Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Abortion ethical and legal issues
Abortion ethical and legal issues
Abortion general notes
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Abortion ethical and legal issues
Abortion Cases of the 19th Century
Although abortions were very dangerous, as well as socially unacceptable during the nineteenth century, women were not altogether unable to obtain abortions and many suffered accusations of infanticide. Here I will present a few of the more famous cases from the period, demonstrating the occurrence of abortion, the availability of providers, and the consequences faced by those who necessitated the procedure.
One case that dominated the pages of The Revolution, the paper owned by Susan B. Anthony and edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, was the sentencing of a young girl to hang for the death of her child. While not a case of abortion, the death was termed an infanticide and drew strong opinions from the public as well as both the editors. The unfortunate Hester Vaughan, an English girl living in Philadelphia, was discovered in a tiny tenement room devoid of furniture February 8, 1868, forty-eight hours after giving birth. Alone during labor, without food or heat, she was found frail and feverish with her baby dead beside her. She was immediately brought to the police and imprisoned, under the assumption that she had killed her child. For thirty dollars, she acquired the services of a lawyer by the name of Goforth and underwent a brief trial. Having never actually confessed to committing the crime, she was nonetheless sentenced to death by County Judge Ludlow, and placed in Moyamensing Prison until her execution.
Once news of the case reached the public, the women of The Revolution unleashed their sympathies in article after article denouncing the indictment. In an August 6, 1868 editorial it was written:
“ If that poor child of sorrow is hung, it will be deliberate, downright murder. Her death will be far more horrible infanticide than was the killing of her child. She is the child of our society and civilization, begotten and born of it, seduced by it, by the judge who pronounced her sentence, by the bar and jury, by the legislature that enacted the law (in which because a woman, she had no vote or voice), by the church and the pulpit that sanctify the law and deeds, of all these will her blood, yea, and her virtue too, be required! All these were the joint seducer, and now see if by hanging her, they will also become her murderer.”
However, Hester never had to face the day of her execution and instead spent nearly two years in jail.
Julia Tutwiler fame came from her devotion in education, prison reform, and writing. Julia Tutwiler has been said to been fifty years ahead of her time with the legacy she left behind. The legacy Julia Tutwiler has left behind is still notice today in the education system, prison reform, and her writings. In the education system Tutwiler forced ten girls entry into the University of Alabama overruling protest that the university would lose prestige. She would also later help establish a technical school for girls called the University of Montevallo. Tutwiler also changed by her many prison reforms. She reformed prisons by separating men from women and juveniles from criminals. She also implemented sanitation, inspection of all prisons, instituted schools, and even religious services for inmates. Tutwiler’s contribution in writing can easily be seen by her poem “Alabama” which became timeless after being adopted as Alabama’s state song. Tutwiler’s life can be seen as a life full of accomplishments, even being one of the first women being inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame. (Hall of Fame).
The evidence between witnesses seeing Lizzie buy poison, washing a brown stained dress, her inconsistencies in the alibis, and her lacking of emotion all pointed to Lizzie Borden’s guilt. Jacob applied society’s outlook on an 1800’s American women as frail, feeble-minded, morally driven individuals who are incapable of a planned murder, to support her argument that Lizzie, no matter how guilty she may have been, would not be convicted of murder. Convicting Lizzie of murder meant opposing the established woman stereotypes which endangered the cohesive mindset of
Ephraim Wheeler was convicted and hanged for the rape of his thirteen year old daughter Betsy Wheeler. It occurred in the woods of rural Massachusetts on June 8, 1805. The incident was reported to Hannah Wheeler, Betsy's mother. Hannah Wheeler then reported the incident to Justice Robert Walker, who then arrested Ephraim Wheeler on that day. What was expected of a wife in 1805 Massachusetts, when confronted with such a vicious criminal act? Having such a crime inflicted upon yourself, would be hard enough to live through, but to have such an evil act forced upon your helpless thirteen year old daughter- by a husband and father is unfathomable.
Noonan, John T, Jr. A Private Choice: Abortion in America in the Seventies. Collier Macmillan Publishers, London: 1979.
The topic of my paper is abortion. In Judith Jarvis Thomson's paper, “A Defense of Abortion,” she presented a typical anti-abortion argument and tried to prove it false. I believe there is good reason to agree that the argument is sound and Thompson's criticisms of it are false.
Buechler, Steven M., & F. Kurt Cylke, Jr. Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues . Toronto: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997.
Ever since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, abortion has changed its course in society. With the new decision made by the United States, abortion is now legal. Many abortions were performed before the Supreme Court decision, but the settlement made it less risky for the doctors involved. Abortion has caused society to be divided between a pro-choice group and pro-life group. Two groups with struggles that will never end.
Until the mid 1800s, abortion was unrestricted and unregulated in the United States. The justifications for criminalizing it varied from state to state. One big reason was population control, which addressed fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly ...
The 1870 prosecution of Archibald Trammell and his two sons for an abortion performed on Trammell’s daughter.
In 1900 a law was passed banning women from having an abortion. Before 1900, abortions were a common practice and usually performed by a midwife, but doctors saw this as a financial threat and pushed for a law making abortions illegal. From 1900 until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a women’s right to have an abortion, women who wanted to have an abortion did so secretly. These secret abortions were performed
task of speaking to secure her own freedom when she was placed on trial for obstructing the draft in 1917. The country was awash in patriotism, and she was prosecuted as an enemy of the state. When preparing her speech, she realized that a seated jury would be a microcosm of the country's national spirit. Jurors may have had children or loved ones committed or lost to the Great War. Her position, though heartfelt and eloquently expressed, with an attempt to express her own patriotism, was subversive and threatening to the population.
Both syntax and diction were largely presented as Polly Baker threw rhetorical questions of why she was being punished legally if it was only supposed to be a religious punishment. Even including that God, himself, helped make her children, even though it was a crime to have children without being married, and her children nicknamed, “Bastard Children.” When all put together “The Speech of Miss Polly Baker” creates a passionate tone that is fighting against the injustice of the judicial system at that
In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
The first chapter of “Working in Groups” focuses on group communication, the first aspect being the key elements of group communication (Engleberg and
Entrepreneurship incorporates unconstrained imagination and a readiness to settle on choices without strong information. The entrepreneur may be driven by a need to make something new or assemble something unmistakable. As new ventures have low achievement rates, the business person should have impressive tirelessness. Because of this, the entrepreneur may have the best risk of achievement by concentrating on a business sector corner either too little or too new to have been commanded by built up organizations.