Who Would Have Been Here Today Is Gone Forever

Brady Wright

ENG 131.01

Professor Lucas

18 November 2015

Who Would Have Been Here Today Is Gone Forever

Introduction

When I was younger, abortion wasn’t important in my life. I know it was still going on and a big deal in America, but it wasn’t something that I was focused on. Now that I am older, I know the severity of what abortion is. It means more to me now to know about what is going on. Abortion is one of the hottest topics in America today. It has caught the attention of many people because of the equal amount of people who are for it as against it.

I grew up in a Christian home where we went to church every time the doors were open. I can remember people in church talking about abortion, but I really didn’t know what they were talking about or what it had to do with me. According to Guttmacher Institute, in 2008, there were roughly 1.2 million abortions. There were twenty women for every 1,000 to have an abortion. 2% of American women, from ages 15-44 had an abortion. That is scary to me because I could have been one of those babies aborted. I could have had a mother that at the time couldn’t afford to take care of me or may not even know how to take care of me. I am lucky to have parents like I do. They wanted me in their lives. When I think about all the lives that have been stopped before they could even start, I think about who those kids could have been. Those kids could have turned out to be people that the world really needed. Maybe one could have been the next Billy Graham, or one could have grown up to be very smart and find a cure for cancer. You never know the life you are preventing when you have an abortion.

I know that there are special cases when an abortion might seem like the best thing to do, like if a woman is raped, but I would tell those women to think of the joy their kid can bring out of a tragedy. I hope in my lifetime that abortion will not have to be a topic we are discussing anymore. Abortion is a topic that is being discussed by almost everyone in the United States. We’ve even discussed it in my religion class. Presidential candidates often talk about it when they are running for election.

The bibliography that follows includes several different views of abortion. The first talks about cases in which abortion shouldn’t be considered an abortion. By destroying one fetus, the doctors can save the other. The second source talks about people being too passive about the topic. When are people going to step up and speak out and not have to give an apology for it? The last two talk about scientific views and legal view on the topic. Both views are used to determine whether abortions are legal or even considered abortions.

Annotated Bibliography

Mutcherson, Kimberly. “When Is An Abortion Not An Abortion?.” Journal                Of Law, Medicine &      Ethics 43.2 (2015): 206-210. Academic Search              Premier. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

This piece explores the relationship between the MFPR (multi- fetal pregnancy reduction) debate and current struggles about reproductive justice and women’s access to a wide-range of reproductive health services. Also it looks at religious traditions that forbid or limit abortion access and how they respond to MFPR as though it is no different from traditional abortion procedures, with their focus on the religious obligation to protect fetal life without exception for when that life poses risk to others fetuses or to a pregnant woman.

In the United States, about one-third of women will have an abortion over the course of their lifetimes. In 2011, over one million abortions were performed in the United States. Because of the shift from morality, to medicine, to politics in the world of abortion, this has ultimately led to significant legal restrictions on abortion access in the United States.

Pollitt, Katha. “Abortion: No More Apologies.” Nation 299.19 (2014): 12-                  17. Academic Search      Premier. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

Katha Pollit’s said “she has never had an abortion but her mom has.” Her mom never told her but as she got older she finally pieced it together. It was in 1960, so like almost all abortions back then, it was illegal. “For a while I was angry at her, the way one is angry at the dead for keeping their secrets till it is too late to ask questions,” said Pollitt. She struggled with the past and wanted answers, “When I ask myself why I have been so preoccupied with abortion rights for so long, I wonder if learning about my mother’s abortion—its illegality, the fact that she didn’t tell my father, the unknowability of her reasons or her feelings or the experience itself—is part of the answer.”

Denying women the right to end a pregnancy is the flip side of punishing women for their conduct during pregnancy—and even if not punishing, monitoring. It’s the millions of pro-choice Americans who are so far uninvolved that will ultimately decide the fate of legal abortion in this country

Robertson, John A. “Science Disputes In Abortion Law.” Texas Law                            Review 93.7 (2015): 1849-      1883. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16            Nov. 2015.

This article explores several representative scientific and factual disputes in abortion law. Initially, the abortion debate concerned whether fetuses were living human beings. Rather, the scientific disputes of concern arise from government efforts to restrict abortion in ways other than direct prohibition.

Regardless of the reliability of the data, scientific disputes in abortion law involve conflicts about fact-based restrictions on abortion when there are different expert views of what that medical or social science data show. Doctors and scientists research to find the best ways to perform medical abortions. Doctors found that medical abortions were safe and effective for an additional two weeks after the forty-nine-day initial approval, extending the time for medication abortions.

Linton, Paul Benjamin. “The Legal Status Of Abortion In The States If Roe V.            Wade Is Overruled.” Issues In Law & Medicine 27.3 (2012): 181-                        228. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

This article explores the legal status of abortion in the States if the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade. There is a widespread popular belief, shared by some commentators, that a decision of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade, as modified by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in and of itself would make abortion illegal.

In thirty-nine States (and the District of Columbia), abortion would be legal for most or all reasons throughout pregnancy. Then it lists the thirty-nine states and why they would be for it. Of the slightly less than one-third of the States that have not repealed their pre-Roe statutes, most would be ineffective in prohibiting most abortions.

 

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Chuck Klosterman

This interview was different than other Visiting Writer Series because the interview tonight, was recorded by the radio station (Charlotte talks). He has a talent for seeing things others miss. Klosterman sat comfortably in chair, sort of slouchy. Chuck worked on college papers at the University of North Dakota to get paid that’s how he got into journalism. he worked on first book just to see if he could write that much. Chuck had a good sense of humor. He said he learned more in college from friends instead than he did from his professors. This was the first time in his life he was around people just like him after moving to New York. he said that he had always linked things together that are unlikely-just normal, or natural. The stage symbolized how the conversation is supposed to go. Chuck tends to over think everything . He knew a number of papers sold but didn’t know which stories were being read. Internet changed that because he knew what was being read and he knew that damaged journalism badly.

