should abortion be legalized in the philippines argumentative essay

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Why Abortion Should Be Legalized

• Categories: Abortion Pro Choice (Abortion) Women's Health

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Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1331 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

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Introduction, why abortion should be legal.

• Gipson, J. D., Hirz, A. E., & Avila, J. L. (2011). Perceptions and practices of illegal abortion among urban young adults in the Philippines: a qualitative study. Studies in family planning, 42(4), 261-272. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1728-4465.2011.00289.x)
• Finer, L. B., & Hussain, R. (2013). Unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion in the Philippines: context and consequences. (https://www.guttmacher.org/report/unintended-pregnancy-and-unsafe-abortion-philippines-context-and-consequences?ref=vidupdatez.com/image)
• Flavier, J. M., & Chen, C. H. (1980). Induced abortion in rural villages of Cavite, the Philippines: Knowledge, attitudes, and practice. Studies in family planning, 65-71. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1965798)
• Gallen, M. (1979). Abortion choices in the Philippines. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/abortion-choices-in-the-philippines/853B8B71F95FEBDD0D88AB65E8364509 Journal of Biosocial Science, 11(3), 281-288.
• Holgersson, K. (2012). Is There Anybody Out There?: Illegal Abortion, Social Work, Advocacy and Interventions in the Philippines. (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A574793&dswid=4931)

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When In Manila Search

We asked pinoys “should abortion be legal in the philippines” and the answers might surprise you.

The discussion of abortion has always been a difficult one, with people everywhere around the world being strongly divided on the subject. Recently, the state of Alabama in the USA passed an anti-abortion law that totally bans the procedure—a news that made headlines and resulted to a global discussion on the subject.

With all these recent talks surrounding abortion laws, it got us to thinking: how do Filipinos feel about abortion ? Should it be legal here?

Right now, it isn’t. And as a country with such strong religious (and not to mention conservative) roots, it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. But we wanted to find out how Pinoys feel on the subject and whether they think it should be legalized here or not. So, we asked our readers a question: “ Should abortion be made legal in the Philippines? ”

ALSO READ:  6 Married Couples Who Met on Dating Apps, Proving You Can Find Love Online

We kept our respondents’ names off this article to protect their identities, but all answers found below are authentic and are real responses submitted to us through our WIM Squad community on Facebook .

DISCLAIMER: The responses below are individual opinions from our community of readers and therefore do NOT necessarily reflect the opinions of WhenInManila.com as a whole.

Here’s what people said.

1. “No, I don’t think abortion should be made legal in the Philippines. If women think they’re practicing their right because “it’s their body”, then who are we to take away the right of the unborn child? Shouldn’t we protect their rights to live, too?

2. “I think abortion should be made legal, especially to those women who are rape victims. Because having a child after a traumatic experience can be detrimental for them for life.”

3. “My body, my choice. Regardless of tradition or religion, every woman must have the right to choose whether to get an abortion or not, should they want or need to. The hypocrisy of forcing women to have children they don’t want is absurd, especially for those who impose these rules and not upholding them after the child is born. Basically: pro-lifers only care about unborn babies. They stop giving a shit after, which begs the question: were they really pro-lifers in the first place or are they just controlling women?”

4. “Abortion as an option. Consider those who are victims of sexual abuse and those who have to terminate the pregnancy due to complications or possible threat to women’s health.”

5. “Yes, I believe it should be legal. People can’t keep using the “put the baby up for adoption” when they won’t acknowledge just how f*d up the system is. People have to understand that abortion is rarely, if ever, done out of spite or hatred of another living being. It’s acknowledging a person’s capability and/or their desire to be pregnant and raise a child.”

6. “Yes, but educate the public on safe sex more than abortion as an option especially for a country where poverty and population are issues.”

7. “Yes, it should be legal. I wouldn’t do it personally, but it should be an option to every women.”

8. “No. Philippines’ religion influence is higher than any other factors. Many contradictions will exist so as hard core debates in any further means of abortion topics etc.”

