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Abortion: Abortion Debate
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The 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act which legalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales has fuelled the debate once more. MP Lord David Steel, architect of the Abortion Act, expressed his concern in The Guardian newspaper saying "everybody can agree that there are too many abortions".
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Anti-abortion movements generally grew when women demanded more rights. From the mid-to the late nineteenth century, public condemnation of abortion paralleled the women's movement for political rights. Fears that women would forsake their proper social roles and the responsibility of motherhood if they had the right to abortion helped to shape the debate, and ultimately the success, of anti-abortion legislation. Equal opportunity in politics and in higher education appeared to reduce family size and some hoped that the prohibition of abortion and birth control might offset this trend. At the turn of the twentieth century, the women's movement included new demands for sexual freedom, and anti-abortion activists worked to limit abortions. Although widely criminalized, physicians still performed some abortions and illegal abortions were common.
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From the beginning of the abortion debate, those favoring abortion have pointed to the social costs of "unwanted" children who simply won't get the attention of "wanted" ones. But there is a trade-off that has long been neglected. Abortion may eliminate "unwanted" children, but it increases out-of-wedlock births and single parenthood. Unfortunately, the social consequences of illegitimacy dominated. Children born after liberalized abortion rules have suffered a series of problems from problems at school to more crime. The saddest fact is that it is the most vulnerable in society, poor blacks, who have suffered the most from these changes.
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Mike Huckabee, seeking to channel Kang’s seminal policy position from the 1996 debates of “Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others,” ran circles around the abortion question on Meet the Press this weekend. He believes that the scientific evidence shows that life begins at conception, women are victims of abortionists and doctors who accept money for abortions should be punished. From this, we now assume that Huckabee’s position on Roe vs Wade is that abortions should only be legal when they’re free and that “we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.” All that twirling, though, can really make you dizzy, so be careful.
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This combination of medical ambiguities and emotional political confrontations has led to considerable hostility in the abortion debate. For many people... the lines between pro-choice and pro-life are blurred and the issue is far less polarized. Many women who consider themselves pro-life supporters are concerned about possible threats to reproductive rights and the danger of allowing the government to decide what medical options are available to them. Similarly, many pro-choice individuals are deeply saddened by the act of abortion and seek to minimize its use through better education about birth control, and, in particular, emergency contraception, birth-control methods that prevent pregnancy after unprotected sexual intercourse.
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In the history of abortion, induced abortion has been the source of considerable debate, controversy, and activism. An individual's position on the complex ethical, moral, philosophical, biological, and legal issues is often related to his or her value system. Opinions of abortion may be best described as being a combination of beliefs on its morality, and beliefs on the responsibility, ethical scope, and proper extent of governmental authorities in public policy. Religious ethics ... has an influence upon both personal opinion and the greater debate over abortion (see religion and abortion).
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Abortion Debate