pro choice abortion thesis statement

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Thesis Statement for Abortion

Thesis Statement for Abortion

• Categories: Abortion Ethics

About this sample

Words: 515 |

Published: Mar 20, 2024

Words: 515 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

The pro-choice perspective, the pro-life perspective, ethical considerations, legal implications.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof. Kifaru

Verified writer

• Expert in: Social Issues Philosophy

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1190 words

3 pages / 1295 words

4 pages / 1933 words

1 pages / 487 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Abortion

So, should abortion be legal or illegal? As a college student, I recognize the importance of discussing the contentious issue of abortion and its legality. The complexity of this topic calls for a thoughtful examination of [...]

Abortion has been a highly contentious issue in political, social, and moral debates for decades. While some argue for the right to choose, others vehemently oppose the practice on religious and ethical grounds. This essay will [...]

Abortion has been a contentious issue for centuries and has sparked heated debate around the world. Women have been seeking abortions for various reasons such as medical, economic, social, and personal needs. However, despite [...]

Abortion is a highly controversial topic that has sparked intense debate and divided public opinion for decades. While some argue that it is a woman's right to choose, others believe that it is morally and ethically wrong. In [...]

Adopting a pro-choice perspective on abortion is crucial for upholding women's bodily autonomy, promoting their reproductive rights, and ensuring their overall well-being. By recognizing the detrimental consequences of [...]

From the moment of conception, till the final breath is taken, there is a beautiful portion in between that we call life. Unfortunately, not all people are given the choice to personally partake in this distinctive experience. [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion: An Argument for Abortion Rights Featuring the Rev. Carlton Veazey

Since the Supreme Court’s historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade , the issue of a woman’s right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America. Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception – making abortion tantamount to homicide. Abortion rights advocates, in contrast, maintain that women have a right to decide what happens to their bodies – sometimes without any restrictions.

To explore the case for abortion rights, the Pew Forum turns to the Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, who for more than a decade has been president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition advocates for reproductive choice and religious freedom on behalf of about 40 religious groups and organizations. Prior to joining the coalition, Veazey spent 33 years as a pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

A counterargument explaining the case against abortion rights is made by the Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

Featuring: The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, President, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Interviewer: David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Question & Answer

Can you explain how your Christian faith informs your views in support of abortion rights?

I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a Baptist minister for many years in Memphis, Tenn. One of the things that he instilled in me – I used to hear it so much – was free will, free will, free will. It was ingrained in me that you have the ability to make choices. You have the ability to decide what you want to do. You are responsible for your decisions, but God has given you that responsibility, that option to make decisions.

I had firsthand experience of seeing black women and poor women being disproportionately impacted by the fact that they had no choices about an unintended pregnancy, even if it would damage their health or cause great hardship in their family. And I remember some of them being maimed in back-alley abortions; some of them died. There was no legal choice before Roe v. Wade .

But in this day and time, we have a clearer understanding that men and women are moral agents and equipped to make decisions about even the most difficult and complex matters. We must ensure a woman can determine when and whether to have children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs and without governmental interference or coercion. We must also ensure that women have the resources to have a healthy, safe pregnancy, if that is their decision, and that women and families have the resources to raise a child with security.

The right to choose has changed and expanded over the years since Roe v. Wade . We now speak of reproductive justice – and that includes comprehensive sex education, family planning and contraception, adequate medical care, a safe environment, the ability to continue a pregnancy and the resources that make that choice possible. That is my moral framework.

You talk about free will, and as a Christian you believe in free will. But you also said that God gave us free will and gave us the opportunity to make right and wrong choices. Why do you believe that abortion can, at least in some instances, be the right choice?

Dan Maguire, a former Jesuit priest and professor of moral theology and ethics at Marquette University, says that to have a child can be a sacred choice, but to not have a child can also be a sacred choice.

And these choices revolve around circumstances and issues – like whether a person is old enough to care for a child or whether a woman already has more children than she can care for. Also, remember that medical circumstances are the reason many women have an abortion – for example, if they are having chemotherapy for cancer or have a life-threatening chronic illness – and most later-term abortions occur because of fetal abnormalities that will result in stillbirth or the death of the child. These are difficult decisions; they’re moral decisions, sometimes requiring a woman to decide if she will risk her life for a pregnancy.

Abortion is a very serious decision and each decision depends on circumstances. That’s why I tell people: I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice. And that’s an important distinction.

You’ve talked about the right of a woman to make a choice. Does the fetus have any rights?

First, let me say that the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.

From a religious perspective, it’s more important to consider the moral issues involved in making a decision about abortion. Also, it’s important to remember that religious traditions have very different ideas about the status of the fetus. Roman Catholic doctrine regards a fertilized egg as a human being. Judaism holds that life begins with the first breath.

What about at the very end of a woman’s pregnancy? Does a fetus acquire rights after the point of viability, when it can survive outside the womb? Or let me ask it another way: Assuming a woman is healthy and her fetus is healthy, should the woman be able to terminate her pregnancy until the end of her pregnancy?

There’s an assumption that a woman would end a viable pregnancy carelessly or without a reason. The facts don’t bear this out. Most abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Late abortions are virtually always performed for the most serious medical and health reasons, including saving the woman’s life.

But what if such a case came before you? If you were that woman’s pastor, what would you say?

I would talk to her in a helpful, positive, respectful way and help her discuss what was troubling her. I would suggest alternatives such as adoption.

Let me shift gears a little bit. Many Americans have said they favor a compromise, or reaching a middle-ground policy, on abortion. Do you sympathize with this desire and do you think that both sides should compromise to end this rancorous debate?

I have been to more middle-ground and common-ground meetings than I can remember and I’ve never been to one where we walked out with any decision.

That being said, I think that we all should agree that abortion should be rare. How do we do that? We do that by providing comprehensive sex education in schools and in religious congregations and by ensuring that there is accurate information about contraception and that contraception is available. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has not been willing to pass a bill to fund comprehensive sex education, but they are willing to put a lot of money into failed and harmful abstinence-only programs that often rely on scare tactics and inaccurate information.

Former Surgeon General David Satcher has shown that abstinence-only programs do not work and that we should provide young people with the information to protect themselves. Education that stresses abstinence and provides accurate information about contraception will reduce the abortion rate. That is the ground that I stand on. I would say that here is a way we can work together to reduce the need for abortions.

Abortion has become central to what many people call the “culture wars.” Some consider it to be the most contentious moral issue in America today. Why do many Catholics, evangelical Christians and other people of faith disagree with you?

I was raised to respect differing views so the rigid views against abortion are hard for me to understand. I will often tell someone on the other side, “I respect you. I may disagree with your theological perspective, but I respect your views. But I think it’s totally arrogant for you to tell me that I need to believe what you believe.” It’s not that I think we should not try to win each other over. But we have to respect people’s different religious beliefs.

But what about people who believe that life begins at conception and that terminating a pregnancy is murder? For them, it may not just be about respecting or tolerating each other’s viewpoints; they believe this is an issue of life or death. What do you say to people who make that kind of argument?

I would say that they have a right to their beliefs, as do I. I would try to explain that my views are grounded in my religion, as are theirs. I believe that we must ensure that women are treated with dignity and respect and that women are able to follow the dictates of their conscience – and that includes their reproductive decisions. Ultimately, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that women have the ability to make decisions of conscience and have access to reproductive health services.

Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view?

Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that will have serious health consequences.

Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.

So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.

This transcript has been edited for clarity, spelling and grammar.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Religion & Abortion
• Religion & Social Values

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many places, especially in Europe

Public opinion on abortion, americans overwhelmingly say access to ivf is a good thing, broad public support for legal abortion persists 2 years after dobbs, what the data says about abortion in the u.s., most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Age & Generations
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• Methodological Research
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essay Examples >
• Essays Topics >
• Essay on Law

Abortion: A Pro-Choice View Argumentative Essay Examples

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Law , Decision , Choice , Life , Abortion , Women , Pregnancy , Social Issues

Words: 1400

Published: 02/12/2020

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

Abortion has been a contentious issue over time. The abortion issue has generated a lot of debate in the public. This has led individuals to pitch their tent with the two different standpoints – the pro-life group and the pro-choice group. The two standpoints have become established over time as both groups have various arguments for their standpoint. Abortion, as an issue, has caused an exclusive two-opinion movement which either stands for, or is against abortion. Either group pushes forward an argument to either support the act or condemn it in its totality. Abortion as an issue has been so much politicized that the ordeal or situation of the individual going through this experience is often ignored at the expense of the larger political or ideological consequence of the action. I believe that abortion should be viewed in the context of the private individual, rather than viewing it from the perspective of an illicit act performed by a segment of people / women. For the sake of this essay, I will be taking the pro-choice standpoint. The reason for my standpoint is not farfetched. I view abortion as a process on which an individual should have a final decision. I am of the opinion that abortion as an issue should be left for the individual to decide if they want or not. Totally abolishing the choice either to have abortion or not, by the promulgation of a law against it would invariably lead to the restriction of choices that individuals have over their lives. Abortion is also often viewed in the context of an act that a woman performs because she has the whim and caprice to do so. However, looking at the broader picture, one would realize that abortion can really become an issue that goes beyond the woman alone. It can reverberate to affect the fortunes of a whole family even if one seeks to look beyond the effect it would have on the individual seeking to procure the act alone. The pro-choice standpoint is of the opinion that woman should have total control over the choice to have an abortion or not. The reason is not far-fetched: the woman knows what she is going through in the context of her situation and is in the best position to take a personal decision on the issue. I believe that this choice should not be taken away from the individual. Opponents of the pro-choice standpoint often put forward the argument that abortion is an unsafe practice that leads to a variety of complications to the mother’s health and can cause significant morbidity and even a loss of the woman’s life. This argument would have held water had it been put forward in the 18th, 19th or even the early 20th century. However, the Roe v Wade decision in 1973 de-criminalized abortion and declared the Texas abortion laws as unconstitutional and invariably declared the law as void and vague. The judges also held that the law infringed on the ninth and fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States (Case Brief Summary, 2013). However, after this ruling, a number of legislation have been put forward which made abortion legal. This has led to the safety of the procedure. As of today, abortion is a totally safe medical procedure when it is performed in the first trimester of pregnancy which corresponds to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The procedure is carried out by physicians who are equipped with the knowledge of the procedure. Doctors also continue to research into ways of making the procedure safer and less stress free for the woman. With this, abortion has become a relatively safe medical procedure which any woman can undergo with little or no fear for any adverse medical outcome. Therefore the argument put forward by pro-life proponents does not hold water any longer. Therefore it can be assumed that as long as abortion is kept legal, it will remain a safe option for women who desire it. It is also pertinent to mention that prior to the period when abortion was de-criminalized; a lot of women were having adverse health outcomes because they procured abortion at an unsafe location. This action led to the development of complication that even led to the death of a lot of women. Therefore, one should realize that whether abortion is legalized or not, a lot of women choose the procedure. However, abortion being criminalized has been associated with adverse health outcomes for women. Therefore, I believe that de-criminalizing it would reduce the number of women that would have developed complications from abortion if they had procured it from a health care professional who knows how to deal with the situation. Abortion has also been stigmatized as a valid contraceptive option by the opponents of the act. However, the fact remains that the number of pregnancies that are not planned needs to be reduced. There is no rational reason why abortion should be singled out as an invalid or undesirable method of contraception just because some people feel that it is morally wrong. There are other choices that a woman has once she has been caught in the web of an unplanned pregnancy. Childbirth and adoption are other choices. The woman should also be able to choose abortion as one of the options that she has to counter the undesirable pregnancy (WHO, 2005). Another look at the implications of legislating against abortion would reveal that the government assumes that women cannot have the autonomy and dignity to take decisions personal to them. It should be notes that the ability to procure legal abortion is a critical action that women desire in order to live a dignified life. Honoring the choice that a woman makes means honoring their dignity. It also means acknowledging that women are capable of making intelligent decisions that have far-reaching consequences on their lives and the lives of their family. It is important to note that women deserve to be autonomous in making this decision; they do not need the government to impose a state-wide decision on them on how to go about their lives. In fact, giving women the choice of taking a personal decision on abortion is tantamount to increasing their productivity in the society as they would be able to plan their lives effectively. Restricting the choices of women by imposing choices which they do not want to take would no doubt be counterproductive. In conclusion, I would submit that abortion as an issue would continue to be a contentious issue in the society. The fact that I have put forward some arguments in favor of abortion does not mean that another person would not put forward other arguments in its opposition. In my own view, there may never be a superior argument either in favor of, or in opposition to abortion. Nevertheless, I believe that more than the collective good; it is more important to take a look at the issue from the perspective of the individual woman, than looking at it as an act that women perform. The issue of abortion affects the woman primarily, but it indirectly affects other members of the society too. The woman’s spouse (either married or unmarried), her children and even the community at large can feel the effect of this singular act. I still believe that it is important to give the woman the choice to decide what is best for her, instead of the government making laws on behalf of the woman. I believe that the woman should be able to choose if she wants to procure abortion or not.

Tietze C & Henshaw SK (1986). Induced Abortion: A World Review, 1986. New York: The Guttmacher Institute, 1986. WHO (2005). The World Health Report 2005 - Make every mother and child count. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2005. MIT (2013). Pro Choice. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/pro-choice/www/facts.html on 7th August, 2013 Agresti J (2013)"Abortion Facts." Just Facts, September 24, 2008. Revised 6/25/13. Retrieved on 8th August, 2013 from http://www.justfacts.com/abortion.asp

Cite this page

Share with friends using:

Removal Request

Finished papers: 1495

This paper is created by writer with

ID 278786606

If you want your paper to be:

Well-researched, fact-checked, and accurate

Original, fresh, based on current data

Eloquently written and immaculately formatted

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

Get your papers done by pros!