9. “For special cases, YES. Like for rape victims or health issues. Pero kung ang rason ay dahil gusto lang at hindi handa sa pinagbubuntis , oh com’on! Why did you do it without protection?”

10. “I am pro-choice. While I would never choose an abortion for myself, I do support other women’s right to do so as long as the legalities are clearly defined i.e. no late-term abortions, special provision for cases of rape and incest. Keeping it illegal doesn’t stop it from happening. It only means women are forced to undergo unsafe, fatal procedures.”

Read more responses on the next page!

About The Author

Managing Editor of WhenInManila.com. Connect with her on Instagram: @nicvillaluz

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[OPINION] Why we need to decriminalize abortion

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

The restrictive, colonial, and archaic 1930 Revised Penal Code abortion law has never reduced the number of women inducing abortion. It has only endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipino women who have made personal decisions to induce abortion for various reasons (economic – 75%; too young, under 25 years old – 46%; health reasons – one-third; rape – 13%) but are unable to access safe abortion services. 

No restrictive law nor religious dogma has stopped these Filipino women, especially poor women with at least 3 children, to end their unintended or unwanted pregnancies.                                     

1) To save women’s lives and prevent disability from unsafe abortion complications

The Philippines is complicit with at least 3 women dying every day from unsafe abortion complications.

Some of these women became pregnant as a result of rape, were forced to carry their pregnancies to term, and died due to unsafe abortion complications. One raped by her stepfather died in 2012; one who was a doctor, raped by an older man who funded her medical education, died in 2004. Another one was a rape victim with dwarfism who died in 2015 due to her risky childbirth.    

Complications from unsafe abortion is one of the 5 leading causes of maternal death and a leading cause of hospitalization in the Philippines. 

This bill when passed into law will provide access to safe abortion and save the lives of thousands of women.

2) To reduce maternal deaths related to unintended/unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions during humanitarian crises

This public health issue should urgently be addressed especially now with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in higher rates of unintended and unwanted pregnancies due to lack of access to contraceptives and higher incidences of rape, intimate partner violence, and sexual exploitation. During this pandemic, the day-to-day reality of these women is joblessness, hunger, poverty, and being stuck at home with their abusers.

The Population Commission cites that about 40 to 50 adolescent girls aged 10-14 give birth every week. It has been found that many adolescent girls aged 15 and below became pregnant due to sexual assault, highlighting the need to address gender-based violence with due diligence, including by providing access to emergency contraceptives and safe abortion, and in effective prevention by raising the age of sexual consent to 16 as recommended by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee).

Without access to safe abortion, many of these women and adolescent girls would discontinue their pregnancies unsafely and may end up in the estimated 26% increase of 2020 maternal deaths due to the pandemic’s disruption of access to health services.

3)   To repeal a discriminatory law against women and eliminate harmful stigma against women

Not only women who induce abortion of viable pregnancies suffer inhumane and degrading treatment, or are delayed and sometimes denied emergency post-abortion care, a legal procedure to save their lives. The same goes for women suffering complications from naturally occurring medical conditions such as spontaneous abortions/miscarriages, incomplete abortion, and intrauterine fetal demise. 

This discriminatory law against women must be decriminalized to end the harmful stigma women suffer, and the judgmental religious beliefs imposed on women who want to discontinue their pregnancies.           

Children among 22 killed in UK pop concert attack

4) To provide incest and rape survivors and sexually exploited women the opportunity to discontinue unwanted pregnancies

Rape and incest survivors and sexually exploited women must be free to discontinue their unwanted pregnancies without risk to their lives.

A Filipino woman or girl is raped every 75 minutes. About one in every 8 Filipino women who induce abortion are rape survivors.

Some women and girls who became pregnant resulting from rape were forced to resort to clandestine and unsafe abortions, while others have tried to commit suicide.

When one’s daughter, sister, wife, or mother becomes pregnant as a result of rape, there are many Filipinos who will support their female family member’s decision to undergo such therapeutic abortion. However, even rape survivors are not expressly allowed by Philippine law to undergo abortion. 

