essay right to choose

The Right to Choose at 25: Looking Back and Ahead

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court announced its landmark rulings that legalized abortion, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Two days later, a New York Times editorial predicted that the decisions offered “a sound foundation for final and reasonable resolution” of the abortion debate. Yet, in fact, the struggle that had resulted in the Supreme Court victories was far from over. Few in 1973 could have anticipated how explosive the issue of abortion would become and how difficult the right would be to retain. Nor could anyone then have known how much the availability of safe legal abortion would contribute to women’s social, economic, and political advancement in the next quarter of a century.

With the Court’s decisions in Roe and Doe, the barriers to safe legal abortion began to fall: states could no longer criminalize abortion; women could no longer be forced to choose between continuing an unwanted pregnancy or risking their health and lives by seeking an illegal abortion.

The new year marks the 25th anniversary of choice. It is a time to remember what it meant not to have the right to choose, to celebrate our advances, to reaffirm the importance of choice to women’s health and equality, and to recommit ourselves to defending and expanding the right.

1. Establishing the Right to Choose in American Law

Abortion was not, in fact, illegal in most states until the second half of the nineteenth century. Before then, medical experts and other commentators believed that abortion was commonly sought and widely available. By their estimates, there was one abortion for every four live births.

But from the mid-nineteenth century, opposition to abortion began to emerge from several directions. Physicians charged their competitors — mid- wives and folk healers — with performing too frequent and unsafe abortions; the newly formed professional organizations of physicians sought criminal bans. A vocal group of native-born, white Americans condemned abortion as “race suicide” because it lowered their birth rate at a time when they feared being outnumbered by immigrants. Still others, reacting to the new movement for women’s suffrage and other rights, worried that continuing access to abortion would permit women to stray from their traditional roles as wives and mothers. As a result of these converging sentiments, by the end of the century every state had enacted a law criminalizing abortion. Most made an exception only for abortions undertaken to preserve a woman’s life.

These laws did not end abortion but merely sent it underground. The unsafe and unsanitary practice of illegal abortion maimed and killed thousands of women. Finally, in the 1960s, an outcry arose to make abortion legal again. The outcry came from doctors, legal reformers, clergy, and women themselves. The ACLU was in the forefront of this movement.

Led into the struggle by board members like Dorothy Kenyon, a feminist lawyer and judge, the ACLU was the first organization to call for a woman’s right to choose abortion. Kenyon began pressing the issue as early as 1958, and she persisted until 1967, when the board affirmed “the right of a woman to have an abortion.” She also brought the issue to the public, appearing on television talk shows and in print, where she called for an end to “cruel and unconstitutional abortion laws.”

In 1965, the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a landmark case that paved the way for the legalization of abortion. That case, Griswold v. Connecticut, challenged Connecticut’s ban on the prescription, sale, or use of contraceptives, even for married couples. In a major legal breakthrough, the Supreme Court decided that restrictions on birth control violated the right to privacy protected by the Constitution.

Griswold greatly encouraged the activists who were waging a two-pronged campaign to legalize abortion. On one front, doctors, lawyers, clergy, and women called for the reform or repeal of state abortion laws. In the mid-1960s, the New York Civil Liberties Union helped organize a campaign to repeal New York’s abortion law. In 1970, New York, Hawaii, Alaska, and Washington became the first states to repeal their abortion laws, making abortion more widely available, although some restrictions remained in effect in all four states.

On a second front, legal reformers brought test cases against criminal abortion laws in federal and state courts all over the nation, in the hope that one case would reach the Supreme Court. In 1971, the high court issued its first decision about abortion in U.S. v. Vuitch, a case argued by the ACLU’s general counsel, Norman Dorsen. Police had arrested Dr. Milan Vuitch in Washington, D.C., claiming that he had violated the District’s law permitting abortions only to preserve a woman’s life or health. Dr. Vuitch argued that only a physician, not a prosecutor, could judge when an abortion was necessary to protect a woman’s life or health. The Supreme Court did not overturn the statute as Vuitch sought, but it held that the burden of proof should be on a prosecutor who brought charges, not on a doctor. The Court also concluded that “health” should be understood to include considerations of psychological as well as physical well-being.

Dorothy Kenyon, the ACLU’s longtime advocate of abortion rights, died at the age of 84 in 1972, a little too soon to see the fruition of her work. In 1973 the Supreme Court decided the two cases that upheld a woman’s right to abortion, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Thanks to the seeds that Kenyon had sown, the ACLU was involved in both cases. Norman Dorsen was among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in Roe v. Wade, and the ACLU of Georgia organized a trio of women lawyers to represent the plaintiffs in Doe v. Bolton.

