In 1973, the United States Supreme Court declared, based on a 7-2 ruling, that prohibiting abortion was unconstitutional because it violated a woman’s right to privacy…in other words: her body, her choice…not the government’s. So the question ponders, why are we still on a political issue that was declared non-political five decades ago? There’s a number of rabbit holes to be dug into when answering this, but the fact is that none of them actually matter in the first place.
The problem is that people really don’t give a hoot unless it directly affects them personally. The biggest misconception that boggles our society on this topic is that if “x” is a woman’s issue, it only affects women- wrong. A few of the major reasons why someone might be a pro-life supporter, is because they want to protect the life of the unborn, and don’t want their tax dollars funding the so-called “murder.” Jenny Black, CEO and President of Planned Parenthood in South Atlantic, says “If lawmakers are really interested in making lives better, we have a long list of priorities they can focus on.” And when it comes to breaking down the argument of not wanting one’s tax dollars to fund the abortion they are against…you can’t help slapping your palm to your forehead. This is an entirely non-factual claim, abortions are not at all funded by taxes. As a matter of fact, it has been proven in a host of studies that it is actually more costly (and not just financially speaking) to force unwanted births. The truth is, outlawing abortion exhibits an enormous deal of adverse effects on society as a whole, not just women alone.
The United States exhibited a drastic decline in crime onward from 1985. Economists tried investigation of presidential and other social reasonings, but it was found that Roe v. Wade had the most proving correlation. Clark Merrefield published a scholarly journal, New Economic Research Resurfaces Debate about the Link Between Legalized Abortion and Crime Reduction. He provides a body of analysis claiming that 45% of the decline in U.S. crime rates over the past three decades are accounted by the legalization of abortion following Roe v. Wade, as supported from the National Bureau of Economic Research. This supplements the thesis that the generations that consisted of wanted births after Roe v. Wade, were naturally less viable for the outcome of inflated crime. The headline from one of the literature works Merrefield includes put it, “Unwanted Children Are at an Elevated Risk for Less Favorable Life Outcomes on Multiple Dimensions, Including Criminal Involvement, and The Legalization of Abortion Appears to Have Dramatically Reduced The Number of Unwanted Births.”
Not only is it more costly to have tax dollars fund the necessity of more police force, incarceration, preventative measures, homelessness, orphanages, healthcare, food stamps, etc, it is also costing the good of society, including people’s livelihoods. It is wildly more expensive to prohibit abortion, than it is to outlaw abortion, for E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. The trick to depolarizing parties on “political” issues, such as women’s rights, is proving and trusting that creating equality for women, is beneficial for all of us, when looking at the bigger picture through our interconnectedness as a society.
Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but pushing them onto others is unjust and inappropriate. Someone might believe, “everyone should go to college,” but they do not have a say in what someone chooses to do with their education, career, and their life, especially when this choice does not concern anyone other than themselves. (Pause: before a pro-lifer counters that it concerns someone else in that it concern’s the fetus’s life- reread this article first off, and also be mindful that legally speaking, nobody is entitled to life against the will and health/well-being of someone else’s.) You are free to hold your own morals on whether or not you believe abortion is morally justifiable, but it is unjustifiable to politically force your beliefs onto someone else.
You are entitled to your own opinion, but a woman is entitled to her right to freely make whatever decision she choses with her body, without governmental intervention…as declared by The Supreme Court fifty years ago. It’s not your business, and it is not “business” PERIOD.
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