Autonomous Reproductive Rights Argument Outline

¶ … Autonomous Reproductive Rights

Argument Outline

Abortion should be encouraged as an autonomous right of the individual but its use as a callous method of birth control should be discouraged in favor of better alternatives.

Reproductive rights are legally protected by constitutional principles.

Supreme Court determined that abortion is not a matter of state law and that anti-abortion laws violate fundamental rights and privacies presumed under the U.S. Constitution

That means women have a constitutional right to terminate pregnancy if they wish without interference from the government.

Therefore, nobody may legally try to interfere with or prevent an adult woman from seeking an abortion if she wants to terminate a pregnancy.

According to the Supreme Court, state laws may only restrict abortions for specific reasons and only during the last two trimesters of pregnancy.

State laws may regulate abortion during the second trimester only as necessary to ensure maternal health.

2. State laws may only regulate more generally or prohibit abortion during the third trimester. Still, they may not interfere if abortion is necessary to protect the health of the mother.

II. The principal objections to abortion are seriously flawed.

A. The religious objection to abortion is absolutely impermissible as a basis for U.S. law.

B. The ethical objection to early-term abortion is logically invalid.

III. Support for reproductive rights does not negate certain ethical obligations.

A. There is an ethical obligation not to inflict pain on any fetus capable of feeling pain.

B. There is an ethical obligation to reserve abortion as a last resort and not as a callous form of birth control instead of more socially (and medically) responsible forms of birth control.

Since 1973, abortion has been legal throughout the United States (Dershowitz, 2002). According to the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, state laws could no longer prohibit abortion. The Court determined that those constitutional protections and rights that are expressly included in the Bill of Rights also give rise to certain privacies such as in reproductive decisions. States may not interfere at all with abortion during the first trimester at all; they may impose certain decisions during the second trimester if medically necessary to protect the health or life of the mother; they may prohibit abortion outright in the third trimester (Dershowitz, 2002).

That is because the Supreme Court decided in 1973 that reproductive autonomy could not be infringed upon by government (Dershowitz, 2002). While the U.S. Constitution does specifically refer to any right of privacy, the Court had already established in earlier decisions that such a general right does flow from the more explicit constitutional protections and principals (Dershowitz, 2002; Edwards, Wallenberg, & Lineberry, 2008). Those decisions also arose in connection with reproductive rights, such as the right to receive printed literature about birth control, in particular. In Roe v. Wade, the Court applied those privacy rights to the abortion controversy to settle it once and for all on a national level.

There are two specific lines of argument typically used to argue against the right to seek an abortion: (1) religious values that condemn abortion as a "sin"; and (2) ethical concern for the fetus (Reiman, 1999). The first basis for objection is absolutely impermissible under modern U.S. Constitutional law (Dershowitz, 2002; Edwards, Wallenberg, & Lineberry, 2008). That is simply because the First Constitutional Amendment expressly prohibits the government from making any laws of religion. The religious beliefs that "life begins at conception" or that "every human life is created in the image of God" are perfectly acceptable beliefs that are (also) protected under the 1st Amendment. However, no religious beliefs of any kind may be used as the basis for secular law in the U.S. (Dershowitz, 2002).

The second principal argument against abortion is that it is cruel because it causes pain to the fetus (Reiman, 1999). That particular objection is valid in principle (as a concern) but it is invalid scientifically until the point of gestational development where the fetus becomes capable of sensing pain and discomfort. There is no ethical issue prior to that point of fetal development. Once the fetus develops sufficiently to sense physical pain, there is an ethical obligation to eliminate that pain. However, there is not any ethical objection to abortion if that pain is prevented medically (Reiman, 1999). Many people believe that there is a more important moral obligation not to force women to bear children they do not want because that is unfair to any child born into that situation instead of into a loving home where the child is genuinely desired and loved.