19th October 2016

The President.

The White House.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20500.

Dear Future President,

Although I am not a woman myself, I strongly believe that abortion should remain a law in the United States. There are people out there who are against abortion and believe that it should be outlawed. Do you know what outlawing it will do? It will make abortions unsafe. Women will still get abortions, maybe not as many as before, but it will happen, and they won’t be getting safe ones. So, I beg of you, don’t let anyone make abortion illegal.

According to a poll taken by CNN in March of 2014, fifty-eight percent of U.S. citizens are against abortions. That means that more than half of the population of the United States don't want abortions to be legal. More than half of the country's population want women to  have no choice about their own bodies. They don’t want any women to have all of their rights. A poll from this year shows that the percentage has risen to eighty percent. Three fourths of this eighty percent, however, believe that abortion should be legal in very few circumstances.

Some women begin to have perfectly normal pregnancies before they find out that their baby could have a terminal disease. Others could die if they don’t get an abortion. While it may not be considered ethical to all people, abortion needs to stay legal--for the health of women and children. On a website where women talk about their experiences with abortion, Marketia, now fifty-four years old, was told that she could either have an abortion or be forced to carry, and deliver, a stillborn child since the fetus had terminal illness. She states, “I had the textbook perfect pregnancy, followed by three first trimester miscarriages. Then the horror truly began. At 18 weeks during the fifth and six pregnancies birth defects that were "incompatible with life" were diagnosed. My choices were to continue on and plan funerals or to end the pregnancies. I am so glad that safe, legal options were available to me.” Abortion needs to stay legal for reasons like this, so women like Marketia have a choice.

In 1973, after the Supreme Court case of Roe v Wade , the Chief Justice Warren Burger decided that abortion is legal because it is a right protected under the fourth amendment of the Constitution. It is related to privacy because it has to do with a woman’s body. A woman has to make the choice. She should have the choice. She is the one who has to have the surgery. It isn’t any one else’s business what happens in her body. Unfortunately, many people don’t see it that way and they don’t think it’s right. They think that abortion should be illegal. Don’t let them make a law that changes something protected by an amendment to the Constitution.

To be clear, those who don’t want abortions to be legal--pro-life people--are mostly against it because they believe that the fetus should have a choice. They think it’s not fair that the woman gets to remove something from inside her own body. The thing is, though, by the time the fetus can make it’s own choices, it will be out of her body. Second of all, an abortion can be undergone only up to twenty-two weeks of pregnancy. At this point, it’s not anything yet. There is only a small, nonliving, unfeeling cluster of cells. It’s not like the woman can have an abortion after there are actual signs of life. Once there is quickening, once it actually starts forming, then there can’t be an abortion.

It’s not like the way most people seem to see it. It’s not like the woman can be one month away from having the child and decide to have an abortion. She can only have one up to twenty-two weeks after she becomes pregnant. That’s what most people seem to think, that she can just have an abortion at any time. She can’t just wake up the day before the baby is due and have an abortion. That’s not how it works. Again, by the point she can have an abortion, the thing growing in her is not a baby, it’s not even alive. Not to sound heartless, but it’s just a lump of cells. Saying a woman can’t get a lifeless, feelingless lump of cells out of her body is like saying that someone can’t shed skin. 

As our President, will you commit to protecting a woman’s right to choose. Are you, as the leader of this country, going to stand by while one of women’s rights are taken away? Take a moment to think about it. Are you, the president, the leader of this country that everyone looks up to, going to allow another human’s rights to be denied? Are you Mr. or Mrs. President, as a human yourself, going to allow a person's rights to be taken away? Will you go against the decision from the Supreme Court case of Roe v Wade, the case that gave women the right to abortion? The very case that protects abortion under the right to privacy, a Constitutional right, something that  should not be changed. Once more I beg of you, keep abortion legal. Will you change the rights of another human? No matter what, we are all humans. We should all have the same rights. So Mr. or Mrs. President, will you protect a right of all women or ignore them? The answer is up to you.

Sincerely,

Eric