Other Pages

Example of essay on europe global business, free logical thinking course work example, treatment of juveniles as adults course work, cultural sensitivity in global business essay, advantages of virtual autopsies research paper example, technology management essays examples, factors that affect juvenile recidivism essay samples, free a guide to taking a patients history article review sample, example of kenneth ravenel v frederick l burnett case study, example of essay on personality theory, example of juvenile delinquents and the court system term paper, example of business plan on administrator of grady memorial hospital, good example of social structure course work, good hurricane katrina essay example, economics essays examples 2, wealth and power in the united states term paper example, good bit technologic inc course work example, free course work about the cadburys gorilla, graincorp reports examples, good history term paper example, sample essay on a night in 67, madera essays, ray allen essays, magoun essays, james horner essays, momaday essays, professor x essays, humain essays, failure to warn essays, ministry of culture essays, religious language essays, moral question essays, unification of germany essays, nataraja essays, feelings of inadequacy essays, replication critical thinkings, dictator critical thinkings, killer critical thinkings, punctuation critical thinkings, recruit critical thinkings, baum critical thinkings, neighbour critical thinkings, bulk critical thinkings.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

How To Win Any Argument About Abortion

So you're talking to someone who says something ignorant . And while you know that they're in the wrong, your words escape you. To make sure that doesn't happen, we've compiled a series of reference guides with the most common arguments — and your counter-arguments — for the most hot-button issues. Ahead, how to argue the pro-choice position .

Common Argument #1: A fetus is a human being, and human beings have the right to life, so abortion is murder.

The Pro-Choice Argument: I'm probably not going to convince you that a fetus isn't a life, as that's basically the most intractable part of this whole debate, so I'll be brief:

• A fetus can't survive on its own. It is fully dependent on its mother's body, unlike born human beings.
• Even if a fetus was alive, the "right to life" doesn't imply a right to use somebody else's body. People have the right to refuse to donate their organs , for example, even if doing so would save somebody else's life.
• The "right to life" also doesn't imply a right to live by threatening somebody else's life. Bearing children is always a threat the life of the mother (see below).
• A "right to life" is, at the end of the day, a right to not have somebody else's will imposed upon your body. Do women not have this right as well?

Common Argument #2: If a woman is willing to have sex, she's knowingly taking the risk of getting pregnant, and should be responsible for her actions.

The Pro-Choice Argument: You're asserting that giving birth is the "responsible" choice in the event of a pregnancy, but that's just your opinion. I'd argue that if a mother knows she won't be able to provide for her child, it's actually more responsible to have an abortion, and in doing so prevent a whole lot of undue suffering and misery.

But let's look at this argument a bit further. If you think getting an abortion is "avoiding responsibility," that implies that it's a woman's responsibility to bear a child if she chooses to have sex. That sounds suspiciously like you're dictating what a woman's role and purpose is, and a lot less like you're making an argument about the life of a child.

Common Reply : No, because women can practice safe sex and avoid getting pregnant. If she refuses to use contraception and gets pregnant as a result, that's her fault, and her responsibility.

Your Rebuttal: Not everyone has easy access to contraception , nor does everyone have a good enough sex education class to know how to use it or where to obtain it. But let's just suppose, for the sake of argument, that everyone had access to free contraception and knew how to use it correctly.

Even then, no contraception is 100% effective. Presumably, you oppose abortions even in cases where contraception fails (and it does sometimes fail, even when used perfectly). If that's true, you're saying that, by merely choosing to have sex — with or without a condom — a woman becomes responsible for having a child. And that's a belief that has everything to do with judging a woman's behavior, and nothing to do with the value of life.

Common Argument #3: But I'm OK with abortions in cases of rape .

The Pro-Choice Argument: Why only in those cases? Are the lives of children who were conceived by rape worth less than the lives of children who were willfully conceived? If preserving the life of the child takes primacy over the desires of the mother — which is what you're saying if you if you oppose any legal abortions — then it shouldn't matter how that life was conceived.

Common Argument #4: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Your Response: Go home, Todd Akin , you're drunk.

Common Argument #5: Adoption is a viable alternative to abortion.

The Pro-Choice Argument: This implies that the only reason a woman would want to get an abortion is to avoid raising a child, and that isn't the case. Depending on the circumstances, the mere act of having a child in a hospital can cost between $3,000 and $37,000 in the United States. Giving birth is dangerous, too: In the United States, pregnancy complications are the sixth most common cause of death for women between the ages of 20 and 34.

Even before birth, there are costs to pregnancy. In addition to the whole "carrying another human being around in your stomach for nine months" thing, many women, particularly teens, are shunned and shamed for their pregnancies — not only by friends, families, employers, and classmates, but also by advertisements in the subway . There's also the risk of violent retribution from abusive partners and parents.

In short, there are a lot of reasons a woman might seek an abortion. Adoption doesn't address all of them.

Common Argument #6: When abortion is legal, women just use it as a form of birth control.

The Pro-Choice Argument: Do you have evidence of this? Considering that contraceptives are cheaper, easier, less painful, less time-consuming, less emotionally taxing, and more readily available than abortions, it seems odd to suggest that women who've already decided to use birth control would select abortion as their preferred method. It's more likely the opposite: Historical and contemporary data suggests that women will seek abortions regardless of whether or not they're legal, but that when birth control and contraceptives are more widely accessible, abortion rates go down.

Common Argument #7: Abortions are dangerous.

The Pro-Choice Argument: When performed by trained professionals, abortions are one of the safest procedures in medicine, with a death rate of less than 0.01%. The risk of dying while giving birth is roughly 13 times higher. Abortions performed by people without the requisite skills and training, however, are extremely unsafe. An estimated 68,000 women die every year from back alley abortions, which are generally most common when abortion is illegal and/or inaccessible.

If you'd like to examine the health impact of banning abortion, consider Romania, which banned abortions in 1966. That policy remained in place for about 23 years, during which time over 9,000 women died from unsafe abortions , and countless others were permanently injured. That's around two women dying every day. When the policy was reversed, maternal mortality rate plummeted to one-eighth of what it was at its peak under the no-abortion policy.

Abortions and maternal death rates in Romania, 1965-2010. Image credit: BMJ Group

The negative health effects of prohibiting abortion don't end with the mothers. Romania's abortion ban sparked a nationwide orphan crisis, as roughly 150,000 unwanted newborns were placed in nightmarish state-run orphanages . Many of those orphans now suffer from severe mental and physical health problems, including reduced brain size, schizoaffective disorder, and sociopathy.

When abortion is illegal, it becomes exponentially more unsafe for both women and their children. You may not like the fact that women will seek abortions even when they're illegal, but it is undeniably a fact nonetheless.

Common Argument #8: What if Winston Churchill or Martin Luther King had been aborted?

Your Response: Are you saying abortion policy should be influenced by how good of a person a fetus ends up becoming? If that's the case, what if Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot had been aborted?

Common Argument #9: Many women who get abortions regret their decision later on.

The Pro-Choice Argument: This is a pretty common argument. As with shaming of teen moms, it pops up in subway ads.

This is a bad argument. Should the government ban people from doing things they sometimes regret? Think of everything you've ever regretted — not moving after college, dating the wrong person — and ask yourself if you wish there had been a law to prevent you from doing that thing. You probably don't, because you probably believe people should be able to choose their own paths in life regardless of whether they regret those choices later on. I agree, which is part of why I'm pro-choice .

Common Argument #10: Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for things they find morally disagreeable.

The Pro-Choice Argument: By that rationale, America also shouldn't have a military, since that's funded by taxes, and many taxpayers find American foreign policy morally disagreeable. Also, the Hyde Amendment prevents most public funds from going toward abortions. But that's a moot point, because these are two separate arguments. Believing that abortion should be legal doesn't require you to also believe that taxpayer dollars should fund abortions.

Common Argument #11: What if your mother had aborted you?

The Pro-Choice Argument: Well, if I'd never come into existence in the first place, I probably wouldn't have any strong feelings on the matter. Anyway, I love my mother very much and respect her right to make whatever decisions are right for her body and life.

The best pro-choice arguments , in summary:

• A "right to life" doesn't imply a right to use someone else's body to sustain a life.
• Women do not have a "responsibility" to have children, and certainly don't assume such a responsibility by virtue of deciding to have sex.
• Outlawing abortion is very dangerous, both for women and their children.
• Adoption still requires women to carry a baby to term and then give birth, both of which are also inherently dangerous.
• Abortions, on the other hand, are quite safe.
• Banning abortion violates a woman's right to control her own body.

This article was originally published on March 5, 2014

Abortion Research Paper: Example, Outline, & Topics

The long-standing debate surrounding abortion has many opponents and advocates. Groups known as Pro-Choice and Pro-Life argue which approach is better, with no easy solution in sight. This ethical complexity is what makes abortion a popular topic for argumentative writing. As a student, you need to tackle it appropriately.

If this task sounds daunting, read this guide by our custom-writing experts to get excellent writing tips on handling this assignment. You will also find here:

• abortion topics and prompts,
• a research paper outline,
• a free essay sample.
• 🤔 Why Is Abortion a Good Topic?
• ☑️ Research Paper Prompts
• 👨‍⚕️ Abortion Research Questions
• 📚 Research Topics
• 🔬 Before You Start
• ✍️ Step-by-Step Writing Guide

📋 Abortion Research Paper Example

🔍 references, 🤔 why is abortion a good research topic.

Abortion studies are a vast area of research and analysis. It touches upon numerous domains of life, such as politics, medicine, religion, ethics, and human rights perspectives.

Like gun control or euthanasia, the abortion debate offers no evident answers to what kind of regulation is preferable. According to a recent survey, 61% of US adults are in favor of abortion , while 37% think it should be illegal. The arguments from both sides make sense, and there is no “yes-no” solution.

All this makes investigating the abortion debate a valuable exercise to hone your critical analysis skills. It will teach you to back up your claims with sound evidence while giving credit to counterarguments. Besides, expanding the body of abortion research is beneficial for the American community and women’s rights.

☑️ Abortion Research Paper Prompts

The first step to writing a successful paper is choosing an appropriate topic. Abortion is surrounded by numerous legal, medical, ethical, and social debates. That’s why the choice of ideas is virtually endless.

Don’t know where to start? Check out the prompts and creative titles below.

Should Abortion Be Legal: Research Paper Prompt 

You can approach this question from several perspectives. For example, propose a new legal framework for regulating eligibility for abortion. Some states allow the procedure under certain circumstances, such as a threat to a woman’s health. Should it be made legal in less extreme situations, too?

Anti-Abortion Research Paper Prompt

The legal status of abortions is still disputed in many countries. The procedure’s most ardent opponents are Catholic religious groups. In an anti-abortion paper, you may list ethical or faith-based claims. Focus on the right-to-life arguments and give scientific evidence regarding embryo’s rights.

Abortion and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Prompt   

Stem cell research is a dubious issue that faces strong opposition from ethical and religious activists. Here are some great ideas for an essay on this topic:

• Start by explaining what stem cells are.
• Outline the arguments for and against their use in research.
• Link this discussion to the status of abortion.

Abortion Law Research Paper Prompt

If you get an abortion-related assignment in your Legal Studies class, it’s better to take a legislative approach to this issue. Here’s what you can do:

• Study the evolution of abortion laws in the US or other countries.
• Pinpoint legal gaps.
• Focus on the laws’ strengths and weaknesses.

Abortion Breast Cancer Research Prompt

Increasing research evidence shows the link between abortion and breast cancer development . Find scholarly articles proving or refuting this idea and formulate a strong argument on this subject. Argue it with credible external evidence.

Abortion Ethics Research Paper Prompt 

Here, you can focus on the significance of the discussion’s ethical dimension. People who are against abortion often cite the ethics of killing an embryo. You can discuss this issue by quoting famous thinkers and the latest medical research. Be sure to support your argument with sound evidence.

👨‍⚕️ Questions about Abortion for Research Paper

• How does technology reframe the abortion debate?
• Is there new ethics of abortion in the 21 st century?
• How did the abortion debate progress before the Roe v. Wade decision?
• How is the abortion debate currently being shaped on social media?
• How do abortion rights advocates conceptualize the meaning of life ?
• Can the abortion debate be called a culture war?
• What are women’s constitutional abortion rights?
• How does abortion reshape the concept of a person?
• How does the abortion debate fit in the post-Socialist transition framework of the European community?
• Where does the abortion debate stand in the politics of sexuality?

📚 Abortion Topics for Research Paper

• The changing legal rhetoric of abortion in the US.
• Constructing abortion as a legal problem.
• Regendering of the US’ abortion problem.
• Evolution of public attitudes to abortion in the US.
• Choice vs. coercion in the abortion debate.
• Abortion and sin in Catholicism.
• Artificial wombs as an innovative solution to the abortion debate.
• Religious belief vs. reason in the abortion debate.
• Introduction of pregnant women’s perspectives into the abortion debate: dealing with fetal abnormalities.
• The role of ultrasound images in the evolution of women’s abortion intentions.

🔬 Research Papers on Abortions: Before You Start

Before discussing how to write an abortion paper, let’s focus on the pre-writing steps necessary for a stellar work. Here are the main points to consider.

Abortion Research Design 

Before you start exploring your topic, you need to choose between a qualitative and quantitative research design:

💬 Qualitative studies focus on words and present the attitudes and subjective meanings assigned to the concept of abortion by respondents.

🧪 Quantitative studies , in turn, focus on numbers and statistics. They analyze objective evidence and avoid subjective interpretations.  

Pick a research design based on your research skills and the data you’re planning to analyze:

• If you plan to gain insight into people’s opinions, attitudes, and life experiences related to abortion, it’s better to go for an interview and qualitative analysis.
• If you have a survey and want to focus on descriptive statistics, it’s better to stick to quantitative methods .

Abortion Research Paper Outline Format

Next, it’s time to choose the format of your paper’s outline. As a rule, students use one of the 3 approaches:

You can learn more about these formats from our article on how to write an outline .

Choosing Headings & Subheadings

A strong title can save your paper, while a poor one can immediately kill the readers’ interest. That’s why we recommend you not to underestimate the importance of formulating an attention-grabbing, exciting heading for your text.

Here are our best tips to make your title and subheadings effective:

• A good title needs to be brief. It’s up to 5 words, as a rule. Subheadings can be longer, as they give a more extended explanation of the content.
• Don’t be redundant. Make sure the subheadings are not duplicating each other.
• Mind the format. For instance, if your paper is in the APA format, you need to use proper font size and indentation. No numbering of headings and subheadings is necessary as in the outline. Ensure the reader understands the hierarchy with the help of heading level distinctions.

