Pro Choice Vs. Pro Life A False Dichotomy - 2314 Words

Sophia Bartolome English 2 Carlos Mujal May 13, 2016 Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life: A False Dichotomy One of the most controversial and emotionally charged topics in the United States still being debated on is abortion. Despite Roe v Wade passing the law for a woman’s right to attain an abortion, there is still much debate surrounding the topic. Questions like, â€Å"When does Life begin?†, â€Å"Is the mother’s life considered as well?†, and most importantly, â€Å"Are you pro-choice or pro-life?† come up consistently before and in the debate. However, it should come to attention that regardless of these two stances, a great number of Americans fall underneath a grey in-between of either holding both pro-choice and pro-life reasoning, or neither. This is†¦show more content†¦Being pro-life refers to the group of people who simply oppose this idea, believing that women who carry their pregnancy to term don’t just save their babies, but their own lives, too. These definitions aren’t al ways what they seem to be, especially from one opposing party to the other opposing party. More often than not, being pro-choice gives off the notion of being pro-abortion when really, it’s more about bodily autonomy and the rights to an individual’s body. Meanwhile, being pro-life gives off the notion that they are against women having rights when that is not the case either. However, it is through these majority definitions that problems already arise and bring up the question, â€Å"Can one be both pro-choice and pro-life? And if not, can you be neither?† Before landmark case Roe V. Wade was passed in 1973, abortions were legal only in New York and California. David A. Grimes, author of Every Third Women in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation, wrote that â€Å"tens of thousands of women living in the United States made interstate trips to get safe abortion care in the early 1970s.† These interstate trips â€Å"led to preventable complications and death.† In fact, in 1965, Planned Parenthood reported 17 percent of all deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth were a result of an illegal abortion. Today, adverse effects from an abortion occur less than a quarter of the time. Legal abortions have been shown to