User:HuskyHuskie/Abortion debate

''This is an outline of a possible revamped Abortion debate article, per discussion at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion/Workshop

The Abortion debate refers to the political and ethical debate surrounding abortion, the intentional termination of a pregnancy. Some persons favor making abortion procedures illegal in all or nearly all circumstances; other persons support unlimited access to abortion procedures for any pregnant woman. Between these ends of the debate are many persons who support or oppose the procedure depending on many factors.

While abortion has existed since prehistory, the abortion debate is largely a product of the industrialized age, and is more active in some countries than others. As would therefore be expected, it is probably most heavily debated in industrialized countries, where access to such procedures is at least theoretically easier to obtain than in less-developed countries. But in some industrialized countries, the abortion debate has become a major political issue, whereas in others, such as Russia, there is more widespread consensus on the matter. The debate has been further complicated in recent years as a result of advances in medicine.

The abortion debate has multiple points of focus. For some, primacy rests in the issue of bodily rights, be it those of the pregnant woman or those of the fetus she carries. Others focus on health issues, primarily on how pregnancy or abortion affect the mother, physically and mentally. Still another area of debate is in the economic realm; such a discussion has many facets, including the affect of pregnancy on a woman's own economic potential and the impact of bringing into existence children who may require support from the state. In some cases the issues debated surrounding abortion are tied directly to religious precepts, but non-religious ethical arguments have also contributed significantly to the discussion.

One aspect making the abortion debate as contentious as it has been has been the inability of the antagonists in the debate to agree even on the terminology to use in discussing abortion. Not only do the two sides disagree on what to call some of the procedures and what to call the subject of the procedure, they even disagree on how to properly refer to each other. Those generally favoring a legal status for abortion often call themselves Pro-choice activists; those generally opposing a legal status for abortion often call themselves Pro-life advocates. However, "pro-choicers" rarely call their opponents "pro-life", instead preferring to call them "anti-choice", and "pro-lifers" prefer to call their opponents "pro-abortion" or other terms.

Terminology
A central issue at the heart of the abortion debate is answering the question, "What is being aborted?". In the eyes of most pro-life activists, the fetus removed from the woman's body in an abortion is an individual human being with legal right to exist as any other living person. To pro-choice advocates, this fetus is still a part of the woman's body, with no more rights to independent existence than any other part of her body. The irreconcilability of the viewpoints of the two sides is largely,(but certainly not entirely) tied up in this difference of opinion.

Because they see the fetus as a part of the woman's body, those who favor legal access to abortion use the phrase "pro-choice", to emphasize the right of a woman to choose what to do with her own body. If a woman has the right to have a kidney surgically removed, and the fetus has a similar status to such internal organs, then it should be her "choice" to remove the fetus.

Because they see the fetus as an independent person with rights equal to other persons, those who oppose abortion use the phrase "pro-life", to emphasize the right of the fetus to have its right to life respected and protected. Just as persons who are already born have the right to expect the authority of the state to protect them from those who would do them harm, then the fetus has the right to expect its life to be protected from harm as well.