Abortion Essay Writing Guide

Abortion is a controversial issue that has been at the center of public debate for decades. It is a multifaceted problem that can be discussed from different aspects, including legal, ethical, philosophical, moral, religious and medical. Also, abortion is a highly sensitive subject that leaves no one untouched. Everyone has an opinion or a personal experience related to abortion. The debate on abortion can take various forms, and likewise, there are different types of essays that can be written on the subject. This article offers an overview of the most common types of essays on abortion. A detailed description is given for each particular type, including its structure, outline, basic information on its contents, and tips for successful writing. Examples of well-written sample essays are also provided.

Essays on abortion can be divided into several categories which will be discussed below. The types include argumentative essays, persuasive essays, research papers, cause and effect essays, satirical essays and expository essays.

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY ON ABORTION

The argumentative essay is a type of writing which requires extensive investigation of a topic. The writer needs to collect and evaluate information and take a stand on the subject. Literature and previously published texts need to be researched with great scrutiny. This leads to a writer having in-depth knowledge on the subject and understanding different standpoints expressed by various authors. Based on that the writer can take his/her own position and then back it up with evidence. All argumentative essays involve stating a clear thesis and adhering to strict rules of reasoning. What argumentative essays are all about is establishing a position and then trying to convince the readers of the validity of one's points of view. Factual evidence is given to support one's opinion. To be able to do that, the writer should have explored the issue from various angles beforehand, collected facts, expert opinions, and statistics to support his/her claims.

Research and data collection are the first steps when writing an argumentative essay. After a topic and a position on it have been determined, the author goes on to develop an outline of the future essay. This allows for the basic structure of the essay to be established. The structure of the outline is as follows:

• A thesis statement: the topic is reviewed in a general way setting the stage for the discussion that will ensue.
• A smooth transition is made between the introduction and the body of the article, and later between the body and the conclusion.
• Paragraphs forming the body of the article contain all relevant arguments, supported by different types of evidence, statistical, logical, factual, experiential, etc. Opposing views are also introduced with the evidence.
• In the conclusion, the thesis is addressed once again and argued with regard to evidence presented.

When outlined in this way, the structure of an argumentative essay seems quite clear, but even so, when attempting to write an argumentative essay on abortion, you could have specific issues concerning that particular subject that need further explanation.

Abortion is a highly sensitive subject with people usually having strong feelings towards it and quite polarized opinions. A person is either strongly for abortion, therefore considering it as a question of personal freedom, or strongly against it, seeing it as a crime. Writing an argumentative essay is not about making statements but investigating them and finding supporting evidence for each of them. Before you can start doing that, it is important to choose and define the topic of the essay carefully. There is an almost indefinite number of possible topics you might choose, but they all come down to either looking at the problem from the pro-life perspective, which means being against abortion; or, from the pro-choice point of view, meaning being in favor of its legalization. When you decide on the perspective you would like to take, in-depth systematic research of the existing literature is needed to make an objective evaluation of the subject. No facts should be presented without backing evidence or testimonials given by recognized authorities on the subject. Since abortion is such an arguable topic, with two firmly opposed sides, both of them should be given careful consideration in your essay. But, as mentioned before, you are supposed to take a side and to give supporting evidence to your views, along with presenting the opposite opinion and arguments for it and then refuting it with evidence.

If, for example, you were to write an argumentative essay on why abortion should not be fully legalized, you would want to highlight four or five arguments supporting your opinion, backing them up with statistics, official standpoints of prominent figures and authorities, and other evidence. If you write your essay from a pro-life position, you could argue that a fetus is actually a human being from the point of conception, and, as such, has a right to live; it can feel pain, therefore, abortion causes suffering. These statements should be reinforced by medical evidence in the form of analysis of sonograms, which clearly show that after three months of gestation, human embryos are fully formed; they have a beating heart and a developed nervous system allowing them to feel the sensation of pain. By the time most abortions take place, the fetus can move his legs and arms, has fully developed fingers and toes and is a vibrant and thriving human being inside the mother's womb.

This would be the first argument in favor of the position you are taking when writing an argumentative essay. Another three or four solid arguments should follow. Next, you could look at the issue from the perspective of possible medical and psychological consequences for a woman. The procedure of an abortion potentially has significant health risks along with possible mental health issues following the psychological trauma of abortion. Another point is religion. The position of most major religious denominations has been made clear over the centuries and can be used as an argument here. A further point can be made with protection of human rights, rights of all humans including developing ones, which are usually referred to as fetuses.

When embarking on a journey of writing an argumentative essay, it is helpful to divide it into four or five sections beforehand and then simply add content to each section. This forms the outline of your essay and can make the process of composing your paper much easier. The outline starts with an introduction in which the topic is first addressed in a general manner. After that, the author should explain the importance of the subject, or why it is worth investigating. Finally, a thesis is formulated, with a short elaboration on it. So for example, if your subject is “Why abortion should not be legalized,” you would give a brief introduction of the problem and clarify your point of view by explaining why you believe that it should not be legalized. You could argue that it represents a murder because a fetus is already a human being from the moment of conception. You would point that out in the introduction section of your argumentative essay on abortion.

