PRO LEGAL ABORTION

A woman's right to choose abortion is a "fundamental right" recognized by the US Supreme Court. The landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade was decided on Jan. 22, 1973 and remains the law of the land. [49]

Personhood begins at birth, not at conception. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, not a baby. Personhood at conception is not a proven biological fact.

Fetuses are incapable of feeling pain when an abortion is performed. According to Stuart W. G. Derbyshire, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham (England), "[n]ot only has the biological development not yet occurred to support pain experience, but the environment after birth, so necessary to the development of pain experience, is also yet to occur." [10]

Access to legal, professionally performed abortions reduces injury and death caused by unsafe, illegal abortions. The World Health Organization estimated in 2006 that "back-alley" abortions cause 68,000 maternal deaths each year in countries where abortion is not legal. [11]

The anti-abortion position is usually based on religious beliefs and threatens the vital separation of church and state. Religious ideology should not be a foundation for law in the United States.

Modern abortion procedures are safe. The risk of a woman’s death from abortion is less than one in 100,000, [12] whereas the risk of a woman dying from giving birth is 13.3 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies. [13] Furthermore, a 1993 fertility investigation of 10,767 women by the Joint Royal College