As I’ve written here before, when I talk about abortion I call it abortion care — because that’s what it is. Abortion is essential, effective medical care.
During the debate over health care reform, we often heard that health care is a basic human right. That’s true — and just as true is the fact that women have the basic human right to safe, legal abortion care. And that means all women, not just the ones with the resources to overcome medically unnecessary, demeaning and stigmatizing regulations.
I’m not the only one saying this. In fact, it’s the longstanding position of the United Nations. A report by the UN’s Population Fund (UNFPA) called for new policies to address the barriers to reproductive health care that economically disadvantaged women face:
The fundamental human rights to life and to security of the person, as well as freedom from cruel and inhumane treatment, and from discrimination, among others, means that unnecessary restrictions on abortion should be removed and governments should provide access to safe abortion services.
And in its periodic review of member countries’ policies
to ensure compliance with the Geneva Convention, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended that Ireland and Chile revise their abortion laws to ensure access to more women. According to Think Progress, these two countries have some of the most restrictive abortion policies in the world:
When questioning Irish officials about the law, members of the human rights committee asked how forcing a pregnant woman at risk of suicide to be examined by three doctors before being allowed to proceed with an abortion could be “consistent with the obligation to protect her against mental torture.” They also pointed out that the harsh law “adversely affects vulnerable groups of women,” like the low-income women who may not be able to navigate the complicated medical requirements. Ultimately, their report concludes, Ireland’s laws are depriving women of their human rights.
Human Rights Watch also considers access to abortion care a fundamental human right:
Abortion is a highly emotional subject and one that excites deeply held opinions. However, equitable access to safe abortion services is first and foremost a human right. Where abortion is safe and legal, no one is forced to have one. Where abortion is illegal and unsafe, women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term or suffer serious health consequences and even death. Approximately 13 percent of maternal deaths worldwide are attributable to unsafe abortion-between 68,000 and 78,000 deaths annually.
Even the most diehard conservatives should agree that when it comes to defending the proposition that all of us are born with fundamental rights that no government can legitimately take from us, that question is settled. It’s in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. You might even say that questioning these rights and shifting them into the fray of politics is, well, unpatriotic!
It’s certainly offensive. Why are my rights as a woman less important than anyone else’s?
Human Rights Watch has an excellent Q&A on their website that itemizes the key components of understanding abortion as a human rights issue:
Why is abortion a human rights issue?
Right to life
Rights to health and health care
Rights to nondiscrimination and equality
Right to security of person
Right to liberty
Right to privacy
Right to information
Right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment
Right to decide the number and spacing of children
Right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress
Right to freedom of thought and religion
If you accept that human rights exist, and that they apply to all of us, you can’t pick and choose which rights you like and which you want to eliminate. Abortion rights are human rights, and no one should be denied their most basic human rights.
Originally published on Terry O’Neill’s Huffington Post blog on 01/08/2015.
I agree that Human Rights issues should be pressed on all around the world. I’m sure there are fundraisers that could be put together to help women in third world civilizations in need of care as well.
Human Rights issues should be pressed around the world. Every woman should have the right to a safe passage to proper health care and aid to abortion at any length of term. Itis our right “We are the generation of women that are pursuing this global calamity.”
Friends have asked me why I belong to NOW. I tell them initially it’s for my Mom. A Pioneer in Women of Courage and Independence. Mom was a 1st Lt. US Army, WWII. She was an OB/GYN Nurse until retiring in 1972. In her later 80s Mom told me of a day she spent with Eleanor Roosevelt! I had the great privilege to have had her in my life until just before her 93rd birthday. I understood my mother being outspoken and active for Women’s Rights, why the job a woman did as a man did should earn the same pay. I knew why Mom supported the ERA. What I didn’t understand was why my Mom, the woman who loved to work the delivery room, who was crazy for babies would be Pro Roe v. Wade! I asked. Mon said that as a result of illegal abortion her office was treating cases where young women’s reproductive organs were too far gone. In some cases they lost their lives. If legal the treatment would be performed by Board Certified Doctors in Sterile Conditions bringing the chances of infection or other problems down greatly. If this law is reversed, if we impose Prohibition, I’m sure we will get the same results as the Prohibition of Alcohol. Only instead of bootleggers and gangsters. We will revert to unlicensed doctors or worse performing less than skilled procedures in non sterile conditions. If my religious beliefs dictate abortion is wrong, I guess I better not have one. Do I get to force any Congressman eligible to have a Bris! Or are there no ends to those……!
