatening chronic illness – and most later-term abortions occur because of fetal abnormalities that will result in stillbirth or the death of the child. These are difficult decisions; they’re moral decisions, sometimes requiring a woman to decide if she will risk her life for a pregnancy.

Abortion is a very serious decision and each decision depends on circumstances. That’s why I tell people: I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice. And that’s an important distinction.

You’ve talked about the right of a woman to make a choice. Does the fetus have any rights?

First, let me say that the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.

From a religious perspective, it’s more important to consider the moral issues involved in making a decision about abortion. Also, it’s important to remember that religious traditions have very different ideas about the status of the fetus. Roman Catholic doctrine regards a fertilized egg as a human being. Judaism holds that life begins with the first breath.

What about at the very end of a woman’s pregnancy? Does a fetus acquire rights after the point of viability, when it can survive outside the womb? Or let me ask it another way: Assuming a woman is healthy and her fetus is healthy, should the woman be able to terminate her pregnancy until the end of her pregnancy?

There’s an assumption that a woman would end a viable pregnancy carelessly or without a reason. The facts don’t bear this out. Most abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Late abortions are virtually always performed for the most serious medical and health reasons, including saving the woman’s life.

But what if such a case came before you? If you were that woman’s pastor, what would you say?

I would talk to her in a helpful, positive, respectful way and help her discuss what was troubling her. I would suggest alternatives such as adoption.

Let me shift gears a little bit. Many Americans have said they favor a compromise, or reaching a middle-ground policy, on abortion. Do you sympathize with this desire and do you think that both sides should compromise to end this rancorous debate?

I have been to more middle-ground and common-ground meetings than I can remember and I’ve never been to one where we walked out with any decision.

That being said, I think that we all should agree that abortion should be rare. How do we do that? We do that by providing comprehensive sex education in schools and in religious congregations and by ensuring that there is accurate information about contraception and that contraception is available. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has not been willing to pass a bill to fund comprehensive sex education, but they are willing to put a lot of money into failed and harmful abstinence-only programs that often rely on scare tactics and inaccurate information.

Former Surgeon General David Satcher has shown that abstinence-only programs do not work and that we should provide young people with the information to protect themselves. Education that stresses abstinence and provides accurate information about contraception will reduce the abortion rate. That is the ground that I stand on. I would say that here is a way we can work together to reduce the need for abortions.

Abortion has become central to what many people call the “culture wars.” Some consider it to be the most contentious moral issue in America today. Why do many Catholics, evangelical Christians and other people of faith disagree with you?

I was raised to respect differing views so the rigid views against abortion are hard for me to understand. I will often tell someone on the other side, “I respect you. I may disagree with your theological perspective, but I respect your views. But I think it’s totally arrogant for you to tell me that I need to believe what you believe.” It’s not that I think we should not try to win each other over. But we have to respect people’s different religious beliefs.

But what about people who believe that life begins at conception and that terminating a pregnancy is murder? For them, it may not just be about respecting or tolerating each other’s viewpoints; they believe this is an issue of life or death. What do you say to people who make that kind of argument?

I would say that they have a right to their beliefs, as do I. I would try to explain that my views are grounded in my religion, as are theirs. I believe that we must ensure that women are treated with dignity and respect and that women are able to follow the dictates of their conscience – and that includes their reproductive decisions. Ultimately, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that women have the ability to make decisions of conscience and have access to reproductive health services.

Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view?

Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that will have serious health consequences.

Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.

So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.

This transcript has been edited for clarity, spelling and grammar.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

Religion & Abortion
Religion & Social Values

Cultural Issues and the 2024 Election

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many places, especially in europe, public opinion on abortion, americans overwhelmingly say access to ivf is a good thing, broad public support for legal abortion persists 2 years after dobbs, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries

Research Topics

Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Abortion in the US: What you need to know

Subscribe to the center for economic security and opportunity newsletter, isabel v. sawhill and isabel v. sawhill senior fellow emeritus - economic studies , center for economic security and opportunity @isawhill kai smith kai smith research assistant - the brookings institution, economic studies.

May 29, 2024

Key takeaways:

One in every four women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

The vast majority of abortions (about 95%) are the result of unintended pregnancies.
Most abortion patients are in their twenties (61%), Black or Latino (59%), low-income (72%), unmarried (86%), between six and twelve weeks pregnant (73%), and already have given birth to one or more children (55%).
Despite state bans, U.S. abortion totals increased in the first full year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Introduction

Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion remains one of the most hotly contested issues in American politics. The abortion landscape has become highly fractured, with some states implementing abortion bans and restrictions and others increasing protections and access. The Supreme Court heard two more cases on abortion this term and will likely release those decisions in June. Beyond the Supreme Court, pro-choice and pro-life advocates are fiercely battling it out in the voting booths, state legislatures, and courts. If the 2022 midterm elections are any indication , abortion will be one of the most influential issues of the 2024 election. So what are the basic facts about abortion in America? This primer is designed to tell you most of what you need to know.

What are the different types of abortion?

There are two main types of abortion: procedural abortions and medication abortions. Procedural abortions (also called in-clinic or surgical abortions) are provided by health care professionals in a clinical setting. Medication abortions (also called medical abortions or the abortion pill) typically involve the oral ingestion of two drugs in succession, mifepristone and misoprostol.

Most women discover they are pregnant in the first five to six weeks of pregnancy, but about a third of women do not learn they are pregnant until they are beyond six weeks of gestation. 1 Women with unintended pregnancies detect their pregnancies later than women with intended pregnancies, between six and seven weeks of gestation on average. Even if a woman discovers she is pregnant relatively early, for many it takes time to decide what to do and how to arrange for an abortion if that is her preference.

Why do women have abortions?

The vast majority of abortions (about 95%) are the result of unintended pregnancies. That includes pregnancies that are mistimed as well as those that are unwanted.

Women’s reasons for not wanting a child—or not wanting one now—include finances, partner-related issues, the need to focus on other children, and interference with future education or work opportunities.

In short, if there were fewer unintended pregnancies, there would be fewer abortions.

How common are abortions?

About two in every five pregnancies are unintended (40% in 2015). Roughly the same share of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion (42% in 2011). About one in every five pregnancies are aborted (21% in 2020).

How have abortion totals changed over time?

The number of abortions occurring in the U.S. jumped up after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. After peaking in 1990, the number of abortions declined steadily for two and a half decades until reaching its lowest point since 1973 in 2017. 2 Possible contributing factors explaining this long-term decline include delays in sexual activity amongst young people, improvements in the use of effective contraception , and overall declines in pregnancy rates , including those that are unintended . In addition, state restrictions which became more prevalent beginning in 2011 prevented at least some individuals in certain states from having abortions.

In 2018 (four years before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade), the number of abortions in the U.S. began to increase. The causes of this uptick are not yet fully understood, but researchers have identified multiple potential contributing factors. These include greater coverage of abortions under Medicaid that made abortions more affordable in certain states, regulations issued by the Trump administration in 2019 which decreased the size of the Title X network and therefore reduced the availability of contraception to low-income individuals, and increased financial support from privately-financed abortion funds to help pay for the costs associated with getting an abortion.

Another contributing factor, whose importance bears emphasizing, is the surging popularity of medication abortions .

The use of medication abortions has increased steadily since becoming available in the U.S. in 2000. However, in 2016, the FDA increased the gestational limit for the use of mifepristone from seven to ten weeks and thereby doubled the share of abortion patients eligible for medication abortions from 37% to 75%.

Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA revised its policy in 2021 so that clinicians are no longer required to dispense medication abortion pills in person. Patients can now have medication abortion pills mailed to their homes after conducting remote consultations with clinicians via telehealth. In January 2023, the FDA issued another change which allows retail pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to dispense medication abortion pills to patients with a prescription. Previously only doctors, clinics, or some mail-order pharmacies could dispense abortion pills.

Although access varies widely by state , medication abortions are now the most commonly used abortion method in the U.S. and account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions (63% in 2023). 3

This is why the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in the Mifepristone case (FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) is so consequential. Among other issues, at stake is whether access to medication abortion will be sharply curtailed and whether regulations regarding medication abortions will revert to pre-2016 rules when abortion pills were not authorized for use after seven weeks of pregnancy and could not be prescribed via telemedicine, sent to abortion patients by mail, or dispensed by retail pharmacies.

Who has abortions?

Most abortion patients are in their twenties (61%), Black or Latino (59%), low-income (72%), unmarried (86%), and between six and twelve weeks pregnant (73%). 4

The majority of abortion patients have already given birth to one or more children (55%) and have not previously had an abortion (57%). 5 Among abortion patients twenty years old or older, most had attended at least some college (63%). The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of pregnancy (91%). So-called “late-term abortions” performed at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy are very rare and represent less than 1% of all abortions in the U.S.

The abortion rate per 1,000 women of reproductive age is disproportionately high for certain population groups. Among women living in poverty, for example, the abortion rate was 36.6 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 2014, compared to 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women among all women of reproductive age.

How much does an abortion cost?

The cost of an abortion varies depending on what kind of abortion is administered, how far along the patient is in their pregnancy, where the patient lives, where the patient is seeking an abortion, and whether health insurance or financial assistance is available. In 2021, the median self-pay cost for abortion services was $625 for a procedural abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy and $568 for a medication abortion.

Since 1977, the Hyde Amendment has banned the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment. Today, among the 36 states that have not banned abortion, fewer than half (17 as of March 2024) allow the use of state Medicaid funds to pay for abortions. 6 Many insurance plans do not cover abortions, often due to state limitations. Most abortion patients pay for abortions out of pocket (53%). State Medicaid funding is the second-most-commonly used method of payment (30%), followed by financial assistance (15%) and private insurance (13%). 7

Whether state law allows state Medicaid funds to cover abortions has a very large impact on the difficulty of paying for abortions and the methods used by women to pay for them. In the year before the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, 50% of women residing in states where state Medicaid funds did not cover abortion reported it was very or somewhat difficult to pay for their abortions, compared to only 17% of women residing in states where abortions were covered.

How has the Supreme Court handled abortion?

In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court established that states could not ban abortions before fetal viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb. Under the three-trimester framework established by Roe, states were not allowed to ban abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy but were allowed to regulate or prohibit abortions in the third trimester, except in cases where abortions were necessary to protect the life or health of a pregnant person. The Court ruled that the fundamental right to have an abortion is included in the right to privacy implicit in the “liberty” guarantee of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Since it was decided, Roe v. Wade has faced legal criticism. Notwithstanding these critiques, the Court upheld Roe multiple times over the next half-century including in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). But after former President Trump appointed three new Justices to the Supreme Court, a new conservative supermajority overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) and established that there is no Constitutional right to have an abortion.

In his Dobbs majority opinion , Justice Alito concluded “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” Writing for the majority, he underscored that “[t]he Constitution makes no reference to abortion,” and while he recognized there are constitutional rights not expressly enumerated in the Constitution, he concluded the right to have an abortion is not one of them. Justice Alito reasoned that the only legitimate rights not explicitly stated in the Constitution are those “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions,” and he found no evidence of this for abortion.

Because the Court determined there is no Constitutional right to abortion, it allowed the Mississippi state law which banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy with limited exceptions to go into effect. The Court ruled that states have the authority to restrict access to abortion or ban it completely and that the power to regulate or prohibit abortions would be “returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

The Court’s three liberal Justices criticized the majority’s decision in a withering joint dissent . The dissenting Justices argued the right to abortion established in Roe and upheld in Casey is necessary to respect the autonomy and equality of women and prevent the government from controlling “a woman’s body or the course of a woman’s life.” They lamented “one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”

How did the states respond to the overturning of Roe v. Wade?