Roe v. Wade challenged a Texas law prohibiting all but lifesaving abortions. The Supreme Court invalidated the law on the ground that the constitutional right to privacy encompassed a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Characterizing this right as “fundamental” to a woman’s “life and future,” the Court held that the state could not interfere with the abortion decision unless it had a compelling reason for regulation. A compelling interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus could be asserted only once it became “viable” (usually at the beginning of the last trimester of pregnancy), and even then a woman had to have access to an abortion if it were necessary to preserve her life or health.

In Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court overturned a Georgia law regulating abortion. The law prohibited abortions except when necessary to preserve a woman’s life or health or in cases of fetal abnormality or rape. Among other conditions, the law also required that all abortions be performed in accredited hospitals and that a hospital committee and two doctors in addition to the woman’s own doctor give their approval. The Court held the Georgia law unconstitutional because it imposed too many restrictions and interfered with a woman’s right to decide, in consultation with her physician, to terminate her pregnancy.

The Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton had nationwide impact. After the Court ruled the Texas and Georgia abortion laws unconstitutional, no other states could enforce similarly restrictive laws. When the Court made its landmark rulings, it was in step with public opinion. Public attitudes had shifted as a result of the decade-long campaign to legalize abortion. In 1968, only 15 percent of Americans favored liberalizing abortion laws; by 1972, 64 percent did.

A year after the Roe and Doe decisions, the ACLU created its Reproductive Freedom Project to defend and extend the right to choose. The Project has participated in almost all of the major Supreme Court cases dealing with reproductive rights since 1973.

2. What the Legalization of Abortion Has Meant for Women

The legalization of abortion has dramatically improved women’s health. Abortion services moved from the back alleys into hygienic facilities staffed by health professionals. High-quality training, the ability of professionals openly to share their expertise with one another, and the development of specialized clinics all enhanced the safety of abortion services. In the early part of this century, an estimated 800,000 illegal abortions took place annually, resulting in 8,000 – 17,000 women’s deaths each year. Thousands of other women suffered severe consequences short of death, including perforations of the uterus, cervical wounds, serious bleeding, infections, poisoning, shock, and gangrene. After legalization, deaths as a result of abortion greatly declined. In 1991, for example, 11 women died as the result of complications arising in legal abortions. Today, one death occurs in every 167,000 legal abortions, compared with one in every 30,000 in 1973.

Once Roe made it possible to obtain safe legal abortions, women have been having abortions earlier in their pregnancies when the health risks are the lowest. In 1973, only 38 percent of abortions were performed at or before eight weeks of pregnancy; in 1997, this percentage has risen to 52, and 89 percent of all abortions occur in the first 12 weeks. Only one percent takes place after 21 weeks. Today, abortion is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures and is ten times safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.

The availability of safe legal abortion is a cornerstone that supports the remarkable advances women have made in American society in the past quarter of a century. As the Supreme Court observed in reaffirming Roe in 1992, “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” Not having to endure unwanted childbearing has made a critical difference to women at all stages of life — the teenager who wishes to finish her education, the woman who does not want a child or does not want one yet, the overburdened mother who cannot cope with another child, and the older woman whose grown children have already left home and who mistakenly believed she could no longer conceive.

3. Defending and Expanding Reproductive Freedom

Since the landmark decisions of 1973, the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project and our sister organizations have worked continuously to defend and expand reproductive rights. Our greatest challenge has been to try to assure that the right to choose extends to those whose lack of political power makes them easy targets for lawmakers: low-income women and young women. The Supreme Court held in 1980 that the federal constitution permits the government to withhold Medicaid funds for virtually all abortions, while continuing to fund all other medically necessary services, including prenatal care and childbirth. Yet bans on public funding for abortion rob low-income women of the right to choose by depriving them of the means to exercise their choice. We therefore turned to the state constitutions in an effort to restore low-income women’s rights. A case won on state constitutional grounds provides strong protection for choice because it is insulated from federal constitutional review and is therefore unaffected by any erosion of the federal right to choose. Because the ACLU and its allies have succeeded in forestalling or overturning a number of funding bans in key states, 40 percent of Medicaid-eligible women once again have abortion coverage.

We have also sought to vindicate the right of low-income women to bear children. We first defended this right by asking the courts to compensate women who had been sterilized without their knowledge or consent. Our victories in such cases contributed to the development of national and local regulations to prevent sterilization abuse. In a more recent incarnation of this battle, we have defended the rights of welfare recipients to bear children without being subject to punitive “child exclusion” policies. Under these policies, federal or state governments attempt to deter childbearing by depriving welfare recipients of increases in benefits if they bear an additional child while receiving public assistance. We have opposed “child exclusions” at both the federal and state levels, and we helped to stop Congress from mandating that the states implement such policies as part of the restructuring of the welfare system in 1996.