This, truly is a case of separation of church and state. The Pro-Fetus camp, because they will do Nothing for the baby. The Pro-Fetus (anti choice) are trying to force their moral and religious beliefs on others. This disturbs me. Three of my Grandparents and one great, great Grandparent came to America to escape the Pogroms of Eastern Europe. There was harsh reality when they got here but with drive and ambition they could make lives for themselves. They did. They built their Temples and practiced their religion. The Rabbi says “Life begins when the children move out and the dog dies.” Not being very observant, I believe Torah reads life begins at first breath. However in a Land of Laws for All regardless of age, race, sexual identity, religion or lack of religion, creed or National Origin, our Laws apply to All. With this Law the simple fact is, if your belief forbids this, don’t do it.
I am still very angry that the ERA needs just a few votes to be Ratified and this hasn’t been done in over 50 years! This should be on the front page of the New York Times! Daily! Sincerely, a guy who reads your mail, Rob Isenberg
Thank you for a measured and thoughtful presentation of abortion as a human right. Now, more than ever, the U.S. needs a new ERA amendment protecting females from anti-choice discrimination.
Instead of having abortion be a matter of the woman’s choice to have one, why not have pregnancy be legal only when the woman gives her explicit and uncoerced consent to the use of her body by the embryo or fetus? Such a stipulation would be more in line with existing laws that protect women (at least on paper) from having their bodies used against their will by private parties.
The Equal Rights Amendment would make it a Constitutional Law that protects all people from any and all existing laws that discriminate based on gender (Such as ALL anti-choice laws do). This would include reproductive healthcare, health insurance privacy, workplace discrimination, parental leave, and unequal pay. This law would not only protect women, but transgender individuals as well.
This article highlights an essential truth—abortion rights are human rights. Access to safe and legal abortion is crucial for reproductive freedom and gender equality. For those facing barriers due to restrictive laws, resources like Online Abortion Rx provide a safe and discreet way to access FDA-approved abortion pills. Everyone deserves the right to make informed choices about their bodies without fear or stigma. Thank you for advocating for reproductive rights and keeping this conversation going!
With all due respect… you’re wrong. There is too much evidence against this post. I hate that it is so easy for people like those who wrote this to mislead others. Call me biased, but Pro-life is the right and moral way. I have many sources for this and all are reliable. I’m sure you could have some too, but in the end, pro-life would win. Abortion is evil. Utterly evil. Murdering a child is VERY wrong, and I don’t even know why people do it. Thank you for this opportunity to set people straight.
By the way, feel free to reply to what I said. I am up for an argument. I hate abortion with a passion
Youre so right! I agree 100%
Abortion
“Abortion is not a right. It is a violent act against the defenseless. It violates every principle of morality and should be barred by American law. Until that day, I fully support bans on partial-birth abortion, third-trimester abortion, and indeed every limit that can receive public support.” (Josh Hawley)
These words were said by Josh Hawley, and I agree with and support his words.
[Josh Hawley is an American Republican politician who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018. Known for his firebrand conservative positions, Hawley was one of the first senators to announce that he would object to the certification of the 2020 presidential election in which Democrat Joe Biden defeated the Republican incumbent, Donald Trump. In 2024 Hawley won reelection against Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce. (Britannica)]
This current age and culture has many problems as it sinks lower and lower. One of the worst problems is one known as “terminating a pregnancy”, or “feticide”. But the term I will use is “abortion”. Abortion has several definitions, and some definitions even include “Miscarriage” as an abortion. However, the term abortion is generally used in the act of killing a baby, and for the sake of clarity, that is how I will use it in this presentation.
Abortion should have a federal ban for many, many reasons. Sadly, abortion is only banned currently in 12 states. The remaining states have little to no restriction when it comes to abortion. Those states believe abortion should be legal, and abortion is not wrong. They think it is okay to have an abortion because it is for health reasons. I contend that it is still wrong, even for health reasons. If the mother finds out her baby will have moderate or severe mental or physical health problems, she may decide to have an abortion. Or the mother may find out that having this baby could kill her, and so decides to preserve her life by ending the child’s. But these reasons, although they may seem valid, are wrong. The innocent baby in the mothers womb has not even had a chance at life. The mother has at least lived longer than the baby. The mother should not get to make the decision of whether the baby’s life will be worth living for her child. Just because a baby has Downs Syndrome, or a defect, or Autism does not mean that mother and father can choose to have their child killed.
