When I read the assignment sheet for this unit, I knew immediately which topic I wanted to center my research around. Since the assignment was to do research on a controversial topic that was important to us, abortion was the first thing that popped into my head because it is one of the few things that I have a strong opinion on and do not feel that anything could change my mind about it. This topic directly affects me because I am a woman and could be faced with the decision of whether or not to have an abortion at any time in my life. I do not want my decision to be affected by anyone but myself, and feel that it is no one’s business but mine to decide what I do with my body.

At first, I was unsure of what the assignment truly was, so I did some research on articles relating to why it is important for people to be pro-choice.  I read articles such as “What Happens to Women Who are Denied Abortions?”, which discussed the consequences of being denied an abortion such as being less happy, less likely to get a degree, and more likely to have issues with poverty (Lang). I found this source online at nytimes.com, as I found all of my other preliminary sources online as well. My other preliminary sources were “Misconceptions about Abortions”, “Two Problems with Pro-Life Politics”, and “What a Pro-Choice Woman Really Looks Like.”  All of these articles had a common theme of the negative consequences of women not being able to choose whether or not to have an abortion, so my original research question was “What are the hardships that university age women face when they are denied abortions?” After emailing this question to my professor, I found out that my topic was much too broad and I had to go into much more depth and be more specific. After looking over the articles that my professor had sent me to help me out, I decided to focus on the article called “Students Debate Planned Parenthood Abortion Funding.” This article discussed the question of whether the American people should give its tax money to fund all abortions through Planned Parenthood. This made me change my research question to “What does abortion funding do for women?” I found articles that showed the effects of abortion funding, such as “The Heart of the Matter: Public Funding of Abortion for Poor Women in the United States.” This article discussed the fact that the impact of funding restrictions is that poor women must wait longer to get an abortion in order to obtain the necessary money, which causes more problems for the mother and baby (guttmacher.org). These sources ended up raising the question of why abortion is not fully funded in all states.

Now, at the end of my research, I am left with my final working thesis. My thesis is, “All abortions should be fully funded by Planned Parenthood because there are many negative consequences that come from limited funding.” I am now left with the question of how Planned Parenthood uses its money if it is not to fund abortions, and if it has plans to fund abortions in the future. I am very glad I chose to research this topic because it gave me a lot more knowledge about something that I always felt strongly about. I am now more educated about abortion and I have much more information to back myself up next time I am arguing my point about it to someone. Although I feel that my research was very thorough and detailed, there is still much more I could learn about other aspect of abortion and I will continue to research it throughout my life.