Katie Paul

Mrs. Gordon, Eng. 101

12/6/15
Walking the Middle Path
Abortion is overused in society. Abortion is very facetious, and many see it as having
only two heterogeneous sides. Debate.org described the controversy as a competition between
morals and legality. For many, there is either pro-life or pro-choice, and no in-between. However
there is an option that would theoretically eliminate the need for a morally questionable rejection
of a potential life while at the same time benefiting those who promote a mothers choice to
decide is she is ready for childbirth or not. In this middle road between pro-life and pro-choice,
there is a way to navigate without abortion while still suiting the needs of many.
Abortion is a very painstaking process for the women involved. An abortion can consist
of several appointments with a doctor, and slight to moderate discomfort during the aborting
process. Often times women dont enjoy or covet the onerous process, yet for some reason it is
still very prevalent in our society. One major reason that women admit to having an abortion was
that there was no birth control available or being used at the time of conception. According to
Contracept.org, Of women having abortions, 46% did not use contraception during the month
they became pregnant, and approximately 8% never used a method of birth control. These
statistics show that in nearly have of all accounted for abortions, birth control was not in effect
during the time of conception, and a small percent of women havent even taken birth
control in the past. Why? According to the Huffington Post, many woman are ineligible to
receive contraceptives because a lack of healthcare and many women dont use
contraceptives effectively because of a lack of understanding on how a contraceptive works.
The main purpose of a contraceptive is to prevent conception, and while admittedly some
intimate moments strike without consent or in the passion of an instant, many men and women
have time to plan out contraceptive methods before performing sexual actions with their
partners; but often they dont have access to them or knowledge of them. If society were to make
birth control more accessible to those who are sexually active, there would likely be a drop in the
number of abortions, because the numbers of conceptions would likely go down as a result of the
better use of contraceptives. Then many women wouldnt have to rely on the difficult and tasking
abortion process, those on the pro-life path would see a drop of societies reliance on abortion,
and those on the pro-choice path would no longer need to worry about the accessibility of
abortion because the demand for it would drop as the rate of accidental conception dropped;
satisfying nearly everyones needs.
While increasing contraceptive use and knowledge is an effective middle path on the
abortion stance because it theoretically would drop the number of fetuses being aborted while
suiting the needs of women simultaneously; there is no argument that sometimes abortion makes
the difference between life and death, as well as sanity. While the main purpose of the middle
path is to dissuade society from needing and using abortion, there will always be instances of
rapes and mothers bodies rejecting the fetuses where an abortion is immutable. In these tragic
instances, sometimes abortion is really the only option, and while it is dissuaded, it is necessary
and there really is no way around it. So while there is no way to eradicate abortion completely
because of these scenarios, abortion does not have to be as heavily relied on as it is.

The main point of walking the middle path on the issue of abortion is not to say that
abortion is an evil to society, nor is it great to society. Rather the purpose of the middle path is to
show that abortion shouldnt be as needed and as used as much as it is today. Assuming that
society takes on the imperative challenge of addressing the problem that causes many abortions,
(the misuse and misunderstanding of contraception) abortion will really demonstrate itself as
largely unnecessary. The problem America has isnt abortion itself, its the lack of education and
alternatives for abortion that make the abortion rate skyrocket.

Works Cited:
"Abortion as Birth Control." Contracept.org. Contracept.org. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.
Gray, Emma. "Birth Control Study: Over 2 in 5 Women in The United States Don't Use
.Contraception." HUFF POST WOMEN. Huffington Post, 21 Sept. 2012. Web. 6 Dec.
.2015.
"The History and Debate of Abortion." DEBATE. Debate.org. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.