Pro-choice supporters also believe that abortion is okay because the “fetus is not alive”. But that fetus is alive from the moment of conception. “Every entity on the face of the earth, animate or inanimate, is either ‘alive’ or ‘dead’ (of course, the descriptive verb “dead” does not necessarily imply that the entity was previously alive). Bacteria, cattle, and people are alive. Clouds, rocks, and corpses are dead. There is no ‘in-between’ term, because either an entity possesses the spark of life or it does not. Just as a woman cannot be “potentially pregnant,” an entity cannot be “potentially alive.” The argument that there is some in-between area between life and death is used by pro-abortionists and pro-euthanasiasts today just as enthusiastically as Nazis and slaveowners used it in the past. The use of the term ‘potential life’ is absolutely necessary to confuse the issue and prepare the ground for euthanasia on demand. Given that all things are either alive or dead, the pro-abortionist must now be compelled to concede that the fetus is not dead. After all, if the fetus were dead, the natural miscarriage process would occur. And the woman would lose the child. Therefore, she would not need an abortion in the first place!” (ewtn.com) There are also some supporters of abortion who admit and agree that the fetus is alive. They just choose to believe that the baby does not deserve to live. “Most pro-abortionists now realize that they have lost their battle to keep the preborn ‘unalive.’ Many pro-lifers have noticed that the status of the unborn, which was leaned on so heavily by pro-aborts just a few years ago, is now suddenly being disregarded by them… It is obvious that, even if the humanity and personhood of preborn babies could be conclusively proven, the pro-aborts would declare these criteria to be irrelevant and would fall back to yet another rationale. It is obvious where the pro-abortionists would like to lead us. While acknowledging the life of the preborn, they suddenly assert simply that, even though they are alive, they have no right to live.” (ewtn.com)
Abortion supporters also claim that it is okay because it is the mothers body. But from the beginning, the baby is growing independently from his or her mother. The baby depends on the mother for sustenance and protection so he or she can grow, but he or she is not literally a part of the mother in that regard. There is plenty of evidence that proves this, but I will only list a few.
“An individual’s body parts all share the same genetic code. If the unborn child were actually a part of the mother’s body, the unborn’s cells would have the same genetic code as the cells of the mother. This is not the case. Every cell of the unborn’s body is genetically distinct from every cell in the mother’s body. Though it’s possible for someone to have a transplanted organ that does not share the same genetic code as the rest [of] their body, that transplanted organ does match the genetic code of the original donor. The same can not be said of an unborn child. Human embryos are not independently generated by the woman.” (Abort73.com) The blood type of the unborn baby is also different from that of the mother. Since one body can not function with two different blood types, this is obviously not the mother’s blood.
It is possible for a fetus to die while the mother lives, and vice versa. If the mother and unborn baby were simply one person, this would not be true.
Then there is the fact that when the embryo implants in the lining of the uterus, it emits chemical substances to weaken the mother’s immune system within the uterus, preventing this “foreign” body from being rejected by the body of the mother. If the embryo were actually part of the woman’s body, there would be no need to locally hinder the woman’s immune system.
Last, but definitely not least of these arguments, it is illegal to execute a pregnant woman on death row because the embryo living inside her is a human being who cannot be executed for the crimes of his or her mother. Similarly, if someone shot and killed a pregnant woman, the killer would not be charged with one murder charge, but two. If the unborn child was indeed part of the mother, there would be no cause for the second charge of murder.
There is a process that does not actually kill the baby, but allows the mother to not carry on the pregnancy. This process is called embryo freezing. This procedure can be done with either egg cells or embryos. The fetus or egg cells are removed from the mothers womb, and either immediately implanted, or frozen to be implanted later. The egg or embryo can either be implanted in the original woman, or in another woman. I do not fully support this, but it is better than full on abortion.
It is possible to create a federal ban of abortion in the United States. H.R. 722, known as the Life at Conception Act, was introduced on January 24, 2025, and is currently pending in the House Judiciary Committee. H.R. 722, known as the Life at Conception Act, aims to define human life as beginning at conception. The bill seeks to extend legal protections to unborn children from the moment of fertilization, effectively granting them the same rights as individuals under the law. This would have significant implications for abortion laws and could potentially challenge existing legal precedents regarding reproductive rights. The bill is intended to promote the idea that life is a fundamental right that should be protected from conception onward.
In conclusion, no unborn baby deserves to be murdered. Even with physical or mental handicaps or deformities. I know people who are mentally challenged, or have mental disabilities. I also know people who have physical deformities. Should these people, some of them friends, have been aborted when they were babies? Simply because they did not have all their appendages, or would not look the same as us, or may not be able to think the same way we do? No. Even though they are not perfect, neither are we. And their disabilities and deformities do not take away their right to live. If the mother does not have the means to raise a child, does not want to raise a child, or is not ready to have a child, there are other ways to avoid having to care for a child. She does not have to resort to abortion. Every baby, every unborn child, whether it be called a fetus or embryo, deserves a chance to live and have a life.
By the way, I have been sending things to be posted in here that did not get posted in here… what does that tell you? maybe a little bias?