The NARAL-Prochoice America website is much more applealing than the National Right to Life website. Right off the bat, it provides the reader with information and evidence about their side of the debate without even having to click on any other links or pages. It draws the reader in by providing short and easy information about the issue at hand and what obsticles the "pro-life" group is putting in the way of women who want to get abortions. Both websites are clearly biased towards their side and are using their sites to sway people to agree with their oppinions and to think negitively about the opponent's point of view. There are very few images or visually appealing aspects the the National Right to Life website or specific quotes. However, they do have some very persuasive facts such as the stages of the pregnancy that each part of the baby develops. This also prevents people from feeling personally connected to the point of view that is being presented. NARAL-Prochoice America's website is full of easy to read information presented through short paragraphs and bulletpoints. I definitely think that the NARAL-Prochoice America website is much more effective than the National Rights to Life because it gets more personal and is easier to relate to as a young woman. It explains the many obsticles that are placed in the way of girls who are seeking abortion and makes a very strong argument for why woman should have this right to choose for themselves.
Personally, I am prochoice. I think it is a woman's right to do what she wishes with her body when it is her life that is being effected the most. Nobody should be able to make that decision for her. She will have to live with her actions, whatever path she chooses, and nobody should have the power to make that choice for her. I strongly disagree with the idea that a girl must tell her parents and have their consent in order to get an abortion. If her parents are pro-life, they can force her into parenthood and take away the right she is constitutionally guaranteed. There are also different dynamics between child and parent in every family and the state doesn't know how the parents will react to the news of their teenage daughter being pregnant. It could lead the parents to punish or abuse the daughter for her actions and this violence would be the result of the state supposedly "helping" teenagers. The pro-choice website only encouraged this opinion in me because it brought even more issues of control to the surface. There are far too many laws and restrictions set in place for women seeking abortions and this website elaborated on the problem even more.
I believe that the responsible thing to do in most circumstances would be to inform the father about the pregnancy, but I don't believe it should be mandatory and I certainly don't believe that the woman should have to have the man's consent to get the abortion. It is the woman's body that is in jeopardy. If the woman feels that an abortion truly is the only solution, then she shouldn't have to ask the man's approval to do what she knows is right. Additionally, if the woman was raped, she should never be forced to speak to the man who raped her again, and she certainly should not have to ask his permission to rid herself of his spawn. Because there is no way to prove what the exact circumstance is every time, the state shouldn't have the power to make these decisions for her.
I see that Illinois has several laws set in place to help low-income woman who seek family-planning assistance or who seek abortion. Illinois also requires all pharmacies to provide birth control for women. I think these are both very important and responsible actions that the state has taken to help protect woman and their rights. However, I strongly disagree with many of the pro-life or anti-choice laws. It is not fair for certain health service facilities to have the right to not inform woman of their rights to get an abortion, to not provide information on where they can get an abortion, or for certain doctors to have the right to refuse to perform abortions on the woman. Doctors should have the right to give their advice and opinion to their patients, but not the right to make the decision for them. I am most definitely pro-choice.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Death Penalty Abolished In Illinois
I could not agree more with the decision to abolish the death penalty in Illinois. Throughout this unit, we have heard both sides of argument about the justice level of capital punishment and it has forced me to question my beliefs and changed my opinion several times. Before we began learning about the death penalty, I did not have a very concrete opinion that swayed me towards one way or another. The truth of the matter was, I was not educated on the highly controversial debate and was just going off of the opinions of my parents. They are both in favor of the death penalty and believe that an eye for an eye is only fair. I simply accepted this belief and went along with it without question. Soon after we began learning about the death penalty in class, however, my opinion quickly changed.
A life for a life is revenge, it is not justice. The United States sets an example of what is morally acceptable and is supposed to do what is in the best interest of all American citizens. The fact is, capital punishment does more harm and it does good. We learned that several decades ago, the death penalty was taken off the table completely. The country ruled that the current laws for it were too loose and allowed for too many people to be put to death without reasonable cause. Soon after this decision was made, many states began altering their laws for the death penalty and put it back into action. There was a handful of states, however, that continued to reject capital punishment and never reinstated the possibility for execution by the state.