Components of an Effective Outline

According to academic writing conventions, a good outline should follow 4 essential principles:

• Parallelism . All components of your outline need to have a similar grammatical structure. For example, if you choose infinitives to denote actions, stick to them and don’t mix them with nouns and gerunds.
• Coordination . Divide your work into chunks with equal importance. This way, you will allocate as much weight to one point as to all the others. Your outline’s sections of similar hierarchy should have equal significance.
• Subordination . The subheadings contained within one heading of a higher order should all be connected to the paper’s title.
• Division . The minimum number of subheadings in each outline heading should be 2. If you have only one point under a heading, it’s worth adding another one.

Use this list of principles as a cheat sheet while creating your outline, and you’re sure to end up with well-organized and structured research!

Abortion Research Paper Outline Example

To recap and illustrate everything we’ve just discussed, let’s have a look at this sample abortion outline. We’ve made it in the decimal format following all effective outlining principles—check it out!

• History of abortion laws in the USA.
• Problem: recent legal changes challenge Roe vs. Wade .
• Thesis statement: the right to abortion should be preserved as a constitutional right
• The fundamental human right to decide what to do with their body.
• Legal abortions are safer.
• Fetuses don’t feel pain at the early stages of development.
• Abortion is murder.
• Fetuses are unborn people who feel pain at later stages.
• Abortion causes lifelong psychological trauma for the woman.
• Roe vs. Wade is a pro-choice case.
• The constitutional right to privacy and bodily integrity.
• Conclusion.

✍️ Abortion Research Paper: How to Write

Now, let’s proceed to write the paper itself. We will cover all the steps, starting with introduction writing rules and ending with the body and conclusion essentials.

Abortion Introduction: Research Paper Tips  

When you begin writing an abortion paper, it’s vital to introduce the reader to the debate and key terminology. Start by describing a broader issue and steadily narrow the argument to the scope of your paper. The intro typically contains the key figures or facts that would show your topic’s significance.

For example, suppose you plan to discuss the ethical side of abortion. In this case, it’s better to structure the paper like this:

• Start by outlining the issue of abortion as a whole.
• Introduce the arguments of pro-choice advocates, saying that this side of the debate focuses on the woman’s right to remove the fetus from her body or leave it.
• Cite the latest research evidence about fetuses as living organisms, proceeding to debate abortion ethics.
• End your introduction with a concise thesis statement .

Thesis on Abortion for a Research Paper

The final part of your introduction is a thesis—a single claim that formulates your paper’s main idea. Experienced readers and college professors often focus on the thesis statement’s quality to decide whether the text is worth reading further. So, make sure you dedicate enough effort to formulate the abortion research paper thesis well!

Don’t know how to do it? These pro tips will surely help you write a great thesis:

Abortion Research Paper Body

Now, it’s time to proceed to the main body of your paper. It should expand on the main idea in more detail, explaining the details and weighing the evidence for and against your argument.

The secret of effective writing is to go paragraph by paragraph . Your essay’s body will have around 2-5 of them, and the quality of each one determines the value of the whole text.

Here are the 4 easy steps that can help you excel in writing the main part of your essay:

• Start each paragraph with a topic sentence. It functions as a mini-thesis statement and communicates the paragraph’s main idea.
• Then, expand it with additional facts and evidence. It’s better to back that information with external sources, showing that it’s not your guesswork. Make sure you properly analyze the citations and show how they fit into your broader research.
• A paragraph should end with a concise wrap-up. Write a concluding sentence restating the topic sentence or a transition linking to the next section.

Research Papers on Abortions: Conclusion

The conclusion of an abortion paper also plays a major role in the overall impression that your paper will produce. So, how do you make it interesting?

Instead of simply restating the thesis and enumerating your points, it’s better to do the following:

• Focus on the broader implications of the issue you’ve just discussed.
• Mention your study’s limitations and point out some directions for further research.
• It’s also a good idea to include a call to action , which can help create a sense of urgency in the readers.

Abortion Articles for Research Paper & Other Sources

Every research paper ends with “works cited” or a reference page enumerating the sources used for the assignment. A rule of thumb is to cite credible, authoritative publications from governmental organizations and NGOs and academic articles from peer-reviewed journals. These sources will make your research more competent and professional, supporting your viewpoint with objective scientific information.

Here are some databases that can supply top-quality data to back the abortion-related claims in a research paper:

Feel free to check these databases for studies related to your subject. It’s best to conduct preliminary research to see whether your topic has enough supporting evidence. Also, make sure there are plenty of new studies to back your arguments! Abortion is a fast-changing field of research, so it’s best only to use publications no more than 5 years old.

To learn more about credible research sources, check out our guide on choosing reliable websites .

We’ve taught you all you need to write a well-researched and thoughtful abortion paper. Finally, we want to give you an example of an essay on the topic “ Should Abortion Rights Be Preserved? ” Check it out to gain inspiration.

Now you know all the details of abortion paper writing. Use our tips to choose a topic, develop sound arguments, and impress your professor with a stellar piece on this debatable subject!

❓ Abortion Research Paper FAQs

• First, you need to pick a debatable topic about abortion and develop a thesis statement on that subject.
• Next, choose the arguments to support your claim and use external evidence to back them up.
• End the paper with a concise wrap-up.
• Begin your introduction with a catchy fact or shocking statistics on the issue of abortion.
• Ask a rhetorical question to boost your readers’ interest.
• Cite a famous person’s words about the pros and cons of legal abortion.

To compose a strong opening for your abortion essay, make sure to provide some background and context for further discussion. Explain why the debate about abortions is so acute and what the roots of the problem are.

There are many interesting topics related to abortion, spanning the areas of sociology, ethics, and medicine. You can focus on the progression of the abortion debate along with civil rights or discuss abortion from a feminist perspective.

You can choose between qualitative and quantitative approaches for your abortion research. Hold a survey among women and report the findings of your qualitative study in a short report. Or, you can measure factual information in numbers and conduct quantitative research.

• The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Research Paper: Grammarly
• Scholarly Articles on Abortion: Gale
• Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Worldwide: Guttmacher Institute
• Why Abortion Should Be Legal: News 24
• Pro and Con: Abortion: Britannica
• Organizing Academic Research Papers: The Introduction: Sacred Heart University
• How to Write a Thesis Statement for a Research Paper: Steps and Examples: Research.com
• Abortion: American Psychological Association
• Writing a Research Paper: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Writing a Research Paper: Purdue University
• A Process Approach to Writing Research Papers: University of California, Berkeley
• What Is Qualitative vs. Quantitative Study?: Grand Canyon University
• Decimal Outlines: Texas A&M University
• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

What is the most important part of any essay or research paper? Of course, it’s the thesis statement—a sentence that expresses the paper’s main idea and guides the readers through your arguments. But where do you place the thesis? You’ve probably answered, “in the introduction.” However, that’s not all of...

If you’re a student, you’ve heard about a formal essay: a factual, research-based paper written in 3rd person. Most students have to produce dozens of them during their educational career.  Writing a formal essay may not be the easiest task. But fear not: our custom-writing team is here to guide...

Rhetorical analysis is never a simple task. This essay type requires you to analyze rhetorical devices in a text and review them from different perspectives. Such an assignment can be a part of an AP Lang exam or a college home task. Either way, you will need a solid outline...

Narrative essays are unlike anything you wrote throughout your academic career. Instead of writing a formal paper, you need to tell a story. Familiar elements such as evidence and arguments are replaced with exposition and character development. The importance of writing an outline for an essay like this is hard...

Discourse is the way people talk about any specific topic. It’s also the way in which language is used to convey social and historical meanings. Discourse analysis is the process that helps to understand the underlying message of what is being said. Sounds interesting? Keep reading to learn more.  This in...

A précis is a brief synopsis of a written piece. It is used to summarize and analyze a text’s main points. If you need to write a précis for a research paper or the AP Lang exam, you’ve come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide by Custom-Writing.org, you’ll...

A synthesis essay requires you to work with multiple sources. You combine the information gathered from them to present a well-rounded argument on a topic. Are you looking for the ultimate guide on synthesis essay writing? You’ve come to the right place! In this guide by our custom writing team,...

Do you know how to make your essay stand out? One of the easiest ways is to start your introduction with a catchy hook. A hook is a phrase or a sentence that helps to grab the reader’s attention. After reading this article by Custom-Writing.org, you will be able to...

A critical analysis essay is an academic paper that requires a thorough examination of theoretical concepts and ideas. It includes a comparison of facts, differentiation between evidence and argument, and identification of biases. Crafting a good paper can be a daunting experience, but it will be much easier if you...

Critical thinking is the process of evaluating and analyzing information. People who use it in everyday life are open to different opinions. They rely on reason and logic when making conclusions about certain issues. A critical thinking essay shows how your thoughts change as you research your topic. This type...

Process analysis is an explanation of how something works or happens. Want to know more? Read the following article prepared by our custom writing specialists and learn about: process analysis and its typesa process analysis outline tipsfree examples and other tips that might be helpful for your college assignment So,...

A visual analysis essay is an academic paper type that history and art students often deal with. It consists of a detailed description of an image or object. It can also include an interpretation or an argument that is supported by visual evidence. In this article, our custom writing experts...

• Presidential Search
• Editor's Pick

Progressive Labor Party Organizes Solidarity March With Harvard Yard Encampment

Encampment Protesters Briefly Raise 3 Palestinian Flags Over Harvard Yard

Mayor Wu Cancels Harvard Event After Affinity Groups Withdraw Over Emerson Encampment Police Response

Harvard Yard To Remain Indefinitely Closed Amid Encampment

HUPD Chief Says Harvard Yard Encampment is Peaceful, Defends Students’ Right to Protest

The Pro-Choice Argument

There are those who hold that contraception unfairly manipulates the workings of nature, and others who cannot see the fetus as a child until the umbilical cord is cut. Invoking an almost religious fervor on both sides of the issue, abortion is one of the most emotionally potent present political controversies. Motherhood is a powerful institution in American life, and both the "Pro-choice" (supporting a woman's right to choose) and the "Pro-life" (anti-abortion) forces see the other as attacking the foundations of the mother-infant bond.

Social analysis argues forcibly for the need for safe, legal and affordable abortions. Approximately 1 million women had abortions annually until the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, and abortion had become the leading cause of maternal death and mutilation (40 deaths/100,000 abortions compared to 40 deaths/100,000 live births according to National Abortion Rights Action league.) An estimated 9000 rape victims become pregnant each year (FBI 1973); 100,000 cases of incest occur yearly (National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect, 1978). Two-thirds of teenage pregnancies are not planned, because many do not have adequate access to contraceptives (NARAL). And the taxpayer price of supporting a child on welfare is far greater than that of a Medicaid abortion. But the issue that provokes such anger surrounds the fetus's right to life--its status as a potential human being. Anti-abortionist proponents usually take the position that conception is life and therefore abortion is murder and violates the rights of the unborn, or that there is an inherent value in life and abortion is murder because it destroys that value.

The Supreme Court decided in 1973 that the unborn fetus had no constitutional rights until the third trimester (24-28 weeks), as it is incapable of functioning independently from the mother until that time. Right-to-Lifers claim that because the fetus will develop into a human being, it demands the same paternalistic protection that is extended to animals, children and others subject to exploitation and maltreatment. The fetus must be accorded the same constitutional rights as its mother.

Two arguments delineate the problems in giving the fetus these equivalent rights. The first looks at individual rights as the products of a social doctrine. Animals and children are unavoidably present within a society, and to ensure that they remain functioning members of that society they must be protected from exploitation by other societal members. Different political platforms advocate different rights--the right to free medical care, the right to minimal taxation--but all demarcate the interaction of the individual within the group. A person's rights protect him from future harassment, but to actually obtain those rights he must already be a member of the group providing him with those protections. An Australian cannot lay claim to American rights until he is on American soil (or its equivalent). He may have a guarantee that should he enter the United States, he will be accorded many of those protections. But the guarantee depends on his entrance onto American territory. In analogous fashion, until the fetus is actually, not potentially, a member of society, it does not have constitutional rights.

One could object that the fetus in the womb is as signally present in society as the child in the crib, that each are equally members of society. Yet surely the conception of "member" involves some minimal interaction. The fetus reacts to society of the outside world solely through the medium of the mother. Strictly speaking, then, society has no legal responsibility to the fetus, but rather to the mother.

This seems like a rather harsh position, but we can distinguish between the rights of the fetus and the action that a mother might feel morally compelled to take. Consider the following situation: suppose you were to return home one day and find a stranger camped out in your living room and peacefully eating the ham sandwich you saved for dinner. You would be tempted to throw him out in the street. Almost everyone could agree that you had the right to eject him.

But suppose he told you that he could not live outside of your house; perhaps one of his enemies waits outside your door. Moreover, he informs you that he needs food and clothing and someone to talk to--he needs your presence much of the day. He becomes more demanding: you must work less, earn less, give up jogging.

Introduce a complication: your food is strictly rationed, or perhaps your heating, on subsistence level for a single person. If the stranger stays with you, your life will be seriously endangered. You might be very upset, but if it came down to the wire you would probably kick him out of the house. Again, most people would agree you were within your rights to do so.

The difficulty of course arises when it would be possible for you to support him and take care of him, but you would rather not. You might agree if the demand were only for an evening, but hesitate if it were for the rest of your life. Do rights then depend upon the time factor? You could claim a certain moral responsibility towards another human being. But it is hard to say that he has the right to force you to support him. You are not legally required to help an old lady across the street.

One counterargument declares that willing intercourse implies acceptance of a possible pregnancy--that in effect you invited the stranger in, that you knew what you were in for and that he now has the right to demand your help. But faulty contraception is like a broken window. When you return to your suite and find your stereo missing, do you accede the thief's right to take it because your window is easily pried open? The abortion issue thus forces a clarification of the nature of the individual and his social rights. Although we may feel morally constrained to protect the future child, the fetus does not have the right to force us to do so. In the traditional dichotomy of church and state, to restrict abortion is to legislate morality.

