Women’s rights to controlling their bodies have improved tremendously since the 1920s. From Margaret Sanger founding the American Birth Control League, which eventually evolved into Planned Parenthood, to the Roe v. Wade case, where the Supreme Court established a woman’s right to safe and legal abortions, female reproductive rights have made large steps in the name of progress.

No woman should be forced to have a child. It’s her body, and if we make abortion illegal, we will be denying them of their right to a happy and free life. Abortion should be accepted by everyone when they consider the well-being of the woman. These instances include if the woman was raped, has physical and mental health issues and financial issues. If it was illegal then these women would be forced to have a baby they couldn’t pay for or that would cause them to harm themselves physically and mentally. If a woman’s body couldn’t support a baby and the only way she could survive was to terminate the abortion, then it would still be considered illegal.

“In the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby right out of the womb, just prior to the birth of the baby,” Trump said. This is our president-elect who ignores the fact that most abortions take place during the first trimester. Before people go around saying abortion is an absolutely awful thing that shouldn’t be allowed, they need to be educated on the process. Our society needs to stop judging things like abortion and start teaching us.

Most unsafe abortions occur where abortion is illegal. If we end up making abortion illegal then women will just go back to the unsanitary and painful way of getting them in alleys and with non-professionals performing the surgery. Men will not being the ones getting the infection and going through this pain. It’s better to have the option of doing it legally when a woman really knows deep down they can’t have a baby and they can’t put themselves through those nine months.

It’s better to have the option of abortion when a girl gets raped and is pregnant with that rapist’s baby. Every single day of those nine months she would be reminded of the day she got raped. Imagine all the dirty looks she would get for being pregnant at such a young age. Even in cases where there is an unplanned pregnancy, it is not because the girl is irresponsible and she should not be blamed or forced to proceed with the pregnancy. 

What should be a beautiful experience for an expectant mother does not need to be forced upon women as a punishment. Being coerced into an unwanted pregnancy eventually affects the child as well, leading them to feel unwanted and see themselves as a burden.

Society has made significant leaps in the past 100 years in women’s rights, and the right to our bodies is just another one we are fighting for.