With the Inauguration and first month with our new president underway, many controversial issues are once again being argued. Recently Trump issued an executive order defunding planned parenthood.

“Whether or not you are pro-choice or pro-life, government defunding of Planned Parenthood is not about the debate of when a life beings but it is about rights our citizens have to basic healthcare needs. PP is a century old organization that has served millions of people across America for decades and this barely scratches the surface,” senior Jessica Narum said.

This fact about Planned Parenthood is important to know, people who claim to stand with planned parenthood are not necessarily standing for abortions. Planned Parenthood provides contraceptive options, sex education, STD screenings and other sexual relationship counseling as well as body image counseling according to their website. These services are crucial to our society especially as Planned Parenthood is most frequently used by those living in lower income areas.

Regardless of your stance on abortions, it is important to know what you are supporting. Planned Parenthood is key to the safety of millions of women and should have a place in today’s America, in order to remain it requires government funding.

Whenever abortion issues come up, the Roe v. Wade case is always mentioned. The case was passed in 1973 at the supreme court level and ruled the previous law, that stated that abortions could only be performed to save the mother’s life, unconstitutional.

This, in turn, legalized abortions in the U.S. An abortion, by definition, is purposefully ending a pregnancy within the first seven months. This does mean that the fetus is killed and does cause distress amongst most pregnant women who opt for abortions. What’s important to keep in mind about abortions, however, is that 92 percent occur within the first 13 weeks (three months) or first trimester according to Planned Parenthood. At three months the fetus is three – four inches long, the size of a car key and weighs about an ounce as stated on WebMD.

Let it be clear as well that no one is pro abortions, just pro options for women. An abortion should be one of those options.

It is a personal decision on whether you consider this fetus to be it’s own person or not. The fact is that without the mother, there is no chance it could survive, it is inside her, a part of her. More often than not this is where the argument turns to religion, and in a country that practices freedom of religion, I am not going to tell you that your feelings and beliefs are invalid. However, because we are country that is built on these ideals, I do not believe it can be used as an argument to ban someone else from using abortion as an option because the fetus is a part of them and could not survive without them.

“Personally I think that’s it’s not for the judgment of the government to determine what a woman can and cannot do with their body. I understand the religious ideologies embedded against abortion. But there’s also the Bill of Rights which is created to protect the people against over reaches such as this. Roe V Wade is a case and point,” senior Ben Kaiser said.

According to a book by A. Chandra, Adoption, adoption seeking, and relinquishment for adoption in the United States, in 1973 (the year Roe v. Wade passed) nine percent of infants born to single mothers were put up for adoption. The same source went on to state that in 1982 that number decreased to two percent and then to less than one percent in 1989.

This was the time of the spike in abortions, the number of abortions have since decreased and in 2013 reached the lowest number recorded. Part of this can be attributed to the increase in availability of birth control and health care services such as those provided by Planned Parenthood, however the number of children being placed for adoptions have stayed the same. By keeping Planned Parenthood around and getting contraceptives and birth control to more individuals the rates of abortions could possibly decrease even more.

These facts make it clear that unwanted children are not being born as often and that the health care we currently provide is effective in keeping unwanted pregnancies from happening. If abortions were to become illegal not only is it true that the number of children being placed for adoption would triple, its probable adoption services and foster care would not be able to handle the growing demand for care.

In 2012, according to the National Adoption Center, of the 399,546 kids who were in foster care only 52,039 were adopted which is only around 13 percent. Of the children who exited foster care (for clarification this does not necessarily mean adoption) in 2012 over half had been in the system for over a year. The foster care system is not meant to be a long term solution. Without abortion available more children would be entering the system due to being unwanted by their birth parents, and the rates of exiting foster care could be expected to remain the same as those seeking children would not increase, leaving the system with far more children.

To further see the damage making abortions illegal would cause to the US population, it’s important to consider the demographics of those getting abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 49 percent of those who opt for abortions live below the poverty line and 26 percent are considered to be low income. This puts 75 percent of women who get abortions in the range of poverty/low income. These women are women who either already have more children than they can adequately provide for or are already struggling to provide for themselves.

