In September 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the Roe v. Wade case in which a woman under the alias Jane Roe argued that prohibiting her from having an abortion was against her constitutional rights. As a firm believer in pro-choice, I have to agree.

When I was born, both my mother and I were extremely sick. According to the doctor, if she had another pregnancy, the child would most likely die due to her age and medical condition. The doctor suggested she have an operation to prevent another pregnancy. She agreed.

However, instead of immediately performing the operation, her doctor was forced to stand before a hospital committee and state his case even though it was a perfectly safe and legal process. This particular hospital was supported by a Catholic organization that frowned upon such an operation.

Years later, when my mother retold this story, an idea firmly cemented in my mind: a woman has every right to her body.

A woman should have control over her own body. Women who are raped should not have to go through a painful pregnancy to give birth to a child who will have to live with the stigma of a rapist father or potentially be abandoned.

Although only 8 percent of abortions are due to rape or health risks for the mother, that is 8 percent of 1.2 million total abortions a year which amounts to 96,000 abortions.

While abstinence might work for some people, it is simply illogical to imply that a married couple should remain abstinent if they don’t want a child.

Contraceptives are a choice, but 222 million women currently do not have access to contraceptives according to Pathfinder, a nonprofit organization dealing with sexual health, and those with access often find that the contraceptives do not always work. Also, many people who are against abortion are also against these contraceptives due to religious reasons; however, laws should not be dictated on one group’s religion.

Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures in the world provided that medical professionals are trained, possess proper medical equipment and have an appropriate environment to work in. However, 47,000 women die each year due to the number of unsafe abortions present in the world today.

These unsafe abortions are the result of laws against them. Laws to prevent abortion do not stop it; they simply make the procedure extremely dangerous for the mother. Doctors, not politicians, should help decide what is best for a woman who is pregnant.

While there are other options for those seeking abortions such as adoption, each year 20,000 children in foster care are never adopted and grow out of the system, where they are tossed from one family to the next, according to the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

UNICEF estimates that there are currently 210 million orphans in the world. With this fact, it is important to note that there have been numerous adoption scandals and documented cases of abuse in foster homes. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the quality of life of those unwanted children is lower than that of the average person.

In 1966, a study by Hans Forssman and Inga Thuwe took the children of 188 women denied abortion and compared them to the child born directly after them in a Swedish hospital. The unwanted children were significantly more likely to grow up with divorced parents, live in foster homes and engage in crime. This means that as a result of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, crime rates in America have decreased.

There is no point in bringing a child into the world just so he or she can be hurt. No one should ever have the right to judge a woman on her own choices for her own child’s well-being. Making abortion illegal won’t stop the practice. No one has and should have the right to make a choice about a woman’s body but herself.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Annika Wolff at [email protected].