Without access to safe abortion, a 10-year old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her own father would be forced to carry her pregnancy to term – the rape and forced pregnancy violates her rights, and at the same time she is at high risk of dying, as pregnancy and childbirth at her young age is extremely risky.

Denying safe and legal abortion to rape and incest survivors is torture, a clear injustice, and patently discriminates against women and girls. 

5) To address the social impact of adolescent pregnancies

When young women and adolescent girls are forced to carry their pregnancies to term, the social impact includes disruption of studies, and the lack of job skills and career options due to low educational attainment and low financial capability.

6) To uphold women’s fundamental human rights and confirm that women’s rights prevail over prenatal protection

Decriminalizing abortion upholds women’s rights to life and other fundamental human rights, and confirms that women’s rights – the rights of those with legal personality (Art. 41 of the Civil Code) – prevail over prenatal protection.

Other countries with the same constitutional prenatal protection as the Philippines allow abortion, such as Costa Rica, Hungary, Kenya, Poland, Slovak Republic, and South Africa. These examples show that the Constitution, the law of the people, is justifiably interpreted liberally in favor of women.   

7) To continue the historical fight to uphold women’s rights to equality and non-discrimination and respond to the outstanding clamor to pass the bill into law

This fight to decriminalize abortion is part of the historical fight to uphold women’s rights to equality and non-discrimination, including the fight for women’s right to vote, work, and study; the right against sexual assault, sexual harassment, and trafficking; the right to sexual and reproductive health including the full range of contraceptive methods and maternal care; and the right to sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression (SOGIE). 

Many supporters of this bill – members of the women’s movement and other human rights advocates – have long advocated for pro-women and pro-SOGIE laws and bills, including the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act, Anti-Rape Law and its proposed amendments, Anti-VAWC Act, Anti-Trafficking Act/Expanded Anti-Trafficking Act, Reproductive Health Law, Safe Spaces Act, Quezon City (QC) Gender-Fair Ordinance, the establishment of the QC Protection Center for Women, Children, and LGBT Survivors of Gender-based Violence, divorce, the SOGIE/Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Bill, gender recognition, marriage equality, the bills raising the age of sexual consent to 16; the repeal of discriminatory laws against women such as the decriminalization of vagrancy (RA 10158; “prostitution” still to be repealed) and the repeal of Art. 351 of the Revised Penal Code imposing penalty on the woman for premature marriage (RA 10655).

When passed into law, this will not force those who oppose decriminalization of abortion to undergo an abortion against their beliefs; however, this will provide access to services for countless women who decide to discontinue their pregnancy. 

Moreover, detractors cannot impose their beliefs on other people, as such imposition of religious morality and beliefs in Philippine law violate the constitutional guarantees of separation of church and state, non-establishment of religion, and freedom of religion or belief. 

It’s time to decriminalize abortion

Every minute counts to save the lives and health of Filipino women who are denied their right to basic health care. 

I urge fellow Filipinos to take a stand and be counted in this fight to save women’s lives by decriminalizing abortion. Together, let’s end discrimination against women and fight for women’s rights to life, health, equality, equal protection of the law, privacy and bodily autonomy, and against torture.                                    

#SaveWomensLives #DecriminalizeAbortionNow

– Rappler.com

Clara Rita “Claire” Padilla is the founder and executive director of EnGendeRights and is Spokesperson of the Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (PINSAN). She drafted the proposed bill to decriminalize abortion for PINSAN, which has been discussed with various women’s rights and reproductive rights activists, youth groups, and other human rights advocates.

