The Controversial Issue Of Abortion

Over time, abortion has raised a debate of two questions. When exactly does a woman have the right to abort the fetus? When does the unborn child have a right to his own life? The political definition of abortion is invading the personal privacy rights of women. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a legal induced abortion is defined as an intervention performed by a licensed clinician (e.g. a physician, nurse- midwife…) that is intended to terminate an ongoing pregnancy. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy resulting in the death of the fetus so that it cannot be born (bpas.org). Being that abortion is such a controversial issue, there have been different opinions formed in our culture and society today, which causes it to be so important. Women choose to take the abortion route when discovering that they are pregnant because of cultural norms and governmental regulations. Where do China and the United States stand on the issue of abortion? Abortion is most commonly found

in China and also the United States of America. Government regulations have caused the abortion rate in China to be higher than that of the United States because of China’s “One-Child Policy” which states that families are willing to abort the female offspring in hopes of conceiving a male offspring because male babies are valued over the females. Being that women of all ages participate in the procedural abortions because of China’s “One-Child Policy” and cultural norms, government regulations has played the biggest role.
Government regulations are the deciding factor in abortion.

Government regulations consists of requirements the government imposes on individuals to achieve government purposes (econlib.org). In the United States, Roe vs. Wade was a monumental court case, passed in 1973, concerning abortion that gave women the right to terminate their pregnancy within the allotted amount of time, before the end of their first trimester, or within the first three months for virtually any reason, without interference from the state. This case focused on the 14th amendment which addresses the equal protection of the law implicated by John Locke’s natural rights of life, liberty, and property (Texas Law Review, 2015). Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey became another important case for abortion that coincides with Roe v. Case, which banned abortion if it could endanger the mother’s life. This case also prohibited the abortion right to minors without parental

consent.
With China being a communist country, they dictate births the most. China has a government regulation called “One-Child Policy.” The policy was put in place in 1979 by Deng Xioping to temporarily limit China’s population growth. China’s “One-Child Policy” has been in place for more than thirty-two years. The abortions that happen in China come from the limitation of families to have only one offspring. The male offspring are favored the most, when a woman has a baby girl before a baby boy, the girl is to be terminated in hopes of the next child being a boy. If the woman bears their second child then they are forced to abort the child because they are considered breaking the law.
In order to fulfill this study of my perception of China having a higher abortion rate than that of the United States and to prove that government regulations play a major role in the statistics surrounding abortion, I will be using descriptive scholarly articles and Galileo for my findings.