Abortion discussions and arguments have seemed to intensify over the past couple years, with women across America proclaiming their pro-choice beliefs because they believe banning abortion is a violation of a women's rights. However, crucial arguments have intertwined themselves in the nation-wide debates, raising some points that should be discussed further.
One of the crucial arguments of abortion is the feminist proposal that the right to an abortion is a woman’s right. While this may be true, I believe it is important to discuss how abortions would affect the involved male figures. While the woman is responsible for carrying the baby, it did originally take a sperm AND an egg to reproduce, and the collective tissues in the embryo are collectively made by a man and a woman. In no way am I saying that abortion should be a man’s choice, but I am saying that in discussions of abortion, the fact that a fetus is a collection of tissues made from the paternal and maternal DNA, which is widely considered private property, should be taken into account. Abortions will affect the paternal figure, and those emotions need to be regarded and taken into consideration.
In terms of more current arguments, the states of Ohio and Indiana were recently scorned for their bill proposals in relation to abortion. First, the former Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, passed a law preventing abortions based solely on race, skin color, gender, or pre-existing conditions. This caused an uproar from the American community, placing Mike Pence back in the national spotlight--in a negative manner. However, this conflict raises a point of discrimination. Now more than ever, groups are pushing for zero discrimination laws and equality among all. If America is so focused on equality, then why would allowing discrimination in the case of unborn children be allowed? The American population needs to be consistent with their arguments, and this conflict, in my opinion, showed the hypocrisy America has come to be known for.
In Ohio, there was the proposal of a “heartbeat” law. Essentially, the law stated that you could not abort a fetus once it had developed a heartbeat, which normally happens around 6 weeks after conception. This caused a lot of national anger, with the main argument being that a lot of women don’t even know they are pregnant after 6 weeks. However, this highlights more hypocrisy in American society. Outside of the womb, you are not allowed to murder anyone. Death and murder are commonly associated with stopping a heart from beating. If you cannot stop a heart from beating outside of the womb, why should we be able to stop the heart of something beating inside the womb? The only difference between an embryo and something outside of the womb is that the embryo is still young and too undeveloped to live outside of the uterus; it does not mean that it isn’t alive. Therefore, this hypocrisy needs to be eliminated from American society--no matter which way it flips.
I would like to end with one of the old Facebook posts that makes its way around every now and then. It states something along the lines of “I have a baby in one hand and a petri dish of cells in the other. Which would you prefer I drop?”. This is the most popular pro-abortion argument there is making social media rounds. It does not work. We, as a population, spend so much time trying to simplify arguments so that our argument looks like the correct one. Unfortunately, with an argument as complicated as abortion, simplifying the argument is what is tearing America apart. We need to be open to discussions as a community, no matter what your views are, and we need to eliminate hypocrisy. If we refuse to do so, then it will always cause people on either side of the argument to hate people on the other side.