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• News24,(2013). Why abortion should be legal. Retrieved from https://ww.news24.com/MyNews24/Why-abortion-should-be-legal-20131230
• Amnesty International,(2018). Facts on Abortion. Retrieved from www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/sexual-and-reproductive-rights/abortion-facts/
• More than 25 million Abortions are performed every year. Retrieved from www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/09/174289/unsafe-abortion-statistics­­­­­­-­­­­
• Kartha Pollitt, Abortion quotes. Retrieved from www.brainyquote.com/topics/abortion
• Mesce D; Sines E (2006). Washington, D.C., Population Reference Bureau [PRB], 2006. 58 p. Retrieved from https://www.popline.org/node/563328
• ­­­­­https://brightkite.com/essay-on/women-have-the-right-to-abortion
• https://essayforum.com/writing/right-abortion-argumentative-paper-6112/
• https://www.debate.org/opinions/do-women-have-the-right-to-abortion
• https://www.allfamilieshealth.org/abortions/
• https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Women-Have-the-Right-to-Abortion- P3RXPEYTJ
• https://revcom.us/a/1265/what-is-abortion.htm
• https://www.babygaga.com/15-whisper-confessions-of-women-forced-to-have- the-baby-they-didnt-want/

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Texas’ New Plan for Responding to the Horror of Its Abortion Ban: Blame Doctors

Last week, in a widely watched case, the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claims of Amanda Zurawski and her fellow plaintiffs that they had suffered injuries after being denied emergency access to abortion due to lack of clarity in the state’s abortion ban. Zurawski v. State of Texas has offered an important model for lawyers seeking to chip away at sweeping state bans and even eventually undermine Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade . Now the state Supreme Court’s decision offers a preview of conservatives’ response to the medical tragedies that have been all too common after Dobbs : to blame physicians and hint that the life of the fetus ultimately counts as much as or more than that of the pregnant patient.

From the beginning, Zurawski had significance for patients outside Texas. Republicans have been increasingly hostile to abortion exceptions since 2022, demanding that sexual assault victims report to law enforcement when such exemptions do exist, dropping rape and incest exemptions altogether in many other states, and going so far as to require physicians to prove their innocence rather than necessitating that prosecutors prove their guilt . Nevertheless, exceptions are critical to the post- Dobbs regime: They are popular with voters and offer the hope—in reality the illusion—that abortion bans do not operate as harshly as we may expect.

The Zurawski litigation illuminated how exceptions fail patients in the real world. Physicians, afraid of harsh sentences up to life in prison, turn away even those they feel confident will qualify under exceptions. The exemptions, by their own terms, do not apply to any number of serious medical complications or fetal conditions incompatible with life. The Zurawski plaintiffs argued that Texas’ law should cover these circumstances and that if the opposite was true, it was unconstitutional.

Although this did not succeed in Texas, Zurawski created a blueprint for litigation in other states. It also kicked off a political nightmare for Republicans. Earlier this year, when Kate Cox, a Texas woman who learned that her fetus had trisomy 18, a condition that usually proves fatal within the first year, the state’s Supreme Court denied her petition for an abortion. In the aftermath, Republicans were flummoxed about how to respond.

The Texas Supreme Court offered Republicans one way to address the emergencies Dobbs has produced. The court began by limiting physicians’ discretion about when to intervene. The plaintiffs in Zurawski argued that physicians require protection when they believe in good faith that they need to protect the life or health of their patients. The court disagreed, suggesting that the standard was whether a reasonable physician would believe a particular procedure to be lifesaving.

On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad. Who doesn’t want doctors to have to act reasonably? But determining how sick a patient must be is never straightforward—and is all the more complicated when the wrong answer will be determined after the fact by a prosecutor and the physicians with whom they consult, and when guessing wrong will result in a penalty of up to life in prison.

The court’s message was that physicians were the problem. They had misunderstood what the court portrayed as a perfectly clear law. Doctors were the ones who had refused to act reasonably and denied help to the patients that the court thought were deserving, like Amanda Zurawski herself. Texas had stressed the same argument throughout litigation in the case.

Republicans may well borrow the same strategy. If Americans don’t like the new reality that Dobbs has brought on, the party will argue, the GOP is not to blame. It is all the doctors’ fault. This allows conservatives to have it both ways: They frighten—or, in the case of Kate Cox’s doctor, block—physicians who might be willing to offer “reasonable” care, then blame the physicians for failing to care for their patients.