Jeff Hobbs Visitor Writer Series

Jeff started off his speech with personal memories instead of the book. He started by talking about himself instead of Robert. The reason behind this is he had to involve himself in the book so that it would seem more realistic. To get the most reliable information, Hobbs interviewed friends and family of Peace for the book. The craziest thing that Hobbs said he has ever heard was Robert talking about selling guns. In his book, he included specific dialog from his experiences to make the reader feel like they were in the book. He liked to get the Burger Boyz together when he interviewed them. This made the dialog connect better. Hobbs changed names in the book to protect them. Jeff talks about Rob loving to talk to girls especially about his feelings. Because of Peace’s father dying in 2006, it caused him to have a lot of problems in his life. In high school Rob was an excellent athlete, hiker, and student. Hobbs called Robert simple in the fact that he didn’t go around complaining about his life. He hid it very well. Robert was from “Ill town” Newark, NJ. Hobbs saw Peace as an older brother figure in his life. After college Hobbs and Peace lost touch and he found out about Roberts death through Facebook. Roberts mother, Jackie, still hasn’t read the book. Right now, Hobbs it writing another book about education in LA.

Twenty-Page Paper or Five-Hundred-Word Blog

A 2012 New York Times article reported on the problems college and high school students have with academic papers. Mos teachers assign their students lengthy papers they either have to type or write long handed. Cathy N. Davidson, an English professor at Duke, (wants to eradicate the term paper and replace it with the blog.) This question has led to debates about how is the best way to teach writing in the digital era. Davidson isn’t the only one that thinks this way. Across the country, blogs have become basic requirements in any course you take. Douglas B. Reeves says: “Writing term papers is a dying art.” According to a National Survey of Student  Engagement taken in 2011, eighty-two percent of first-year college students do not have to write a single paper over twenty pages or more. Teachers who choose to educate using either blogs or term papers is something of a false opposition. In my experience of the first few weeks of college, the question of should students write long essays, post a blog, or have a choice between the two, has been hit right on the head. Throughout my classroom, English 131 in particular, there are mixed feelings about it. If our class was to have a vote on writing a term paper or posting a blog, the blog would most likely be fifty-fifty. Some people prefer the old-fashioned method of typing their paper. If you feel the best way for you to put all of your thoughts together is in a document anywhere from five to twenty pages, than typing your essay is the best way to go. Some would prefer the even older fashioned way by hand writing their paper. When it comes to actually penning a paper down by hand, not every student has the right qualifications for that. If you have bad hand writing and your teacher can’t read your paper or you write to big that the teacher takes points off, I would stat away from hand writing. Now the other fifty percent of the class that would choose a blog instead, are the people who want to be able to personalize their assignment more. With a blog, you can choose your own background style, pictures, color scheme, and much more. If you want your blog to be very inspiring or make others feel good, a bright or interactive blog page would be a great option for you. If you wanted a blog that was more informal and serious, then a solid plane color with a background that doesn’t have much going on would be the best way to go. In my own personal blog, I knew that most of my post that I would be making for my English class would be informal, so I picked a background that wouldn’t take away from the information that was at hand. In a formal term paper that has a page requirement can get very boring, very quick. You cannot add images or visual aids to help describe what you are writing about. In a blog a picture can really add personality. A personal experience I have had with an extensive was my junior year of high school. My entire junior class was assigned a senior paper we had to write. The paper has to be ten pages not including our works cited page. Out of every student that I talked to about it, no one was excited about it. I think the reason no one wanted to do it is because there wasn’t anything to get excited about. We had to research a topic of our choosing that we thought would be a possible career choice for us in the future. Before we could write the paper we had to have at least two pages of notes on our topic. Our requirement was at least ten pages. Type ten pages of black letters on white paper. There wasn’t any way to make our papers fun and anymore personal than just putting our names on the paper. If we could have turned our paper in to a blog post, I think that we could have gotten more interactive with it and fewer students would have complained and more would have wanted to do it. In my opinion, with all of the technology advances we have, blog posts are the way to go. You can be more personal and you can have more fun with your assignments while still getting quality work done. I also think that teachers and professors would have an easier time grading a blog and it wouldn’t be that same thing over and over again like a term paper. The teachers wouldn’t be looking at literally the same paper repetitively. With a blog they get to see different sides of what their students are thinking.

Richtel, Matt. “Blog vs. term Paper.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012. Web. 29 September, 2015

Visitor Writer Series – Jaki Shelton Green

Jaki’s presentation was enjoyable to attend. She has a way with word not only in her poems, but in how she spoke to her audience about her history and what inspires her. Jaki started of by speaking about 9/11 and how we need to always remember and respect what happened on that day. She told the youth of the room that where you stand in your youth will determine where you will sit when you are an elder. She moved on to speak about her story and told us that she was from Efland, NC and her poems came from inside her stories. She wanted to be an ocean photographer as a child but ended up a writer. Her explanation for that was, sometimes, our life story finds us. Jaki did a one year residency with women on death row and taught them how to write and made them only write about hands. She mentioned a story about how here grandmothers grandmother, was beaten because she could read and write. So we should count it a privileged to read and write because not everyone has that privilege. She closed by telling us that she writes in the spirit of her mother and read one of her favorite poems, segregation rainbow.

http://visitingwriters.lr.edu/the-authors