Defending the rights of teenagers is another high priority. More than half of the states currently enforce laws that require minors to get permission from their parents or from a court before they can obtain abortions. Because parental involvement laws create unnecessary delays and effectively eliminate the option of abortion for some minors, we work to oppose the passage of such laws and to invalidate them where they are enacted. In the years since Roe, the courts have invalidated parental involvement laws under both the federal and state constitutions.

While fighting restrictions on minors’ access to abortion, we work simultaneously to promote confidential contraceptive services and comprehensive sexuality education. We have repeatedly succeeded in blocking “squeal rules,” which would mandate notice to parents before their teenage children receive contraceptive services. Our victories in these cases set precedents for our current defense of school-based programs in which condoms are made available to students in conjunction with comprehensive sexuality and HIV/AIDS education. Ready access to contraceptives and to medically accurate information can equip teenagers to act responsibly by protecting themselves and their partners from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

Yet as our efforts to protect the rights of the most vulnerable women continue, the backlash against reproductive choice has escalated on other fronts. Beginning in the mid-1980s, vandalism, bombings, arsons, and assassinations threatened to shut down many abortion providers. Clinics, doctors, and other advocates of choice demanded federal protection and helped to persuade Congress to enact the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 (FACE). This statute prohibits force, threats of force, physical obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with people obtaining or providing reproductive health services. It does not apply to peaceful praying, picketing, or other free expression by anti-choice demonstrators — so long as these activities do not obstruct physical access to clinics. FACE has reduced but by no means eliminated clinic violence.

In their latest maneuver, opponents of choice have hit upon the powerful tactic of proposing and, in many states, passing bans on safe abortion procedures. Although their sponsors characterize the bans as aimed at a single, “late,” “gruesome” procedure, the bans are not in fact limited to any stage of pregnancy, and they define the conduct to be banned so broadly as to reach an array of safe and common methods of abortion. Recognizing that such bans pose serious threats to reproductive choice, we and other organizations have challenged them in states all over the country. Ten courts to date have enjoined various bans in whole or in part.

Thus the struggle to protect reproductive choice goes on, both to counter persistent attacks and to advance an affirmative agenda of enabling people to make informed and meaningful decisions about reproduction.

4. What You Can Do to Preserve the Right to Choose

If the right to choose is to survive and flourish on its 50th anniversary, those who came of age after Roe must rise to its defense. Current public opinion research indicates that the generations born in the 1960s and afterward take the right for granted. To the extent possible, we must use the 25th anniversary as an opportunity to teach our daughters and sons the history of the struggle for abortion rights and to enlist them in the movement for reproductive freedom.

We must also use the anniversary to defend abortion as a moral choice. Opponents of choice want to return to the time when abortion was illicit and deadly. In the meantime, they do everything possible to keep it shameful, to portray women who have abortions as immoral, inhumane, irresponsible, and frivolous. We must respond with a clear moral defense of abortion. We must remember that it is an act of violence to force an unwilling woman to bear an unwanted child. We must cultivate respect for women as moral actors who make their childbearing decisions based on profound concerns about their own lives and the lives of their families. Women make these decisions within the framework of their own religious beliefs, conscience, and values. We must stress that abortion is a responsible choice for a woman who is both unwilling to continue a pregnancy and unprepared to care for a child.

Finally, legislators in Congress and in the states are often deluged with postcards and letters from abortion opponents, but they say repeatedly that they do not hear enough from their pro-choice constituents. Please take the opportunity presented by the 25th anniversary to urge your federal and state legislators to protect reproductive freedom. Ask your federal legislators to:

SUPPORT the Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act

This bill is intended to correct a shocking gap in private health insurance: a lack of coverage for contraceptive services and supplies. The bill would require employment-related insurance plans to cover contraceptive services if they cover outpatient medical services in general. If the plans cover prescription drugs in general, they would be required to cover prescription contraceptive drugs and devices. Reducing the out-of-pocket costs of contraceptive services and supplies will enhance the public health, prevent unintended pregnancies, and lessen the need for abortion. Introduced in 1997, this legislation will be considered during the second session of the 105th Congress, which lasts from late January through the fall of 1998. Similar bills are pending in a number of states. Check with your state ACLU affiliate to see if yours is among them and what you can do to get your state legislators to support such legislation.

OPPOSE the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997

In 1997, for the second time, the anti-choice majority in Congress passed the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.” For the second time, President Clinton vetoed it. Congress is again set to attempt to override the President’s veto.

By making physicians fearful of performing safe, common methods of abortion, the ban would seriously endanger women’s health. Contact your Representatives and Senators and tell them not to override President Clinton’s veto of this dangerous bill. Check with your state ACLU affiliate to see whether you should also be working to defeat such a ban in your state.