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many states have implemented abortion bans or restrictions, while others have added protections and expanded access. The abortion landscape in America is now fractured and highly variegated .

As of May 2024, abortion is banned completely in almost all circumstances in 14 states. In 7 states, abortion is banned at or before 18 weeks of gestation. Many states with abortion bans do not include exceptions in cases where the health of the pregnant person is at risk, the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or there is a fatal fetal anomaly.

Access to abortion varies widely even among states without bans since many states have restrictions such as waiting periods, gestational limits, or parental consent laws making it more difficult to get an abortion.

Many state bans and restrictions are still being litigated in court. The interjurisdictional issues and legal questions arising from the post-Dobbs abortion landscape have not been fully resolved.

Despite the Supreme Court’s stated intention in Dobbs to leave the abortion issue to elected officials, the Court will likely hear more cases on abortion in the near future. This term, in addition to the case about Mifepristone, the Court will decide in Moyle v. United States whether a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTLA) can require hospitals in states with abortion bans to perform abortions in emergency situations that demand “stabilizing treatment” for the health of pregnant patients.

What are the trends in abortion statistics post-Dobbs?

In 2023, the first full year since the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, states with abortion bans experienced sharp declines in the number of abortions occurring within their borders. But these declines were outweighed by increases in abortion totals in states where abortion remained legal. Nearly all states without bans witnessed increases in 2023. Taken together, abortions in non-ban states increased by 26% in 2023 compared to 2020 levels.

As a result, the nationwide abortion statistics from 2023 represent the highest total number (1,037,000 abortions) and abortion rate (15.9 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age) in the U.S. in over a decade. The 2023 U.S. total represents an 11% increase from 2020 levels.

It’s unclear why, despite Dobbs, abortions have continued to rise . It may be because of the increased use of medication abortions , especially after the FDA liberalized regulations related to telehealth and in-person visits. In addition, multiple states where abortion remains legal have implemented shield laws and other new protections for abortion patients and providers, increased insurance coverage, or otherwise expanded access . Abortion funds provided greater financial and practical assistance . Interstate travel for abortions doubled after the Dobbs decision.

In short, the impacts of Dobbs are being felt unevenly. Although most women who want abortions are still able to obtain them, a significant minority are instead carrying their pregnancies to term. In the first six months of 2023, state abortion bans led between one-fifth and one-fourth of women living in ban states who may have otherwise gotten an abortion not to have one.

Young, low-income, and minority women will be most affected by state bans and restrictions because they are disproportionately likely to have unintended pregnancies and less able to overcome economic and logistical barriers involved in travelling across state lines or receiving medication abortion pills through out-of-state networks.

What are the effects of expanding or restricting abortion access on women and their families?

Effects of abortion restrictions on women.

Abortion bans jeopardize the lives and health of women. The impacts on their health can be especially troublesome. Pregnancies can go wrong for many reasons—fetal abnormalities, complications of a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies—and without access to emergency care, some women could face serious threats to their own health and future ability to bear children. Abortion restrictions can place doctors in difficult situations and undermine women’s health care.

Although medication abortions are safe and effective, abortion bans could also increase the number of women who use unsafe methods to induce self-managed abortions, thereby endangering their own health or even their lives. State abortion legalizations in the years before Roe reduced maternal mortality among non-white women by 30-40%.

Enforcement of state laws that restricted access to abortion in the years before Dobbs has even been associated with increases in intimate partner violence-related homicides of women and girls.

In addition, lack of access to abortion leads to worse economic outcomes for women. After a conservative group suggested that such effects have not been well documented, a group of economists filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the Dobbs case, noting that in recent years methods for establishing the causal effects of abortion have shown that they do affect women’s life trajectories. Although there has been some difficulty in separating the effects of access to abortion from access to the Pill or other forms of birth control, an extensive literature shows that reducing unintended pregnancies increases educational attainment , labor force participation , earnings , and occupational prestige for women. These trends are especially pronounced for Black women .

One example that focuses solely on abortion is the Turnaway study, in which researchers compared the outcomes for women who were denied abortions on the basis of just being a little beyond the gestational cutoff for eligibility to the outcomes of otherwise similar women who were just under that cutoff. The study along with subsequent related research has shown that women who are denied abortions are nearly four times more likely to be living in poverty six months after being denied an abortion, a difference that persists through four years after denial. They are also more likely to be unemployed , rely on public assistance , and experience financial distress such as bankruptcies, evictions and court judgements.

Finally, increased access to abortion results in lower rates of single and teen parenthood. State abortion legalizations in the years before Roe reduced the number of teen mothers by 34%. The effects were especially large for Black teens.

Effects of abortion restrictions on children

Along with contraception, access to abortion reduces unplanned births. That means fewer children dying in infancy, growing up in poverty, needing welfare, and living with a single parent. One study suggests that if all currently mistimed births were aligned with the timing preferred by their mothers, children’s college graduation rates would increase by about 8 percentage points (a 36% increase), and their lifetime incomes would increase by roughly $52,000.

Despite this evidence that the denial of abortions to women who want them would be harmful to women and to children once born, those who are pro-life argue that these costs are well worth the price to save the lives of the unborn. As of April 2024, 36% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all (8%) or most (28%) cases, while 63% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all (25%) or most (28%) cases.

Looking ahead

The abortion landscape in America is continually evolving. Whereas pro-choice advocates will seek to expand access and add additional protections for abortion patients and providers, opponents of abortion will continue to criminalize abortions and further restrict availability.

Abortion will be one of the top issues of the 2024 elections in November. Democratic candidates in particular believe abortion is a winning issue for them and will broadcast their pro-choice stance on the campaign trail. Some evidence suggests the overturning of Roe has galvanized a new class of abortion-rights voters. Multiple states will have abortion referenda on the ballot .

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision will not prevent women and other citizens from affecting the legislative process by voting, organizing, influencing public opinion, or running for office. What they do with that power in November remains to be seen.

How the Right to Legal Abortion Changed the Arc of All Women’s Lives

By Katha Pollitt

Prochoice demonstrators during the March for Women's Lives rally organized by NOW Washington DC April 5 1992.

I’ve never had an abortion. In this, I am like most American women. A frequently quoted statistic from a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which reports that one in four women will have an abortion before the age of forty-five, may strike you as high, but it means that a large majority of women never need to end a pregnancy. (Indeed, the abortion rate has been declining for decades, although it’s disputed how much of that decrease is due to better birth control, and wider use of it, and how much to restrictions that have made abortions much harder to get.) Now that the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn Roe v. Wade sometime in the next few years—Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion, and Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri have passed “heartbeat” bills that, in effect, ban abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy, and any of these laws, or similar ones, could prove the catalyst—I wonder if women who have never needed to undergo the procedure, and perhaps believe that they never will, realize the many ways that the legal right to abortion has undergirded their lives.

Legal abortion means that the law recognizes a woman as a person. It says that she belongs to herself. Most obviously, it means that a woman has a safe recourse if she becomes pregnant as a result of being raped. (Believe it or not, in some states, the law allows a rapist to sue for custody or visitation rights.) It means that doctors no longer need to deny treatment to pregnant women with certain serious conditions—cancer, heart disease, kidney disease—until after they’ve given birth, by which time their health may have deteriorated irretrievably. And it means that non-Catholic hospitals can treat a woman promptly if she is having a miscarriage. (If she goes to a Catholic hospital, she may have to wait until the embryo or fetus dies. In one hospital, in Ireland, such a delay led to the death of a woman named Savita Halappanavar, who contracted septicemia. Her case spurred a movement to repeal that country’s constitutional amendment banning abortion.)

The legalization of abortion, though, has had broader and more subtle effects than limiting damage in these grave but relatively uncommon scenarios. The revolutionary advances made in the social status of American women during the nineteen-seventies are generally attributed to the availability of oral contraception, which came on the market in 1960. But, according to a 2017 study by the economist Caitlin Knowles Myers, “The Power of Abortion Policy: Re-Examining the Effects of Young Women’s Access to Reproductive Control,” published in the Journal of Political Economy , the effects of the Pill were offset by the fact that more teens and women were having sex, and so birth-control failure affected more people. Complicating the conventional wisdom that oral contraception made sex risk-free for all, the Pill was also not easy for many women to get. Restrictive laws in some states barred it for unmarried women and for women under the age of twenty-one. The Roe decision, in 1973, afforded thousands upon thousands of teen-agers a chance to avoid early marriage and motherhood. Myers writes, “Policies governing access to the pill had little if any effect on the average probabilities of marrying and giving birth at a young age. In contrast, policy environments in which abortion was legal and readily accessible by young women are estimated to have caused a 34 percent reduction in first births, a 19 percent reduction in first marriages, and a 63 percent reduction in ‘shotgun marriages’ prior to age 19.”

Access to legal abortion, whether as a backup to birth control or not, meant that women, like men, could have a sexual life without risking their future. A woman could plan her life without having to consider that it could be derailed by a single sperm. She could dream bigger dreams. Under the old rules, inculcated from girlhood, if a woman got pregnant at a young age, she married her boyfriend; and, expecting early marriage and kids, she wouldn’t have invested too heavily in her education in any case, and she would have chosen work that she could drop in and out of as family demands required.

In 1970, the average age of first-time American mothers was younger than twenty-two. Today, more women postpone marriage until they are ready for it. (Early marriages are notoriously unstable, so, if you’re glad that the divorce rate is down, you can, in part, thank Roe.) Women can also postpone childbearing until they are prepared for it, which takes some serious doing in a country that lacks paid parental leave and affordable childcare, and where discrimination against pregnant women and mothers is still widespread. For all the hand-wringing about lower birth rates, most women— eighty-six per cent of them —still become mothers. They just do it later, and have fewer children.

Most women don’t enter fields that require years of graduate-school education, but all women have benefitted from having larger numbers of women in those fields. It was female lawyers, for example, who brought cases that opened up good blue-collar jobs to women. Without more women obtaining law degrees, would men still be shaping all our legislation? Without the large numbers of women who have entered the medical professions, would psychiatrists still be telling women that they suffered from penis envy and were masochistic by nature? Would women still routinely undergo unnecessary hysterectomies? Without increased numbers of women in academia, and without the new field of women’s studies, would children still be taught, as I was, that, a hundred years ago this month, Woodrow Wilson “gave” women the vote? There has been a revolution in every field, and the women in those fields have led it.

It is frequently pointed out that the states passing abortion restrictions and bans are states where women’s status remains particularly low. Take Alabama. According to one study , by almost every index—pay, workforce participation, percentage of single mothers living in poverty, mortality due to conditions such as heart disease and stroke—the state scores among the worst for women. Children don’t fare much better: according to U.S. News rankings , Alabama is the worst state for education. It also has one of the nation’s highest rates of infant mortality (only half the counties have even one ob-gyn), and it has refused to expand Medicaid, either through the Affordable Care Act or on its own. Only four women sit in Alabama’s thirty-five-member State Senate, and none of them voted for the ban. Maybe that’s why an amendment to the bill proposed by State Senator Linda Coleman-Madison was voted down. It would have provided prenatal care and medical care for a woman and child in cases where the new law prevents the woman from obtaining an abortion. Interestingly, the law allows in-vitro fertilization, a procedure that often results in the discarding of fertilized eggs. As Clyde Chambliss, the bill’s chief sponsor in the state senate, put it, “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.” In other words, life only begins at conception if there’s a woman’s body to control.

