Abortion debate

The abortion debate is a longstanding, ongoing controversy that touches on the moral, legal, medical, and religious aspects of induced abortion. In English-speaking countries, the debate most visibly polarizes around adherents of the self-described "pro-choice" and "pro-life" movements. Pro-choice emphasizes a woman's right to bodily autonomy, while the pro-life position argues that a fetus is a human deserving of legal protection, separate from the will of the mother. Both terms are considered loaded in mainstream media, where terms such as "abortion rights" or "anti-abortion" are generally preferred.
Each movement has, with varying results, sought to influence public opinion and to attain legal support for its position. Many who take a position argue that abortion is essentially a moral issue, concerning the beginning of human personhood, rights of the fetus, and bodily integrity. The debate has become a political and legal issue in some countries with anti-abortion campaigners seeking to enact, maintain and expand anti-abortion laws, while abortion-rights campaigners seek to repeal or ease such laws and expand access to the procedure. Abortion laws vary considerably between jurisdictions, ranging from outright prohibition of the procedure to public funding of abortion. The availability of safe abortion also varies across the world and exists mainly in places that legalize abortion.

Quotes

• The goal was ‘every child a wanted child’; it should also have been ‘every abortion a wanted abortion’, but the two sides of the phony debate were never to meet.
  • Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman (1999)

See also

• Abortion case law