In the following section, which belongs to the body of the essay, you would start introducing arguments which favor your position and continue with disproving the opposing arguments. It is not ethical to only give evidence which proves your point. In the interest of objectivity, it is necessary to include evidence to the contrary. So, in this example, you would present the arguments of those who support the legalization of abortion, and then give evidence as to why they are mistaken. You could say that although a woman should not be coerced into raising an unwanted child, there are better options she can resort to instead of abortion. There are numerous couples whose desire for having children is denied by problems with infertility, and who would be willing and able to adopt a child and give it a loving home. By acknowledging the opposing views, you make your essay less arbitrary and more objective. You recognize, in part, the validity of views that are contrary to yours but go on to explain how they can be addressed without resorting to abortion. This makes an even more powerful point. The body of the essay usually has several paragraphs. In each paragraph, a single general idea is discussed, while keeping a logical link between the discussion of each idea and the thesis statement formulated in the introduction section.

The closing section of your essay is the conclusion. Since it is the part of your essay which would make the strongest impression on the reader, you should formulate it to be effective as well as logical. It should follow naturally the presented body of evidence, and make a synthesis of all the facts given in the body of the essay. No new information should be presented in this section. You restate your thesis, repeat the most important arguments and motivate your readers to continue thinking about the subject, suggesting an approach to abortion which would make the person considering it think more thoroughly about it, weigh all the options and only resort to it when absolutely necessary.

If you decide to support the opposing position, that abortion should be fully legalized, the structure of the argumentative essay stays the same. You state your thesis, write about the subject from the perspective of pro-choice advocates, and give arguments that support your point of view backing them with factual evidence, statistics and information coming from reliable sources. You can use articles written on this topic, opinions from renowned experts; give a historical overview of the issue, etc. Make sure to include enough evidential support for your position, as well as substantial refuting arguments for the opposing standpoint. An essay outline is essential to give an organized structure to your writing. In the introduction section, you would state your thesis about fully legalizing abortion and then go on to discuss it in terms of every woman having the right to decide for herself with no interference from society or the legal system. The body of the essay would present evidence to larger numbers of illegal and unsafe procedures being performed in countries with restrictive law policies towards abortion. Statistical data on complications following illegal abortions should further advance your cause. Other pro-choice arguments should ensue, discussing the issue in the context of health, demography, personal liberties, legislation, religion, etc. You can mention the expert opinions that fetuses that are not yet viable outside the womb cannot be considered to be independent human beings and that it is wrong for the government to decide on issues pertaining to a woman's body on her behalf.

Your essay than continues with the presentation of opposing arguments on which your opponent's position relies upon. Abortion is really a matter of perspective: when you consider it from the perspective of a developing fetus, you can argue that it has every right to live and thrive inside the mother's womb and to be born and have a life of its own. Conversely, from the mother's perspective, she has the right to have her privacy protected and not to be intruded on by the government, as well as the right to make decisions about her own body. You can discuss issues of congenital diseases and birth defects, age and socioeconomic circumstances of a mother, maternal physical and mental illnesses that could affect the unborn child and so on.

All the issues you dealt with in the body of the essay should be summarized in the conclusion section. Once again, this is the place for you to make your argument even more effective by restating the most important facts given throughout your essay, perhaps with a punch line that would make your view of the matter stand out from all other possible points of considering the problem at hand. You could refer to unwanted pregnancies that are in fact consequences of rape or incest, or situations when a child is bound to be born with a serious and debilitating health condition.

To sum up what is said on writing an argumentative essay, it consists of stating your position and then giving a comprehensive list of supporting and contrasting arguments with those in favor of your point of view, prevailing over those opposed to it. What you are doing is essentially trying to convince the reader of the validity of your opinion, while simultaneously discrediting the opposing opinions. Covering the issue with strong arguments is crucial, while also giving an evidence-based presentation of the other side's arguments, and then invalidating them convincingly. In argumentative essays on abortion, you give arguments supporting both opposing opinions. Here is a plan you can implement when listing the pros and cons concerning the subject of abortion in an argumentative essay:

a) Introduction, followed by two pro-points supported by evidence, then a con-point which is refuted and conclusion;

b) Introduction, followed by a con-point which is disputed, then two pro-points with supporting evidence and conclusion;

c) Introduction, three con-points which are disputed and conclusion;

d) Introduction, body of the essay consisting of two parts – in the first part three counterclaims are presented accompanied by refuting evidence, and in the second part, three claims are given with evidence to support them. All this is followed by a conclusion.

e) A pattern in which claims and counterclaims are given in an alternating order: introduction, a claim followed by supporting evidence, a counterclaim with refuting evidence, another claim with evidence, another counterclaim, and so on. The conclusion is given at the end as always.

The patterns a) - c) are suitable for short argumentative essays on abortion while patterns d) and e) are more suited for advanced college essays.

Always bear in mind that your opinions should be well supported by factual evidence, rational justifications, and testimonials given by experts, if available. Also, some counterarguments would need to be proven incorrect, or refuted; and others - shown to be irrelevant to the subject, or rebutted. Both approaches can be valuable in discrediting the other side's argument.

These suggestions on how to write an argumentative essay on abortion cover all the basic elements required to be successful. Should you, however, need additional assistance you can turn to sample essays on abortion that are readily available online and can give you a starting point for your own writing. You can follow the structure of these essays to ensure that your composition has all the necessary components presented properly. If you would like to find arguments for the debate on abortion, there is a wide array of those in the already written material. All that is left for you to do is to decide on the position you would like to take in this matter, whether it is the pro-choice or the pro-life argument that makes more sense to you.