Indifference to women and children isn’t an oversight. This is why calls for better sex education and wider access to birth control are non-starters, even though they have helped lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies, which is the cause of abortion. The point isn’t to prevent unwanted pregnancy. (States with strong anti-abortion laws have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country; Alabama is among them.) The point is to roll back modernity for women.

So, if women who have never had an abortion, and don’t expect to, think that the new restrictions and bans won’t affect them, they are wrong. The new laws will fall most heavily on poor women, disproportionately on women of color, who have the highest abortion rates and will be hard-pressed to travel to distant clinics.

But without legal, accessible abortion, the assumptions that have shaped all women’s lives in the past few decades—including that they, not a torn condom or a missed pill or a rapist, will decide what happens to their bodies and their futures—will change. Women and their daughters will have a harder time, and there will be plenty of people who will say that they were foolish to think that it could be otherwise.

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The Messiness of Reproduction and the Dishonesty of Anti-Abortion Propaganda

By Jia Tolentino

A Supreme Court Reporter Defines the Threat to Abortion Rights

By Isaac Chotiner

By Margaret Talbot

There’s a Better Way to Debate Abortion

Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach.

Opponents and proponents of abortion arguing outside the Supreme Court

If Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization becomes law, we will enter a post– Roe v. Wade world in which the laws governing abortion will be legislatively decided in 50 states.

In the short term, at least, the abortion debate will become even more inflamed than it has been. Overturning Roe , after all, would be a profound change not just in the law but in many people’s lives, shattering the assumption of millions of Americans that they have a constitutional right to an abortion.

This doesn’t mean Roe was correct. For the reasons Alito lays out, I believe that Roe was a terribly misguided decision, and that a wiser course would have been for the issue of abortion to have been given a democratic outlet, allowing even the losers “the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight,” in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Instead, for nearly half a century, Roe has been the law of the land. But even those who would welcome its undoing should acknowledge that its reversal could convulse the nation.

From the December 2019 issue: The dishonesty of the abortion debate

If we are going to debate abortion in every state, given how fractured and angry America is today, we need caution and epistemic humility to guide our approach.

We can start by acknowledging the inescapable ambiguities in this staggeringly complicated moral question. No matter one’s position on abortion, each of us should recognize that those who hold views different from our own have some valid points, and that the positions we embrace raise complicated issues. That realization alone should lead us to engage in this debate with a little more tolerance and a bit less certitude.

Many of those on the pro-life side exhibit a gap between the rhetoric they employ and the conclusions they actually seem to draw. In the 1990s, I had an exchange, via fax, with a pro-life thinker. During our dialogue, I pressed him on what he believed, morally speaking , should be the legal penalty for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who performs one.

My point was a simple one: If he believed, as he claimed, that an abortion even moments after conception is the killing of an innocent child—that the fetus, from the instant of conception, is a human being deserving of all the moral and political rights granted to your neighbor next door—then the act ought to be treated, if not as murder, at least as manslaughter. Surely, given what my interlocutor considered to be the gravity of the offense, fining the doctor and taking no action against the mother would be morally incongruent. He was understandably uncomfortable with this line of questioning, unwilling to go to the places his premises led. When it comes to abortion, few people are.

Humane pro-life advocates respond that while an abortion is the taking of a human life, the woman having the abortion has been misled by our degraded culture into denying the humanity of the child. She is a victim of misinformation; she can’t be held accountable for what she doesn’t know. I’m not unsympathetic to this argument, but I think it ultimately falls short. In other contexts, insisting that people who committed atrocities because they truly believed the people against whom they were committing atrocities were less than human should be let off the hook doesn’t carry the day. I’m struggling to understand why it would in this context.

There are other complicating matters. For example, about half of all fertilized eggs are aborted spontaneously —that is, result in miscarriage—usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Focus on the Family, an influential Christian ministry, is emphatic : “Human life begins at fertilization.” Does this mean that when a fertilized egg is spontaneously aborted, it is comparable—biologically, morally, ethically, or in any other way—to when a 2-year-old child dies? If not, why not? There’s also the matter of those who are pro-life and contend that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being but allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That is an understandable impulse but I don’t think it’s a logically sustainable one.

The pro-choice side, for its part, seldom focuses on late-term abortions. Let’s grant that late-term abortions are very rare. But the question remains: Is there any point during gestation when pro-choice advocates would say “slow down” or “stop”—and if so, on what grounds? Or do they believe, in principle, that aborting a child up to the point of delivery is a defensible and justifiable act; that an abortion procedure is, ethically speaking, the same as removing an appendix? If not, are those who are pro-choice willing to say, as do most Americans, that the procedure gets more ethically problematic the further along in a pregnancy?

Read: When a right becomes a privilege

Plenty of people who consider themselves pro-choice have over the years put on their refrigerator door sonograms of the baby they are expecting. That tells us something. So does biology. The human embryo is a human organism, with the genetic makeup of a human being. “The argument, in which thoughtful people differ, is about the moral significance and hence the proper legal status of life in its early stages,” as the columnist George Will put it.

These are not “gotcha questions”; they are ones I have struggled with for as long as I’ve thought through where I stand on abortion, and I’ve tried to remain open to corrections in my thinking. I’m not comfortable with those who are unwilling to grant any concessions to the other side or acknowledge difficulties inherent in their own position. But I’m not comfortable with my own position, either—thinking about abortion taking place on a continuum, and troubled by abortions, particularly later in pregnancy, as the child develops.

The question I can’t answer is where the moral inflection point is, when the fetus starts to have claims of its own, including the right to life. Does it depend on fetal development? If so, what aspect of fetal development? Brain waves? Feeling pain? Dreaming? The development of the spine? Viability outside the womb? Something else? Any line I might draw seems to me entirely arbitrary and capricious.

Because of that, I consider myself pro-life, but with caveats. My inability to identify a clear demarcation point—when a fetus becomes a person—argues for erring on the side of protecting the unborn. But it’s a prudential judgment, hardly a certain one.

At the same time, even if one believes that the moral needle ought to lean in the direction of protecting the unborn from abortion, that doesn’t mean one should be indifferent to the enormous burden on the woman who is carrying the child and seeks an abortion, including women who discover that their unborn child has severe birth defects. Nor does it mean that all of us who are disturbed by abortion believe it is the equivalent of killing a child after birth. In this respect, my view is similar to that of some Jewish authorities , who hold that until delivery, a fetus is considered a part of the mother’s body, although it does possess certain characteristics of a person and has value. But an early-term abortion is not equivalent to killing a young child. (Many of those who hold this position base their views in part on Exodus 21, in which a miscarriage that results from men fighting and pushing a pregnant woman is punished by a fine, but the person responsible for the miscarriage is not tried for murder.)

“There is not the slightest recognition on either side that abortion might be at the limits of our empirical and moral knowledge,” the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in 1985. “The problem starts with an awesome mystery: the transformation of two soulless cells into a living human being. That leads to an insoluble empirical question: How and exactly when does that occur? On that, in turn, hangs the moral issue: What are the claims of the entity undergoing that transformation?”

That strikes me as right; with abortion, we’re dealing with an awesome mystery and insoluble empirical questions. Which means that rather than hurling invective at one another and caricaturing those with whom we disagree, we should try to understand their views, acknowledge our limitations, and even show a touch of grace and empathy. In this nation, riven and pulsating with hate, that’s not the direction the debate is most likely to take. But that doesn’t excuse us from trying.

Key Arguments From Both Sides of the Abortion Debate

Mark Wilson / Staff / Getty Images

Reproductive Rights
The U. S. Government
U.S. Foreign Policy
U.S. Liberal Politics
U.S. Conservative Politics
Civil Liberties
The Middle East
Race Relations
Immigration
Crime & Punishment
Canadian Government
Understanding Types of Government
B.A., English Language and Literature, Well College

Many points come up in the abortion debate . Here's a look at abortion from both sides : 10 arguments for abortion and 10 arguments against abortion, for a total of 20 statements that represent a range of topics as seen from both sides.

Pro-Life Arguments

Since life begins at conception, abortion is akin to murder as it is the act of taking human life. Abortion is in direct defiance of the commonly accepted idea of the sanctity of human life.
No civilized society permits one human to intentionally harm or take the life of another human without punishment, and abortion is no different.
Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and accomplishes the same result. And with 1.5 million American families wanting to adopt a child, there is no such thing as an unwanted child.
An abortion can result in medical complications later in life; the risk of ectopic pregnancies is increased if other factors such as smoking are present, the chance of a miscarriage increases in some cases, and pelvic inflammatory disease also increases.
In the instance of rape and incest, taking certain drugs soon after the event can ensure that a woman will not get pregnant. Abortion punishes the unborn child who committed no crime; instead, it is the perpetrator who should be punished.
Abortion should not be used as another form of contraception.
For women who demand complete control of their body, control should include preventing the risk of unwanted pregnancy through the responsible use of contraception or, if that is not possible, through abstinence .
Many Americans who pay taxes are opposed to abortion, therefore it's morally wrong to use tax dollars to fund abortion.
Those who choose abortions are often minors or young women with insufficient life experience to understand fully what they are doing. Many have lifelong regrets afterward.
Abortion sometimes causes psychological pain and stress.

Pro-Choice Arguments

Nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester when a fetus is attached by the placenta and umbilical cord to the mother. As such, its health is dependent on her health, and cannot be regarded as a separate entity as it cannot exist outside her womb.
The concept of personhood is different from the concept of human life. Human life occurs at conception, but fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also human lives and those not implanted are routinely thrown away. Is this murder, and if not, then how is abortion murder?
Adoption is not an alternative to abortion because it remains the woman's choice whether or not to give her child up for adoption. Statistics show that very few women who give birth choose to give up their babies; less than 3% of White unmarried women and less than 2% of Black unmarried women.
Abortion is a safe medical procedure. The vast majority of women who have an abortion do so in their first trimester. Medical abortions have a very low risk of serious complications and do not affect a woman's health or future ability to become pregnant or give birth.
In the case of rape or incest, forcing a woman made pregnant by this violent act would cause further psychological harm to the victim. Often a woman is too afraid to speak up or is unaware she is pregnant, thus the morning after pill is ineffective in these situations.
Abortion is not used as a form of contraception . Pregnancy can occur even with contraceptive use. Few women who have abortions do not use any form of birth control, and that is due more to individual carelessness than to the availability of abortion.
The ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights. Take away her reproductive choice and you step onto a slippery slope. If the government can force a woman to continue a pregnancy, what about forcing a woman to use contraception or undergo sterilization?
Taxpayer dollars are used to enable poor women to access the same medical services as rich women, and abortion is one of these services. Funding abortion is no different from funding a war in the Mideast. For those who are opposed, the place to express outrage is in the voting booth.
Teenagers who become mothers have grim prospects for the future. They are much more likely to leave school; receive inadequate prenatal care; or develop mental health problems.
Like any other difficult situation, abortion creates stress. Yet the American Psychological Association found that stress was greatest prior to an abortion and that there was no evidence of post-abortion syndrome.

Additional References

Alvarez, R. Michael, and John Brehm. " American Ambivalence Towards Abortion Policy: Development of a Heteroskedastic Probit Model of Competing Values ." American Journal of Political Science 39.4 (1995): 1055–82. Print.
Armitage, Hannah. " Political Language, Uses and Abuses: How the Term 'Partial Birth' Changed the Abortion Debate in the United States ." Australasian Journal of American Studies 29.1 (2010): 15–35. Print.
Gillette, Meg. " Modern American Abortion Narratives and the Century of Silence ." Twentieth Century Literature 58.4 (2012): 663–87. Print.
Kumar, Anuradha. " Disgust, Stigma, and the Politics of Abortion ." Feminism & Psychology 28.4 (2018): 530–38. Print.
Ziegler, Mary. " The Framing of a Right to Choose: Roe V. Wade and the Changing Debate on Abortion Law ." Law and History Review 27.2 (2009): 281–330. Print.