OPPOSE The Global “Gag Rule”

Anti-choice members of Congress want to re-impose the global “gag rule”: they seek to prohibit private, non-governmental, or multilateral organizations receiving U.S. funds from administering overseas family planning programs that perform abortion or engage in any abortion-related speech or activity, even using their non-U.S. funds. Proponents of this “gag rule” will make another attempt to impose it in the early months of 1998. They will try to include it in a bill the Administration very much wants to enact — a supplemental appropriations bill that would provide funds for the United States to pay its dues to the United Nations and funds for the International Monetary Fund. Ask your legislators to vote down any attempts to enact a global “gag rule.”

OPPOSE Appropriations Amendments to Restrict Abortion Funding

Every year, anti-choice legislators in Congress target the appropriations bills that fund the various agencies of the federal government and attach amendments that largely prohibit the use of federal funds for abortions. As a result, millions of people who rely on the government for their health care have been denied abortion coverage. They include most Medicaid recipients, federal employees and their dependents, military personnel and their dependents, Native American women, federal prisoners, and low-income residents of Washington, D.C. In 1998, let your legislators know that you want them to oppose these restrictive amendments in appropriations bills. Tell them that the government should not intrude into an area of intimate, private decision-making by influencing people’s options through its fiscal policies. Instead, the government should remain neutral on the issue of childbearing and allow people to make their own decisions.

Whenever you want to find out whether choice is threatened and what you can do to counter the threat, check the ACLU’s Internet site, at http://archive.aclu.org.

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Right to Choose as a Fundamental Right

Table of Contents

Introduction, 'right to choose': conceptual understanding, the right to choose in the international legal framework, right to choose as a fundamental right in india, key court judgments upholding the right to choose, challenges and critiques, potential solutions, challenges in implementing the 'right to choose', interplay with other rights, judicial interpretations, 'right to choose' in global perspective, the role of non-governmental organizations, challenges to the right to choose, intersectionality and the right to choose, future trends in the right to choose, concluding thoughts.

In democratic societies worldwide, the ' Right to Choose ' is an important concept that underpins many fundamental rights and freedoms. It reflects the principles of individual autonomy, dignity, and freedom, embodying the essence of personal liberty. The 'Right to Choose' can extend to various aspects of life, such as choosing a partner, profession, religion, or even political ideology. This comprehensive blog explores the 'Right to Choose' as a fundamental right, its implications, legal interpretations, and its role in shaping our society.

The 'Right to Choose' is a broad concept encompassing various elements of personal liberty and self-determination. This right allows individuals to make decisions that shape their lives without external interference, provided these choices do not infringe on others' rights. It is intricately linked with the principle of autonomy, a cornerstone of human rights .

From choosing one's education and career to selecting a life partner, deciding on a place of residence, and choosing whether to believe in a religion, the 'Right to Choose' impacts virtually every aspect of life. However, the legal and societal recognition of this right varies across the world, influenced by cultural, social, and political factors.

The 'Right to Choose' finds its basis in several international legal instruments. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 1948, is a significant example, which provides for the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, the right to work in just and favorable conditions, and the right to marry and start a family, among others.

Likewise, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) reinforces the 'Right to Choose' through provisions for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, right to work, and right to a family life.

In essence, these international legal instruments strive to promote personal liberty, dignity, and the freedom to make choices that determine one's life path. This forms the bedrock of democratic societies where individual freedoms are held sacrosanct.

In India, the 'Right to Choose' is intricately woven into the fabric of its Constitution. Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, is interpreted expansively to include the 'Right to Choose.' The Supreme Court of India has reiterated, through numerous judgments, that this fundamental right encompasses various aspects of life.

For instance, the 'Right to Choose' a profession is enshrined under Article 19(1)(g), and the 'Right to Choose' a life partner, regardless of caste, religion, or race, is also recognized as part of personal liberty. However, these rights are not absolute and are subjected to reasonable restrictions in the interests of general public order, morality, and health.

Several Indian court judgments have upheld the ‘Right to Choose’. The landmark case of Hadiya v. Asokan , for instance, pertains to the ‘Right to Choose’ a religion and life partner. Hadiya, a 24-year-old adult woman, converted to Islam and married a Muslim man. Her father contested the conversion and marriage, alleging it was forced. The Supreme Court upheld Hadiya's right to choose her religion and life partner, underscoring that as an adult, she is free to make these choices.

Another significant judgment is Shakti Vahini v. Union of India , where the Supreme Court held that the right to choose a life partner is a facet of personal liberty, and ‘ honor killings ’ infringe upon this fundamental right.

