Dear Future Mr./Mrs. President,

Abortion is a woman’s choice and she should be able to chose what she wants to do with her body and nobody else. When a pregnancy endangers a woman’s health, education, economic status, or is unwanted she has the right to abort and should be able to in a safe and accepting environment. Abortion should be safe, affordable, and legal in the United States.

Already in the US there are approximately 415,000 children in foster care, and if we make abortion illegal the numbers will just go up. Numerous women get abortions because they can either not afford a baby, a baby would endanger their education, or they do not want a child. If women are forced to have a baby that do not want, chances are the child will either end up in foster care or poverty. Do we really want more children to suffer? To decrease the rate of children in foster care and stop overpopulation we must make abortion legal.

If abortion was made illegal many women would get unsafe abortions done by untrained doctors. According to Opposing Viewpoints in Context “21.6 million women each year obtain unsafe abortions” and “About 13 percent of all maternal deaths are attributed to unsafe abortions.” Making abortions illegal would cause an increase in abortion related deaths and infections. If abortion was made legal the death rate would drop and it would be a lot safer. When South Africa legalized abortion in 1998 abortion related deaths dropped by 91%. And the development of the drugs misoprostol and mifepristone, which can be provided by pharmacists, makes relatively safe and inexpensive abortion possible in developing countries.

Some may say that abortion should be illegal because a fetus is a living being and killing it would be murder. But is it really? A fetus cannot survive on its own. It is fully dependent on its mother's body, unlike born human beings. Even if a fetus was alive, the "right to life" doesn't imply a right to use somebody else's body. People have the right to refuse to donate their organs even if doing so would save somebody else's life. For example the "right to life" also doesn't imply a right to live by threatening somebody else's life. Bearing children is always a threat the life of the mother and she should not be forced to carry an unwanted child at a risk to her health. A "right to life" is a right to not have somebody else's will imposed upon your body. Do women not have this right as well?

All in all, a woman should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion. It is not the government's right, nor the right of anyone else, to impose on a woman’s body and her right to choose. For these reasons we must make abortion legal, safe, and affordable.

Sincerely,

Madeline Baker

Grade 8

  "Abortion." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.