The Response: The debate over abortion is a fierce and contentious one. Many parents of pregnant minors are intolerant of those who wish to have abortions and would be unwilling to allow abortions in any case, regardless of the interests of the child and mother. Furthermore, any teenager that is unfit to make the decision about abortion is even less equipped to be a parent.

Even former abortion practitioners from varying backgrounds and religions have a new view on abortion. These changes of heart were caused by psychological, and scientific, as well as obvious religious reasons. The doctor that I mentioned earlier in this essay, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, performed 60,000 abortions and supervised 10,000 more before scientific evidence and the use of an ultrasound, convinced him he was promoting and participating what he now calls "the most atrocious holocaust in the history of the United States." Other doctors refuse to perform even legal abortions, saying they should, as doctors, save lives rather than destroy them. Although abortion is regarded as a women's right, it should be banned because its murder, has many psychological side effects, and there is an alternative, adoption.

Another reason that abortions are immoral is how they are so viciously done. Everyday, innocent, harmless fetuses that could soon be laughing children are being brutally destroyed. One form of abortion is to cut the fetus into pieces with serrated forceps before being removed, piece by piece from the uterus by suction with a vacuum aspirator. Another form consists of bringing the fetus feet first into the birth canal, puncturing its skull with a sharp instrument, and sucking out the brain tissue. The body parts, such as the head, are designated letters by the doctors and nurses, rather than referring to the parts as what they are. In my opinion this is for the doctors who cannot face the reality of what they are doing. The remains of the fetus or embryo, as the case may be, are put into everyday, plastic buckets and then sent to a dumpster where these precious bones and limbs that used to be part of a precious, created life are disposed.

Since the clinic closed Viv is regularly stopped on the street by patients asking her to re-open. In addition to abortions, the clinic provided birth control and contraception, nutritional information, and prenatal advice. The remaining women's health facilities are swamped. Most of Viv's patients were poor and on Medicaid, ranging in age from 13 to 47. Many were already mothers who simply couldn't afford another child. “Some of them would ask me if they were going to go to hell. I'd say I don't think so, but that had to be between them and their god and not someone else's god." Sometimes she would tell a woman to go home and think more about it. "When it's done, it's done. You have to be sure," she would tell them.

Scientific research has successfully shown that abortion causes many psychological side effects. It leaves the women with many strong feelings about their decisions. They feel sadness, wishing things could have been different, and grief for a lost life. Guilt arises because they know a fetus represents an independent life. Anger builds up towards other people having to do with their decision. Sometimes the mother may feel that she has in fact been abandoned. Most of all, the mother feels ashamed and embarrassed about her action. People close to the mother may be angry at her for ending her pregnancy and make it difficult for her to deal with it. Even years after the abortion, women tend to remember the regretful and painful experience. They usually wonder what the baby would have looked like and what its birthday would’ve been. Thirty-three year old Michelle Urbain of South Florida has had five abortions so far. She realizes now that they all left emotional scares on her that are unbearable. "They weren’t just masses of cell, they were children I was killing,” she said. Though it may be a

Some topics in this essay:
Social Change, Random Chance”, Supreme Court, Americans Pro-lifers, I’ Doing, Vivian McAlister, Bernard Nathanson, Roe Wade, , Kristina Kleg, abortion women, rape incest, human life, issue abortion, opposed abortion, roe wade, women control, women's health, decision abortion, own bodies, life doesn't mean, inside mother’s womb, women control own, control own bodies,