Samples of argumentative essays each discuss different aspects of the abortion issue, some of them take a historical perspective, some discuss the problem from the legal point of view, yet others focus on human rights or even medical issues. These samples can provide a good basis for your work, an example of how an argumentative essay is supposed to be structured and which content is the most suitable for this type of essay. Abortion is obviously a multifaceted subject, and these examples can be your guide leading you in the right direction after you have decided on the position you would like to support. They offer a comprehensive overview of the subject, covering all possible angles some of which could have never crossed your mind before but are certainly worth mentioning.

The abundance of material available on the internet sometimes makes it hard and time-consuming to find what you are looking for, and it is easy to become overwhelmed. Free argumentative essays on abortion that are now available online can be time saving and inspiring, thus, allowing you to compose a well-structured and convincing essay in just a margin of time you would need if you were to start from scratch. It can be helpful to review already existing work to refine one's own standpoint and come up with a strategy for writing the assigned essay. After you have checked the sources used in sample essays for authenticity and reliability, you can also use them in your own work, instead of going through tons of books and articles printed in scientific journals.

Samples of argumentative essays can be used throughout the process of writing an argumentative essay on abortion. Also, when you have completed your work, you can compare it against the example essays to check if an important issue had been left out or if a significant line of arguments had been omitted. For instance, the issue of abortion can be covered from the medical point of view, including mental and physical health issues of the mother, as well potential risks to the health of the fetus. Or, you could approach it from the legal point of view, with statistical data on numbers of illegal and unsafe procedures in countries with restrictive legislation compared to those registered in countries with more permissive laws concerning abortion. Or, focus on the demographic point, discussing the overpopulation problem and the one-child, or two-children per couple policy which exists in some countries. Regardless of the perspective you choose, the arguments should always be logical, well-established and supported by expert opinions, statistical data as well as originating from reliable sources.

Here are some pointers on how you can successfully write an argumentative essay on abortion:

• Research the subject thoroughly. You could be keen on starting your essay immediately, or you could feel it is a waste of time to investigate the topic extensively. It is actually never a waste of time. If you do not have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the subject, you will not be able to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources of information on the Internet and to reject those that are complete fiction or a matter of an author's personal biased opinion, which is not based on evidence.
• Take your time. Never skip steps in a rush to get the work done. Your urge to get on with it is perfectly understandable, but you should try not to start writing until you have made extensive notes, covering all the major sides of the topic you wish to discuss. Go through your notes once again; check if there is anything you would like to add or if there are any unnecessary repetitions. Scrutinizing the material another time could produce more ideas or even induce you to continue your research if you find that your notes are not covering all the angles.
• The introduction is crucial. Beginnings are always the hardest. You may even feel as if you were not up to the task, not competent enough or that the work that lies ahead of you exceeds your abilities. Forcing yourself to come up with ideas while staring at an empty piece of paper is never helpful. For starters, you can use one of the introductory sentences from existing papers. Once you get started, and your own work starts to flow, you can go back and change the opening line into something original. The introduction could contain some political or moral views, but avoid opening your essay with religious aspects of the subject as your readers could be easily upset or offended by those. There is no need to avoid the issue completely. You are free to discuss it in the following segments of your paper. Assure your readers that you have considered the topic in a serious and meticulous manner, which you can achieve by providing statistical data, references to reliable and well-trusted sources and by paying attention to the counterarguments as well as to arguments supporting your position.
• Base your essay on facts. There are two sides to any story, and both of them must be portrayed impartially. You are writing an argumentative essay, so you need to set aside all prejudice and use only factual evidence to reinforce your claims. Being professional in presenting the evidence is imperative, because any attempt to bend the truth is bound to end in disaster, and only make you look unprofessional. Use the information you gathered. You have already learned how to write an argumentative essay from two opposing perspectives, so you are ready to start working on the main part of your essay – the body. This is where the bulk of advice for writing an argumentative essay lies, so pay close attention to the following:

If you decided to address the abortion issue from the pro-choice perspective, you would examine the problem from the angle of a pregnant woman. Perhaps the best policy is to avoid starting the essay with the issue of human rights since you can easily be trapped into the debate of whose rights are more important, those of a mother or those of a fetus. It is much safer to open with some medical information on pregnancy and abortion, as well as on safe ways to end a pregnancy before full term. This can be accompanied by statistical data but beware of boring your reader with tons of statistics. Try to apply just the right dose of statistical information to prove your point, but then use examples or personal stories to make the reading more lifelike and enjoyable. Here are some of the reasons a pregnant woman might want to induce miscarriage and not bring her pregnancy to term:

1. The continuation of pregnancy poses a great risk for the mother due to complications of the pregnancy or illnesses that might be exacerbated by pregnancy.
2. The risk of death during childbirth is significant for either the mother or the child or both.
3. There is a genetic abnormality in the fetus which will make it not viable after birth or condemn it to a life of suffering.
4. The pregnancy might be a result of rape or incest and bringing it to term, and raising the child afterward would pose a tremendous strain on an already traumatized woman.
5. The woman is too young for motherhood, both from the health perspective (given that such an early pregnancy might cause reproductive problems later on and put a young woman's health at serious risk), and from the socioeconomic perspective, because a teenage mother is not capable of providing for her child, and they would both most probably be living in poverty without financial means to provide them with opportunity for education.
6. The mother is mentally ill and cannot be expected to take good care of her child. Also, some mental illnesses are highly hereditary, so there is a strong possibility that the child would be affected.

There is also the controversial argument that the world is already overpopulated and that bringing an unwanted child to life is irresponsible since resources in some parts of the globe are getting scarce. You should be very careful if you choose to use this argument and expect to find some strong opposition.