The staunchest opposition comes from those who hold absolutely that conception is life. But belief in the inherent value of life is not a trite axiom: it avows some faith in the quality of existence beyond the moral injunction "Thou shalt not kill." It becomes easy to see as hypocritical those anti-abortionists--particularly men--who condone extra-marital intercourse (or even intramarital intercourse) yet would refuse to financially and emotionally support the child conceived because of faulty contraception. The only morally consistent value-of-life position is to have intercourse only if one is willing to accept a child as a possible consequence, and participate in the quality of the child's life. This in part lies behind the Catholic prohibition of premarital sex.

As a personal doctrine few would reproach those who follow it. But pragmatics belie its application to all society, rape being the prime instance where the woman is not free to choose to become pregnant. The restriction of federal support to cases of rape, incest and probable death of the mother suggests an interesting quality-of-life argument: that potentiality is not absolute but must be prorated. Due to society's dread of incest, such a mother and her child would be spared a psychologically unbearable life. In case of danger to the mother's life we do not hear that the 'child' has potentially far more years of happy, productive life than the mother. Rather, the argument runs that the mother's life should not be sacrificed for the child who would bear such a tremendous burden.

Yet an unwanted child may be born into a household with an equally heavy psychological toll. If the potentiality of life thesis rests on an understanding of the inner qualities of life, then abortion is a necessity rather than a crime. Those who deny the right to an abortion under any circumstances fail to see that their argument undercuts itself. Abortion provides a unique understanding of the "inherent good" of existence. It is morally irresponsible to believe that a pregnancy must be brought to term even in case of the mother's death simply because it is a matter of nature and out of our hands when we have the medical means to save the mother. The case involves a comparison of the life-value of the mother and the child: the final decision must evaluate the process of existence--the value of life as it is lived. The inherent value of life cannot be an a priori constant if a choice is to be made between two lives.

Once the quality of life-as-it-is-lived is introduced into the argument, we can say that abortion provides the possibility of improving that quality. Motherhood is a remarkably special bond between mother and child, perhaps the most important relationship we ever have. It requires tremendous emotional capacities, and raising children should be one of the most conscious decisions we make. Many of those who have abortions when young have children later in life, when they are more emotionally and financially equipped to handle them. Contraception is at most 99 per cent safe, and abortion must be available to allow women the freedom to provide the optimum conditions for their child's growth.

According to a 1978 Clark University study, 83 per cent of Massachusetts supports the woman's right to choose. But the trend of recent legislation is distinctly anti-abortion, the result of an extremely well-organized and funded "Pro-life" movement (which some link to the New Right). On the federal level, the 1976-7 Hyde Amendment, a rider on the Labor-HEW appropriations bill, cut off federally funded abortions except in cases of rape, incest, and "medically necessary" instances, defined by the Supreme Court as long-lasting physical or psychological damage to the mother's health.

In 1977 this clause cut 99 per cent of all reimbursements (250,000-300,000 annually prior to the cut-off); this year "medically necessary" has been replaced by probable death of the mother. Military women are similarly restricted under the Dornan Amendment; the Young Amendment funds no abortions at all for Peace Corps women. Employers may refuse to include abortion coverage in their company health plan under the Beard Amendment. Fifteen states have called for a constitutional convention to introduce the prohibition of all abortions: 19 more would fulfill the requisite number of 34.

In Massachusetts the Doyle Bill would cut off state funds in the same manner as the Hyde Amendment. Formerly an adjunct to the budget it was passed and signed as a bill this year. Appealed by MORAL (the Massachusetts Organization for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), the bill is under injunction and pending review by the Federal District Court on the basis of a Supreme Court decision that all medically necessary services must be available to the poor. As of last May, hospitals are no longer required to perform abortions upon demand except in case of probable death to the mother. Legislation restricting abortions to hospitals with full obstetrical care (rather than women's health clinics), now before the Massachusetts House, could place the woman in a double bind. Also under Massachusetts debate is an "Informed Consent" bill which essentially amounts to harrassment: the bill requires spouse and parental notification, with consent of parents or courts for minors, full information concerning the viability and appearance of the fetus, description of the aborting technique, anad a 24-hour waiting period after the 'information session' before the abortion could be obtained.

There is a real danger that anti-abortion legislation could become increasingly more restrictive. It already discriminates against women in lower economic brackets. The power of the pro-life people should not be underestimated: they have targeted 12 Congressmen for defeat in 1980, among them Morris Udall and Birch Bayh. We need to inform our politicians of their pro-choice constituency and reverse the further tightening of the over-restrictive and discriminatory legislation.

Tanya Luhrmann '80-3 is working for Abortion Rights Action Week.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

• MJC Library & Learning Center
• Research Guides
• Abortion Research

Start Learning About Your Topic

Create research questions to focus your topic, featured current news, find articles in library databases, find web resources, find books in the library catalog, cite your sources, key search words.

Use the words below to search for useful information in books and articles .

• birth control
• pro-choice movement
• pro-life movement
• reproductive rights
• Roe v. Wade
• Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (Dobbs v. Jackson)

Background Reading:

It's important to begin your research learning something about your subject; in fact, you won't be able to create a focused, manageable thesis unless you already know something about your topic.

This step is important so that you will:

• Begin building your core knowledge about your topic
• Be able to put your topic in context
• Create research questions that drive your search for information
• Create a list of search terms that will help you find relevant information
• Know if the information you’re finding is relevant and useful

If you're working from off campus , you'll be prompted to sign in if you aren't already logged in to your MJC email or Canvas. If you are prompted to sign in, use the same credentials you use for email and Canvas. 

Most current background reading 

• Issues and Controversies: Should Women in the United States Have Access to Abortion? June 2022 article (written after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade) that explores both sides of the abortion debate.
• Access World News: Abortion The most recent news and opinion on abortion from US newspapers.

More sources for background information

• CQ Researcher Online This link opens in a new window Original, comprehensive reporting and analysis on issues in the news. Check the dates of results to be sure they are sufficiently current.
• Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window Authoritative background reading from specialized encyclopedias (a year or more old, so not good for the latest developments).
• Gale In Context: Global Issues This link opens in a new window Best database for exploring the topic from a global point of view.

Choose the questions below that you find most interesting or appropriate for your assignment.

• Why is abortion such a controversial issue?
• What are the medical arguments for and against abortion?
• What are the religious arguments for and against abortion?
• What are the political arguments for and against abortion?
• What are the cultural arguments for and against abortion?
• What is the history of laws concerning abortion?
• What are the current laws about abortion?
• How are those who oppose access to abortion trying to affect change?
• How are those who support access to abortion trying to affect change?
• Based on what I have learned from my research, what do I think about the issue of abortion?
• State-by-State Abortion Laws Updated regularly by the Guttmacher Institute
• What the Data Says About Abortion in the U.S. From the Pew Research Center in June 2022, a look at the most recent available data about abortion from sources other than public opinion surveys.

Latest News on Abortion from Google News

All of these resources are free for MJC students, faculty, & staff.

• Gale Databases This link opens in a new window Search over 35 databases simultaneously that cover almost any topic you need to research at MJC. Gale databases include articles previously published in journals, magazines, newspapers, books, and other media outlets.
• EBSCOhost Databases This link opens in a new window Search 22 databases simultaneously that cover almost any topic you need to research at MJC. EBSCO databases include articles previously published in journals, magazines, newspapers, books, and other media outlets.
• Facts on File Databases This link opens in a new window Facts on File databases include: Issues & Controversies , Issues & Controversies in History , Today's Science , and World News Digest .
• MEDLINE Complete This link opens in a new window This database provides access to top-tier biomedical and health journals, making it an essential resource for doctors, nurses, health professionals and researchers engaged in clinical care, public health, and health policy development.
• Access World News This link opens in a new window Search the full-text of editions of record for local, regional, and national U.S. newspapers as well as full-text content of key international sources. This is your source for The Modesto Bee from January 1989 to the present. Also includes in-depth special reports and hot topics from around the country. To access The Modesto Bee , limit your search to that publication. more... less... Watch this short video to learn how to find The Modesto Bee .

Browse Featured Web Sites:

• American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists Medical information and anti-abortion rights advocacy.
• American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Use the key term "abortion" in the search box on this site for links to reports and statistics.
• Guttmacher Institute Statistics and policy papers with a world-wide focus from a "research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide."
• NARAL Pro-Choice America This group advocates for pro-abortion rights legislation. Current information abortion laws in the U.S.
• National Right to Life Committee This group advocates for anti-abortion rights legislation in the U.S.

Why Use Books:

Use books to read broad overviews and detailed discussions of your topic. You can also use books to find  primary sources , which are often published together in collections.  

Where Do I Find Books?

You'll use the library catalog to search for books, ebooks, articles, and more.  

What if MJC Doesn't Have What I Need?

If you need materials (books, articles, recordings, videos, etc.) that you cannot find in the library catalog , use our  interlibrary loan service .

Your instructor should tell you which citation style they want you to use. Click on the appropriate link below to learn how to format your paper and cite your sources according to a particular style.

• Chicago Style
• ASA & Other Citation Styles
• Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 1:28 PM
• URL: https://libguides.mjc.edu/abortion

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses .

• Clerc Center | PK-12 & Outreach
• KDES | PK-8th Grade School (D.C. Metro Area)
• MSSD | 9th-12th Grade School (Nationwide)
• Gallaudet University Regional Centers
• Parent Advocacy App
• K-12 ASL Content Standards
• National Resources
• Youth Programs
• Academic Bowl
• Battle Of The Books
• National Literary Competition
• Youth Debate Bowl
• Youth Esports Series
• Bison Sports Camp
• Discover College and Careers (DC²)
• Financial Wizards
• Immerse Into ASL
• Alumni Relations
• Alumni Association
• Homecoming Weekend
• Class Giving
• Get Tickets / BisonPass
• Sport Calendars
• Cross Country
• Swimming & Diving
• Track & Field
• Indoor Track & Field
• Cheerleading
• Winter Cheerleading
• Human Resources
• Plan a Visit
• Request Info

• Areas of Study
• Accessible Human-Centered Computing
• American Sign Language
• Art and Media Design
• Communication Studies
• Data Science
• Deaf Studies
• Early Intervention Studies Graduate Programs
• Educational Neuroscience
• Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences
• Information Technology
• International Development
• Interpretation and Translation
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Philosophy and Religion
• Physical Education & Recreation
• Public Affairs
• Public Health
• Sexuality and Gender Studies
• Social Work
• Theatre and Dance
• World Languages and Cultures
• B.A. in American Sign Language
• B.A. in Art and Media Design
• B.A. in Biology
• B.A. in Communication Studies
• B.A. in Communication Studies for Online Degree Completion Program
• B.A. in Deaf Studies
• B.A. in Deaf Studies for Online Degree Completion Program
• B.A. in Education with a Specialization in Early Childhood Education
• B.A. in Education with a Specialization in Elementary Education
• B.A. in English
• B.A. in Government
• B.A. in Government with a Specialization in Law
• B.A. in History
• B.A. in Interdisciplinary Spanish
• B.A. in International Studies
• B.A. in Interpretation
• B.A. in Mathematics
• B.A. in Philosophy
• B.A. in Psychology
• B.A. in Psychology for Online Degree Completion Program
• B.A. in Social Work (BSW)
• B.A. in Sociology
• B.A. in Sociology with a concentration in Criminology
• B.A. in Theatre Arts: Production/Performance
• B.A. or B.S. in Education with a Specialization in Secondary Education: Science, English, Mathematics or Social Studies
• B.S in Risk Management and Insurance
• B.S. in Accounting
• B.S. in Accounting for Online Degree Completion Program
• B.S. in Biology
• B.S. in Business Administration
• B.S. in Business Administration for Online Degree Completion Program
• B.S. in Information Technology
• B.S. in Mathematics
• B.S. in Physical Education and Recreation
• B.S. In Public Health
• General Education
• Honors Program
• Peace Corps Prep program
• Self-Directed Major
• M.A. in Counseling: Clinical Mental Health Counseling
• M.A. in Counseling: School Counseling
• M.A. in Deaf Education
• M.A. in Deaf Education Studies
• M.A. in Deaf Studies: Cultural Studies
• M.A. in Deaf Studies: Language and Human Rights
• M.A. in Early Childhood Education and Deaf Education
• M.A. in Early Intervention Studies
• M.A. in Elementary Education and Deaf Education
• M.A. in International Development
• M.A. in Interpretation: Combined Interpreting Practice and Research
• M.A. in Interpretation: Interpreting Research
• M.A. in Linguistics
• M.A. in Secondary Education and Deaf Education
• M.A. in Sign Language Education
• M.S. in Accessible Human-Centered Computing
• M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology
• Master of Social Work (MSW)
• Au.D. in Audiology
• Ed.D. in Transformational Leadership and Administration in Deaf Education
• Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
• Ph.D. in Critical Studies in the Education of Deaf Learners
• Ph.D. in Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences
• Ph.D. in Linguistics
• Ph.D. in Translation and Interpreting Studies
• Ph.D. Program in Educational Neuroscience (PEN)
• Individual Courses and Training
• Summer On-Campus Courses
• Summer Online Courses
• Certificates
• Certificate in Sexuality and Gender Studies
• Educating Deaf Students with Disabilities (online, post-bachelor’s)
• American Sign Language and English Bilingual Early Childhood Deaf Education: Birth to 5 (online, post-bachelor’s)
• Peer Mentor Training (low-residency/hybrid, post-bachelor’s)
• Early Intervention Studies Graduate Certificate
• Online Degree Programs
• ODCP Minor in Communication Studies
• ODCP Minor in Deaf Studies
• ODCP Minor in Psychology
• ODCP Minor in Writing
• Online Degree Program General Education Curriculum
• University Capstone Honors for Online Degree Completion Program

Quick Links

• PK-12 & Outreach
• NSO Schedule

Comparison/Contrast Essays: Two Patterns

202.448-7036

First Pattern: Block-by-Block

By Rory H. Osbrink

Abortion is an example of a very controversial issue. The two opposing viewpoints surrounding abortion are like two sides of a coin. On one side, there is the pro-choice activist and on the other is the pro-life activist.

The argument is a balanced one; for every point supporting abortion there is a counter-point condemning abortion. This essay will delineate the controversy in one type of comparison/contrast essay form: the “”Argument versus Argument,”” or, “”Block-by-Block”” format. In this style of writing, first you present all the arguments surrounding one side of the issue, then you present all the arguments surrounding the other side of the issue. You are generally not expected to reach a conclusion, but simply to present the opposing sides of the argument.