“I agree with pro choice because if abortion was no longer an option for women, first off it would take away women’s rights. Women then would be forced to go back to old ways and unsafe medical conditions. It is a women’s body and a law shouldn’t tell her different,” senior Anna Serino said.

Before Roe v. Wade the number of home abortions was not recorded as it was an illegal activity and according to an article published by the New York Times, Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare, a study confirmed that the number of abortion rates in countries where abortions are offered and those where they are not are about the same. This means that although abortions may soon be illegal the amount of women seeking abortions probably won’t decrease drastically and fatality of those pregnant women may increase because no safe affordable option is available, resulting in a world with more unwanted children and more endangered women.

In today’s media, women’s rights are all over the news and abortion is among some of the most frequently debated topics. Whether you agree with pro-life or pro-choice arguments, there is no debating that the pain associated with abortion is one of the most difficult burdens to deal with for a mother and her loved ones.

“Women who get abortions can commonly be negatively affected both physically and emotionally,” pro-life advocate Hannah Gronberg said.

Abortion is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus”. This means that any case of abortion involves the death of a fetus or embryo, both of which are the beginnings of a human life.

As a counterpart to the many pro-choice arguments, it is imperative to acknowledge the views of the people who firmly believe them to be true, but also to critically evaluate those ideas from a secular standpoint.

According to the Family Research Council, it is undisputed by the scientific community that, from the very beginning of conception a human life was formed. A zygote, the first cell formed at conception, is known to have unique DNA that will guide the formation of physical attributes, as well as personality traits.

It has also been proven that the earliest human embryo contains the four things necessary to be considered “biologically alive”: metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli and reproduction. Thus disproving the argument that an embryo is merely a cell, and not a human life.

“I believe in pro-life because I believe right after conception, a baby is formed and that every human deserves a chance,” junior Erica Crosby said.

Many pro-choice arguments say that while a human embryo is technically alive, it is not yet a person. However, to argue this is something that does not at all rely on evidence, but rather on one’s own personal and moral beliefs.

A pro-life argument to refute this is that no matter when an embryo becomes a person, the fact is that once fertilized and implanted in the uterus, it is well on its way to becoming a fully functioning human with thoughts, emotions, humor, insight, talent and all the other elements that are unique to humans.

“The child is a separate person from its mother even if they are depending on her before being born and they have their own rights and have just as much value as any other person does,” Gronberg said.

Human development is in full force after fertilization. After just about 22 days, the baby’s heartbeat can be heard. After just six weeks, the child’s eyes, nose, mouth and tongue have been formed and electrical activity can be detected. Finally, after only ten weeks, the child can make full bodily movements. All of these milestones in formation occur before the current legal cutoff for abortion.

However, one of the most shocking statistics comes from Florida abortion records collected in 2015. In Florida, reasons for abortion are recorded every time the procedure is done. Out of 71,740 total abortions in Florida in 2015, 92.330 percent gave no reason for having an abortion. Coming in second place was the 6.268 percent of abortions that were because of social or economic reasons. Moreover, only 0.085 percent abortions were because the woman was raped, and 0.288 percent were because the woman’s physical health was in danger. The other 1.03 percent is made up of reasons such as an incestuous relationship, the woman’s life was in danger, her psychological health was in danger or there was a fetal abnormality.

If these statistics represent the abortion statistics across America, then abortion laws need to be much more stringent. There are arguments to be made about abortion for medical reasons or for rape, however it is inconceivable to abort a child for no reason. Not all pro-life arguments are so strict in a way that does not allow for any exceptions, but the laws of when a mother is allowed to abort need to be narrowed — especially since there are other options after childbirth if the mother is not able to take care of the baby herself.

“If a mother is having a difficult time imagining raising a baby at that time in her life, she can look to other alternatives once the child is born such as adoption. There are many couples who want children but are not able to have them, and they rely on adoption as their way to have their own family,” Gronberg said.

One other very important aspect of the many women’s rights campaigns going on around the country is Planned Parenthood. There is no doubt that Planned Parenthood offers many very useful services for women. However, the arguments against abortion are separate from the arguments to defund the organization. Planned Parenthood provides many services that should be protected, but the laws on abortion need to be changed in order to protect the human rights of the babies.