Example of a secondary research: Legalizing abortion

LEGALIZING ABORTION

        Everything has its own both sides: positive and negative, and abortion is no exception. Until now, abortion is still one of the most persistently controversial issues in the world generally, also in Vietnam. People usually foist murder on abortion without considering its benefits: guaranteeing the health and lives of pregnant women, stopping the delivering pregnancies of victims of sexual assaults and contributing to crime reduction. Therefore, we think that abortion should be legalized for its practical utilization.

       First of all, it can not be denied that abortion is significantly responsible for the recent crime reduction. Some estimates report that legalized abortion accounted for as much as 50% of the drop in murder, property crime, and violent crime in the USA between the 1970s and 1990s (Donohue & Levitt, 2001 ). The answer for this remarkable statistic can be explained as follows: teenage girls, unmarried women, and poor women are most likely to have unintended pregnancies, but criminalising abortion forces these women, the reluctant mothers into continuing giving birth to unwanted babies. Actually, these children are often raised in poor conditions with parental neglectfulness and lack of love, which increases their chances of  leading criminal lives in adulthood (p.381)

       Besides, abortion is less physically dangerous to a woman than carrying and delivering a child.“ The risk of death from an early abortion is 1 in 500,000 for pregnancy and childbirth the risk of death is 1 in 14,000.” (Insel & Roth, 1998, p163). Abortion does guarantee health and lives of the mothers in case continuous pregnancies and deliveries cause death for the women. The fact remains that maternal mortality ratios have risen significantly. "Maternal mortality ratios have increased from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006."(“Maternal Health in the U.S”, n.d, para. 4)

        In addition, the fact that women who are victims of rape or incest and prone to pregnant by this violent act is one of the very first reasons for the women themselves to have abortions. "Of a national sample of more than 4,000 women, there were 34 rape related pregnancies, two of which were caused by a father or stepfather and four by another relative" (Julie & Kathy , 2000, p.4). The notably latent dangers is that if these pregnancies still continue, the new-born babies can suffer from disabilities, incurable genetic diseases such as leukemia, Down Syndrome, heart diseases, obesity, and even be infected HIV.

        The people who are firmly in opposition with legalized abortion condemn  abortion with some significant reasons. Firstly, abortion at any stages of pregnancy constitutes killing innocent babies. Pro-lifers think that unborn babies who are human beings from the moment of conception have a fundamental right to live (David, 1971) . Additionally, according to Insel and Roth (1998), abortion actually causes the serious mental and physical effects on women’s health. Moreover, another undeniable evidence is that abortion is one of the major causes of gender imbalance, especially in Asian countries. However, a woman do have constitutional right and freedom to choose abortion, which recognized by the US Supreme Court in the  22nd Jan, 1973 by  Roe v. Wade , the wide variety of laws were written specifically to protect born human beings and their property throughout the world. ”Moreover,  there is virtually no legal precedent for applying such laws to fetuses. Even when abortion was illegal, it had a lesser punishment than for murder” (Arthur, 2001,p3). Furthermore, abortion should be legalized because it is an effective tool to control the population, also the consequences of world population explosion such as malnutrition, starvation, poverty, lack of medical and educational services, pollution and conflict over basic comodities like air, water, earth. (Paul, 1968)

          Killing does not always mean mercilessness, inhumanity, or even extermination. On the contrary, killing somehow does constitute a choice for morality maintenance and supporting life. And abortion is one of many moral ending-life ways. Aborting an innocent babies can sound cruel but nurturing unwanted babies in a neglectful environment then turning them into unwanted citizens are much more inhumane, and choosing the unborn babies regardless the mothers' lives is not different from diminishing women in any situations. Finally, it is believed that the women themselves have rights to make decision whether to continue their pregnancies or not, and no power in the world is eligible for enforcing them to deliver babies at the risk of losing seriously their careers, their health, even their own lives.

                                                                                                

  *References

Arthur, J. (2001). Personhood: Is a fetus a human beings ? .Retrieved: November 17,    2012  from     

 http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/print-friendly/fetusperson.shtml

David, B. (1971). A defense of abortion. United States: Princeton University Press.

Donohue, J. J., & Levitt, S. D. (2001). The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Retrieved: May, 2001, from       http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf

Insel, P. M., & Roth, W. T. (1998). Core concepts in health (8^th ed.). California: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Julie, M., & Kathy, H. (2000) .The ‘HARD CASES’ of abortion: A PRO-LIFE RESPONSE. United States: Family Research Council publishers.

Maternal Health in the U.S (n.d.). Retrieved: November 17, 2012, from http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/campaigns/demand-dignity/maternal-health-is-a-human-right/maternal-health-in-the-us

Paul, R., & Ehrlich, A. E. (1968). The population bomb. New York: Ballantine Books publishers.