You could also argue that fetus is not considered to be an independent person before birth, and therefore ending a pregnancy cannot be considered a murder. If the pregnancy is terminated early enough, the fetus is still not capable of experiencing pain, especially if nonaggressive methods of abortion are used. Therefore, it is up to the mother to make a choice. She should not be punished for conceiving an unwanted child since this can happen even with regular use of contraceptives.

The above-mentioned arguments are some of the most common claims you could make when writing an argumentative essay from the pro-choice perspective. Of course, you can think of other examples and add to the list.

If you decided to write your argumentative essay on abortion from the pro-life perspective, you should look at the issue from exactly the opposite angle, considering abortion murder and substantiating your claims with some of the following evidence:

1. Abortion is a medical procedure that can have serious consequences, both immediate and long-term, including heavy bleeding, damage to the woman's reproductive or other organs, sterility and even death.
2. Abortion is physically and psychologically traumatizing. A woman can regret having an abortion for the rest of her life. She is at great risk of mental health problems, depression or even suicide.
3. Since so many couples struggle with infertility, a woman carrying an unwanted child can easily find loving parents for her baby and avoid having an abortion.
4. Most major religions are opposed to abortions and consider them a sin. Of course, not everyone is religious, but still it is an argument worth mentioning.
5. The unborn child, like any other human being has rights but is unable to stand up for him/herself, so he/she needs protection from legal institutions.
6. Philosophically speaking, if abortion is easily accessible and done without giving it a lot of thought, what does that tell us about the value of human life? Here you can call upon your readers to think for themselves and perhaps to consider the issue more deeply than before.

Bottom line, take a side. If you did not have strong feelings before starting to investigate the issue of abortion more thoroughly, this is the point when you have gathered enough information to decide which side to take. You might have even changed the opinion you previously had in light of all the evidence you had never seen before. But now you really have to pick a side and to either write from the pro-choice or the pro-life perspective. You need to be sure why you have chosen a particular point of view, and believe in it yourself if you want to convince your readers of its legitimacy. In the closing part of your essay, you will recap some of the arguments given throughout the body of the text, possibly adding a personal touch to the concluding section allowing your readers to understand exactly why you decided to support this particular viewpoint.

PERSUASIVE ESSAY ON ABORTION

A persuasive essay is an essay in which the writer takes a stand for or against something and tries to convince the readers to accept it as true or compel them to do something. A persuasive essay can be created on the basis of any idea that you strongly believe in. There is no room for the opposing point of view; if you are ambivalent yourself, there is no way you will be able to convince anybody else. You should be very well informed on the subject. If not, you should try to expand your knowledge using multiple sources, all legitimate ones, such as expert opinions, statistical facts, logical reasons, etc. Knowing how to compose a persuasive essay is a skill everyone should learn since it can be widely used in a number of situations; for example, if you would like your boss to give you a raise, you would need to persuade him with strong arguments that you actually deserve it. Even if your readers previously thought exactly the opposite, you can learn how to convince them in the validity of your position and ultimately induce them to change their opinions.

In a persuasive essay on abortion, as mentioned before, there are two opposed sides and no middle ground between them. So after carefully reviewing the available literature and giving it some thought, it is time for you to decide on a thesis that would most accurately represent your own opinion on the topic. The thesis should be formulated in a single sentence and yet reflect a strong position. If for example, after going through all the factual evidence, you decide that abortion is just the wrong thing to do, you can write a persuasive essay from the pro-life position, proving that abortion is murder and, therefore, should be legally sanctioned as such. You can prove your point by asserting that a fetus is a human being from the point of conception and, therefore, has a right to live and anyone trying to deprive it of its right should be treated as a criminal.

In this type of essay, the introduction contains a hook which is used to secure the readers' attention. It can be a quote, an unusual fact, a question, an anecdote or even an exaggerated statement meant to induce a psychological shock, an emotional reaction which would compel your audience to continue reading. When writing an essay against abortion, it can be a quote from the Bible, citing the commandment saying “You shall not kill.” Or, it can be a medical fact on how the fetus already feels pain at six weeks gestation or a sentence taken from an interview you conducted with someone who underwent an abortion and later regretted it.

When writing the body of your persuasive essay, each paragraph should begin with a strong assertion, a mini-thesis of a sort, which would reinforce your claim from different angles adding to its persuasiveness with each succeeding paragraph. Do not forget to add a paragraph including concession statements. A concession is a form of anticipating what your readers might say against your opinion. You acknowledge it and then prove that the particular argument is not valid, or not applicable to the case you are presenting. The concession is not a weakness; it actually adds to the strength of your opinion since it shows you to be open for debate and willing to recognize that there are more sides to the matter than the one you are taking.

Apart from having a strong opinion on the subject, you must be able to communicate it in a logical and professional manner. As easy as it may seem to simply articulate your opinions, you have to follow certain rules if you want to persuade your readers that you are absolutely right. To do that, it is necessary to back your views with supporting evidence in the form of personal experience, statistical facts, and logical justifications. Especially when your statements involve something that is not instantly obvious or common sense, you should be prepared to support it with strong evidence. The evidence you rely on should be factual and objective; otherwise, it will hardly be plausible to your audience. Also, remember to keep your sentences short if you want them to convey a strong message. Only use one point per sentence; otherwise, you will only weaken the argument you are trying to make.

