Abortion should stay legal

"Seventy-seven percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant." "Planned Parenthood advertisement 1. Studies have shown that children coming from unwanted pregnancies have a harder time in life. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com... In this article, published in 2015, the author, David A. Grimes, former Chief of the Abortion Surveillance Branch at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), states that; "Psychiatric hospitalization was twice as common. Delinquency was twice as common, and criminal activity was three times higher. Registration for public drunkenness was 50 percent higher. The likelihood of receiving public assistance between ages of 16 and 21 years was six times higher and of having learning disorders two times higher". This shows that children who grow up in situations of maternal rejection end up in much worse situations than their peers, who came from planned pregnancies. The article also states that the effects of being born unwanted appeared as early as third grade, where the children were under-performing in school. These lead to lives of poverty, crime, and alcoholism. 2. Pregnancy should never be mandatory. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk... No matter the circumstance, if a woman doesn't want to be a mother, she shouldn't have to be. Women have a moral right to decide what they want to do with their bodies. If women can't abort pregnancies, then they are actively restricted from this right. I agree with pro-lifers on the fact that the fetus is a human too. But, the fetus is inside the woman's body, and every human being has a right to their body. "The important US Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade to some extent supported that view when it ruled that a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy came under the freedom of personal choice in family matters and was protected by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution" (BBC) This quote shows that the act of illegalizing abortion is unconstitutional, and goes against basic human rights. 3. Abortion is a safe medical procedure. Source: http://time.com... Did you know that getting your tonsils removed is riskier than safe, legal abortion? "Researchers at University of California San Francisco wanted to understand, from a medical standpoint, the safety of abortions, so they analyzed 54,911 of them performed from 2009-2010 on women, as well as the healthcare services the women received in the six weeks following the abortion. Of those abortions, only 2.1% resulted in a complication"considerably lower than the 7% complication rate for wisdom tooth removal and 9% rate for tonsillectomy, the authors point out. Major complications that required hospitalization, surgery or a blood transfusion occurred in only 0.23% of the women in the study"126 cases" (Oaklander 2014). However, illegal abortion is much more dangerous, because they are illegal, so there are no legally mandated safety procedures. These illegal, unsafe abortions shouldn't be the last resort. 4. Abortion is not equivalent to murder. Source: https://www.theodysseyonline.com... No one is denying that fetuses are living things. Anything with cells is by definition, living. They are as much alive as leaves on a tree, the bacteria living in our stomachs, and the pigs and chickens we slaughter for food. "All embryonic organisms resemble a developed version of said organism. Additionally, a fetus does not have the mature, necessary neuroanatomical system required to feel pain until 26 weeks gestation" (Lunsford 2016). Because of this, nearly all abortions, 89% to be exact, take place during the first trimester. During this time, the fetus is attached to the placenta and umbilical cord, and thus, is completely dependent on the health of the mother. So it cannot be considered a separate organism because it cannot exist outside of the womb. 5. It is time for men to stop dictating the actions of women. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk... "only if women have the right to choose whether or not to have children can they achieve equality with men: men don't get pregnant, and so aren't restricted in the same way" (BBC) One of the biggest arguments in today's society is equality, and most people say that they want equality. But, if women aren't allowed to abort pregnancies, they cannot achieve equality with men. Men will never be pregnant, so they can't truly understand what it's like to be pregnant when they don't want to be. "No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother" Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.