Abortion

4 Pages 948 Words

About 43% of American women will have one (or occasionally more) abortions during their lifetime. Women's centers and hospitals perform more than a million abortions per year. Abortions are obviously in great demand. But why?

Women have many reasons for not wanting to be pregnant, and thus to seek an abortion. Many are related to their age (most are under 25), their marital status (most are unmarried; many are separated from their spouse) or their economic status (many are poor): 1

The vast majority (probably in excess of 95%) of abortions are sought for personal, not medical reasons: She feels that she does not have the financial resources to bring up a child.
She has a plan for her life (education, developing a career, etc.) that does not allow for having a child at the present time.
She is pressured by the father or by her parents to have an abortion.
She feels that she lacks the emotional and physical strength to go through another pregnancy and raise the child.
She believes that raising an additional child would short-change her existing children.
She is a student and/or without a partner; she feels that raising a child would be too difficult and disruptive at her time in life.
She doesn't want other people to know that she became pregnant.
A child would interfere with her career or education.
She is a rape or incest survivor and does not want to bear a child that was conceived in violence.
She may fear physical abuse from a parent if they learn of her pregnancy.
She may fear being tossed out onto the street by a parent if they learn of her pregnancy.
In the case of a multiple pregnancy, the woman may be faced with giving birth to more newborns than she feels she can deal with. She may elect to go through a selective reduction procedure, which involves the killing of one or more fetuses.

A small minority of abortions are sought for medical reasons: The fetus might have been hurt by ex...