“ Life Begins at Fertilization with the Embryo's Conception .” Princeton University , The Trustees of Princeton University.

“ Long-Term Risks of Surgical Abortion .” GLOWM, doi:10.3843/GLOWM.10441

Patel, Sangita V, et al. “ Association between Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and Abortions .” Indian Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS , Medknow Publications, July 2010, doi:10.4103/2589-0557.75030

Raviele, Kathleen Mary. “ Levonorgestrel in Cases of Rape: How Does It Work? ” The Linacre Quarterly , Maney Publishing, May 2014, doi:10.1179/2050854914Y.0000000017

Reardon, David C. “ The Abortion and Mental Health Controversy: A Comprehensive Literature Review of Common Ground Agreements, Disagreements, Actionable Recommendations, and Research Opportunities .” SAGE Open Medicine , SAGE Publications, 29 Oct. 2018, doi:10.1177/2050312118807624

“ CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs .” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 Nov. 2019.

Bixby Center for Reproductive Health. “ Complications of Surgical Abortion : Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology .” LWW , doi:10.1097/GRF.0b013e3181a2b756

" Sexual Violence: Prevalence, Dynamics and Consequences ." World Health Organizaion.

Homco, Juell B, et al. “ Reasons for Ineffective Pre-Pregnancy Contraception Use in Patients Seeking Abortion Services .” Contraception , U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2009, doi:10.1016/j.contraception.2009.05.127

" Working With Pregnant & Parenting Teens Tip Sheet ." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Major, Brenda, et al. " Abortion and Mental Health: Evaluating the Evidence ." American Psychological Association, doi:10.1037/a0017497

50 Argumentative Essay Topics
The Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice Debate
Abortion on Demand: A Second Wave Feminist Demand
Abortion Facts and Statistics in the 21st Century
The 1969 Redstockings Abortion Speakout
The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision
Biography of Margaret Sanger
Is Abortion Legal in Every State?
Biography of Norma McCorvey, 'Roe' in the Roe v. Wade Case
Pro-Choice Quotes
Supreme Court Decisions and Women's Reproductive Rights
Oppression and Women's History
Roe v. Wade
8 Major Issues Facing Women Today
1970s Feminism Timeline
Understanding Why Abortion Is Legal in the United States

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Pros And Cons Of Abortion

Pros and Cons of Abortion

Categories: Abortion Women's Rights

About this sample

Words: 573 |

Published: Mar 16, 2024

Words: 573 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Pros of abortion, cons of abortion.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

Expert in: Social Issues

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 628 words

5 pages / 2476 words

4 pages / 1770 words

5 pages / 2211 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Abortion

Abortion has been a contentious issue for centuries and has sparked heated debate around the world. Women have been seeking abortions for various reasons such as medical, economic, social, and personal needs. However, despite [...]

So, should abortion be legal or illegal? As a college student, I recognize the importance of discussing the contentious issue of abortion and its legality. The complexity of this topic calls for a thoughtful examination of [...]

Abortion has been a highly contentious issue in political, social, and moral debates for decades. While some argue for the right to choose, others vehemently oppose the practice on religious and ethical grounds. This essay will [...]

Abortion laws have been a contentious issue in many countries, with varying degrees of permissiveness and restrictiveness. This essay aims to analyze the current state of abortion laws by examining a selection of relevant [...]

Abortion can be defined as the deliberate causing of the death of a fetus, either by directly killing it or by causing its expulsion from the womb before it is “viable.” With “the killing of an innocent human being without [...]

Abortion has been a major conflict in society. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on women who are debating whether to change their lives dramatically by having a baby. Abortion terminates fetuses in the womb and that is [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Christian Post

To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Please click here to learn how.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Whistleblower who exposed Texas hospital’s trans surgeries on kids indicted by Biden DOJ

Voddie Baucham warns culture under divine judgment, urges Christians to 'be ready' for persecution

Carl Lentz says he's recovering sex, prescription drug addict

9 NFL teams that are not celebrating pride month on social media

Joe Scarborough calls Trump’s description of relationship with God ‘beyond parody’

Trump's guilty verdict proves either these 2 things

A prayerful response to pride month

Why ‘bad faith’ is a bad movie

Beware of buy now, pay later debt

The misguided quest to remake women will backfire

Churches that avoid abortion talk are holding men, women back from healing, expert warns.

Jim Daly, president of Focus on The Family, speaks with Scott Klusendorf, president of The Life Training Institute, about why churches should address abortion and provide healing for post-abortive men and women in an interview posted on YouTube on June 6, 2024.

Churches need to take a more active role in the pro-life movement, especially in conveying the arguments against abortion, according to an activist and author.

Scott Klusendorf, president of The Life Training Institute and author of the book The Case For Life, spoke with Focus on the Family President Jim Daly in an interview posted to YouTube on Thursday.

Klusendorf said he believes "a lot of our churches think that if they're silent on abortion, they'll spare post-abortion men and women guilt."

Get Our Latest News for FREE

"In reality, they're sparing them healing because unconfessed sin has them out of full fellowship with Christ. So, we want to tell the truth about abortion, but then compassionately point them to the Savior who can heal it," he said.

Christian pro-lifers should aim to graciously and lovingly give the argument for why abortion is wrong because they shouldn't hope to win an argument but to change a person's heart, Klusendorf added.

“The sin of abortion is a preeminent moral crisis because it involves the shedding of innocent blood, and the Bible is very clear that the shedding of innocent blood is particularly egregious to God. … The shedding of innocent blood requires forgiveness … through our Savior Jesus, [and] we have to respond to the shedding of innocent blood,” Klusendorf said.

“I think this is important because a lot of Christian leaders think that if we talk truthfully about abortion, we're going to drive people away. Far from it. I think they're looking to our churches going, ‘Do you have something relevant to say on this preeminent moral crisis, or are you going to be silent like everybody else?’ And when we demonstrate that we have good arguments, we draw people and it does take courage.”

Klusendorf said he encourages parents to get their students pro-life apologetics training to help them share the pro-life stance with biblical proof of it as a moral truth.

“They need to get that training because here's what's going to happen. You take them to church week after week. And then they're going to turn 18, and they're going to be sent off to college. There's going to be people there for the next four years that are going to work overtime to talk them out of their faith,” Klusendorf said.

“If our kids aren't equipped to engage, they could be at risk. And so, we want to make sure they know the moral logic of the pro-life view,” he continued.

Daly asked Klusendorf how he deals with the argument of some lawmakers who say, “Personally, I oppose abortion, but who am I to legislate what a woman should do to regulate her reproductive choices?”

“When pro-lifers argue that abortion is wrong because it intentionally kills an innocent human being, we are making an objective truth claim. We are claiming it's wrong, objectively. We're not saying we dislike it. In fact, it's possible to like something and still say it's wrong,” Klusendorf said.

“Morality is about what's right or wrong regardless of our likes or dislikes. And when people say, ‘if you don't like abortion, don't have one,’ they've reduced our claim to a mere preference claim as if we're talking about ice cream flavors, not objective right and wrong. And we need to correct them on that.”

Klusendorf said he teaches youth at Summit Ministries about how to argue the pro-life case, telling Daly that "the most common thing I hear" from young people is "we've never heard any of these arguments for the pro-life view."

"They're coming from some of the best churches in the country, but they haven't heard the pro-life argument. We've got to train them,” Klusendorf said. “The basic pro-life argument is, namely, it's wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings, therefore it's wrong."

"We need to teach them to defend that with science and philosophy. And once we do that, we've given them tools to not only maintain their faith, but to engage others and put those pebbles in the shoe where they need to be.”

Nicole VanDyke is a reporter for The Christian Post.

Was this article helpful?

Help keep The Christian Post free for everyone.

By making a recurring donation or a one-time donation of any amount, you're helping to keep CP's articles free and accessible for everyone.

We’re sorry to hear that.

Hope you’ll give us another try and check out some other articles. Return to homepage.

5 reasons pro-life keeps losing at the polls

Is abortion just a states’ issue, the need for a coherent biblical perspective on abortion, why is modern medicine against motherhood, most popular.

'We grieve': UMC responds to 1 million member conference leaving denomination

'Star Wars' spinoff 'The Acolyte' pushes LGBT ideology: 'Get ready for pronouns in Star Wars'

Carl Lentz claims Hillsong Church browbeat him into signing NDA in firing

Most Protestant pastors oppose gay marriage, mainline support stalling: survey

'But I was born this way': Please hear me out on this LGBT argument

Doctors, nurses urge medical organizations to stop performing trans procedures on kids

Carl Lentz says he's recovering sex, prescription drug addict, speaks out on relationship with Brian Houston

Jürgen Moltmann remembered as among most significant Protestant theologians of 20th century

Group of Brands

Newsletters
Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

Texas’ New Plan for Responding to the Horror of Its Abortion Ban: Blame Doctors

Last week, in a widely watched case, the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claims of Amanda Zurawski and her fellow plaintiffs that they had suffered injuries after being denied emergency access to abortion due to lack of clarity in the state’s abortion ban. Zurawski v. State of Texas has offered an important model for lawyers seeking to chip away at sweeping state bans and even eventually undermine Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade . Now the state Supreme Court’s decision offers a preview of conservatives’ response to the medical tragedies that have been all too common after Dobbs : to blame physicians and hint that the life of the fetus ultimately counts as much as or more than that of the pregnant patient.

From the beginning, Zurawski had significance for patients outside Texas. Republicans have been increasingly hostile to abortion exceptions since 2022, demanding that sexual assault victims report to law enforcement when such exemptions do exist, dropping rape and incest exemptions altogether in many other states, and going so far as to require physicians to prove their innocence rather than necessitating that prosecutors prove their guilt . Nevertheless, exceptions are critical to the post- Dobbs regime: They are popular with voters and offer the hope—in reality the illusion—that abortion bans do not operate as harshly as we may expect.

The Zurawski litigation illuminated how exceptions fail patients in the real world. Physicians, afraid of harsh sentences up to life in prison, turn away even those they feel confident will qualify under exceptions. The exemptions, by their own terms, do not apply to any number of serious medical complications or fetal conditions incompatible with life. The Zurawski plaintiffs argued that Texas’ law should cover these circumstances and that if the opposite was true, it was unconstitutional.

Although this did not succeed in Texas, Zurawski created a blueprint for litigation in other states. It also kicked off a political nightmare for Republicans. Earlier this year, when Kate Cox, a Texas woman who learned that her fetus had trisomy 18, a condition that usually proves fatal within the first year, the state’s Supreme Court denied her petition for an abortion. In the aftermath, Republicans were flummoxed about how to respond.

The Texas Supreme Court offered Republicans one way to address the emergencies Dobbs has produced. The court began by limiting physicians’ discretion about when to intervene. The plaintiffs in Zurawski argued that physicians require protection when they believe in good faith that they need to protect the life or health of their patients. The court disagreed, suggesting that the standard was whether a reasonable physician would believe a particular procedure to be lifesaving.

On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad. Who doesn’t want doctors to have to act reasonably? But determining how sick a patient must be is never straightforward—and is all the more complicated when the wrong answer will be determined after the fact by a prosecutor and the physicians with whom they consult, and when guessing wrong will result in a penalty of up to life in prison.