The court’s interpretation of the state constitution was just as revealing. The plaintiffs had argued that Texas’ ban discriminated on the basis of sex because only some persons are capable of pregnancy. The court rejected this argument, drawing both on Dobbs and on claims that have emerged in cases about transgender youth. Regulating abortion, the court reasoned, was no different from regulating gender-affirming care—it was a rule governing a specific medical procedure, not discrimination on the basis of sex.

What about the right to life? The Dobbs case held that U.S. citizens have 14 th Amendment rights only when that liberty was deeply rooted in history and tradition. Is there a federal or state right to access abortion to avoid death or serious bodily harm? As Reva Siegel and I have written elsewhere , there seems to be historical evidence to support this argument. And the political case for such a right is strong too. If courts say that there is no constitutional limit on state abortion bans—even if patients bleed to death—that will raise yet more grave questions about what Dobbs permits.

The Texas Supreme Court did not rule out the idea that the state constitution recognizes a right to life for the patient—or deny that high courts in other conservative states had identified a right to lifesaving abortions. But if there was such a right, the court noted, it would account for “the lives of pregnant women experiencing life-threatening complications while also valuing and protecting unborn life.” In other words, the court suggested, fetuses too have rights to life, and that means that the state has every right to deny treatment to pregnant patients in an effort to prioritize the well-being of unborn ones. Texas may not yet have written fetal personhood—the idea that fetuses are rights-holding people—into its constitutional law in clear terms, but the idea of fetal rights has already affected the lives of pregnant patients in the state.

Voters don’t seem to like the idea that fetal rights trump patients’ rights. The Texas Supreme Court has suggested that judges, not voters, may be the ones who decide the question.

But even in dictating what happens to pregnant patients across the state, other Republicans will join the court in pointing the finger at the doctors charged with implementing draconian bans. “The law entrusts physicians,” the court explained, “with the profound weight of the recommendation to end the life of a child.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to make things worse for pregnant patients later this month, when it hands down a ruling on whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts an Idaho ban with very narrow emergency exceptions . None of this makes Zurawski a waste. It may not have changed the reality on the ground for patients in Texas, but it did tell an important story about the kind of America Dobbs has created—and it delivered voters a reminder that they still have the power to change it.

Should Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas Recuse Themselves from the Supreme Court’s Insurrection Cases?

“the justice department ought to do whatever it can to ensure there’s no appearance of bias among the justices,” bu legal scholar jack beerman says.

Two cases arising from the January 6 insurrection currently before the US Supreme Court—including Donald Trump’s claim of sweeping presidential immunity—have led to calls for Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves. Photos by Erin Schaff and J. Scott Applewhite via AP

“ The Justice Department ought to do whatever it can to ensure there’s no appearance of bias among the justices,” BU legal scholar Jack Beerman says

Rich barlow.

By June’s end, the Supreme Court is expected to decide not one but two cases stemming from the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Two justices whom critics call compromised will join in those rulings.

Chief Justice John Roberts recently dismissed calls for Samuel Alito’s recusal after revelations that flags outside Alito’s homes appeared to support Donald Trump’s lie about winning the 2020 election. One was an upside-down Stars and Stripes, carried by insurrectionists in their attack on the Capitol. The second was an “Appeal to Heaven” banner, a Revolutionary War symbol appropriated by insurrectionists and Christian theocrats.

Alito argued that his wife, not he, flew the flags, obviating any need to recuse himself. The controversy follows disclosures that Justice Clarence Thomas has been gifted luxury items and travel from rich conservatives for decades, and—germane to the January 6 cases—that his wife, Ginni Thomas, had urged the overturning of President Joe Biden’s election. 

One insurrection-related case involves Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for seeking to invalidate the 2020 results, as he was acting, officially, as the president. The second questions the applicability of a federal obstruction statute under which hundreds of insurrectionists were prosecuted.

US Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law teacher, has urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to petition the court to force the two justices’ recusals, on two grounds. First, a federal statute requires a justice to step aside in cases “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Second, SCOTUS itself has struck down lower courts’ decisions when judges appeared potentially biased and thus infringed on defendants’ due process rights, Raskin wrote.