There are two very popular quotes among people who are against the death penalty. Many people believe that "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." This is in reference to the lesson that capital punishment teaches. If we punish murder with murder, we are only causing more death in the country and going against our goal of protecting citizens. This brings me to the second popular quote which mocks the idea of capital punishment by saying, "We kill people to show that killing people is wrong." This makes it perfectly clear how ridiculous the idea of execution is and that it completely goes agains the moral conduct of the United States of America. Even family members of victims of murder agree that killing their loved one's killer will do them no good. It will not bring back to life the person that was lost, or fill the hole in their hearts where this person once was. But even Emit Till's mother, after her young son was brutally murdered by two racist men for no reason other than the color of his skin, can tell you that capital punishment will not help bring her closure or give her Emit back. It will only mean that she has done to her son's killers exactly as they did to him, and she does not want to be anything like the monsters that took her son's life.
In addition to the moral flaws in capital punishment, there are also several legal flaws which prove the injustice of execution by the state. Laws have been made to increase the standards for who can be put to death and who can not. Only a few short years ago, it was still legal to send a mentally retarded person to die. Finally, in the 2002 Supreme Court case of Atkins vs. Virginia, this cruel and unusual punishment was finally proved to be against the American Constitution by violation of the eight amendment. To further prove the injustice of capital punishment, a team of Northwestern journalism students and their teacher did investigations into the court cases of different men on death row in Illinois and eventually proved several different men's innocence. It is disgusting to see that these men spent had spent fifteen years on death row and been less than a couple of days away from their execution when a couple of college students proved their innocence and freed them from jail. With such inaccurate punishments and convictions of supposed murderers in this country, it is completely possible that innocent men and women will be sent to die. Whether it is a result of their race, economic status, or other outside factors, it is evident that the United States justice system is incredibly flawed and the only way to stop the injustice that occurs in execution by the state, is to ban the practice of execution by the state all together.
A life for a life is revenge, it is not justice. The United States sets an example of what is morally acceptable and is supposed to do what is in the best interest of all American citizens. The fact is, capital punishment does more harm and it does good. We learned that several decades ago, the death penalty was taken off the table completely. The country ruled that the current laws for it were too loose and allowed for too many people to be put to death without reasonable cause. Soon after this decision was made, many states began altering their laws for the death penalty and put it back into action. There was a handful of states, however, that continued to reject capital punishment and never reinstated the possibility for execution by the state.
There are two very popular quotes among people who are against the death penalty. Many people believe that "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." This is in reference to the lesson that capital punishment teaches. If we punish murder with murder, we are only causing more death in the country and going against our goal of protecting citizens. This brings me to the second popular quote which mocks the idea of capital punishment by saying, "We kill people to show that killing people is wrong." This makes it perfectly clear how ridiculous the idea of execution is and that it completely goes agains the moral conduct of the United States of America. Even family members of victims of murder agree that killing their loved one's killer will do them no good. It will not bring back to life the person that was lost, or fill the hole in their hearts where this person once was. But even Emit Till's mother, after her young son was brutally murdered by two racist men for no reason other than the color of his skin, can tell you that capital punishment will not help bring her closure or give her Emit back. It will only mean that she has done to her son's killers exactly as they did to him, and she does not want to be anything like the monsters that took her son's life.
In addition to the moral flaws in capital punishment, there are also several legal flaws which prove the injustice of execution by the state. Laws have been made to increase the standards for who can be put to death and who can not. Only a few short years ago, it was still legal to send a mentally retarded person to die. Finally, in the 2002 Supreme Court case of Atkins vs. Virginia, this cruel and unusual punishment was finally proved to be against the American Constitution by violation of the eight amendment. To further prove the injustice of capital punishment, a team of Northwestern journalism students and their teacher did investigations into the court cases of different men on death row in Illinois and eventually proved several different men's innocence. It is disgusting to see that these men spent had spent fifteen years on death row and been less than a couple of days away from their execution when a couple of college students proved their innocence and freed them from jail. With such inaccurate punishments and convictions of supposed murderers in this country, it is completely possible that innocent men and women will be sent to die. Whether it is a result of their race, economic status, or other outside factors, it is evident that the United States justice system is incredibly flawed and the only way to stop the injustice that occurs in execution by the state, is to ban the practice of execution by the state all together.
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