The court’s message was that physicians were the problem. They had misunderstood what the court portrayed as a perfectly clear law. Doctors were the ones who had refused to act reasonably and denied help to the patients that the court thought were deserving, like Amanda Zurawski herself. Texas had stressed the same argument throughout litigation in the case.

Republicans may well borrow the same strategy. If Americans don’t like the new reality that Dobbs has brought on, the party will argue, the GOP is not to blame. It is all the doctors’ fault. This allows conservatives to have it both ways: They frighten—or, in the case of Kate Cox’s doctor, block—physicians who might be willing to offer “reasonable” care, then blame the physicians for failing to care for their patients.

The court’s interpretation of the state constitution was just as revealing. The plaintiffs had argued that Texas’ ban discriminated on the basis of sex because only some persons are capable of pregnancy. The court rejected this argument, drawing both on Dobbs and on claims that have emerged in cases about transgender youth. Regulating abortion, the court reasoned, was no different from regulating gender-affirming care—it was a rule governing a specific medical procedure, not discrimination on the basis of sex.

What about the right to life? The Dobbs case held that U.S. citizens have 14 th Amendment rights only when that liberty was deeply rooted in history and tradition. Is there a federal or state right to access abortion to avoid death or serious bodily harm? As Reva Siegel and I have written elsewhere , there seems to be historical evidence to support this argument. And the political case for such a right is strong too. If courts say that there is no constitutional limit on state abortion bans—even if patients bleed to death—that will raise yet more grave questions about what Dobbs permits.

The Texas Supreme Court did not rule out the idea that the state constitution recognizes a right to life for the patient—or deny that high courts in other conservative states had identified a right to lifesaving abortions. But if there was such a right, the court noted, it would account for “the lives of pregnant women experiencing life-threatening complications while also valuing and protecting unborn life.” In other words, the court suggested, fetuses too have rights to life, and that means that the state has every right to deny treatment to pregnant patients in an effort to prioritize the well-being of unborn ones. Texas may not yet have written fetal personhood—the idea that fetuses are rights-holding people—into its constitutional law in clear terms, but the idea of fetal rights has already affected the lives of pregnant patients in the state.

Voters don’t seem to like the idea that fetal rights trump patients’ rights. The Texas Supreme Court has suggested that judges, not voters, may be the ones who decide the question.

But even in dictating what happens to pregnant patients across the state, other Republicans will join the court in pointing the finger at the doctors charged with implementing draconian bans. “The law entrusts physicians,” the court explained, “with the profound weight of the recommendation to end the life of a child.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to make things worse for pregnant patients later this month, when it hands down a ruling on whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts an Idaho ban with very narrow emergency exceptions . None of this makes Zurawski a waste. It may not have changed the reality on the ground for patients in Texas, but it did tell an important story about the kind of America Dobbs has created—and it delivered voters a reminder that they still have the power to change it.

[ June 7, 2024 ] 16 men to be ordained to the priesthood in Washington, DC News Briefs
[ June 7, 2024 ] Dutch bishop: Fiducia Supplicans too much ‘in tune with zeitgeist’ News Briefs
[ June 7, 2024 ] Bishops in Scotland react to new data showing majority of Scots have ‘no religion’ News Briefs
[ June 7, 2024 ] ‘Beloved, historic’ Chicago parish gets key protection vote from city preservation board News Briefs
[ June 7, 2024 ] Bishop exhorts Catholics to ‘build a better Europe’ in EU elections on Sunday News Briefs

Democrat-led Senate panel scrutinizes pro-life laws ahead of election

June 5, 2024 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 1 Print

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 5, 2024 / 13:50 pm (CNA).

A Senate hearing orchestrated by Democratic lawmakers Tuesday scrutinized pro-life laws that emerged throughout the country after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade amid charges from Republicans that the panel was convened with the November elections in mind.

The Health, Education, and Labor Committee hearing, held on June 4, just five months before the 2024 elections, invited four pro-abortion witnesses and two pro-life witnesses. The hearing, titled “ The Assault on Women’s Freedoms ,” was chaired by Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

“Today we take a close accounting of the trauma Republicans are inflicting on women and families across our country and the damage they are doing to basic reproductive health care through their horrific anti-abortion crusade,” Murray said at the hearing. “The issue here is simple, and it cuts to the core of American values: freedom.”

The pro-abortion witnesses included Madysyn Anderson, a woman who traveled out of state to obtain an abortion she could not have in Texas, and Nisha Verma, an abortionist who serves as a fellow at the Physicians for Reproductive Health.

With much of the committee hearing focused on anecdotal examples of women trying to obtain abortions in pro-life states, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the ranking member of the committee, characterized the meeting as “partisan politics being played out in a committee hearing.”

“It’s an election year in which a Democratic incumbent president [Joe Biden] is running behind,” Cassidy said. “So a decision has been made to raise abortion to a high profile, to change the setting, to invite a lot of folks, to put us on TV.”

Cassidy, who displayed a diagram showing the development of a preborn baby from the 10th week of pregnancy through the 41st week, accused Democrats of attempting to “normalize a decision to abort a child,” which is a procedure “in which the intent is to end a life.”

“I’m a doctor,” Cassidy said during the hearing. “I see that you have to take care of that mama … but you have to recognize that there is another life there as well. This is not just a collection of cells. This is a child that, if delivered, will live, and maybe this one, too, and that one as well. So let’s have a national dialogue.”

Melissa Ohden, a woman who survived a late-term abortion procedure when her mother was 19 years old and pregnant, was one of the pro-life panelists invited to testify at the hearing. Ohden said: “The nightmare here is not abortion bans” but rather “the nightmare is that abortion continues to be aggressively promoted so that it is seen as the only option.”

“Consider how different women’s and children’s lives, families, [and] our society could be if just as much money was spent to provide financial assistance, housing, education, and employment support, child care, medical, and mental health care,” Ohden continued. “This would lead to a new era of women’s empowerment that ends the generational trauma of abortion.”

During the hearing, lawmakers and panelists engaged in brief back-and-forths about the safety and efficacy of abortion pill drugs as well as the abortion pill reversal drug. The Supreme Court is currently hearing a lawsuit challenging the approval and deregulation of mifepristone, which is commonly used in chemical abortions.

The abortion pill reversal drug, which is meant to counter the effects of mifepristone, has come under scrutiny from Democrats, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a lawsuit that accuses pro-life pregnancy centers of making misleading claims about the drug.

As abortion remains a divisive and polarizing topic in American politics, some Republican lawmakers are trying to pivot to pro-life policies intended to promote life that are unrelated to abortion heading into the 2024 elections. Just last week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Sen. Katie Britt introduced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) Act, which would seek to support women during and after pregnancy.

The proposal would increase access to resources and assistance for prenatal, postpartum, and early childhood development, according to a press release .

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Abortion in the United States
Catholic News
Pro-Life News
prolife2024

Pope Francis becomes first pope in more than 700 years to open the Holy Door in L’Aquila

Rome Newsroom, Aug 28, 2022 / 04:15 am (CNA).

Pope Francis became the first pope in 728 years to open the Holy Door of a 13th-century basilica in L’Aquila, Italy on Sunday.

During a visit to the Italian city located about 70 miles northeast of Rome on Aug. 28, the pope participated in a centuries-old tradition, the Celestinian Forgiveness, known in Italian as the Perdonanza Celestiniana .

The opening of the Holy Door marked a key moment in the annual celebration established by Pope Celestine V in 1294.

“For centuries L’Aquila has kept alive the gift that Pope Celestine V left it. It is the privilege of reminding everyone that with mercy, and only with it, the life of every man and woman can be lived with joy,” Pope Francis said in his homily during Mass at L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio.

“To be forgiven is to experience here and now what comes closest to the resurrection. Forgiveness is passing from death to life, from the experience of anguish and guilt to that of freedom and joy. May this church always be a place where we can be reconciled, and experience that grace that puts us back on our feet and gives us another chance,” he said.

Pope Francis began the day trip at 7:50 a.m. traveling by helicopter from the Vatican to L’Aquila. He visited the city’s cathedral, which is still being rebuilt after it was badly damaged during a 2019 earthquake in which more than 300 people died.

The pope wore a hard hat while touring the reconstruction area of the damaged church. He spoke to family members of earthquake victims in the town square in front of the cathedral, where local prisoners were also present in the crowd. People cheered and waved Vatican flags as Pope Francis greeted them from a wheelchair.

Pope Francis wore a hard hat while visiting the L'Aquila cathedral, which was damaged by a 2019 earthquake. Vatican Media

Pope Francis said: “First of all I thank you for your witness of faith: despite the pain and loss, which belong to our faith as pilgrims, you have fixed your gaze on Christ, crucified and risen, who with his love redeemed the nonsense of pain and death.”

“And Jesus has placed you back in the arms of the Father, who does not let a tear fall in vain, not even one, but gathers them all in his merciful heart,” he added.

After speaking to the families of the victims, Pope Francis traveled in the popemobile to L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, where he celebrated an outdoor Mass, recited the Angelus, and opened the Holy Door.

In his brief Angelus message , the pope offered a prayer for the people of Pakistan, where flash floods have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced thousands more.

Pope Francis also asked for the intercession of the Virgin Mary to obtain “forgiveness and peace for the whole world,” mentioning Ukraine and all other places suffering from war.

Pope Francis prayed for peace in his Angelus address following Mass in L'Aquila, Italy. Pope Francis prayed for peace in his Angelus address following Mass in L'Aquila, Italy.

During his visit to L’Aquila, the pope said that he wanted the central Italian city to become a “capital of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.”

“This is how peace is built through forgiveness received and given,” he said.

L’Aquila is the burial place of Pope Celestine V , who led the Catholic Church for just five months before his resignation on Dec. 13, 1294. The pope, who was canonized in 1313, is buried in L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio .

In the spring, the Vatican’s announcement that Pope Francis would visit L’Aquila prompted unsourced speculation that the trip could be the prelude to the 85-year-old pope’s resignation.

When Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years in 2013, Vatican-watchers recalled that he had visited the tomb of Celestine V years earlier. During his trip on April 28, 2009, he left his pallium — the white wool vestment given to metropolitan archbishops — on the tomb. In hindsight, commentators suggested that Benedict was indicating his intention to resign.

In his homily in L’Aquila, Pope Francis praised Pope Celestine V for his humility and courage.

Mentioning Dante Alighieri’s description of Celestine as the man of “the great refusal,” Pope Francis underlined that Celestine should not be remembered as a man of “no” — for resigning the papacy — but as a man of “yes.”

Pope Francis said: “Indeed, there is no other way to accomplish God’s will than by assuming the strength of the humble, there is no other way. Precisely because they are so, the humble appear weak and losers in the eyes of men, but in reality they are the true winners, for they are the only ones who trust completely in the Lord and know his will.”

At the end of the Mass, the crowd prayed the Litany of Saints and watched as Pope Francis made history when he opened the basilica’s Holy Door. According to Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila, Pope Francis is the first pope to open the Holy Door in 728 years.

Visiting cardinals have opened the Holy Door for the Celestinian Forgiveness in past years, after a reading of the bull of forgiveness by the local mayor. Celestine donated the papal bull to L’Aquila, where it is kept in an armored chapel in the tower of the town hall.

The bull of forgiveness drawn up by Celestine V offered a plenary indulgence to all who, having confessed and repented of their sins, go to the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio from Vespers on Aug. 28 to sunset on Aug. 29. A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary, and all the saints to remove the temporal punishment due to sin.

