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| No | 72% | 202 votes | Total: 279 votes | |
| Yes | 28% | 77 votes |
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Add to FavoritesNo issue is more divisive than abortion, and it's an issue where there is no room for compromise. Those who oppose abortion believe life starts at conception. For anyone who holds that belief, there can be no hedging. Abortion is morally wrong.
Abortion is legal in the United States, thanks to the controversial 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. One school of legal thought holds that Roe v. Wade is bad law, the product of faulty reasoning and the court's imposition of federal authority on what should rightly be a state issue. Although the ruling has been in effect for almost four decades, it may not be the last and final word.
Abortion opponents have always hoped that a Supreme Court of more conservative bent would one day rethink Roe. As a practical matter, however, given current political realities - a Democratic president and Democratic Senate, prospects for a rightward shift in court philosophy are nil, at least for the next four years.
The law aside, abortion on demand still does not enjoy overwhelming support in the U.S. Indeed, a public opinion poll in September 2008 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that only a slight majority of Americans favor keeping abortion legal.
In addition, many Americans who believe women should have the right to have a legal abortion would never consider abortion as a reproductive option for themselves. There is also considerable support for specific restrictions, such as parental permission for minors. Others are sympathetic of an abortion choice if it is made because of the mother's health, if the unborn child is diagnosed with severe disabilities or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. They have much less tolerance if abortion is used as a form of birth control. And, of course, there are Americans who generally support abortion who find the practice of late-term abortions to be morally repugnant.
Yet, another segment of Americans believe that abortion is a strictly personal decision, and government shouldn't be involved at all in that decision, one way or another. These Americans, espousing a libertarian political philosophy, would be naturally opposed to using federal money to finance a private decision.
The Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976, bans federal funding for abortion in most cases. This is a good law, and should remain in effect. Why should American taxpayers pay for a procedure which many believe to be not only immoral, but a form of infanticide?
Learn more about this author, Jake Betz.
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Yes
Like the many other reproductive health and birth control services already being publicly funded for low income people and minors, abortion should receive the same funding. Like it or not abortion is legal. As a legal medical service it shouldn't have a bunch of red tape around it just because individuals that would not have an abortion think that their views deserve to be pressed onto others.
An abortion is far less cruel then tossing yet another unwanted child into our poor excuse for a foster care system or creating more low income families. It is in the tax payers best interests to fund a simple relatively inexpensive procedure then the have to pay for yet another human beings costs of living for an indefinite period. That is not to mention the increased risk for a child raised in an unstable situation to become an addict, criminal or both. Which is cheaper an abortion or foster care, drug treatment, and jail time?
Perhaps if we put more focus on educating our teenagers about effective birth control methods rather then preaching abstinence, and made sterilization easier for childless adults there would be a smaller number of abortions performed per year. To continue to throw up red tape around abortion at every opportunity is really just treating the symptom. It would be more in the anti-abortionists interests to start advocating sexual education and effective methods of birth control then to continue to find means to throw up red tape like lack of government funding and parental consent laws.
Learn more about this author, Heather Morrison.
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