Persuasive essays are relatively short, the body of the essay usually comprising of no more than three paragraphs, out of which two are used for your claims supported by evidence, and one for a counterclaim, followed by refutation thereof. In your pro-life essay on abortion, you could go into detail describing the cruelty and inhumanity of abortion techniques. Pay close attention to conveying the medical information accurately; they are gruesome enough for the average reader to become appalled with and start supporting your position. In the next part of the body, you can portray the fetus as a developing human being, able to experience pain from an early gestational period. It has a beating heart starting at six weeks gestation. Go on to describe the intrauterine development of the bodily systems, explaining when a fetus starts to hear, sleep, open its eyes, has a sense of taste, etc.

You can continue by introducing the religious issue into your essay, citing the commandments and interpreting abortion as murder, therefore being a capital sin. The fetus originates from two human beings and can only be human, nothing else. Also, it is human from the point of conception, although the opponents argue that it cannot be considered a human being before it is viable outside the womb, or before it can exist independently. Nevertheless, its humanity from the conception on cannot be questioned.

After stating your two strongest claims, go on to mention the most common counterclaim and try to refute it with evidence, expert opinions, statistical data, etc. You could make use of the statistics on abortion which show the most unwanted pregnancies to happen in women of young age, of low socioeconomic background, low education, that are in abusive relationships, or currently have no partners at all. One might argue that these are not the best conditions to bring a baby to life. On the other hand, is abortion really the best solution? Should the society not do more for these women in dire need? For example, they can be offered free housing, help with childcare, educational opportunities, jobs. Since every abortion carries a risk of complications including future sterility, this might be a woman's only opportunity to become a mother.

To be persuasive while writing this type of essay, the topic you have chosen has to appeal to you personally. It should be something you feel strongly about and will, therefore, be able to argue it passionately. It should be a highly debatable topic, with two strongly opposed sides. Make sure that your position potentially has enough arguments that support it. If the counterarguments are overwhelming, you should choose another subject to write about.

As mentioned before, persuasive essays are relatively short, so after writing a solid introduction and three segments of the body of the paper, you should summarize the crucial elements of your argument and emphasize once again what you want your readers to believe, what you want them to feel or what action you want them to take. This makes the conclusion part of your essay. Use it to refresh your readers' memory on the important points you made throughout your essay and then add a personal comment at the end. You can close with a quotation which sums up what has been discussed and calls for more in-depth thinking or for taking action to make a difference on the subject. You could end it with a personal note, elaborate on why you took a personal interest in this matter or why it is important to you.

Although writing a persuasive essay on abortion can be a complex task, since it is a highly sensitive issue and everyone tends to feel strongly about it, you should try to be very clear in your points of view. Repeat the most important ones in conclusion, and do it in a meticulous and explicit way. Go through your essay once more, check if there is a nice and natural flow of ideas, if your arguments are relevant to the subject and well supported by evidence and if your conclusion follows your argumentation logically. Also, make sure that the counterarguments have been dealt with objectively and refuted beyond doubt. In the conclusion section of the essay on abortion, you would want to underline the importance of your point of view and induce the readers to start looking at the issue from your perspective.

Revise your essay both regarding content and form. Correct any spelling or grammatical errors, and make sure the writing style is satisfactory. You may need to rephrase something, rearrange the paragraphs in the body of the essay, rethink some evidence and possibly remove a particular argument for being unconvincing or substitute it with another. Remember your task is to persuade the audience of the validity of your claim. You are allowed to appeal to the readers' emotions as well as their common sense and logic.

What has been said on persuasive essays against abortion can also be applied to persuasive speeches against abortion. Similar to writing an essay, when drafting a speech, you also start with an outline, divide what you would like to say in a few segments, each explaining your position from different angles but in a well-defined and persuasive manner. When speaking against abortion, you open with a thesis, give supporting evidence to your claims in the main part of your speech, and close with a recapitulation, a short summary of your position and a call for action. When drafting an outline for your persuasive speech on abortion, do not forget to ask a few questions and then attempt to offer plausible answers to them in the course of your speech. You can talk about statistical data concerning the number of intentional terminations of pregnancies that are performed each year, different legislations on abortion all over the world and how they reflect on the abortion practice. You can bring up the issue of the procedure safety about maternal health; refer to the possible immediate and long-term consequences etc. There is also the issue of human rights of the fetus to be discussed. You do not want to appear bigoted or blindly conservative and oblivious of the instances when abortion is indeed a necessity. Discuss those cases further, talk about the physical and mental health problems of a mother, cover all the angles and leave no stone unturned, so to speak. Remain objective and rational while occasionally also engaging the audience emotionally.

There is an abundance of persuasive essay samples online. They can come in handy when preparing to write your own essay of this type. You can use them to extract ideas or to find reliable sources of information on the subject. To illustrate how a persuasive essay on abortion should look like, here is an example:

Abortion is a term used to describe a purposeful ending of a pregnancy by means of fetus or embryo removal before it is viable to survive outside the mother's womb. It is also called an induced miscarriage in contrast to miscarriages that occur spontaneously. It used to be illegal in most parts of the world but is gradually becoming legalized. The turning point in changing the legislation on abortion was the infamous Roe v Wade case in which it was ruled that the state was not entitled to interfere with a woman's right to privacy or to prevent her from having a pregnancy terminated at request. Regardless of the procedure now being performed legally in the U.S., it remains a controversial and highly debatable subject. There are even attempts to reverse the ruling and limit the availability of abortion. The public opinion is divided into two opposed groups, the pro-life and pro-choice advocates. The pro-life supporters argue that a fetus is a human being entitled to all the rights other human beings have and that abortion is the wrong thing to do from the moral, religious and human rights perspective. Conversely, the pro-choice groups insist on a woman's right to decide over her own body without the interference from the government.