Introduction: (the thesis is underlined) Explains the argument

The Abortion Issue: Compare and Contrast Block-by-Block Format

One of the most divisive issues in America is the controversy surrounding abortion. Currently, abortion is legal in America, and many people believe that it should remain legal. These people, pro-choice activists, believe that it is the women’s right to chose whether or not to give birth. However, there are many groups who are lobbying Congress to pass laws that would make abortion illegal. These people are called the pro-life activists.

Explains pro-choice

Abortion is a choice that should be decided by each individual, argues the pro-choice activist. Abortion is not murder since the fetus is not yet fully human, therefore, it is not in defiance against God. Regardless of the reason for the abortion, it should be the woman’s choice because it is her body. While adoption is an option some women chose, many women do not want to suffer the physical and emotional trauma of pregnancy and labor only to give up a child. Therefore, laws should remain in effect that protect a woman’s right to chose.

Explains pro-life

Abortion is an abomination, argues the pro-life activist. It makes no sense for a woman to murder a human being not even born. The bible says, “”Thou shalt not kill,”” and it does not discriminate between different stages of life. A fetus is the beginning of life. Therefore, abortion is murder, and is in direct defiance of God’s will. Regardless of the mother’s life situation (many women who abort are poor, young, or drug users), the value of a human life cannot be measured. Therefore, laws should be passed to outlaw abortion. After all, there are plenty of couples who are willing to adopt an unwanted child.

If we take away the woman’s right to chose, will we begin limiting her other rights also? Or, if we keep abortion legal, are we devaluing human life? There is no easy answer to these questions. Both sides present strong, logical arguments. Though it is a very personal decision, t he fate of abortion rights will have to be left for the Supreme Court to decide.

Second Pattern: Point-by-Point

This second example is also an essay about abortion. We have used the same information and line of reasoning in this essay, however, this one will be presented in the “”Point-by-Point”” style argument. The Point-by-Point style argument presents both sides of the argument at the same time. First, you would present one point on a specific topic, then you would follow that up with the opposing point on the same topic. Again, you are generally not expected to draw any conclusions, simply to fairly present both sides of the argument.

Introduction: (the thesis is underlined)

Explains the argument

The Abortion Issue: Compare and Contrast Point-by-Point Format

Point One: Pro-life and Pro-choice

Supporters of both pro-life and pro-choice refer to religion as support for their side of the argument. Pro-life supporters claim that abortion is murder, and is therefore against God’s will. However, pro-choice defenders argue that abortion is not murder since the fetus is not yet a fully formed human. Therefore, abortion would not be a defiance against God.

Point Two: Pro-life and Pro-choice

Another main point of the argument is over the woman’s personal rights, versus the rights of the unborn child. Pro-choice activists maintain that regardless of the individual circumstances, women should have the right to chose whether or not to abort. The pregnancy and labor will affect only the woman’s body, therefore it should be the woman’s decision. Pro-life supporters, on the other hand, believe that the unborn child has the right to life, and that abortion unlawfully takes away that right.

Tutorial & Instructional Programs

Gallaudet University

202-448-7036

At a Glance

• Quick Facts
• University Leadership
• History & Traditions
• Accreditation
• Consumer Information
• Our 10-Year Vision: The Gallaudet Promise
• Annual Report of Achievements (ARA)
• The Signing Ecosystem
• Not Your Average University

Our Community

• Library & Archives
• Technology Support
• Interpreting Requests
• Ombuds Support
• Health and Wellness Programs
• Profile & Web Edits

Visit Gallaudet

• Explore Our Campus
• Virtual Tour
• Maps & Directions
• Shuttle Bus Schedule
• Kellogg Conference Hotel
• Welcome Center
• National Deaf Life Museum
• Apple Guide Maps

Engage Today

• Work at Gallaudet / Clerc Center
• Social Media Channels
• University Wide Events
• Sponsorship Requests
• Data Requests
• Media Inquiries
• Gallaudet Today Magazine
• Giving at Gallaudet
• Financial Aid
• Registrar’s Office
• Residence Life & Housing
• Safety & Security
• Undergraduate Admissions
• Graduate Admissions
• University Communications
• Clerc Center

Gallaudet University, chartered in 1864, is a private university for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Copyright © 2024 Gallaudet University. All rights reserved.

• Accessibility
• Cookie Consent Notice
• Privacy Policy
• File a Report

800 Florida Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002

• < Previous

Home > SCRIPPS > SCRIPPS_STUDENT > SCRIPPS_THESES > 1516

Scripps Senior Theses

Beyond pro-life vs. pro-choice: reproductive rights for women of color and low-income women.

Sabrina Wu Follow

Graduation Year

Document type.

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Second Department

W.M. Keck Science Department

Elise Ferree

Alyssa Newman

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont .

In today’s debate over abortion, there are a multitude of additional factors to consider when restricting abortion for women of color and low-income women. The binary pro-life vs. pro-choice debate may seem like two clear-cut opposing sides, and many people find themselves agreeing firmly on one stance. However, these terms seek to implicitly portray the other stance unfavorably. Pro-life seems to imply that opponents are anti-life, or even “pro-death” and pro-choice insinuates that the opposition is “anti-choice” or favors coercion. The debate marginalizes women of color, poor women, and women from other marginalized communities because it does not take into account pre-existing conditions, such as financial incapability, harmful environmental factors and lack of social support, that restrict them from real choice to decide whether to have a child or have an abortion. Firstly, it is important to understand the complex issue of abortion in its procedure, its implications and its history in the United States, as well as the consequences upon denial of abortion and the effects of returning to a pre-Roe vs. Woe world. Abortion bans objectively affect low-income and women of color because of higher numbers of unwanted pregnancies, spatial inequalities to abortion access and its implicated costs, language barriers, financial difficulties and situational obstacles such as incarceration or environmental factors. In opposition to today’s abortion bans, it is important to get rid of the bans, prioritize women's health and work to create long-term solutions to combat economically and socially coerced abortions. We should work to reduce reasons for abortion, instead of criminalizing the procedure.

Recommended Citation

Wu, Sabrina, "Beyond Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice: Reproductive Rights for Women of Color and Low-income Women" (2020). Scripps Senior Theses . 1516. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1516

This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

Since February 28, 2020

Advanced Search

• Notify me via email or RSS
• Colleges, Universities, and Library
• Schools, Programs, and Departments
• Disciplines

Author Corner

• Faculty Submission
• Student Submission
• Policies and Guidelines

Useful Links

• Claremont Colleges Library
• Claremont Colleges Digital Library

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection
• PMC10233192

Moral foundations of pro-choice and pro-life women

Mariola paruzel-czachura.

1 Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Grazynskiego 53, 40-126 Katowice, Poland

2 Penn Center of Neuroaesthetics, Goddard Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, 3710 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA

Artur Domurat

Marta nowak.

3 Healio Institute of Psychotherapy in Katowice, Bazantow 35, 40-668 Katowice, Poland

Associated Data

The materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/793cr/?view_only=None . The study was preregistered at https://aspredicted.org/i9fa8.pdf .

Opinions on abortion are more polarized than opinions on most other moral issues. Why are some people pro-choice and some pro-life? Religious and political preferences play a role here, but pro-choice and pro-life people may also differ in other aspects. In the current preregistered study ( N  = 479), we investigated how pro-choice women differ in their moral foundations from pro-life women. When the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) was applied (i.e., when declared moral principles were measured), pro-life women scored higher than pro-choice women in loyalty, authority, and purity. However, when women were asked about moral judgments indirectly via more real-life problems from the Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFV), pro-choice women scored higher than pro-life women in emotional and physical care and liberty but lower in loyalty. When we additionally controlled for religious practice and political views, we found no differences between groups in declaring moral foundations (MFQ). However, in the case of real-life moral judgments (MFV), we observed higher care, fairness, and liberty among pro-choice and higher authority and purity among pro-life. Our results show intriguing nuances between women pro-choice and pro-life as we found a different pattern of moral foundations in those groups depending on whether we measured their declared abstract moral principles or moral judgment about real-life situations. We also showed how religious practice and political views might play a role in such differences. We conclude that attitudes to abortion “go beyond” abstract moral principles, and the real-life context matters in moral judgments.

Graphical abstract

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04800-0.

Banning the termination of pregnancy due to severe and irreversible damage to the fetus was approved in October 2020 in Polish legislation, which turned out to be one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. Similarly, some American states have enacted new abortion restrictions in 2021 and 2022. Those changes provoked protests and showed how one moral issue, i.e., “the abortion problem”, may polarize societies. We already know that opinions on abortion were “always” polarized (Foot, 1967 ; Singer, 2011 ; Thomson, 1971 ; Watt, 2017 ), and they are also very stable (Kiley & Vaisey, 2020 ). Moreover, they are more polarized than opinions on most other moral issues (Baldassarri & Park, 2020 ; DiMaggio et al., 1996 ; Jones, 2018 ). Nevertheless, why are some individuals pro-life or pro-choice, and what characterizes those two groups?

Past research tried to answer these questions showing mainly how religiosity and political preferences shape the attitude to abortion. More religious and conservative people are usually more willing to declare pro-life (Barkan, 2014 ; Fiorina, 2017 ; Jędryczka et al., 2022 ). The abortion problem is indeed strongly related to religion, and religion is strongly related to politics (Jelen & Wilcox, 2003 ; Malka et al., 2012 ). When the religion is against abortion, for example, in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, the followers are usually pro-life (Jonason et al., 2022 ).

But moral judgments related to abortion are based mainly on the strength or salience of personal values (Rilling & Sanfey, 2011 ; Schwartz, 2007 ; Spicer, 1994 ), and religious or political preferences are just the indicators of those values (Koleva et al., 2012 ). That is probably why religious and political preferences were commonly studied as predictors of attitudes to abortion. However, one can approach the abortion problem from another perspective, i.e., look at it through the lens of moral foundations theory (Graham et al., 2018 ; Graham & Haidt, 2012 ). This theory, in its latest version, postulates six moral foundations, i.e., care, fairness, liberty (so-called three individualizing foundations), loyalty, authority, and purity (so-called three binding foundations) (Clifford et al., 2015 ).

The moral foundations theory and the abortion problem

Moral foundations theory (Graham et al., 2009 , 2013 , 2018 ; Haidt, 2001 ) was proposed to explain why moral beliefs vary so widely across cultures yet still show many similarities and recurrent themes (Haidt & Graham, 2007 ). The first version of the theory posited that people differ in evaluating the importance of five moral foundations: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity (Graham et al., 2018 ). The care foundation (the opposite of harm ) relates to feeling empathy for the pain of others. Fairness (the opposite of cheating ) concerns sensitivity to justice, rights, and equality. Loyalty (the opposite of betrayal ) refers to the tendency to form coalitions and feel proud of being a group member. Authority (the opposite of subversion ) relates to a preference for hierarchical social interactions and feeling respect for, or fear of, people in a higher social position. Finally, the purity (previously termed sanctity ) foundation (the opposite of degradation ) refers to a propensity to exhibit disgust in response to incorrect behavior and reflects individual differences in concerns for the sacredness of values (Koleva et al., 2012 ). Care and fairness are individualizing foundations. They are person-centered and focus on protecting individuals, whereas loyalty, authority, and purity are conceptualized as binding foundations because they focus on preserving one’s group as a whole (Graham et al., 2009 , 2013 , 2018 ). In the last modification of the theory, the sixth moral foundation of liberty was added (Graham et al., 2018 ). A higher level of liberty means a higher need to be free in our choices and behaviors. Liberty is also an individualizing moral foundation.

Only two studies tested how moral foundations might be related to attitudes to abortion. In the first study, Koleva and colleagues (Koleva et al., 2012 ) found that purity (measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire – MFQ of Graham and colleagues) predicted being pro-life. Specifically, they conducted two studies involving thousands of participants and a variety of moral issues (among them: the abortion problem), and they tested if the endorsement of five moral foundations may predict judgments about these issues, also testing the role of political ideology (measured by self-assessment on a scale from very liberal to very conservative ), age, gender, religious attendance (i.e., frequent church attendance), and interest in politics. Regarding the abortion problem, only purity predicted attitude to abortion, next to conservative ideology and frequent church attendance. Despite the relevance of this result, this study focused only on declared preferences for moral foundations (i.e., used MFQ). We already know that those abstract preferences or principles do not always predict real-life decisions (Bostyn et al., 2018 ; Schein, 2020 ). For example, regarding the abortion problem, it was already found that some people, despite declaring they are against abortion, decided to help a close friend or family member seeking an abortion (Cowan et al., 2022 ). That is why we also need to study moral foundations more indirectly, for example, by asking about moral decisions close to real life. Additionally, Koleva and colleagues did not test the relevance of the liberty foundation, which was later added to the MFT (Clifford et al., 2015 ; Graham et al., 2018 ). Moreover, they tested only general attitudes to abortion (for example, not measuring the possible impact of the abortion law on the participants or their close others). Lastly, they conducted the study before the latest law changes in 2020–2022, which could also impact attitudes toward such an important social issue.

In the second study, Jonason and colleagues ( 2022 ) asked 255 women and men from Poland about their attitudes toward Poland’s ban on abortion. They showed that Catholics were higher on binding moral foundations (measured via MFQ) than non-Catholics and that Catholics perceived the new situation in Poland with less negativity, which led them to support the ban more than non-Catholics. These results are consistent with past findings, as generally, being religious and conservative is related to being pro-life, and religiosity and conservatism turn out to be linked to binding moral foundations (Kivikangas et al., 2021 ; Saroglou & Craninx, 2020 ). Despite the relevance of this study, it also focused only on declared moral foundations (i.e., MFQ) and did not measure liberty as a new moral foundation (Clifford et al., 2015 ; Graham et al., 2018 ). Moreover, it focused mainly on attitudes toward Poland’s recent ban on abortion. Finally, the two studies mentioned above analyzed the general population, so it is hard to make general conclusions about the differences between pro-choice and pro-life. One possible way to study this issue deeply could be by studying two samples of individuals who clearly define themselves as pro-choice or pro-life. We aimed to do this in the current research.