Celestine’s indulgence was exceptional at the time, given it was available to anyone, regardless of status or wealth, and cost nothing except personal repentance at a time when indulgences were often tied to almsgiving.

Pope Francis prays at the tomb of Pope Celestine V in L'Aquila, Italy. Vatican Media

After opening the Holy Door, Pope Francis was wheeled through the basilica to the tomb of Pope Celestine V, where he spent a moment in silent prayer before the relics of his papal predecessor who was declared a saint in 1313.

“In the spirit of the world, which is dominated by pride, today’s Word of God invites us to be humble and meek. Humility does not consist in the devaluation of self, but rather in that healthy realism that makes us recognize our potential and also our miseries,” Pope Francis said.

“Starting precisely from our miseries, humility causes us to look away from ourselves and turn our gaze to God, the One who can do everything and also obtains for us what we cannot have on our own. ‘Everything is possible for those who believe (Mark 9:23).'”

Kazakhstan looks forward to papal visit in September as it marks 30 years of diplomatic relations with Vatican

Pope Francis greets Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, at the Vatican, May 30, 2022. / Vatican Media.

Vatican City, May 31, 2022 / 08:33 am (CNA). Kazakhstan welcomes Pope Francis’ plan to visit the cou… […]

Filipino nuns charged with funding terrorists deny links to communist group

A display opposing the passage of the anti-terrorism law under which the nuns have been charged, at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, June 17, 2020. / Dexter Acebes/Shutterstock

Denver Newsroom, Sep 2, 2022 / 10:24 am (CNA). A g… […]

Footprints of Fire

“Abortion is between a doctor and a mother”, Conveniently forgets there is one other. “Pro choice”, the ultimate lie, Unborn babies didn’t choose to die. Narcissism is the god of today, As little bodies torn away. Clouds of tears being sent, White hot discontent. Call down the thunder and lightning, Killing children beyond frightening. The soft sound of sandaled feet, Satan soon in full retreat. A funeral pyre, Footprints of fire.

Elderly pro-life activist sentenced to prison after abortion clinic demonstration

A n elderly woman from Massachusetts was recently sentenced to prison following a 2020 pro-life demonstration at an abortion clinic.

Kingston resident Paula "Paulette" Harlow, 75, was handed a two-year prison sentence May 31 over an October 2020 incident that involved her and fellow pro-life activists blocking an abortion clinic. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, Harlow and 10 other pro-life activists were charged with "civil rights conspiracy and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations."

"[The defendants] forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said. "Once the blockade was established, they live-streamed their activities.

"As the evidence at trial showed, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to create a blockade at the reproductive health care clinic to prevent the clinic from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services."

TRUMP SAYS ABORTION SHOULD BE DECIDED BY THE STATES, 'WILL OF THE PEOPLE'

Blocking abortion clinics is a violation of the FACE Act, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Harlow explained that she has been on house arrest in recent weeks and expects to know soon if she needs to surrender to authorities.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Harlow said the 2020 incident took place at a clinic run by Dr. Cesare Santangelo, a doctor who has been accused of conducting late-term abortions. She described the demonstration as peaceful.

"We were there to intervene, to put our lives on the line, to intervene … between the death of the child and the abortionist, peacefully," she said. "[We were] there trying to talk to the mother. ... They feel forced into it for whatever their circumstances are. So, we need to try to surround them with love, with support."

Harlow, a Catholic, explained that she became pro-life when she saw Lennart Nilsson's photograph of an 18-week-old fetus published in Life magazine in 1965.

MAJOR PRO-LIFE GROUP LAYS OUT AGGRESSIVE PLANS FOR 2024 ELECTIONS: 'LARGEST GROUND GAME YET'

" I saw the light [when] I saw the pictures in Life magazine that Nilsson did," she said. "The children, they have no voice, and they're hidden. That is as poor as you can get. You can't even protect your own life.

"We have to make them visible and make them heard."

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Paulette's husband, John Harlow, said he was distraught over the legal situation.

"It's devastating, what they're doing — the whole trial and sentence and everything," he said. "But my wife doesn't want the focus to be on her. The real outrage is the fact that children are being aborted.

"We're all concerned about her. I told the judge I'd go to jail for her if I could. … But we're in this together, and we wish the outcome had been different. But it is what it is."

FORMER POP STAR SHARES ABORTION REGRET: ‘I HAVE A GRAMMY BUT NONE OF IT WILL BRING MY CHILDREN BACK’

Harlow, who has extensive medical issues, worries incarceration could further cause her health to decline.

"I'm 76, and I have a lot of conditions," she said. "Incarceration would be detrimental because I won't have access to the things I have now. And I won't have John, who's here just helping me with everything.

"There's a lot to take care of."

Harlow also told Fox News Digital her sister Jean is in jail over the same incident.

HERE ARE THE TOP 4 MOMENTS FROM THE 2024 MARCH FOR LIFE

"I consider it an incredible honor," she said. "And I considered going to court an incredible honor. And I was really very grateful when I came out of court because not everybody has the opportunity to do that. And it was wonderful."

Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ for comment, but officials did not respond.

Original article source: Elderly pro-life activist sentenced to prison after abortion clinic demonstration

Paulette and John Harlow are hoping for mercy as the DOJ plans to imprison the ailing 75-year-old over a pro-life event in 2020. Fox News

Share full article

Supported by

Guest Essay

Melinda French Gates: The Enemies of Progress Play Offense. I Want to Help Even the Match.

A photo illustration showing Melinda French Gates amid a dollar bill broken up into squares on a grid.

By Melinda French Gates

Ms. French Gates is a philanthropist and the founder of the charitable organization Pivotal.

Many years ago, I received this piece of advice: “Set your own agenda, or someone else will set it for you.” I’ve carried those words with me ever since.

That’s why, next week, I will leave the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , of which I was a co-founder almost 25 years ago, to open a new chapter in my philanthropy. To begin, I am announcing $1 billion in new spending over the next two years for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.

In nearly 20 years as an advocate for women and girls, I have learned that there will always be people who say it’s not the right time to talk about gender equality. Not if you want to be relevant. Not if you want to be effective with world leaders (most of them men). The second the global agenda gets crowded, women and girls fall off.

It’s frustrating and shortsighted. Decades of research on economics , well-being and governance make it clear that investing in women and girls benefits everyone. We know that economies with women’s full participation have more room to grow. That women’s political participation is associated with decreased corruption. That peace agreements are more durable when women are involved in writing them. That reducing the time women spend in poor health could add as much as $1 trillion to the global economy by 2040.

And yet, around the world, women are seeing a tremendous upsurge in political violence and other threats to their safety, in conflict zones where rape is used as a tool of war, in Afghanistan where the Taliban takeover has erased 20 years of progress for women and girls, in many low-income countries where the number of acutely malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women is soaring.

In the United States, maternal mortality rates continue to be unconscionable , with Black and Native American mothers at highest risk. Women in 14 states have lost the right to terminate a pregnancy under almost any circumstances. We remain the only advanced economy without any form of national paid family leave. And the number of teenage girls experiencing suicidal thoughts and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness is at a decade high.

Despite the pressing need, only about 2 percent of charitable giving in the United States goes to organizations focused on women and girls, and only about half a percentage point goes to organizations focused on women of color specifically.

When we allow this cause to go so chronically underfunded, we all pay the cost. As shocking as it is to contemplate, my 1-year-old granddaughter may grow up with fewer rights than I had.

Over the past few weeks, as part of the $1 billion in new funding I’m committing to these efforts, I have begun directing new grants through my organization, Pivotal, to groups working in the United States to protect the rights of women and advance their power and influence. These include the National Women’s Law Center, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

While I have long focused on improving contraceptive access overseas, in the post-Dobbs era, I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home. For too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women's rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.

I’m also experimenting with novel tactics to bring a wider range of perspectives into philanthropy. Recently, I offered 12 people whose work I admire their own $20 million grant-making fund to distribute as he or she sees fit. That group — which includes the former prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, the athlete and maternal-health advocate Allyson Felix, and an Afghan champion of girls’ education, Shabana Basij-Rasikh — represents a wide range of expertise and experience. I’m eager to see the landscape of funding opportunities through their eyes, and the results their approaches unlock.

In the fall, I will introduce a $250 million initiative focused on improving the mental and physical health of women and girls globally. By issuing an open call to grass-roots organizations beyond the reach of major funders, I hope to lift up groups with personal connections to the issues they work on. People on the front lines should get the attention and investment they deserve, including from me.

As a young woman, I could never have imagined that one day I would be part of an effort like this. Because I have been given this extraordinary opportunity, I am determined to do everything I can to seize it and to set an agenda that helps other women and girls set theirs, too.

Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist and the founder of Pivotal, a charitable, investment and advocacy organization.

Source photographs by Bryan Bedder, filipfoto, and Westend61, via Getty Images.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

GOP candidate who backed strict abortion ban in his state says he wouldn't outlaw it nationwide

"The best decisions are made locally," North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said.

Republican presidential candidate and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Thursday that while he backed a strict abortion ban in his own state , he would not support a similar, nationwide law if he is elected to the White House.

"I think the decision that was made returning the power to the states was the right one. And I think we're going to have -- we have a lot of division on this issue in America. And what's right for North Dakota may not be right for another state ... the best decisions are made locally," Burgum said on "CNN This Morning."

The governor, who launched his 2024 campaign from Fargo on Wednesday with a message focused on the economy, energy and national security, had been asked about his views on the importance of giving power to states.

"Does that mean as president you would not sign a federal abortion ban?" anchor Poppy Harlow asked.

MORE: Who's running for president in 2024 and who might run

"That's correct," Burgum said.

In April, North Dakota adopted one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country, banning abortion with very limited exceptions -- some of which only apply up to six weeks' gestation, before many women know they are pregnant.

The exceptions up to six weeks' gestation allow abortion in cases of rape or incest. Exceptions for medical emergencies are allowed throughout pregnancy.

PHOTO: North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum speaks during a press conference announcing plans for the clean up of the Oceti Sakowin protest camp, Feb. 22, 2017, in Mandan, N.D.

On CNN, Burgum framed his different views on abortion legislation as meant to accommodate different kinds of government power.

"One of the most important things a CEO can do is really prioritize what that organization should focus on," Burgum, a former tech company CEO, said. "And the federal government's got a limited set of powers that they're supposed to focus on."

Abortion bans have emerged as a divisive issue among Republicans since the Supreme Court's 2022 decision reversing Roe v. Wade's nationwide guarantee to access the procedure.

Some, like former vice president and 2024 candidate Mike Pence, have called for a national abortion ban.

Others, like Burgum, say the issue should be decided on a state-by-state level.

In his 2024 kickoff speech, Pence chided those in the GOP who he said were "retreating" from an issue that "has been our party's calling for a half a century." He specifically criticized Donald Trump, claiming Trump had softened his position after leaving office. (Pence did not mention abortion in a related 2024 announcement video, however.)

PHOTO: North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum reacts during an event for announcing he enters the 2024 presidential race, joining a growing field of candidates hoping to topple Donald Trump and secure the Republican nomination, in Fargo, N.D. June 7, 2023.

The battle over abortion rights is likely to also shape the 2024 election season.

Currently, at least 15 states have ceased nearly all abortions due to legal restrictions.

Protecting abortion access can be a motivating factor for voters in swing states like Michigan and New Hampshire, as seen in exit polls of the 2022 midterm elections.

Other conservatives have taken a different view from Pence and Burgum.