Termination of pregnancy has been a common practice for centuries. This was, however, not regulated by law. Nowadays, abortions are legal and available on demand in most of the developed world countries. Legislations vary from country to country and, sometimes, within a single country. In the most permissive legislations, abortion is allowed on broad grounds including on a woman's request, without any medical indications. Other countries only allow it in special cases including the pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, or cases when the fetus has severe congenital malformations. 97% of the countries, however, allow the pregnancy to be terminated when the mother's health is at risk.

Although those in favor of abortion claim that a fetus feels no pain, that it is merely a “clump of cells”, this can be challenged as Doctor Maureen L. Condic, a professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, explains that embryos cannot be reduced to collections of human cells, they can grow, to mature, maintain a delicate physiological balance, and adapt to changing conditions. The embryos may not resemble a human being at the beginning, but Dr. Condic raises the question if our respect for human life should really depend on its appearance.

The real-life stories of women faced with the dilemma of whether to terminate their pregnancy or not can be heartbreaking. Helen found out that her unborn son had a terrible congenital disease which would make his life filled with pain and misery. The laws on abortion gave her the right to decide if he was to be born or not. This, of course, was not an easy decision. The responsibility for this choice was overwhelming, and Helen had to make it. What would any of us have decided in a similar situation is hard to tell.

To conclude, we could argue that the issue of abortion is a highly sensitive and debatable one. No one is left indifferent. Whether it is legally accessible through the health system or performed in illegal unsanitary facilities by unskilled people, it is still the reality of life. There are always circumstances under which women would resort to abortion. Everyone has their own opinions on the reasons that can be considered substantial enough to warrant a termination of pregnancy, no matter if they are economic, medical, social, or even personal. However, human life is precious and worth preserving with utmost care, so that a decision to terminate it should never be made lightly or without thinking.

This essay example could be used when writing a high school level essay on abortion, while a more advanced educational level requires substantiating it with more factual evidence and discussing them in more detail.

RESEARCH PAPER ON ABORTION

A research paper analyses a chosen subject from a particular perspective and argues a point. It involves going through tons of literature, scientific articles, books, encyclopedias and other sources but it cannot be reduced to presenting a collection of those. When it is finished, a research paper represents your own views on a certain topic, strongly supported by meticulously collected facts and pieces of information. You draw upon what you already know about the subject and try to determine what experts in the field have to say about it.

There are several steps in successful writing of a research paper:

• Precisely defining the topic of your research paper. For example, a topic defined as “Abortion should be prohibited by law” is not considered good enough because it lacks precision. A better one would sound something like “Abortion should be prohibited by law since it involves killing a fetus that is already a human being.” In this way, the topic is narrowed down and made more precise. When trying to determine the specific topic you would like to write about, you can resort to literature or personal experiences of people who had confronted the issue. Next, you need to explain why you chose to investigate that particular aspect of abortion, to clarify why you regard it as an important subject.
• Defining your thesis. It should be a debatable issue that involves facts which are verifiable and can be either confirmed or refuted. Keep your language professional and avoid using expressions like “I think” or “if you ask me,” etc. An example of a thesis on abortion could sound like “It is morally wrong and illegal to perform abortions since a developing fetus can already be viewed as a human being.”
• Writing an outline. It serves as means of organizing your notes and making a list of everything you would like to include in your essay. You can divide your topic into subtopics and determine what each of them would contain. The outline consists of an introduction which has a thesis statement at the end, the body of the paper containing several points of argument such as information on legislation, statistical data, medical facts including the explanation of intrauterine fetal development, and a conclusion. The introductory section is supposed to be short and powerful in order to catch the readers' attention and induce them to continue reading. The body of the paper further discusses the main idea suggested in the introduction, and the conclusion summarizes all the main points made throughout the research paper and proves the postulated thesis. So if you have chosen to write a research paper against abortion, you would need to explain your standpoint, look for trustworthy sources of information on it, and use real-life stories of those who had undergone the procedure. Based on your outline, you can define research questions that you would like to answer in your paper. They could include the question of human rights, if, in fact, a fetus’s right to live should prevail over a pregnant woman's right to choose. Or, you could raise a legal question, if making abortion illegal would only raise the number of operations being performed in an unsafe manner; or, the religious question of what the Bible has to say on the subject.
• Composing a draft. Focus your attention on the content, as this version of the text will later be revised and any grammatical or spelling mistakes corrected.
• Writing a final draft. This version should meet the style requirements, and be free of any spelling or grammatical errors. It should only encompass ideas that are relevant and well supported by factual evidence. The required format of the paper should also be respected which includes adding citations and references, and a title page if requested.

Hopefully, these instructions will assist you in writing your own research paper. If however, you still find that the task exceeds your capabilities or time limitations, you can always order a research paper online.

CAUSE AND EFFECT ESSAY ON ABORTION

A cause and effect essay is a paper in which ideas are organized in such way as to determine why certain things occur, what is their cause, or what possible consequences could something have, what are its effects. Sometimes, there are lots of causes of a single effect, or conversely, different effects can be the outcome of a single cause. When writing this type of essay, your first step would be to determine whether you would like to focus on a cause, such as abortion, and then investigate its possible effects, like health-related complications or psychological issues such as grief, remorse or depression. Or, think if you would like to focus on abortion as an effect, and to examine the factors leading to it. The essay can have the purpose to inform or to persuade, and you would write it accordingly.