The current research

We aimed to provide deeper insights into the moral foundations among pro-choice and pro-life individuals. We wished to build on past work (Jonason et al., 2022 ; Koleva et al., 2012 ) in six ways:

• we used two measures of moral foundations that could allow more general conclusions about the differences between being pro-life and pro-choice as they measure moral foundations directly (MFQ) and indirectly (MFV). Specifically, we measured moral foundations not only by asking about the declaration of moral preferences (declared the importance of and attitude to abstract moral principles) using MFQ (Graham et al., 2009 ) but also by measuring participants’ assessment of immoral actors in concrete, real-life scenarios using MFV (Clifford et al., 2015 ). Measuring declarative abstract moral principles with MFQ makes sense; nevertheless, abortion is a common real-life problem involving concrete actions and choices to be made (Cowan et al., 2022 ; Maddow-Zimet et al., 2021 ). Because MFQ relies on respondents’ rating of abstract principles, it is tough to say anything about respondents’ moral judgment of concrete scenarios (Clifford et al., 2015 ). Moreover, those abstract principles do not always predict real-life decisions (Bostyn et al., 2018 ; Schein, 2020 ), e.g., some people, despite being against abortion (declaration of abstract principle), decide to help a close friend or family member who is seeking an abortion (Cowan et al., 2022 ). That is why we used MFV, an indirect measure of moral foundations based on real-life situations;
• by using MFV, we measured the new moral foundations of liberty, and to our best knowledge, we are the first to test the role of this foundation in the abortion problem;
• by using MFV, we were able to measure two types of care foundation, i.e., emotional and physical care, so this way, we could test the sensitivity to emotional or physical harm in our sample;
• we narrowed the sample to women. We did it for obvious biological reasons, i.e., women are more directly affected by the abortion rule than men. Past studies also show that our attitudes may be stronger if an object or issue may impact our lives more directly (Albarracín, 2021 );
• we decided to test two groups of women (i.e., pro-life and pro-choice). Past research (Jonason et al., 2022 ; Koleva et al., 2012 ) did not study such opposite groups; by this design, we could look for the clear differences between them;
• we measured attitudes to abortion in more detail than in past studies (Jonason et al., 2022 ; Koleva et al., 2012 ). Specifically, we asked women about their attitude to abortion in three ways: by direct question whether they are pro-choice or pro-life, by asking about their views on four detailed issues concerning the new abortion law in Poland, and by using a scale that helped us to measure Full and Conditional Abortion Support (see Measures section).

Following past research (Jonason et al., 2022 ), we hypothesized that pro-life women would have higher levels of binding moral foundations than pro-choice women. Because moral foundations measured by MFQ and MFV correlated positively in past research (Clifford et al., 2015 ), we expected to observe the same pattern of results for both of them.

The Research Ethics Committee of the University of Silesia in Katowice accepted the current study. The materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/793cr/?view_only=None . The study was preregistered at https://aspredicted.org/i9fa8.pdf . We report all measured variables in this study.

Participants and procedure

We preregistered a survey with a sample of at least N  = 300 respondents, n  = 150 women pro-choice, and n  = 150 women pro-life. Using G*Power 3.1.9.7 software suggested that we need to recruit two independent groups of ca. 150 participants, assuming alpha error probability of 0.05, power of 0.8, and low-to-medium effect size of 0.33 (of differences between groups on a dependent variable in two independent group comparisons). Because participants’ membership to one of two groups would be defined post hoc – based on the dichotomous question about support for abortion – and the allocation ratio to the groups was hard to predict a priori, we preregistered that if we collect more data in any of the two expected subsamples, we will include them in the analyses. We stopped the data collection when the smaller group had n  = 150.

Our online study was conducted during a specific time in Poland in 2021, just after the Polish government introduced the new abortion law. We want to highlight that it was a stormy time when many people went on the streets to express their support for women’s rights, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, so despite that, their lives were directly in danger. Like the study by Jonason and colleagues ( 2022 ), contrary to Koleva and colleagues’ ( 2012 ) study, we asked about a real-life problem, as abortion was the main topic in media, hospitals, homes, etc.

Women were invited to an anonymous online survey in Qualtrics using the snowball method via the University of Silesia’s website and social media platforms. Five hundred sixteen participants took part in the study. All participants had Polish nationality and spoke the Polish language. We excluded participants who did not agree to participate in the study after reading the instruction ( n  = 6), did not answer attention check questions ( n  = 3), and one man from the sample. We also excluded participants ( n  = 27) with too short (less than 3:30 min.) or too long (more than 28 min.) survey completion times, defined by logarithms outside the interquartile range of [ Q 1–1.5 IQR , Q 3 + 1.5 IQR ] 1 .

The analyzed sample consisted of 479 women, split into two groups: pro-choice women ( n  = 332, M age 26.34, SD  = 7.53) and pro-life women ( n  = 147, M age 27.84, SD  = 7.20). Among pro-life women, n  = 123 (83.7%) declared being Catholics, n  = 11 (7.5%) reported being atheists, and n  = 13 (8.8%) declared being other than Catholics (i.e., Buddhists, Protestants, other and not specified). Among pro-choice women, n  = 158 (47.6%) reported being Catholics, n  = 155 (46.7%) declared being atheists, and n  = 19 (8.8%) declared being other than Catholics (Buddhists, Judaists, Orthodox Catholics, Protestants, other and not specified). However, it is worth noting that 177 (53.3%) pro-choice women practiced religion, and 11 (7.5%) pro-life women were not religious.

Group check

Our two groups were distinguished by asking women if they were pro-choice or pro-life. However, to ensure that women correctly divided themselves as pro-choice or pro-life, we asked them about more detailed attitudes to abortion (see section Measures ).

Attitude to abortion

Women were asked about their attitudes to abortion in three ways. First, respondents answered a single question about whether they were pro-choice or pro-life (“If you had to define your own attitude towards abortion clearly, you are: pro-choice/pro-life”). This question was used to identify the two subsamples. Second, the participants expressed their views on four detailed issues concerning the new abortion law in Poland. The first question, “What is your attitude to the verdict issued by the Constitutional Court?” was answered on a scale from 1 ( I definitely do not support ) to 7 ( I definitely do support ) (variable: Attitude to New Rule in Table  1 ). The other three questions were about the potential impact of a new law on them personally (variable: Personal Influence in Table  1 ), on their close others (variable: Influence on Close Others in Table  1 ), and generally on other women (variable: General Influence in Table  1 ) and they were answered on a scale from 1 ( definitely negative ) to 7 ( definitely positive ). Third, participants read six statements about attitudes to abortion and evaluated to what extent they agreed with the statements using a scale from 1 ( I disagree ) to 5 ( I agree ). The first three statements were: “I support the full right to abortion, which is the inalienable right of every woman”, and “Abortion is a woman’s personal matter, and no one else can decide for her whether she should have an abortion or not”, “Abortion should be allowed regardless of the reason”. Averaged answers for these three statements created the index of Full Abortion Support (Cronbach α  = 0.92). Similarly, the following three statements: “Abortion should be allowed only if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the mother ”, “I support the introduction of the full right to abortion, but only up to the 12th week of pregnancy”, and “Abortion is allowed only when we are sure that the child will be born with a genetic defect” were to create the Conditional Abortion Support index, however, due to its low consistency ( α  = 0.11), we decided to analyze them separately.

Descriptive statistics and differences between pro-choice and pro-life women in religious practice, political views, and attitudes to abortion

The numbers in brackets are the variable’s scales

Moral Foundations Questionnaire

We used a Polish adaptation (Jarmakowski-Kostrzanowski & Jarmakowska-Kostrzanowska, 2016 ) of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ; Graham et al., 2009 ) to measure the degree to which the participants endorsed five sets of moral intuitions (i.e., care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity) in moral decision-making. The scale consists of 30 items that measure the moral foundations in two ways: a relevance subscale (15 items) showing how important each one of the moral foundations is for a person, and a judgments subscale (15 items), which measures the extent to which people agree with various moral opinions connected with the different moral foundations. An example item for care is “It can never be right to kill a human being”; for fairness: “When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly”; for loyalty: “People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong”; for authority: “Men and women each have different roles to play in society”; and for purity: “People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed”. A 1 to 6 response scale was used for all items, where 1 was not at all relevant or strongly disagree , and 6 was extremely relevant or strongly agree . Responses were averaged to give an overall score for each foundation. Cronbach alphas were found to be moderate for care ( α  = 0.61) and fairness ( α  = 0.56) and high for loyalty ( α  = 0.77), authority ( α  = 0.76), and purity ( α  = 0.82).

Moral Foundations Vignettes

It measures moral foundations based on evaluating other people’s behavior violating them (MFV; Clifford et al., 2015 ). The randomized set of 21 vignettes was used in our study, three vignettes per moral foundation. Apart from using five classic moral foundations, it includes a liberty foundation and two types of care, i.e., sensitivity to emotional harm to humans or non-human animals (care emotional) and sensitivity to physical harm to humans or non-human animals (care physical). An example item for care emotional is “You see a woman commenting out loud about how fat another woman looks in her jeans”; for care physical: “You see a zoo trainer jabbing a dolphin to get it to entertain his customers”; for fairness: “You see a boy skipping to the front of the line because his friend is an employee”, for liberty: “You see a man forbidding his wife to wear clothing that he has not first approved”; for loyalty: “You see the US Ambassador joking in Great Britain about the stupidity of Americans” [changed into Polish Ambassador in Germany]; for authority: “You see an employee trying to undermine all of her boss’ ideas in front of others”; for purity: “You see an employee at a morgue eating his pepperoni pizza off of a dead body”. The 5-point scale was used from 1 ( not at all wrong ) to 5 ( extremely wrong ). We did translation-back-translation of MFV (see Materials at OSF). Cronbach alphas were satisfactorily high for care emotional ( α  = 0.88), fairness ( α  = 0.71), liberty ( α  = 0.72), authority ( α  = 0.71), and loyalty ( α  = 0.76), and moderate for care physical ( α  = 0.68) and purity ( α  = 0.56).

Religious practice

Participants were asked to evaluate their level of practicing religion on a scale from 1 ( I don’t practice at all ) to 8 ( I am a very practicing person ). Additionally, we asked about which type of religion they practiced (if they practiced any).

Political views

We asked participants two questions about their political views, one related to economic issues (“Please indicate on the following scale your political views relating to economic issues”) on a scale from 0 ( State participation should be very small ) to 7 ( State participation should be very high ), and the other one related to social issues (“Please indicate on the following scale your political views relating to social, cultural issues”) on a scale from 0 ( very conservative ) to 7 ( very liberal ).

Descriptive statistics and differences between pro-choice and pro-life women in religious practice, political views, and attitudes to abortion are shown in Table  1 . The two groups differed (Welch t-tests) significantly in practicing religion (lower among pro-choice) and political views on social issues (higher liberal views among pro-choice), but there was no difference between the groups in views on economic issues. Pro-choice and pro-life women differed in full support for abortion, meaning the two groups differed in their extreme views on abortion. Moreover, pro-life women had stronger beliefs that the new abortion rule in Poland would positively impact themselves personally, their close others, and women in general. In contrast, pro-choice women believed more that the new law would harm all women, themselves, and their close others.

Regarding conditional support, women pro-life agreed more with two statements allowing abortion conditionally when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or health and when one is sure that the child will be born with a genetic defect. Women pro-choice agreed more with the third statement allowing the right to abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy (Table  1 ).

Summing up, the observed differences, especially in full support of abortion, show that women accurately classified themselves into one of the two groups, and we can be sure that the groups indeed evaluate abortion from different standpoints (however, see the limitation section for elaboration on improving such classification).

Next, we run analyses to see if moral foundations measured in two ways (i.e., MFQ and MFV) correlated. As shown in Table  2 , we received positive correlations among analogous dimensions of moral foundations, replicating past results (Clifford et al., 2015 ).

Pearson correlations between moral foundations measured by MFQ and MFV

* p  < .05, ** p  < .01, *** p  < .001 two-sided.

Finally, we run analyses to see if the groups differ in moral foundations (ANOVA) and when controlling for political views and religious practice simultaneously (ANCOVA).

Preregistered analyses

Do pro-choice and pro-life women differ in moral foundations.

Yes. As shown in Table  3 , when we analyzed differences between groups (ANOVA) using the classical measure of moral foundations (i.e., MFQ), we found that pro-life women had significantly higher binding foundations than pro-choice women, i.e., loyalty (medium effect size), authority (medium effect size), and purity (large effect size). We observed a different pattern of results when using the MFV (with small effect sizes for all results), a more indirect measure of moral foundations. For binding moral foundations, only loyalty seemed to play a role here, i.e., pro-life women had a higher level of loyalty than pro-choice women. However, pro-choice women had higher levels of both types of care (i.e., emotional and physical) and liberty than pro-life women. Fairness, authority, and purity did not differentiate those groups using MFV.

Tests of effects in ANOVA and ANCOVA

* p  < .05; ** p  < .01; *** p  < .001. The rows contain tests of one ANOVA with moral foundation as a dependent variable and attitude toward abortion as a factor, and one ANCOVA, extending the ANOVA with the set of covariates: religious practice, political views on economic issues, and political views on social issues

Exploratory analyses

Do pro-choice and pro-life women differ in moral foundations when we control religious practice and political views.

Yes. When we controlled for political views and religious practice simultaneously (ANCOVA), we found no differences between groups regarding declared moral foundations (MFQ). However, in the case of real-life assessments (MFV), we observed the same pattern of results for care and liberty as when using ANOVA, but now loyalty did not differentiate these two groups. Additionally, we observed differences in fairness, authority, and purity in such a way that women pro-life had higher levels of those foundations than women pro-choice. All found effects were small.

Past research tried to explain attitudes to abortion mainly by looking into religious and political differences between pro-choice and pro-life people. However, attitudes to abortion may also be related to an individual’s moral views (Jędryczka et al., 2022 ; Jonason et al., 2022 ), and sometimes moral foundations may even be an as good predictor of attitudes to abortion as a religious practice or political conservatism (Koleva et al., 2012 ). In the current research, we looked into the problem of attitudes to abortion more deeply by studying, directly and indirectly, moral foundations among pro-choice and women pro-life women.

