Dear future President,

Abortion isn't murder. Actually, abortion can even save lives. Savita Halappanavar could have been saved. Doctors say fetuses cannot feel until the woman is 20 weeks pregnant; she was only 17 weeks. She was denied an abortion. She was having severe back pain and believed herself to be having a miscarriage, but she was still denied. She died a week later due to sepsis, a blood poisoning sometimes caused by miscarriage. She was only 31. Even one of the doctors looking back stated that Halappanavar should have gotten an abortion. She didn't have to die, but she did.

My picture is of Savita Halappanavar, mostly dull colored and faded. The tape over her mouth represents how she was not able to make the decision for herself to get an abortion. The full color and fog shows how she was fading and eventually died. The eye is the brightest thing, representing hope for others that may end up in her same situation.

But this is just one story. How many others have to die before people realize, abortion isn't just for “irresponsible women”? There are others who haven't gotten abortions that should have been able to, like women who have addictions to drugs that will harm the fetus, or women that had to go through with childbirth and ended up putting their child up for adoption, or women who were raped. Is this really setting up a good life for a child anyways? I understand how people want to think “maybe the child will turn out okay”, but that's the thing, we need to think about the mother's life too.  Abortion isn't murder, abortion can save a life.

-Lorelei