2008 Woodie Awards
Abortion is never an easy topic, being wrought with moral and value debates
By: Eliana Granados
Issue date: 5/21/08 Section: Opinion
There are so many controversial topics in today's society: gay marriage, human cloning, and the never-ending moral value topic of abortion. Is it the right or wrong thing to do? Is it considered murder or a woman's right to choose over what to do with her life and body?
In high school, I thought it was wrong. I used to think that it wasn't fair for an unborn child to die just because a woman made the mistake of having sex. A woman must commit to her mistakes and not take the cowardly way of avoiding motherhood through an abortion.
My opinion changed my freshmen year in college when I took an intro to women's studies class my first semester. I read the Roe v. Wade case and it totally changed my views. Watching documentaries about women who have died in back-alley abortion clinics because the procedures were not done in a sanitary and professional environment impacted and shocked me.
I read cases about women becoming pregnant after being raped. What if women use contraceptives, but they fail? Should women choose what will happen to their bodies, their lives? Or should it be someone else's choice?
I'm not saying abortion should be used as a contraceptive. What I am saying is that nobody should tell a woman what to do with her body. It depends on the situation and the circumstances in which abortion should be considered.
People should not judge a woman as a killer for having an abortion. Do they know why she is doing it? Perhaps she was a rape victim and doesn't want to have the child of her rapist.
Maybe she and her partner were careful, but the contraceptives failed. Or maybe she just isn't ready to be a single mother and has no support from her family or the father of her child.
Nobody deserves to be judged and it angers me sometimes when I see people holding signs that say abortion is murder and that those women who receive it should be punished as well as the doctors that perform the procedure.
They don't know the woman's situation or the reason as to why she is having an abortion. Having an abortion is already a difficult decision; women don't need to have people holding picket signs yelling at them that they are murderers.
In high school, I thought it was wrong. I used to think that it wasn't fair for an unborn child to die just because a woman made the mistake of having sex. A woman must commit to her mistakes and not take the cowardly way of avoiding motherhood through an abortion.
My opinion changed my freshmen year in college when I took an intro to women's studies class my first semester. I read the Roe v. Wade case and it totally changed my views. Watching documentaries about women who have died in back-alley abortion clinics because the procedures were not done in a sanitary and professional environment impacted and shocked me.
I read cases about women becoming pregnant after being raped. What if women use contraceptives, but they fail? Should women choose what will happen to their bodies, their lives? Or should it be someone else's choice?
I'm not saying abortion should be used as a contraceptive. What I am saying is that nobody should tell a woman what to do with her body. It depends on the situation and the circumstances in which abortion should be considered.
People should not judge a woman as a killer for having an abortion. Do they know why she is doing it? Perhaps she was a rape victim and doesn't want to have the child of her rapist.
Maybe she and her partner were careful, but the contraceptives failed. Or maybe she just isn't ready to be a single mother and has no support from her family or the father of her child.
Nobody deserves to be judged and it angers me sometimes when I see people holding signs that say abortion is murder and that those women who receive it should be punished as well as the doctors that perform the procedure.
They don't know the woman's situation or the reason as to why she is having an abortion. Having an abortion is already a difficult decision; women don't need to have people holding picket signs yelling at them that they are murderers.
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