When we asked about moral foundations directly (using MFQ of Graham and colleagues, 2009 ), we confirmed our preregistered hypothesis that pro-life women have higher binding foundations than pro-choice women. This result is consistent with past findings (Jonason et al., 2022 ). However, we found a different pattern of results when measuring moral foundations indirectly, i.e., by MFV (Clifford et al., 2015 ). For binding foundations, only loyalty seemed to play a role here, i.e., pro-life women had a higher level of loyalty than pro-choice women. Regarding individualizing foundations, pro-choice women had higher care (physical and emotional) and liberty levels than pro-life women. Fairness, authority, and purity did not differentiate those groups when applying MFV.

Moreover, when we additionally controlled for religious practice and political views (ANCOVA), we found no differences in moral foundations between groups regarding declared moral foundations (MFQ). However, in the case of real-life assessments (MFV), we observed higher care and liberty among pro-choice (just like in ANOVA) and higher fairness, authority, and purity among pro-life. We conclude that religious practice and political views may explain differences between pro-choice and pro-life, but only in the case of declared moral foundations (MFQ) and not in MFV (when individuals make moral judgments about real-life behaviors). Because we found differences between pro-choice and pro-life women (whether we controlled religious practice or political views or not), we conclude that studying indirect moral judgments (i.e., using MFV) may reveal hitherto unknown “hidden” differences between pro-choice and pro-life women.

Specifically, our results show intriguing nuances in the problem of abortion as we found that pro-choice and pro-life women differ in declared abstract moral principles (MFQ) and sensitivity to violating those principles in real-life situations (MFV). On the one hand (i.e., when using the MFQ), women who were pro-life were the women who intensely cared about binding foundations, which was also related to their more vital religious practices and higher conservatism on social issues. It simply means that women who were pro-life cared more about binding foundations than pro-choice women, so they declared that they cared about being loyal, listening to authorities, and not violating the purity foundation, which is strictly related to religious sanctity (and indeed, this foundation’s one of the first names was even sanctity ) (Graham et al., 2018 ). Indeed, past studies showed strong correlations between religion and binding moral foundations worldwide (Saroglou & Craninx, 2020 ) and conservative political preferences and binding foundations (Kivikangas et al., 2021 ). Similar associations were found between five moral foundations, religiosity, political preferences, and acceptance of the new abortion rule in Poland (Jonason et al., 2022 ) or between preference for group-based hierarchy and pro-life (Osborne & Davies, 2009 ). When we controlled for religious practice and political views, the differences between pro-choice and pro-life women disappeared, so we can conclude that – at least for declared abstract moral foundations – being religious and conservative plays a central role in the abortion problem.

On the other hand (i.e., when using the MFV), we showed that this is only one part of the story. We know it because when indirectly measuring preferences for moral foundations, the same women (i.e., pro-life) had higher levels of only loyalty foundation when compared to pro-choice women. The importance of loyalty to the abortion problem is consistent with theory and past findings (Jonason et al., 2022 ). Higher levels of loyalty are related to being more religious and conservative (Saroglou & Craninx, 2020 ). The more surprising result is that authority and purity foundations did not play an essential role in the abortion problem when measured indirectly. This result contradicted past findings when moral foundations were measured directly (Jonason et al., 2022 ). It may be related to a different approach to measuring moral foundations by MFQ and MFV. For example, purity is more directly connected to religiosity in MFQ than in MFV, and their operationalization is slightly different (Crone, 2022 ). We suspect it is the most reasonable explanation for finding no differences here. However, when we additionally controlled for religious practice and political views, we replicated the higher level of care and liberty among pro-choice, but we also found a higher level of fairness, authority, and purity among pro-life. Future researchers could try to explain those nuances more deeply, e.g., by conducting longitudinal studies or using more complex measurements of religiosity and political preferences. We observe inconsistent patterns of results for binding moral foundations measured via MFV, so we should be more tentative about the interpretation and conclusions from our study. We need more studies on this issue to understand why we observed such inconsistency.

Regarding the individualizing moral foundations (MFV), pro-life women scored lower in physical and emotional care and liberty foundations than pro-choice women (also when controlling for religious practice and political views). Regarding care, it simply means that pro-choice and pro-life women gave similar declarations about how important it is for them to care about others (MFQ). However, they differed in indirect measures of care in such a way that pro-choice women had higher levels of care than pro-life women (MFV). These results are the most intriguing for us. Women being pro-life sometimes argue that they care about all life, so abortion should be banned. Nevertheless, we did not find confirmation of this in empirical results. Surprisingly, those women who were pro-choice had higher levels of emotional and physical care than pro-life women. It means that when making moral decisions about other people, pro-choice women were more sensitive to violations of care foundation or, in other words: they disliked the suffering of others more than pro-life women. According to some approaches in moral psychology, the foundation of care is the most critical, and people make their moral judgments mainly based on a simple question: Is anyone hurt? (Gray et al., 2012 ; Schein & Gray, 2018 ). Future studies are needed to explain those differences in care, looking for possible sources of them, maybe in the levels of empathy (Zaki, 2018 ), moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002 ; Paruzel-Czachura & Blukacz 2021 ), moral absolutism (Vecina et al., 2016 ), or more general attitudes to violence (Vecina et al., 2015 ).

As MFQ does not allow measuring the liberty foundation, we only studied its level using the MFV, and we found that pro-choice women had a higher level of liberty than pro-life women. The importance of liberty is consistent with theoretical assumptions of being pro-choice (Foot, 1967 ; Singer, 2011 ; Thomson, 1971 ; Watt, 2017 ), and it is the first result confirming empirically that, indeed, being pro-choice is related to highlighting liberty when making moral decisions about what behavior is right or wrong.

Some individuals may say they are pro-life or pro-choice because of their religious or political preferences. Indeed, we found significant relations between stronger practicing of religion, conservative views on social issues, and being against abortion. However, we also found this may be too straightforward to describe this problem because there are atheists and believers in both groups of women, i.e., pro-choice and pro-life. We need more studies to understand the complex attitudes to abortion, for example, by studying only a sample of atheists. It is also worth highlighting again that past studies showed that moral foundations might be as good a predictor of attitudes to abortion as religious or political views (Koleva et al., 2012 ). Because of the importance of the abortion problem in our everyday lives, we need more studies to understand possible differences between pro-choice and pro-life people beyond simple explanations that abortion is just a matter of religion or politics.

Our study is not free from limitations. First, we tested only one sample. There is a possibility that different samples (e.g., from other cultural or religious backgrounds) would bring different results. We cannot know to what extent the results are dependent on the Polish context and the abortion protests, and this is a limitation that needs to be addressed in future research. We need replications of our study, especially in diverse samples, including countries where the abortion law changed, similar to Poland. Attitudes to abortion may be sensitive to changes in law, which made thousands of women protest for their rights on the streets in the case of Poland. Second, we did not study whether being pro-choice or pro-life is moderated by individual differences. For instance, attitudes or moral judgments may depend on personality (Pratto et al., 1994 ). Does personality matter for the abortion problem, and if yes, how? (Jonason et al., 2022 ). Third, we also did not study how situational factors may impact attitudes toward abortion, and some research shows that this issue is worth future investigations (Bago et al., 2022 ; Bilewicz et al., 2017 ). Fourth, two compared groups were identified based on a direct question about their position on pro-life or pro-choice. To cope with false self-identification, we asked additional questions about attitudes toward the abortion problem and the new law in Poland. Admittedly, we confirmed that women correctly assigned themselves to the group for or against abortion (see results: group check). However, we did not avoid the problem related to the situation that some participants who claimed to be pro-life or pro-choice had more mixed feelings about the rest of the questions. We conducted additional analyses to understand this issue more deeply ( Supplementary Materials ). Specifically, we presented the percentages of participants’ answers within the two groups on the six statements expressing full or conditional support for abortion (Table S1 ). This table shows that most participants correctly assigned themselves to the group. However, there were participants whose feelings were mixed. Moreover, we conducted the hierarchical cluster analysis on the three statements expressing full support for abortion and observed that some participants do not belong to the two obtained clusters (Table S2 ). Because we did not preregister to drop such participants out, we did not do it. However, we recommend implementing better control of this issue in future studies to ensure that such groups are created properly. Fifth, we measured religious practice and political views by only single items. In future studies, researchers could use more complex measures of those variables, e.g., the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (Huber & Huber, 2012 ) or the Resistance to Change-Beliefs Scale (White et al., 2020 ). Sixth, it is worth noticing that the correlations between the factors estimated through the MFQ and the MFV are mediocre, or some correlate not exactly as the theory would expect. For instance, MFV authority correlates with MFQ fairness. Perhaps different results with MFQ and MFV might be caused by the imprecision of the instruments in measuring moral foundations. Lastly, there is also a possibility that different results would be obtained in non-WEIRD samples (that are White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) (Henrich et al., 2010 ), as some research has suggested different patterns of moral judgments in non-WEIRD samples (e.g., Smith & Apicella 2022 ; Sorokowski et al., 2020 ; Turpin et al., 2021 ; Workman et al., 2022 ). Despite all the above limitations, we believe that because of our topic’s theoretical and practical relevance, our study brings an important puzzle to understanding polarization regarding the abortion problem.

Conclusions

We conclude that to understand the attitudes to abortion more fully, we must go beyond abstract moral declarations. Our research demonstrates that pro-choice and pro-life women differed in moral foundations when (a) they revealed abstract moral foundations (pro-life women cared more about loyalty, authority, and purity than pro-choice women) and (b) when they made moral judgments closed to real-life problems (e.g., pro-choice women were more concerned than pro-life women when the foundations of emotional and physical care and liberty were violated). Concerning the latest restrictions on abortion in many places worldwide, discussions about the abortion problem have become more common in our everyday lives. This issue touched many people so much that it sparked massive protests. Hence, it is essential that people are aware of these differences between pro-choice and pro-life women, and we definitely need more studies on this topic.

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

(DOCX 24.2 KB)

Author contributions

MPC and MN contributed to the study conceptualization. MPC and AD wrote the draft. MPC and MN contributed to data collection and data preparation. AD analyzed the data. All authors accepted the final version.

Data availability

Declarations.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

1 We did not pre-register dropping those participants out. However, when we repeated the analyses for the full sample, we observed the very similar values of Cronbach alphas, the same pattern of correlations and differences between groups, and similar p-values in the performed statistical tests.