When discussing causes to an event, you should stay focused on those narrowly related to the event, and ignore any possible remote or indirect causes for which it could be rather difficult to prove that they played a role in the event. As always, you should support your claims with factual evidence, give examples to clarify your point and offer personal observations to elucidate your ideas further. Pay close attention to the terminology you use, qualify something as a cause only if there is strong evidence to support that qualification; otherwise, speak only of correlation or things occurring simultaneously or in succession but with no clear causal relationship. This is usually a five-paragraph essay, opened with an introduction, followed by two paragraphs discussing cause and effect separately and one in which these are combined, and ended with a conclusion. The instructions for writing a cause and effect essay seem rather straightforward, but should you require further assistance, you can find it online.

SATIRICAL ESSAY ON ABORTION

This sort of essay uses satire to criticize or ridicule the subject of discussion or make it absurd. Primarily, it is not meant to be funny or to amuse the audience, as much as it is intended to get your readers interested in what you have to say, humor being the shortest way to get someone's attention. A satirical essay uses hyperbole or exaggeration to accentuate things you would like to emphasize. Irony is also useful, in a way that saying the exact opposite of what you mean in an ironic way expresses your opinions even more effectively. Make jokes but be careful not to cross the line of good taste and risk offending the audience. When writing about a highly sensitive topic like abortion, you should be extra careful when using humor and irony. You could however quite easily get away with statements like “sex should be forbidden by law,” to point to the absurdity of certain claims that are usually made in connection with the termination of pregnancy.

EXPOSITORY ESSAY ON ABORTION

Expository essay is a type of essay in which a specific idea, or several ideas, are investigated, backed up with evidence, developed further into an argument which conveys the author's point of view on the subject. The means of accomplishing this task include providing definitions, contrasting opposing arguments, listing examples, analyzing what led to an event, etc. It can be written with very little preparation, as it usually does not require extensive research. It is more about your own thoughts on a subject, reinforced by real-life examples or other evidence. When the structure of the essay is concerned, this is a classic five-paragraph essay that starts with an introduction, develops into a three-paragraph body of the essay, and ends with a conclusion. If you are writing on the topic of abortion, you could define your thesis statement as “Abortion should be prohibited because it denies the fetus its human rights.” After composing an outline, you should think of illustrative examples that prove your point. Real life stories can be very useful in this type of essay, but be sure to connect them to the thesis consequently. Try to make your conclusion logical and to the point; it is likely to leave the greatest impression on your audience. If you follow these instructions carefully, writing an expository essay will not be a difficult task for you.

WRITING AN ABORTION ESSAY OUTLINE

After choosing a subject of an essay and doing thorough research on the available literature and other sources, what precedes the actual writing of a paper is drafting an outline. Most types of essays follow the same basic pattern:

• Introduction in which the general idea on the topic is conveyed which is meant to grab the readers' attention. The topic is defined, and a thesis statement is formulated. When writing about abortion, the topic can be expressed as “Abortion should be prohibited,” and the thesis statement would be “Abortion should be prohibited because it denies the fetus its human rights.”
• Body of the essay which consists of arguments linked to the thesis, backed with supporting evidence. Counterarguments should also be included followed by refuting evidence. Termination of pregnancy is such a controversial and debatable topic that it offers an abundance of possible claims and counterclaims to choose from. It is important to use only those that can be directly linked to the thesis.
• Conclusion in which the thesis is restated, all the information is summarized and connected to the thesis.

OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION ON WRITING AN ABORTION ESSAY

Tons of written materials are readily available wherever you look. So what can you do to make your essay stand out from the multitude of similar essays and appeal to the audience? Well, first of all, you should determine who your audience or target group (or possibly a target person) is. It can be your high school teacher or a college professor who assigned you a writing project and who will grade your work afterward. It can be a group of classmates or peers or another social group. The tactic you will employ depends primarily on who you are writing for. If it is your teacher, your essay should instigate him to give you a good grade, if it is a person in charge of college admission, your aim is to convince them to admit you to college. But in the case of these two examples, there is not an issue of whether they would actually read your paper. They are required to do it; it is in their job description. Other audiences, however, are a completely different story. Since they are not obliged to read your essay, and can easily skip it and find something else to read, you need to catch their attention and make them interested in what you have to say.

Luckily, abortion is a topic which never ceases to be popular or widely debated. Nevertheless, you would need a good essay hook. A hook is a sentence or a phrase that attracts attention by presenting intriguing information which makes you want to continue reading and find out more about it. Consequently, you decide to read the essay through, which is exactly what the author wanted you to do. The hook is also dependent on who your audience is and what they want to read about. Do they simply want to be entertained, or do they need instruction on how to do something or how to resolve an issue? Or are they looking for answers to a particular question? When you have determined what your audience expects to get from reading your essay, you should try to formulate your hook in the way that corresponds to the readers' needs best. There is no simple formula how to do this. Just come up with one or two strong sentences to start your essay with, and you will successfully grab your readers' attention.