"We're going to lose huge if we continue down this path of extremities," Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said on ABC's "This Week" in April . She pointed to "some sort of gestational limits" on abortion as well as key exceptions: "These are all very commonsense positions that we can take and still be pro-life."

trending now in US News

Dad reveals why he shoved superintendent aside during tense...

Hillary Clinton's D-Day comments spark fierce backlash: 'Sick and...

Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer’s kids ‘along for dark...

Trans school shooter who killed 6 — including 3 kids — wrote...

Flames shoot from Air Canada Boeing jet moments after take-off:...

Teen paralyzed after girl's dad shoots him over controversial...

Hunter Biden wipes away tears as daughter Naomi testifies at gun...

State trooper fired for sending sex video she filmed with another...

Elderly pro-life activist, 75, sentenced to prison after abortion clinic demonstration.

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

An elderly woman from Massachusetts was recently sentenced to prison following a 2020 pro-life demonstration at an abortion clinic.

Kingston resident Paula “Paulette” Harlow, 75, was handed a two-year prison sentence May 31 over an October 2020 incident that involved her and fellow pro-life activists blocking an abortion clinic.

According to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Harlow and 10 other pro-life activists were charged with “civil rights conspiracy and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations.”

“[The defendants] forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes,” the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.

“Once the blockade was established, they live-streamed their activities.”

“As the evidence at trial showed, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to create a blockade at the reproductive health care clinic to prevent the clinic from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services.”

Blocking abortion clinics is a violation of the FACE Act, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994.

An elderly woman from Massachusetts was recently sentenced to prison following a 2020 pro-life demonstration at an abortion clinic

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Harlow explained that she has been on house arrest in recent weeks and expects to know soon if she needs to surrender to authorities.

Harlow said the 2020 incident took place at a clinic run by Dr. Cesare Santangelo, a doctor who has been accused of conducting late-term abortions. She described the demonstration as peaceful.

“We were there to intervene, to put our lives on the line, to intervene … between the death of the child and the abortionist, peacefully,” she said.

“[We were] there trying to talk to the mother. … They feel forced into it for whatever their circumstances are. So, we need to try to surround them with love, with support.”

Harlow, a Catholic, explained that she became pro-life when she saw Lennart Nilsson’s photograph of an 18-week-old fetus published in Life magazine in 1965.

“ I saw the light [when] I saw the pictures in Life magazine that Nilsson did,” she said.

“The children, they have no voice, and they’re hidden. That is as poor as you can get. You can’t even protect your own life.”

“We have to make them visible and make them heard.”

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Paulette’s husband, John Harlow, said he was distraught over the legal situation.

“It’s devastating, what they’re doing — the whole trial and sentence and everything,” he said.

Start and end your day informed with our newsletters

Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today's top stories

Thanks for signing up!

Please provide a valid email address.

By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Never miss a story.

“But my wife doesn’t want the focus to be on her. The real outrage is the fact that children are being aborted.”

“We’re all concerned about her. I told the judge I’d go to jail for her if I could. … But we’re in this together, and we wish the outcome had been different. But it is what it is.”

Harlow, who has extensive medical issues, worries incarceration could further cause her health to decline.

“I’m 76, and I have a lot of conditions,” she said.

“Incarceration would be detrimental because I won’t have access to the things I have now. And I won’t have John, who’s here just helping me with everything.”

“There’s a lot to take care of.”

Harlow also told Fox News Digital her sister Jean is in jail over the same incident.

“I consider it an incredible honor,” she said.

“And I considered going to court an incredible honor. And I was really very grateful when I came out of court because not everybody has the opportunity to do that. And it was wonderful.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ for comment, but officials did not respond.

Share this article:

Election 2024
Entertainment
Newsletters
Photography
Personal Finance
AP Investigations
AP Buyline Personal Finance
AP Buyline Shopping
Press Releases
Israel-Hamas War
Russia-Ukraine War
Global elections
Asia Pacific
Latin America
Middle East
Election Results
Delegate Tracker
AP & Elections
Auto Racing
2024 Paris Olympic Games
Movie reviews
Book reviews
Personal finance
Financial Markets
Business Highlights
Financial wellness
Artificial Intelligence
Social Media

Ex-Dolphin Xavien Howard is accused of sending a teen an explicit photo over an abortion quarrel

FILE - Miami Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard walks the sidelines, during a NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Jan. 7, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. A new court filing, made on Thursday, June 6, 2024, alleges that Howard sent a teenager a sexually explicit photograph of the young man’s mother because she refused to get an abortion. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

Copy Link copied

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Former Miami Dolphins star cornerback Xavien Howard sent a male teenager a sexually explicit photograph of the young man’s mother because she refused to get an abortion, a new court filing alleges.

The allegation was made Thursday in a lawsuit filed last year by a woman who is not the teenager’s mother. That woman accuses Howard, 30, of secretly recording them having sex and then sharing the recordings with others. She says Howard also shared, without consent, sex tapes she had agreed to make.

Attorneys for the woman want the teenager, who is now 18, added as a plaintiff against Howard, who was released this off-season by the Dolphins in a money-saving move and is a free agent. The teenager is the son of another woman who attorneys say also had a relationship with Howard and was recorded having sex with him. That woman has not sued Howard.

“Xavien Howard operates by intimidation and force. Where he goes, destruction follows, and the lives of two individuals have been irrevocably altered because of him,” attorneys Cam Justice and Adriana Alcade wrote in their filing.

FILE - A child holds an iPhone at an Apple store on Sept. 25, 2015 in Chicago. Parents — and even some teens themselves — are growing increasingly concerned about the effects of social media use on young people. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)

“Mr. Howard denies the claims and looks forward to prevailing in a court of law,” Howard’s attorney, Ted Craig, said in a short statement.

In the original lawsuit, filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe, a woman says she dated Howard for several months in 2022. A few months after they broke up, she received an Instagram message from a woman who said Howard had sent her sexually explicit videos of himself having sex with various women, including Doe.

That woman told Doe that Howard had sent her the videos because she spurned his sexual advances. In April 2023, another woman contacted Doe, saying Howard had also sent her videos because she, too, had spurned his advances.

Doe said that she consented once to Howard recording their sexual activity, but that other videos were done secretly without her consent.

In the latest filing seeking to add the teen as a plaintiff, he says that in September 2022, his mother and Howard were fighting over her refusal to have an abortion. The woman says Howard is the child’s father. The attorneys say Howard texted the teenager a photograph of his mother engaging in sex “in his ongoing crusade to debase and humiliate” the woman and caused “severe emotional distress” to the teenager.

“Howard’s conduct was outrageous (and) went beyond all boundaries of decency,” Justice and Alcade wrote in their filing.

Howard played eight seasons with Dolphins, who drafted him out of Baylor in 2016. He intercepted 29 passes in 100 games and has been selected to four Pro Bowls.

Howard’s production declined the past two seasons as he dealt with injuries. He played through groin injuries in 2022 and was limited to 13 games in 2023 because of hip and foot injuries.

For 47 years, a lesbian-owned restaurant has put politics on the menu

Founded by a collective in 1978, Bloodroot is the last remaining example of a 1970s and ’80s wave of feminist restaurants.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood in coastal Connecticut is a revolution disguised as a restaurant — or maybe the other way around.

A sign on the side of the building facing the street clearly states Bloodroot’s ethos: “a feminist restaurant and bookstore with a seasonal vegetarian menu.” A calico cat named Gloria Steinem keeps a watchful eye over the dining room; her late sister was named Bella Abzug. Since 1978, diners have stepped over the threshold to find themselves enveloped by the inclusive yet pro-female culture created by the Bloodroot Collective, a group of feminist and lesbian activists from the Bridgeport community seeking to put women’s issues at the center of the plate.

“We wanted to create a place where women could feel happy and safe, and even now, we have young women who tell us how struck they are by the impact it has had on them,” says Noel Furie, one of the two remaining original members of the collective, which began with four women. “Who knew we would be here for 47 years?”

For Furie, now 79, and Selma Miriam, 89, Bloodroot’s co-owners, the goal was to build a self-sustaining feminist community that would embrace global cuisine and where women, lesbian and straight, could feel supported. The concept appears to have worked as today’s diners eat platters of housemade injera and misir wat beneath hundreds of vintage photographs of women, picked up at yard sales and donated by friends, that line the walls. A handwritten notice reads: “Because all women are victims of fat oppression and out of respect for women of size, we would appreciate your refraining from agonizing aloud over the calorie count in our food. (Ask to see ‘Shadow on a Tightrope’ or ‘The Obsession.’)” On the other side of the dining room, you will, indeed, find these feminist books and others on the shelves of the bookstore, a lesser focus now in the age of online booksellers .

Even so, it’s that business diversity that Alex Ketchum , assistant professor at McGill University’s Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, sees as key to Bloodroot’s longevity. “It’s a volatile industry that requires multiple streams of revenue to survive,” Ketchum says. “Feminist restaurants often included bookstores and performance spaces, built networks for artists and worked to ensure that employees were compensated with a living wage,” she says. But of the 200-plus feminist restaurants, cafes and coffeehouses that opened across the United States during the 1970s and ’80s, as identified by Ketchum when researching her 2022 book, “Ingredients for Revolution,” just one remains: Bloodroot.

The inspiration for such an enterprise began with Mother Courage , a women’s liberation-centered restaurant widely acknowledged as the first of its kind when it launched in New York City in 1972, just six years before Bloodroot opened its doors. Women were still unable to get a business loan without male co-signers — that would take until 1988, when the Women’s Business Ownership Act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan — so such ventures necessarily involved a shared vision and often personal loans, between women, whether they were fellow activists, friends or lovers.

These spaces were pivotal to women in the early years of both the gay rights movement following the 1969 Stonewall riots and the founding of the National Organization for Women in 1966. At Mother Courage, small acts such as pouring wine for women to sample and placing the check equidistant from male and female diners were surprisingly revolutionary. Bloodroot, too, struck a chord among its own local female clientele: “Women would come in and whisper about their issues,” Furie recalls. “I feel very honored to be a part of that.”

Ketchum sees a modern evolution of the original concept: “There’s changing terminology now, because we don’t really have political lesbianism anymore. There are places today that tend to be queer and not tied to the idea of gender. The feminist restaurants were tied to these networks by national periodicals and typically most accountable to their local communities, while today’s businesses are held accountable by a broader international audience — people who may never have even been to these places. It brings a different kind of pressure to the structure.”

Furie sees that evolution herself but is quick to note it was the feminist movement that opened the door to many legal rights for both women and LGBTQ+ communities. “The words ‘feminist’ and ‘lesbian’ seem to be out of style now,” she says, “but we love them as an expression of strength. We didn’t follow any rules for women and we were successful, and we think that example shows that you can follow your values and survive, no matter what community you identify with.”

The route to both feminism and plant-based cooking came to Furie and Miriam in different ways. Miriam refers to her own mother as having been a “rabid feminist and a Jewish atheist. The food in feminism came from an ethical culture and anti-religious beliefs — because I was raised with feminism, it was easy for me to understand that food culture.”

Furie, on the other hand, was raised by a mother with no interest in feminism. “She was very into women being beautiful,” Furie says, “and I had no language to describe that discomfort. Feminism gave me the language.” Among the photos of women on Bloodroot’s walls is one of Furie as a little girl, frowning in a decidedly feminine dress. “That dress is what made me a feminist,” she says. “My mother made me wear it and I absolutely hated it, but I had no choice but to wear it, no opportunity to say no.”