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Albarracín, D. (2021). Action and inaction in a Social World: Predicting and changing Attitudes and Behavior (pp. xix–379). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781108878357
• Aquino K, Reed A., II The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2002; 83 :1423–1440. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1423. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bago B, Kovacs M, Protzko J, Nagy T, Kekecs Z, Palfi B, Adamkovic M, Adamus S, Albalooshi S, Albayrak-Aydemir N, Alfian IN, Alper S, Alvarez-Solas S, Alves SG, Amaya S, Andresen PK, Anjum G, Ansari D, Arriaga P, Aruta J, Aczel B. Publisher correction: Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern and western countries in a culturally diverse sample. Nature Human Behaviour. 2022; 6 :897–898. doi: 10.1038/s41562-022-01403-w. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baldassarri D, Park B. Was there a culture war? Partisan polarization and secular trends in US Public Opinion. The Journal of Politics. 2020; 82 :809–827. doi: 10.1086/707306. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barkan SE. Gender and abortion attitudes: Religiosity as a suppressor variable. Public Opinion Quarterly. 2014; 78 :940–950. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfu047. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bilewicz M, Mikołajczak G, Babińska M. Speaking about the preborn. How specific terms used in the abortion debate reflect attitudes and (de)mentalization. Personality and Individual Differences. 2017; 111 :256–262. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2017.02.018. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bostyn DH, Sevenhant S, Roets A. Of mice, men, and trolleys: Hypothetical judgment versus real-life behavior in trolley-style moral dilemmas. Psychological Science. 2018; 29 :1084–1093. doi: 10.1177/0956797617752640. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Clifford S, Iyengar V, Cabeza R, Sinnott-Armstrong W. Moral foundations vignettes: A standardized stimulus database of scenarios based on moral foundations theory. Behavior Research Methods. 2015; 47 :1178–1198. doi: 10.3758/s13428-014-0551-2. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cowan SK, Bruce TC, Perry BL, Ritz B, Perrett S, Anderson EM. Discordant benevolence: How and why people help others in the face of conflicting values. Science Advances. 2022; 8 :eabj5851. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj5851. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Crone D. Conceptual issues with the moral foundation of purity: The case of religion. PsyArXiv. 2022 doi: 10.31234/osf.io/3e8bv. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• DiMaggio P, Evans J, Bryson B. Have American’s social attitudes become more polarized? American Journal of Sociology. 1996; 102 :690–755. doi: 10.1086/230995. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fiorina, M. P. (2017). Unstable majorities: Polarization, party sorting, and political stalemate . Hoover Press.
• Foot P. The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect. Oxford Review. 1967; 5 :5–15. [ Google Scholar ]
• Graham, J., & Haidt, J. (2012). Sacred values and evil adversaries: A moral foundations approach. In M. Mikulincer & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), The social psychology of morality: Exploring the causes of good and evil (pp. 11–31). American Psychological Association. 10.1037/13091-001
• Graham J, Haidt J, Nosek BA. Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2009; 96 :1029–1046. doi: 10.1037/a0015141. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2013). Chapter Two - Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism. In P. Devine & A. Plant (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol.47, pp.55–130). Academic Press. 10.1016/B978-0-12-407236-7.00002-4
• Graham, J., Haidt, J., Motyl, M., Meindl, P., Iskiwitch, C., & Mooijman, M. (2018). Moral foundations theory: On the advantages of moral pluralism over moral monism. Atlas of moral psychology (pp. 211–222). The Guilford Press.
• Gray K, Waytz A, Young L. The moral dyad: A fundamental template unifying moral judgment. Psychological Inquiry. 2012; 23 :206–215. doi: 10.1080/1047840X.2012.686247. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Haidt J. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review. 2001; 108 :814–834. doi: 10.1037/0033-295x.108.4.814. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Haidt J, Graham J. When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Social Justice Research. 2007; 20 :98–116. doi: 10.1007/s11211-007-0034-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Henrich J, Heine SJ, Norenzayan A. Most people are not WEIRD. Nature. 2010; 466 :7302. doi: 10.1038/466029a. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Huber, S., & Huber, O. W. (2012). The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions , 3 , Article 3. 10.3390/rel3030710
• Jarmakowski-Kostrzanowski T, Jarmakowska-Kostrzanowska L. The polish adaptation of moral foundation questionnaire (MFQ-PL) Social Psychological Bulletin. 2016; 39 :489–508. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jędryczka W, Misiak M, Whitehouse H. Why do conservatives condemn abortion? OSF Preprints. 2022 doi: 10.31219/osf.io/b2fg3. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jelen TG, Wilcox C. Causes and consequences of public attitudes toward abortion: A review and research agenda. Political Research Quarterly. 2003; 56 :489–500. doi: 10.1177/106591290305600410. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jonason PK, Zajenkowski M, Szymaniak K, Leniarska M. Attitudes towards Poland’s ban on abortion: Religiousness, morality, and situational affordances. Personality and Individual Differences. 2022; 184 :111229. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111229. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jones, J. M. (2018). US abortion attitudes remain closely divided. Gallup.
• Kiley K, Vaisey S. Measuring stability and change in personal culture using panel data. American Sociological Review. 2020; 85 :477–506. doi: 10.1177/0003122420921538. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kivikangas JM, Fernández-Castilla B, Järvelä S, Ravaja N, Lönnqvist JE. Moral foundations and political orientation: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 2021; 147 :55–94. doi: 10.1037/bul0000308. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Koleva SP, Graham J, Iyer R, Ditto PH, Haidt J. Tracing the threads: How five moral concerns (especially purity) help explain culture war attitudes. Journal of Research in Personality. 2012; 46 :184–194. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2012.01.006. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Maddow-Zimet I, Lindberg LD, Castle K. State-level variation in abortion stigma and women and men’s abortion underreporting in the USA. Population Research and Policy Review. 2021; 40 :1149–1161. doi: 10.1007/s11113-021-09657-4. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Malka A, Lelkes Y, Srivastava S, Cohen AB, Miller DT. The association of religiosity and political conservatism: The role of political engagement. Political Psychology. 2012; 33 :275–299. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00875.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Osborne, D., & Davies, P. G. (2009). Social dominance orientation,ambivalent sexism, and abortion: Explaining pro-choice and pro-life attitudes. Personality Assessment: New Research , 309–320.
• Paruzel-Czachura M, Blukacz M. How relevant for you is to be a moral person? Polish validation of the self-importance of moral identity scale. PLoS One. 2021; 16 :e0255386. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255386. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pratto F, Sidanius J, Stallworth LM, Malle BF. Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1994; 67 :741–763. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.741. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rilling JK, Sanfey AG. The neuroscience of social decision-making. Annual Review of Psychology. 2011; 62 :23–48. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131647. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Saroglou V, Craninx M. Religious moral righteousness over care: A review and a meta-analysis. Current Opinion in Psychology. 2020; 40 :79–85. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.09.002. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schein C. The importance of context in moral judgments. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2020; 15 :207–215. doi: 10.1177/1745691620904083. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schein C, Gray K. The theory of dyadic morality: Reinventing moral judgment by redefining harm. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 2018; 22 (1):32–70. doi: 10.1177/1088868317698288. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schwartz SH. Universalism values and the inclusiveness of our moral universe. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 2007; 38 :711–728. doi: 10.1177/0022022107308992. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Singer, P. (2011). Practical Ethics . Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511975950
• Smith KM, Apicella CL. Hadza hunter-gatherers are not deontologists and do not prefer deontologists as social partners. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2022; 101 :104314. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104314. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sorokowski P, Marczak M, Misiak M, Białek M. Trolley Dilemma in Papua. Yali horticulturalists refuse to pull the lever. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2020; 27 :398–403. doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01700-y. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Spicer DN. World view and abortion beliefs: A replication of Luker’s Implicit Hypothesis*. Sociological Inquiry. 1994; 64 :114–126. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-682X.1994.tb01093.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thomson JJ. A defense of abortion. Philosophy & Public Affairs. 1971; 1 :47–66. [ Google Scholar ]
• Turpin MH, Walker AC, Fugelsang JA, Sorokowski P, Igor G, Białek M. The search for predictable moral partners: Predictability and moral (character) preferences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2021; 97 :104196. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104196. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vecina ML, Marzana D, Paruzel-Czachura M. Connections between moral psychology and intimate partner violence: Can IPV be read through moral psychology? Aggression and Violent Behavior. 2015; 22 :120–127. doi: 10.1016/j.avb.2015.04.013. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vecina ML, Chacón F, Pérez-Viejo JM. Moral absolutism, self-deception, and moral self-concept in men who commit intimate partner violence: A comparative study with an opposite sample. Violence Against Women. 2016; 22 :3–16. doi: 10.1177/1077801215597791. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Watt, H. (2017). The Ethics of pregnancy, abortion and childbirth: Exploring moral choices in childbearing . Routledge. [ PubMed ]
• White KRG, Kinney D, Danek RH, Smith B, Harben C. The resistance to change-beliefs scale: Validation of a New measure of conservative ideology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2020; 46 :20–35. doi: 10.1177/0146167219841624. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Workman CI, Smith KM, Apicella CL, Chatterjee A. Evidence against the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype in Hadza hunter gatherers. Scientific Reports. 2022; 12 :8693. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-12440-w. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zaki, J. (2018). Empathy is a moral force. In K. Gray (Ed.), Atlas of moral psychology (pp. 49–58). The Guilford Press.

• < Previous

Home > Student Scholarship > THESES > 1033

Senior Theses and Projects

Abortion in america after roe: an examination of the impact of dobbs v. jackson women’s health organization on women’s reproductive health access.

Natalie Maria Caffrey Follow

Date of Award

Spring 5-12-2023

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Public Policy and Law

First Advisor

Professor Adrienne Fulco

Second Advisor

Professor Glenn Falk

This thesis will examine the limitations in access to abortion and other necessary reproductive healthcare in states that are hostile to abortion rights, as well as discuss the ongoing litigation within those states between pro-choice and pro-life advocates. After analyzing the legal landscape and the different abortion laws within these states, this thesis will focus on the practical consequences of Dobbs on women’s lives, with particular attention to its impact on women of color and poor women in states with the most restrictive laws. The effect of these restrictive laws on poor women will be felt disproportionately due to their lack of ability to travel to obtain care from other states that might offer abortion services. And even if these women find a way to obtain access to abortions, there is now the real possibility of criminal prosecution for those who seek or assist women who obtain abortions post- Dobbs . To compound the problem, the Court made clear in Dobbs that its decision to revisit the privacy rights issue signals the possibility of new limitations on protections previously taken for granted in the areas of In vitro fertilization, birth control, emergency contraception, and other civil rights such as gay marriage. Finally, this thesis will examine the political and legal efforts of liberal states, private companies, and grassroots organizations attempting to mitigate Dobbs ’s effects. These pro-choice actors have, to some extent, joined forces to protect access for women in the United States through protective legislation and expanding access in all facets of reproductive healthcare, particularly for minority women who will be disproportionately affected by abortion bans in conservative states. The current efforts to mitigate the legal and medical implications of Dobbs will determine the future of women’s rights in America, not only regarding abortion but more broadly in terms of adequate reproductive care access.

Senior thesis completed at Trinity College, Hartford CT for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy & Law.

Recommended Citation

Caffrey, Natalie Maria, "Abortion in America After Roe: An Examination of the Impact of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Women’s Reproductive Health Access". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2023. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/1033

Since May 15, 2023

Included in

American Politics Commons , Civil Law Commons , Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons , Constitutional Law Commons , Health Law and Policy Commons , Law and Gender Commons , Law and Politics Commons , Law and Society Commons , Litigation Commons , Public Law and Legal Theory Commons , Social Justice Commons , State and Local Government Law Commons , Supreme Court of the United States Commons

Advanced Search

• Notify me via email or RSS
• Collections
• Disciplines

Author Corner

• Submission Guidelines
• Submit Research

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

The Pro-Choice Republican's Political Right to Life

Journal Title

Journal issn, volume title, repository usage stats.

Abortion has evolved into a highly partisan issue that now defines both the Republican and Democratic parties. Though it remains a salient political issue, it is unclear how abortion affects vote choice in contemporary elections. This thesis examines the relationship between state legislative candidates’ abortion positions and their electoral outcomes. Specifically, it examines whether candidates who deviate from their national political party’s abortion position – pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats – have better or worse electoral outcomes than those who do not. Using data from the 2012 and 2014 National Candidate Studies (n = 1,907; 1,869), I constructed a series of multiple logistic regression models to determine how candidates’ abortion beliefs impacted their electoral outcomes at both the primary and general election levels for those years. I also interviewed a number of relevant political actors in order to better understand and contextualize my quantitative analysis. Though the regression results were somewhat inconsistent, my findings indicated that abortion does have some effect on vote choice, particularly at the primary level. These results suggest that candidates who deviate from their national party’s abortion position are somewhat less likely to be elected.

Description

Bender, Sarah (2016). The Pro-Choice Republican's Political Right to Life . Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11577 .

Collections

Dukes student scholarship is made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial / No derivative (CC-BY-NC-ND) license .

• Dissertation
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Book Report/Review
• Research Proposal
• Math Problems
• Proofreading
• Movie Review
• Cover Letter Writing
• Personal Statement
• Nursing Paper
• Argumentative Essay
• Research Paper
• Discussion Board Post

Tips for Creating Impressive Persuasive Speeches on Abortion

Table of Contents

Speech is a great way to persuade someone that your position or viewpoint on a specific topic is correct and reasonable. But, creating a good persuasive speech is a challenging task. Especially, when you chose such a controversial topic as abortion. 

There are a lot of questions about abortion and they are constantly discussed in society. Debates over abortion touches on different aspects like religious viewpoints, the legality of this procedure, and its morality. And to create a good-quality abortion persuasive essay , you need to know about all key points, rules, and best writing practices.

In this article, you will find all information about writing persuasive speeches on abortion. We will tell you about each step and share some useful tips. Keep reading to learn more!

Preparing an Abortion Persuasive Speech : Essential Steps

The process of writing any persuasive speech includes several steps. And all of them are equally important if you want to craft the best speech possible. Speaking of abortion persuasive essay writing, here are the steps you need to follow to prepare an exceptional speech:

• Research the topic. Before you decide what position to take in your speech, you need to learn as much information as possible about abortion and look at it from different viewpoints.
• Choose your side. Basically, there are only two sides you can choose from — so-called pro-life and pro-choice. The first side argues against abortion, and another side argues in favor of abortion as a legal right for every woman.
• Create a thesis statement for your abortion persuasive essay . 
• Outline your speech. Write down all the points you want to communicate in your speech and organize them. Find the strongest arguments from all your ideas and use only them. Weak points will not help you to create a good persuasive essay.
• Create the first draft. We will talk about each part of a persuasive essay structure later in this article.
• Revise your speech and edit it. Polish your first draft by changing sentences, removing mistakes, and checking the logical sequence of all points. Repeat the process as many times as needed to create a flawless final draft.

How to Start a Persuasive Speech on Abortion

The best way to start your abortion persuasive speech is with an attention grabber. It can be interesting statistics, or an intriguing question, that will make the audience keep listening to you.

After the first sentence, you need to move to your thesis statement. Basically, you will argue for or against abortion and you need to clearly state it in your thesis. But, it is also important to provide the key point why you chose one side and not another. Use one sentence between the attention grabber and your thesis statement to ensure a smooth transition.

How to Present Arguments in a Persuasive Speech About Abortions

Now, let’s talk about the main part of your abortion persuasive essay — argumentation. Basically, the less you write, the better. The meaning is you need to remove all unnecessary information from your speech. Provide short, precise facts and arguments, without deviating from your main point. Every argument should be formulated in powerful sentences that will hit your listeners and make them think critically.

The best way is to present an argument and back it up with a few facts or statistics. If you think that your argument can be unclear, make sure you add one more sentence to better explain your point. Once you communicate one point, move to the next one, that is logically connected to your previous point.

Don’t try to present all your arguments in one speech. Choose no more than 3-4 arguments, and make sure they are the strongest ones. Otherwise, your listener will be bored with the length of your abortion persuasive speech and unconvinced of the validity of your position.

How to End an Abortion Persuasive Speech

The conclusion is extremely important in a persuasive speech. It is the last chance to reinforce your point of view. So, if you want to impress the listeners and make them consider your position, you need to choose the right words for your concluding sentences.

First, you can summarize your arguments, just to remind the listeners of your key points. It should be a short sentence where you just repeat all points one by one. And after this, you need to make a final statement. 

There are a lot of options for how you can make it, and everything depends on what arguments you presented earlier. One of the most interesting ways is to end with a question that will make people doubt their position if it is opposite to yours.

Persuasive Speech About Abortion : Key Points to Know

We have already told you enough about the process of writing an abortion persuasive essay . But, the same with any type of essay, a persuasive speech has its special features. Here are some key points to remember if you truly want to persuade people of your viewpoint on abortion:

• As people usually listen to speeches, not read them, there is no place for abstract phrases and deviations from the topic. A persuasive speech should be precise, clear, and contain powerful statements and arguments.
• Use simple language, as people usually become less interested when hearing sophisticated words. No need to speak with too complicated phrases.
• Your words can be emotional and passionate. It will help to strengthen your message and evoke emotions among your listeners. Using formal, dry language in an abortion persuasive essay is not effective at all.

Final Thoughts

We have covered all essential points in writing a speech about abortion. Now, it’s time for you to get to work and create a persuasive speech. We hope our guide will help you with this task.

And remember, despite the fact that persuasive speech should persuade people, it rarely works like that. One speech is not enough to make a person immediately change their opinion on abortion. But, a good persuasive speech indeed can influence people and get them thinking further. And it should be your goal when writing an abortion persuasive essay.

Get your top-class fast essays on time

Tips on Writing a Persuasive Internet Censorship Essay

10 College Tips for Sophomore Students