Teenagers: Discuss Why Abortion Should be a Women's Right?

Abortion and Teenagers
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Abortion and Teenagers
“I am mature enough to know that I am too immature enough to have a baby.” This was a statement of a minor to her attorney in a hearing in Michigan 1992. Today many believe that illegalizing abortion of women has dire consequences not only to women but also to society as a whole. The debate on abortion started to hit the discussion of many governments in the early 1970s when feminist movements were fighting for the rights of women. They argued that women will never be equal to men as long as they are denied control over their reproductive lives no matter how they advance on other areas like labor force. Therefore, they demanded for abortion as part of women's right and was to be available to all women regardless of their statuses. Today, the scope of abortion has shifted. Laws have been implemented that allow parents, husbands or governments to prevent women from having abortions. It has been shifted from being a right to a privilege where many women are prevented from having abortions.
Some states prohibit abortion and do not have funding for poor women in the society to have abortions, others do not even fund for abortions for women who have been raped. Some have laws that require women to obtain the consent of their husbands or parents before having an abortion. Others require that before a woman can have an abortion should receive counseling on abortion alternatives and wait for some hours before they have it. The legal obstacles to abortions forces women to travel to different places to have a legal abortion (MacDonagh, 1996)
Women should be allowed to have abortions since pregnancy has individual consequences. First, pregnant women are faced with social consequences that range from failure of friendships to worse inter-family relationships. Teens drop out of schools and others become isolated from the community all of which impair their emotional health and future life. Additionally, women who bear children out of unwanted pregnancies have another child within a period of two years which inhibits them from continue with further studies or finding jobs. Secondly, keeping pregnancy is emotionally difficult especially when one is prevented from having abortion. Therefore, are likely to suffer from depression and end up committing suicide especially if the pregnancy was unwanted than those women who are responsible for their pregna...