Each woman found herself in a traditional heterosexual marriage before becoming involved in conscious-raising groups within the lesbian and feminist movements, providing the catalyst to come out as lesbians, divorce and follow new paths. “It was a jump off the cliff, like Thelma and Louise ,” Furie says. “The thing about Bloodroot is that we just jumped out of the culture at large, right out of the patriarchy. We were desperate, so we just left our lives as we knew them and created this whole new life.”

The Bloodroot Collective initially pursued opening a bookstore alone, but Miriam’s interest in cooking led to the idea of opening a restaurant in tandem. The building they found, a former machine shop overlooking picturesque Brewster Cove in Bridgeport’s Black Rock neighborhood, provided a rambling canvas for bringing their vision to life. They built an open window between the kitchen and the dining room, and implemented a self-serve policy so that employees did not have to be dependent upon tips for income. Leading feminists visited regularly, including Audre Lorde , who debuted such works there as the famous essay “My Mother’s Mortar.” A women-only night every Wednesday drew women from across the area, lining up outside to get in.

“The women-only night eventually died,” Miriam says. “It was just suddenly out of style. But then there were men coming in pushing strollers, and that astonished me. There was a time when you just never would have seen that.”

At the center of it all, Miriam and Furie were determined to serve thoughtfully prepared vegetarian food in rhythm with what was seasonally available, while learning from and celebrating the food cultures of the women working with them at Bloodroot: Jamaican, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Korean, Honduran. Miriam was committed to also sharing that knowledge, saying now, “If someone wants to know how to make something, then I’m going to teach them.” That belief led to the publication of Bloodroot’s first cookbook in 1980, “The Political Palate,” which the collective created under its own imprint after a publishing company expressed interest in the book — but only if the title was changed. “The early books were considered very radical,” Miriam says with a chuckle.

Indeed, the collective did not shy away from expressing its views, writing, “We are feminists, that is, we recognize that women are oppressed by patriarchy — the rule of the fathers — and we commit ourselves to rebellion against that patriarchy. … Our food is vegetarian because we are feminists. We oppose the keeping and killing of animals for the pleasure of the palate just as we oppose men controlling abortion or sterilization.”

Lagusta Yearwood was 21 in 2000, when she started working at Bloodroot. “When I first got there, I thought it would be this Earth-mama-’60s-granola-thing, but it was so much more complex,” she says. “When you are unapologetic about who you are, it draws people to you. These are two people who have taken any kind of privilege they’ve had in life and really used it to benefit thousands of others.” Yearwood, who lives in Upstate New York, worked with Bloodroot over the course of 10 years, including writing two cookbooks with the collective and gaining experience that she used to open Lagusta’s Luscious (a name she says was coined by Miriam), a vegan artisanal chocolate company with two locations.

“Bloodroot is such an institution,” Yearwood says, “and Selma and Noel were so open and giving with all of their knowledge and life beliefs.”

Perhaps inspired by Yearwood’s passion for veganism, Furie and Miriam found themselves experimenting more with vegan options, transitioning Bloodroot to a plant-based menu. “We already had great vegetarian food,” Miriam says, “but when the pandemic struck, we stopped serving brunch, and that allowed us to get rid of eggs entirely from the menu.”

The menu choices on any given night might be as varied as Cambodian kanji made with rice, potatoes and cashews; Jamaican jerk seitan with coconut rice; and a creamy mushroom walnut paté served with potato-rye bread. A large glass jar on the kitchen counter contains brandied fruit that has been continually replenished with fruit and sugar since the restaurant opened — yes, 47 years and counting — to spoon over homemade cashew-based ice cream.

Carolanne Curry, a longtime friend, sits at the large wooden desk by the front door, welcoming diners on a recent Thursday night. She explains the self-serve system to newcomers and catches up with returning customers visiting the area after a long absence. Gesturing to the eclectic array of artwork, handmade quilts and stacks of feminist literature that make up the cozy atmosphere, Curry says, “This place is like a kaleidoscope. You look at it and you see one thing. Then you shift everything just slightly, and you can see something new.”

Furie says she thinks the supercharged estrogen in the restaurant’s atmosphere is what makes it a comfortable place where people keep returning, even though it is a bit off the beaten track. Despite the divisiveness so pervasive in today’s political dialogue, Bloodroot prides itself on being a safe haven for many viewpoints. “Anybody who wants to be here is welcome here,” she says. “I used to think everyone had to think like me, but I’ve changed my mind about that.”

For Miriam, Bloodroot is, perhaps, her lifeblood, even as she now spends less time in the kitchen and more time chatting with customers while sitting with Gloria Steinem — the cat, that is. “There are people who come in with their 3-year-old and say, ‘I came here when I was 3, and now I’m back with my child,’ and I think how amazing that we had that impact, without even planning it. We followed our political and social beliefs, and had an appreciation for the earth and the animals — all the things that fall under the broad umbrella of feminism. There are so many threads to feminism, but here at Bloodroot, we do respect and love life.”

A previous version of this story misquoted Alex Ketchum of McGill University as referring to “political feminism.” The term she used was “political lesbianism.” This version has been corrected.

IMAGES

⇉Abortions Pros and Cons Essay Example
≫ Pro Choice Abortion: Because It's Safer Free Essay Sample on Samploon.com
⇉Abortion and Ethics Essay Essay Example
≫ Legalization of Abortion Free Essay Sample on Samploon.com
≫ Pro-Choice and Pro-Life: The Surrounding Argument of Abortion Free
Abortion: Pros And Cons

COMMENTS

Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion: An Argument for Abortion Rights
Since the Supreme Court's historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the issue of a woman's right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America.Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception - making abortion tantamount to homicide.
Abortion: Pros and Cons
The 7 Most Common Pros and Cons of Abortion . Based on the 2022 Profemina statistics collected while counseling 123,456 women, these are the most frequently mentioned arguments for abortion and their counterarguments. However, many women raising these questions feel torn about how to respond. As you read these lines, you may be facing a similar situation.
Pro and Con: Abortion
Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable. Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary. This article was published on June 24, 2022, at Britannica's ProCon.org, a nonpartisan issue-information source. Some argue that believe abortion is a safe medical procedure ...
Abortion in the US: What you need to know
Abortion will be one of the most impactful issues of the 2024 election. This primer is designed to cover most of the facts you need to know. ... Beyond the Supreme Court, pro-choice and pro-life ...
How Abortion Views Are Different
These are the numbers that abortion rights advocates often emphasize. 2. … and a pro-restriction majority. The most confounding aspect of public opinion is a contradiction between Americans ...
How Abortion Changed the Arc of Women's Lives
A frequently quoted statistic from a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which reports that one in four women will have an abortion before the age of forty-five, may strike you as high, but ...
Abortion Care in the United States
Abortion services are a vital component of reproductive health care. Since the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in Dobbs v.Jackson Women's Health Organization, access to abortion services has been increasingly restricted in the United States. Jung and colleagues review current practice and evidence on medication abortion, procedural abortion, and associated reproductive health care, as well as ...
The Only Reasonable Way to Debate Abortion
There's a Better Way to Debate Abortion. Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach. If Justice Samuel Alito's draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health ...
To Be Pro-Choice, You Must Have the Privilege of Having Choices
Reproductive justice has always been more than just being "pro-choice.". To be pro-choice you must have the privilege of having choices. The fight for reproductive justice must be led by those ...
US: Abortion Access is a Human Right
Human Rights Watch released a new question-and-answer document that articulates the human rights imperative, guided by international law, to ensure access to abortion, which is critical to ...
Positions for and Against Abortion
Pro-Life Arguments. abortion is akin to murder as it is the act of taking human life. Abortion is in direct defiance of the commonly accepted idea of the sanctity of human life. No civilized society permits one human to intentionally harm or take the life of another human without punishment, and abortion is no different.
Opinion
The Case Against Abortion. Nov. 30, 2021. Crosses representing abortions in Lindale, Tex. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times. Share full article. 3367. By Ross Douthat. Opinion Columnist. A ...
Why Lawmakers Should Legalize Abortion
Thousands of pro-choice activists wave their iconic green handkerchiefs and demonstrate in favor of decriminalizing abortion outside Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on February 19, 2020 ...
Q&A: Access to Abortion is a Human Right
Human Rights Watch believes that reproductive rights are human rights, including the right to access to abortion. States have the obligation to provide women, girls, and other pregnant people with ...
Pros And Cons Of Abortion: [Essay Example], 573 words
Pros of Abortion. One of the primary arguments in favor of abortion is that it allows women to have control over their own bodies and reproductive choices. When a woman becomes pregnant, it has a profound impact on her physical, emotional, and financial well-being. By having the option to terminate a pregnancy, women are able to make decisions ...
The pro-choice movement that could help Joe Biden win
Maybe. Few voters are enthusiastic about Mr Biden. A mass movement in support of a goal his party shares ought to boost the turnout of Democrats. Abortion referendums in Arizona and Nevada, two ...
Abortion Rights
Everyone has a right to life, a right to health, and a right to be free from violence, discrimination, and torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Access to abortion is vital to the protection of these rights, as well as all other human rights, which are enshrined in international human rights law. ©Getty Images.
Churches that avoid abortion talk are keeping people from healing
Churches that avoid abortion talk are holding men, women back from healing, expert warns. Scott Klusendorf, president of the pro-life group The Life Training Institute, speaks with Focus on The Family in a video posted to YouTube on June 6, 2024. | Screengrab: YouTube/ Focus on the Family. Churches need to take a more active role in the pro ...
The Texas plan to blame doctors for the horror of its abortion ban
Amanda Zurawski at the U.S. Capitol on March 7 in Washington. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images. Last week, in a widely watched case, the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claims of Amanda Zurawski and ...
Anti-abortion activist convicted for blockading a reproductive health
CLAIM: A 75-year-old woman named Paulette Harlow was sentenced to two years in prison for praying outside an abortion clinic in Washington. AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. Harlow was convicted in August 2023 of federal civil rights offenses for her role in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of the Washington Surgi-Clinic.
Democrat-led Senate panel scrutinizes pro-life laws ahead of election
A Senate hearing orchestrated by Democratic lawmakers Tuesday scrutinized pro-life laws that emerged throughout the country after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade amid ...
Elderly pro-life activist sentenced to prison after abortion clinic
An elderly woman from Massachusetts was recently sentenced to prison following a 2020 pro-life demonstration at an abortion clinic. Kingston resident Paula "Paulette" Harlow, 75, was handed a two ...
Opinion
By Melinda French Gates. Ms. French Gates is a philanthropist and the founder of the charitable organization Pivotal. Many years ago, I received this piece of advice: "Set your own agenda, or ...
2024 candidate who signed strict abortion ban in his state wouldn't
GOP candidate who backed strict abortion ban in his state says he wouldn't outlaw it nationwide. "The best decisions are made locally," North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said. He is the 12th ...
Elderly pro-life activist, 75, sentenced to prison after abortion
An elderly woman from Massachusetts was recently sentenced to prison following a 2020 pro-life demonstration at an abortion clinic.. Kingston resident Paula "Paulette" Harlow, 75, was handed a ...
Ex-Dolphin Xavien Howard is accused of sending a teen an explicit photo
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Former Miami Dolphins star cornerback Xavien Howard sent a male teenager a sexually explicit photograph of the young man's mother because she refused to get an abortion, a new court filing alleges.. The allegation was made Thursday in a lawsuit filed last year by a woman who is not the teenager's mother.
Bloodroot has put feminism and vegetables on the menu for 47 years
11 min. 0. BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood in coastal Connecticut is a revolution disguised as a restaurant — or maybe the other way around. A sign on the ...