In the Navtej Johar v. Union of India case, the Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality, upholding the 'Right to Choose' one's sexual orientation.

These judgments are pivotal in interpreting the 'Right to Choose' as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty.

While the 'Right to Choose' is lauded for promoting personal freedoms, it is not without challenges. The broad interpretation of this right has led to debates around its limits and the potential for misuse.

For instance, the ‘Right to Choose’ a religion is often marred by allegations of forced conversions. Moreover, the 'Right to Choose' one's sexual orientation has been contested on moral and religious grounds. Further, the 'Right to Choose' a life partner has led to societal conflicts, particularly when it transcends caste and religious boundaries.

Critics argue that the unrestricted 'Right to Choose' could potentially disrupt societal order and values. Balancing individual freedoms with societal interests hence remains a key challenge.

Addressing the challenges posed by the 'Right to Choose' requires thoughtful legal and societal responses. Legally, the government could enact laws that clearly demarcate the boundaries of this right, ensuring it is not misused. Public awareness campaigns could also help enlighten people about their rights, reducing misunderstandings and conflicts.

Additionally, society at large needs to adopt a more open-minded and accepting attitude. Education can play a vital role in this, fostering tolerance and understanding among diverse groups. Interfaith and intercaste dialogues could also help in promoting social harmony.

The challenges that lie in implementing the 'Right to Choose' are manifold. Primarily, the question that arises is - to what extent does this right extend? While it is generally agreed that individuals should be allowed to make personal choices about their lives, there are inevitable clashes with societal norms, religious doctrines, and in some cases, national security concerns. For instance, the decision of an individual to adopt a particular lifestyle or belief could be viewed as unconventional or even offensive by others. These potential conflicts create legal grey areas and challenges in implementation.

Also, there's the issue of misuse. As the right is broadly defined, it could potentially be used as a cover for unlawful activities. How does one ensure that the 'Right to Choose' isn't invoked to justify illegal actions, while still maintaining the spirit of personal freedom it upholds? This balance is tricky to maintain, and it's one of the biggest challenges faced by legal authorities and societies worldwide.

The ' Right to Marry ' doesn't exist in isolation - it intersects with other fundamental rights. For example, the 'Right to Choose' one's religion directly corresponds to the 'Right to Freedom of Religion'. The 'Right to Choose' whom to marry intertwines with the 'Right to Equality', especially in cases of intercaste or interfaith marriages. Understanding these interactions is crucial for a comprehensive interpretation and application of these rights.

The role of the judiciary in interpreting the 'Right to Choose' has been significant. In various landmark cases, courts have upheld this right, often broadening its scope. One such case was the Hadiya case where the Supreme Court of India upheld Hadiya's right to choose her religion and whom she wanted to marry, underlining that these choices are integral to her fundamental rights.

However, these interpretations often stir debate, as they can be seen as the judiciary overstepping its boundaries and infringing upon the domain of personal lives. This has sparked discussions on the need for a more well-defined framework of this right.

While we've mostly discussed the 'Right to Choose' in the Indian context, it is essential to note that this concept is also recognized globally. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations, underscores the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, which by extension covers the right to choose one's faith, lifestyle, and personal decisions.

However, the application of this right varies widely among countries due to differing societal norms, cultural values, and legal systems. For instance, western democracies like the USA and European nations generally provide broad leeway for personal choices, while in some other parts of the world, individual liberties can be significantly limited by government restrictions or societal norms.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play a crucial role in advocating for and protecting the 'Right to Choose'. Organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch actively work to raise awareness about this right and intervene in situations where it is threatened. Their work often involves advocating for policy changes, providing legal support to individuals whose rights have been violated, and educating the public about their rights.

Though the right to choose is enshrined in law and societal values, it does not exist without challenges. For one, what one person chooses can sometimes impinge on the rights of others. Striking a balance between individual rights and societal interests can be a tricky terrain to navigate.

Furthermore, the right to choose is not always absolute and can be subjected to reasonable restrictions on grounds of public order, morality, and health. For instance, the right to freedom of speech and expression is subject to reasonable restrictions like defamation, contempt of court, etc. Similarly, the right to choose one's profession may not extend to activities that are illegal or harmful to society.

Intersectionality, a term coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw , refers to how different social identities such as race, gender, and class interconnect and influence individuals' experiences. The right to choose can take on different meanings for individuals with intersecting identities. For example, a woman of a lower socioeconomic status might face different or added challenges in exercising her right to choose compared to a woman from a higher socioeconomic status. Recognizing and addressing these intersectional challenges is vital in truly realizing the right to choose for all.

