Dear Future President, 

     Around 21% of pregnancies in the US end in an abortion. That number is too high, I think abortion should be illegal unless the woman is under 18, the child is the result of rape or incest, or childbirth will harm the mother. In order to make abortion illegal the government should regulate it on a federal level rather than state. 

   One of the reasons abortions should be illegal is because they can be very unsafe depending on how they are performed. In fact, 3.1 million unsafe abortions are performed each year in developed countries like the US. Even though infection is rare when an abortion is properly done, there still is a chance of a woman contracting an infection. A few abortion pills are not yet FDA approved, but are still being used in certain cases. In some abortion cases women have suffered severe bacterial infections after their abortion. The FDA has also linked some cases of death from infections caused by abortion pills. This is unsafe and could put the woman in more danger than if she would have the baby. 

   Additionally, a fetus is technically a human from the moment it is fertilized. In Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court case that set the standard for abortion in 1973, the Supreme Court completely overlooked this fact. Having an abortion is taking away the rights of life from the unborn child, a right protected Constitution. In other cases heard by the Supreme Court they considered a fetus to be a person. For example an unborn child can inherit land from the parents. Also the wrongful killing of an unborn child is legally considered manslaughter. This leads to an inconsistency in the government, so the right of the child should be better protected.  

   Lastly, the government should provide better alternatives to uphold the rights of fetus. At one point in time South Dakota had a law which required women considering an abortion to visit a pregnancy help center which assisted the women in making the decision against having an abortion. This law got terminated by state after a case against it, but this law should be adopted on a federal level on the way to making abortions illegal. It would lessen the amount of abortions in the long run as women realize the better alternatives to abortion. Also contraception should be covered by health insurance so everyone can afford it and the use of contraception should be stressed more in health classes across the US. Currently 23% of high schools teach abstinence-only sexual education rather than stressing the importance of contraception. It's important that schools stress the use of contraception because it will help reduce the amount of unwanted pregnancies in the US. 

   In summary, making abortions illegal may help to save the lives of unborn children.