“I have a long history with [Raskin],” says Jack Beermann , the Philip S. Beck Professor of Law at the BU School of Law. “One of my father’s partners worked closely with his father” at a think tank that put the Pentagon Papers leaker in touch with the New York Times, which disclosed the secret papers about the Vietnam War. Beermann is also an expert on federal courts and administrative law, and BU Today asked him to parse the recusal debate. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

With Jack Beerman

Bu today: should either, or both, alito and thomas recuse from these cases.

Beerman: That’s a difficult question. Activity by their spouses is a lot of the reason for promoting them to recuse themselves. I was taking [Alito’s] statement of the facts as true. It’s difficult to judge fitness based on their spouses’ behavior. If you think Alito was involved in the flags, I certainly think he should recuse himself. Those flags represent a belief that the election was stolen, and that’s an issue relevant to the January 6 cases.  In earlier times, it would be hard to imagine Justice Thomas surviving on the Supreme Court with the financial conduct it’s alleged he engaged in, with people with interests before the court. In prior decades, the person would have been so disgraced that they would have left the court on their own, like Justice [Abe] Fortas did in the 1960s [for accepting money from a man under investigation for insider trading]. With Justice Thomas, you have vocal activity by his spouse, and I haven’t seen evidence he has said or done anything that indicates appearance of bias in those cases. He’s compromised on any case involving conservative causes because of his financial arrangements.

In earlier times, it would be hard to imagine Justice Thomas surviving on the Supreme Court with the financial conduct it’s alleged he engaged in. Jack Beerman

BU Today: Should he be impeached?

He can’t be impeached, because there aren’t the votes to do it. And whether what he did is high crimes and misdemeanors, I’m not sure. I’m sort of talking myself into [thinking] that he probably ought to recuse from any cases involving high-profile [conservative] causes, and that would include the January 6 cases.

BU Today: Since neither justice is recusing himself, can they be forced to, as Raskin suggests?

I agree with Raskin. There are ample precedents to support the notion that a justice whose appearance of fairness can be reasonably questioned cannot sit on a case, and a vote of the Supreme Court could settle the matter. There’s a well-known case where a campaign donor funded the campaign of a state Supreme Court judge to get elected, and then that judge sat on a case involving that donor. The [US] Supreme Court held that that was a violation of due process.

BU Today: So if you were advising Attorney General Garland, would you say that for the legal merits and optics, he should petition the court to force them to recuse?

I would agree with that for those reasons and an additional reason. It’s important to restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We’re in sort of an ongoing constitutional crisis that began before January 6 [2021]. If this proceeding doesn’t seem to be done in a fair and honest way, it could be seriously damaging. The Justice Department ought to do whatever it can to ensure there’s no appearance of bias among the justices.

BU Today: Assuming neither man recuses, how do you think the public might view the January 6 decisions when they’re handed down later this month, and the court’s reputation generally?

With our current public, whichever side loses is going to say that it was rigged. If they’re forced to recuse and then Trump and his allies lose, he[Trump] will say it was a rigged proceeding. If they don’t recuse and the case comes out against the government, people on the other side are going to think it was a biased process.  But in the long run, it would be healthy for the country if Alito and Thomas were not sitting on the cases. It sets a precedent that applies across the board. It’s not only conservatives that would have to recuse when they become identified with conservative causes; liberal justices would be discouraged from being overtly political outside the court, and that would be a good thing.

BU Today: Care to hazard a guess as to how the court will rule in the January 6 cases?