In the future, the right to choose may take on new dimensions. With technological advancements, questions about individuals' rights to make choices about their digital lives are becoming increasingly important. For instance, do individuals have the right to choose how their personal data is used? Do they have the right to opt out of certain technological innovations?

Moreover, advancements in medical technology might also raise new questions about the right to choose. For instance, should individuals have the right to choose genetic modifications for themselves or their offspring? As technology continues to evolve, the legal framework around the right to choose will need to adapt to ensure that individual rights are protected.

As we progress further into the 21st century, the 'Right to Choose' will continue to evolve. With advances in technology and shifts in societal norms, new dimensions of this right will likely emerge. For instance, the rise of digital technologies has given rise to debates about the 'Right to Choose' in the context of privacy and personal data.

Moreover, as our understanding of gender and sexuality becomes more nuanced, the 'Right to Choose' one's gender identity and sexual orientation is also gaining increased recognition. As such, lawmakers, legal scholars, and societies at large will need to continue to navigate these complexities and ensure that the 'Right to Choose' is protected and upheld.

The 'Right to Choose' as a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution is a powerful tool for safeguarding individual liberties. Despite its challenges, it plays a vital role in a democratic society, providing individuals the freedom to make personal choices that affect their lives. Through judicious interpretation by courts and the right societal approach, this right can continue to serve as a beacon of personal freedom and autonomy.

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The Freedom to Make Your Own Choices

Bethany_L_Brown

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I’ll start with a sentiment I hear a lot when I say I work on older people’s rights: “ Oh, nursing homes can be awful, but my dad’s in a good one. ” I would hope that everyone living in a facility is living in a “good” one. But unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. And what is more, even in the ones people think are “good” ones, with chandeliers and carpeting, there are risks inherent in the segregation from the outside world, risks in the situation of control a facility has when a person wholly depends on it.

We cannot overstate the risks.  This year, we documented the widespread  inappropriate use of medicines  to sedate older people with dementia living in nursing homes in the US, often without their consent, in our report “ ‘They Want Docile’ : How Nursing Homes in the United States Overmedicate People with Dementia.” I and others documented older people living afraid, wanting to go home.

News reports have documented  sexual assaults  in nursing facilities  in the US, that even when reported, which is rare, may not be believed. About half of the nursing homes in the US ask for a binding arbitration  agreement  upon admission, which means residents waive their right to sue in court if they have any complaints against the facility or staff.

We can all agree that those problems are outrageous. But the same invisibility to the outside world, the institutional isolation and control that allows those problems to fester is also a breeding ground for many more little indignities.  It’s not being able to choose your own breakfast, as a woman in Chicago explained to me last winter. She doesn’t like sweet things, and that’s all her facility offers. It’s not being able to get up and get dressed when you want, as vividly captured in a September  news report  on nursing homes in Australia, with hidden cameras showing a woman awake in bed for hours, calling out in the dark, waiting.

“ Independent living ,”  according to the  Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , “ should be regarded as the freedom to choose and control, in line with the respect for inherent dignity and individual autonomy. ” People should receive support to enable them in their own homes, where they can maintain their connections with their community, their family, their privacy and their usual way of life.

Fortunately, public policy to support independent living has been gaining momentum in the UK, and in the US, and other places, and older people should have access to that support.  Living with the support we need  is a critical aspect of protecting our rights as we age, and it’s one I will continue to fight for, together with members of the Ageing Equal Campaign and other partners.

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Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion: an argument for abortion rights featuring the rev. carlton veazey.

Since the Supreme Court’s historic 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade , the issue of a woman’s right to an abortion has fostered one of the most contentious moral and political debates in America. Opponents of abortion rights argue that life begins at conception – making abortion tantamount to homicide. Abortion rights advocates, in contrast, maintain that women have a right to decide what happens to their bodies – sometimes without any restrictions.

To explore the case for abortion rights, the Pew Forum turns to the Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, who for more than a decade has been president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition advocates for reproductive choice and religious freedom on behalf of about 40 religious groups and organizations. Prior to joining the coalition, Veazey spent 33 years as a pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

A counterargument explaining the case against abortion rights is made by the Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

Featuring: The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, President, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Interviewer: David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Question & Answer

Can you explain how your Christian faith informs your views in support of abortion rights?

I grew up in a Christian home. My father was a Baptist minister for many years in Memphis, Tenn. One of the things that he instilled in me – I used to hear it so much – was free will, free will, free will. It was ingrained in me that you have the ability to make choices. You have the ability to decide what you want to do. You are responsible for your decisions, but God has given you that responsibility, that option to make decisions.

I had firsthand experience of seeing black women and poor women being disproportionately impacted by the fact that they had no choices about an unintended pregnancy, even if it would damage their health or cause great hardship in their family. And I remember some of them being maimed in back-alley abortions; some of them died. There was no legal choice before Roe v. Wade .

