By: Joshua Nakhavanit

Abortion is a medical procedure that terminates a pregnancy. It’s usually carried out via surgery or prescribed medication. Two other key vocabularies are conception and fetus. Conception is when sperm fertilizes an egg and makes a woman pregnant. A fetus is a zygote that fully develops at 11 weeks old and continues to develop until the baby is born, after about nine months of pregnancy.

Abortion is a very controversial topic and is debated heavily in America on whether it should be legal. Those who are for abortion—or are “Pro-Choice”—believe that the woman should have total control over whether she wants an abortion. Due to the fact that the fetus is inside a woman’s body, “Pro-Life” people argue that a fetus is an unborn baby and that women who are pregnant do not have the right to have an abortion. They believe that life begins at conception. Whether they believe this for moral reasons or religious ones varies.

Recently the Supreme Court of the United States determined that states can freely regulate abortion laws and regulations. This will lead to many states that ban abortion or heavily regulate it. Today in the U.S., almost all abortions are performed at 13 weeks or fewer of pregnancy. Only a very small number of abortions are carried out after 4.5 months.

There are many reasons for abortions including financial difficulty, medical reasons (such as to save the mother’s life in the event of a tubal pregnancy) and personal reasons (as in the case of a rape or incest victim who becomes pregnant and does not wish to give birth to her attacker’s child). Most women who have abortions are in poverty and half of women who have abortions already have kids.