I would be very surprised if the court endorsed the broad immunity principle that Donald Trump is advocating. It would basically mean that there’s one person in the country that’s above the law. The court decided 40 years ago that the president couldn’t be sued for official conduct in a civil matter. I still think that was a mistake, because it placed them above the law. But I would be very surprised and upset about the idea that the president has complete immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed while president. It seems that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve ever learned about the role of law in our society. My prediction is that Trump’s going to lose that case. [The obstruction statute case] is a trickly legal question. I think they have a plausible argument that that statute doesn’t apply. The central focus of that statute is preventing Congress from doing its investigatory work regarding legislation and monitoring the government—like, you can’t hide evidence that Congress wants. This [case] is obstructing Congress from performing its constitutional functions, and that’s trickier legally. There’s a doctrine that you construe criminal statutes narrowly, so that people have clear notice that what they’re doing is a crime.  On the other hand, there’s no question that everybody [at the insurrection] knew that what they were doing was illegal. They weren’t just deciding they wanted to have a picnic in the halls of Congress and didn’t realize it was against the law. These were people who were threatening to kill federal officials. They were trying to prevent Congress from fulfilling its constitutional function of tallying the votes for president.  So I think the prosecution also has good arguments that this is a proper use of this statute. There are good arguments on both sides. If you try to be too conciliatory, weakness just exposes you to more abuse. Appeasing Germany didn’t help the Czechs. This was something that we have never seen anything like before, and the full weight of the law ought to come down on it. If you can’t have a peaceful and orderly transition of administrations, we’ve lost the game.

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Rich Barlow is a senior writer at BU Today and  Bostonia  magazine. Perhaps the only native of Trenton, N.J., who will volunteer his birthplace without police interrogation, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and is a former  Boston Globe  religion columnist, book reviewer, and occasional op-ed contributor. Profile

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Pro and Con: Abortion

To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether abortion should be legal, go to ProCon.org .

The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

A June 2, 2022 Gallup poll , 55% of Americans identified as “pro-choice,” the highest percentage since 1995. 39% identified as “pro-life,” and 5% were neither or unsure. For the first time in the history of the poll question (since 2001), 52% of Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable. 38% believed the procedure to be morally wrong, and 10% answered that it depended on the situation or they were unsure.

Surgical abortion (aka suction curettage or vacuum curettage) is the most common type of abortion procedure. It involves using a suction device to remove the contents of a pregnant woman’s uterus. Surgical abortion performed later in pregnancy (after 12-16 weeks) is called D&E (dilation and evacuation). The second most common abortion procedure, a medical abortion (aka an “abortion pill”), involves taking medications, usually mifepristone and misoprostol (aka RU-486), within the first seven to nine weeks of pregnancy to induce an abortion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 67% of abortions performed in 2014 were performed at or less than eight weeks’ gestation, and 91.5% were performed at or less than 13 weeks’ gestation. 77.3% were performed by surgical procedure, while 22.6% were medical abortions. An abortion can cost from $500 to over $1,000 depending on where it is performed and how long into the pregnancy it is.

• Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.
• Abortion bans endangers healthcare for those not seeking abortions.
• Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.
• Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.
• Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.
• Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

This article was published on June 24, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org , a nonpartisan issue-information source.

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G.O.P. Blocks Contraception Bill in Senate as Democrats Seek Political Edge

Democrats scheduled the vote despite Republican opposition, hoping to highlight an issue on which the G.O.P. is at odds with the vast majority of Americans.

By Annie Karni

Reporting from the Capitol

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked action on legislation to codify the right to contraception access nationwide, a bill Democrats brought to the floor to spotlight an issue on which the G.O.P. is at odds with a vast majority of voters.

All but two Republicans present — Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted against advancing the legislation. Democrats, who unanimously supported it, were left nine votes short of the 60 they would need to take up the bill, which would protect a reproductive health option that many voters worry is actively at risk of being stripped away.

“This should be an easy vote,” Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “It almost shouldn’t be necessary.”

But Ms. Murray said that Republican lawmakers have made it so by seeking to advance anti-abortion legislation that could limit access to contraceptives like Plan B and IUDs.

“To say the future of birth control in the United States is in serious jeopardy is not partisan spin,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, noting that former President Donald J. Trump recently said he was looking at supporting restrictions on contraception. (Mr. Trump quickly backtracked, writing on social media that he would “never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control.”)

Democrats have been clamoring to codify the right to contraception for two years, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the court “should reconsider” other precedents beyond Roe, including those protecting same-sex marriage and the right to contraception.

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