It is also necessary to determine the purpose of your essay. The purpose basically depends on the type of essay you are planning to write, whether it is an argumentative essay, a persuasive essay, a research study or any other kind which was previously discussed throughout this paper. In certain types of essays, the main purpose is to describe the subject in detail; in others, it is to persuade the audience to look at an issue from your particular point of view. A successful hook would be able to elicit an emotional response, and the type of emotions involved would depend on how you want your audience to feel after reading your essay, what is the desired effect that you aim to accomplish. In order to come up with a good hook for your abortion essay, it is always a good idea to read a few abortion essays written in a similar way, to evaluate them critically to determine what caught your attention and to find an advantage for yourself.

Some of the possible hooks for an abortion essay would be:

• Is abortion a murder?
• Whose child gets to be born?
• Abortion – a solution to overpopulation
• You are poor – get an abortion
• It is your body – why should the government decide?

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TOPIC

The selection of a suitable topic is essential when planning to write an argumentative essay. Abortion being an extremely popular subject, there is almost no way you could go wrong. It all comes down to actually choosing a topic that suits you, that is in line with your personal opinions and points of view so that you can argue it convincingly. When it comes to abortion, there are two opposed fractions with basically no middle ground between them. They are the pro-life and pro-choice advocates. If you are not assigned to write from a particular position, simply go ahead and choose the one that is the closest to how you actually feel about the subject. Then you can decide to focus on different angles, including the religious point, the health issues argument, the legal aspects of abortion, the human rights issue, etc. Examples of good topics are: “Should abortion be fully legalized?”, “Is abortion a violation of human rights?”, “Is abortion morally right?”

CLOSING SECTION OF THE ABORTION ESSAY

The conclusion serves the purpose of recapitulating all that has previously been said in the course of the assignment. If your essay was rather long, then it is useful to summarize in short what has already been said on the subject. On the other hand, if your essay was a shorter one, you could just give a concise review of your argument. This is your chance to round up your major ideas, connect them all together and provide a closure for the subject you have been writing on, without completely shutting the discussion down, but rather creating a basis for continued thinking on the subject. When writing on abortion, there is an abundance of possible topics to choose from, such as:

• Should the government have a say in ending a pregnancy?
• Should a woman be required to undergo an abortion in specific cases?
• How many abortions are women allowed to have in her lifetime?

Regardless of the specific content you decided to write about, the conclusion should contain a powerful message, perhaps putting the subject of the essay in a larger context or talking about the possible implications of the debated issue. The conclusion should make an impression on the audience; compel them to look at the problem from your perspective.

To become proficient in writing a high quality essay on abortion, the best policy is to adhere to the advice provided to you throughout this article, and combine what you have learned with reading several example essays that exist on the subject. It should equip you with tools necessary to get the structure of the essay just right, expand your knowledge on the topic as well as your vocabulary that you could later put to good use in your own paper, teach you how to use proper grammatical constructions and well-composed sentences. Apart from that, examples are indicative of the way a good essay should look like, what it consists of, where and how to formulate your thesis statement, how to secure a natural and logical flow of ideas, how to use a hook, how to link all the pieces of evidence and all the arguments to the thesis, and finally, how to write a strong conclusion that will convince your readers in the idea you are trying to put through.

There is absolutely no reason to start everything from scratch. Why waste time and energy on creating something that already exists, and has already been optimized by others? You can simply use the existing essays as sources of ideas, and make your own original work of art. You can combine solutions provided in multiple papers to accomplish the desired result. Also, if you experience a writer's block, you are temporarily unable to come up with fresh and original ideas, or lack time to do it, feel free to turn to the free essays on abortion available online. They will give you a much-needed push start, which you can later build on and make it original and stylish. All different types of essays on abortion, including the argumentative essay, the persuasive essay, the research paper, the expository essay, the satirical essay and the cause and effect essay can be found on the internet.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON WRITING AN ESSAY ON ABORTION

A possible way to address the issue of abortion is to look at it from a positive or a negative point of view. Depending on what you decide, you would either demonstrate its advantages or disadvantages. If you write from the advantages perspective, you will accentuate its good sides presenting them from various angles. From the legal point of view, it is much better to have permissive legislation that allows abortion on broad grounds so that women carrying unwanted children would not have to resort to illegal and unsafe procedures done by unskilled people in unsanitary conditions. Also, a woman should not be coerced to give birth to a child when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. From the social perspective, if a woman is too young, or still in school and with no income of her own, it would be better for her to postpone childbearing until she has finished school or found a decent job. This would potentially be beneficial for the child as well, as he/she would have better chances of growing up in a stimulating and loving environment. There is also the issue of terminating a pregnancy on medical grounds, when the mother's or the baby's life is in danger.

The issue of abortion can also be discussed in terms of philosophical questions it raises. Our modern society has still not reached a consensus when this sensitive issue is concerned. It remains a highly controversial topic. If you would want to argue it in a philosophical way you would need to formulate a plausible thesis, come up with arguments to support it and anticipate any possible counterarguments so that you can prepare a defense against them. You would need to create a comprehensive list of pros and cons and discuss each one of them in view of your thesis. An excellent philosophical essay on abortion has been written by Carl Sagan. He tries to ascertain at what moment is it considered that a fetus is a human being whose life should be preserved. He also raises the question of how it can be murder to kill a newborn infant, but not murder if it was killed just a day before. Was it not human then? Was the crime any less then? These are some of the most difficult questions to answer, and every profession involved in the issue has dealt with them in ways they can use in practice. Courts have ruled on the matter and stuck to their rulings; the medical profession has strict policies on when and on what grounds abortions can be performed. But the philosophical question of the value of human life, or indeed when the human life begins, remains open.

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