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Across the United States, abortion remains one of the most heated and widely contested topics of modern times. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the issue in the groundbreaking case of Roe V. Wade in 1973. That case, decided mainly on the grounds of the privacy protections afforded Americans under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, set a landmark precedence which has yet to be overturned. This controversial decision is so fiercely contested that when the President was tasked with appointing a new Supreme Court Justice, one of the first areas investigated was where the potential justice presently sits on the issue and the likelihood that their appointment would upset the judicial status quo on the issue.

For such debates on the subject though, the highest court in the land is not the only venue. This complex topic is but one that arouses a number of opposing and compelling rationales as to why this concept should be employed or resisted, with a basis for support and opposition rooted in moral, cultural, logical, and personal values. The debate often becomes muddled when particulars are involved. It is not necessarily odd for advocates of abortion to say that human society would be better off without additional children in the world with diminishing resources at our disposal, especially if prenatal screening can scientifically show that if the child were born, it would be damaged. This has led many to resist such claims by referencing the illegality of homicide in the United States, including doctor assisted suicide, arguing that 'legalized murder' should be unquestionably barred on all levels.

As the law stands now though, per the judicial holding in Roe V. Wade, a mother has a right to choose whether or not she wants to see a pregnancy to completion, subject only to a set of exceptions which have been narrowly tailored and are the very least restrictive means by which other values have been protected.

A few of the exceptions that bar a woman from choosing to stop her pregnancy include the gestational stage of her pregnancy and the method she wants to employ. For example, partial-birth abortions, once somewhat common place, have now become prohibited by US law. Specifically, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which defeated a constitutional challenge four years later in Gonzales V. Carhart, offers criminal penalties for performing such a procedure. Most likely the next avenue for this continuing debate takes the form of a pill.