But in this day and time, we have a clearer understanding that men and women are moral agents and equipped to make decisions about even the most difficult and complex matters. We must ensure a woman can determine when and whether to have children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs and without governmental interference or coercion. We must also ensure that women have the resources to have a healthy, safe pregnancy, if that is their decision, and that women and families have the resources to raise a child with security.

The right to choose has changed and expanded over the years since Roe v. Wade . We now speak of reproductive justice – and that includes comprehensive sex education, family planning and contraception, adequate medical care, a safe environment, the ability to continue a pregnancy and the resources that make that choice possible. That is my moral framework.

You talk about free will, and as a Christian you believe in free will. But you also said that God gave us free will and gave us the opportunity to make right and wrong choices. Why do you believe that abortion can, at least in some instances, be the right choice?

Dan Maguire, a former Jesuit priest and professor of moral theology and ethics at Marquette University, says that to have a child can be a sacred choice, but to not have a child can also be a sacred choice.

And these choices revolve around circumstances and issues – like whether a person is old enough to care for a child or whether a woman already has more children than she can care for. Also, remember that medical circumstances are the reason many women have an abortion – for example, if they are having chemotherapy for cancer or have a life-threatening chronic illness – and most later-term abortions occur because of fetal abnormalities that will result in stillbirth or the death of the child. These are difficult decisions; they’re moral decisions, sometimes requiring a woman to decide if she will risk her life for a pregnancy.

Abortion is a very serious decision and each decision depends on circumstances. That’s why I tell people: I am not pro-abortion, I am pro-choice. And that’s an important distinction.

You’ve talked about the right of a woman to make a choice. Does the fetus have any rights?

First, let me say that the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.

From a religious perspective, it’s more important to consider the moral issues involved in making a decision about abortion. Also, it’s important to remember that religious traditions have very different ideas about the status of the fetus. Roman Catholic doctrine regards a fertilized egg as a human being. Judaism holds that life begins with the first breath.

What about at the very end of a woman’s pregnancy? Does a fetus acquire rights after the point of viability, when it can survive outside the womb? Or let me ask it another way: Assuming a woman is healthy and her fetus is healthy, should the woman be able to terminate her pregnancy until the end of her pregnancy?

There’s an assumption that a woman would end a viable pregnancy carelessly or without a reason. The facts don’t bear this out. Most abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Late abortions are virtually always performed for the most serious medical and health reasons, including saving the woman’s life.

But what if such a case came before you? If you were that woman’s pastor, what would you say?

I would talk to her in a helpful, positive, respectful way and help her discuss what was troubling her. I would suggest alternatives such as adoption.

Let me shift gears a little bit. Many Americans have said they favor a compromise, or reaching a middle-ground policy, on abortion. Do you sympathize with this desire and do you think that both sides should compromise to end this rancorous debate?

I have been to more middle-ground and common-ground meetings than I can remember and I’ve never been to one where we walked out with any decision.

That being said, I think that we all should agree that abortion should be rare. How do we do that? We do that by providing comprehensive sex education in schools and in religious congregations and by ensuring that there is accurate information about contraception and that contraception is available. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has not been willing to pass a bill to fund comprehensive sex education, but they are willing to put a lot of money into failed and harmful abstinence-only programs that often rely on scare tactics and inaccurate information.

Former Surgeon General David Satcher has shown that abstinence-only programs do not work and that we should provide young people with the information to protect themselves. Education that stresses abstinence and provides accurate information about contraception will reduce the abortion rate. That is the ground that I stand on. I would say that here is a way we can work together to reduce the need for abortions.

Abortion has become central to what many people call the “culture wars.” Some consider it to be the most contentious moral issue in America today. Why do many Catholics, evangelical Christians and other people of faith disagree with you?

I was raised to respect differing views so the rigid views against abortion are hard for me to understand. I will often tell someone on the other side, “I respect you. I may disagree with your theological perspective, but I respect your views. But I think it’s totally arrogant for you to tell me that I need to believe what you believe.” It’s not that I think we should not try to win each other over. But we have to respect people’s different religious beliefs.

But what about people who believe that life begins at conception and that terminating a pregnancy is murder? For them, it may not just be about respecting or tolerating each other’s viewpoints; they believe this is an issue of life or death. What do you say to people who make that kind of argument?

I would say that they have a right to their beliefs, as do I. I would try to explain that my views are grounded in my religion, as are theirs. I believe that we must ensure that women are treated with dignity and respect and that women are able to follow the dictates of their conscience – and that includes their reproductive decisions. Ultimately, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that women have the ability to make decisions of conscience and have access to reproductive health services.

Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view?

Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that will have serious health consequences.

Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.

So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.

This transcript has been edited for clarity, spelling and grammar.

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Key facts about the abortion debate in america, public opinion on abortion, three-in-ten or more democrats and republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion, partisanship a bigger factor than geography in views of abortion access locally, do state laws on abortion reflect public opinion, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Fighting for the Right to Choose: Students Should Have the Freedom to Pick the Courses They Want Argumentative Essay

Whoever studies at college quickly learns that, in addition to the main subjects, there are a lot of additional ones. The latter seem to have been invented only to make life harder. Most students tend to think that the additional subjects are unnecessary, since they have nothing to do with the chosen subject area. However, most teachers still consider that learning additional subjects is necessary. Thus, it can be suggested that students can choose the subjects to study on their own.

Before proceeding with the analysis of the opponents’ opinions, it is necessary to take a closer look at what defines the students’ choice. There are number of factors which impact peoples’ decision on what major or additional subject to choose, yet there are certain paradigms among the common choices. Learning more about these patterns, one can assess the students’ ability to choose their subjects more accurately. According to what Porter and Umbach claim, the students’ choice depends mostly on the following factors:

• Social ones: “Social capital and cultural capital, largely represented by parental influence , have a significant impact on major choice” (Porter and Umbach 434);
• The parents’ opinion: “Some research has linked the attention a mother pays to a student’s academic work to selection of a public service major” (Porter and Umbach 435);
• Self-efficacy: “a large body of literature points to self- efficacy as an important factor of student major choice” (Porter and Umbach 439). Therefore, personal choice takes the third place, which means that students’ convictions about their future profession and what they are going to need to have it might not be formed yet as they enter college.

However, according to the USA higher education principles, students are already informed enough to choose the college courses which will help them progress in their major. Consequently, students should be allowed to pick the subjects which they are going to study together with the main one. As Goldrik-Rab and Roksa explain, “College students need study skills in order to learn course content, must choose courses wisely to develop college majors, and make consistent progress in earning college credits toward degrees” (10).

In addition, it is worth mentioning that students differ in their skills and knowledge base; hence, students need to pay different amount of attention to different subjects, while, with compulsory subjects, equal amount of time is offered for each student to handle the topic. The above-mentioned practice can lead to getting some of the skills trained worse than others. The given argument also speaks in favor of allowing students to choose courses on their own.

However, the arguments of the teachers, who suggest that there should be certain compulsory courses which students have to attend disregarding their preferences as well as their major, are solid as well. For instance, the Allen and Robins’ research shows that “For some major groups, the likelihood of persisting does not appear to be impacted much by students’ interests” (Allen and Robins 72-73).

Hence, in most cases, the grade on a certain subject does not depend on whether the given subject relates to the students’ major or even whether a student likes the subject or not. With that in mind, the students’ complaints concerning additional subjects as an obstacle to learning the major is inconsistent.

Nevertheless, the arguments which students offer regarding their right to choose not only their major, but also the rest of the subjects, are rather reasonable. To start with, the first and the foremost issue to discuss is the payment for the courses.

Indeed, the money issue is the trickiest aspect when it comes to choosing between various subjects. Hence, it is important for a student that his/her “investments” could pay off in the future. Consequently, it seems that it is a student’s responsibility to pick the material which (s)he considers the most essential for his/her further professional development.

As Callender and Jackson explain, the money issues are quite topical for the modern education system: “Students who are poor before going to university are more likely to be in debt and to leave university with the largest debts, while better-off students are less likely to have debts and leave with the lowest debts” (4). Hence, it is quite logical that students should decide themselves what they want to pay – or, for that matter, their parents should.

Indeed, the problem is by far more complicated than it seems to be. However, there are certain ways to figure out what kind of courses is the most appropriate to pick. One of the most obvious suggestions is to think of what skills each of the subjects in question helps train and assess every single skill.

Evaluating the significance of these skills for a student’s supposed future profession, one will be able to choose the proper courses. As the author of Standards and Students Coursetaking claims, “Once in place, such “real-world standards” would help students choose courses and guide them to expend sufficient effort in high school, reducing the need for remedial courses in college” ( Standards and Students Coursetaking ).

Hence, it can be concluded that there is still a considerable problem about letting students decide what subjects exactly they need to complete their education and become full-fledged professionals.

On the one hand, students have the right to decide what they are going to become and, therefore, which subjects to study. On the other hand, teachers are considerably more experienced and must know what skills one must have not only to become a professional, but also to obtain a certain job in the given field. Therefore, the importance of teachers’ decision is not to be underrated as well.

Nevertheless, the additional subjects for “broadening students’ horizon” can be too much time-consuming. This means that a student might not be able to qualify for his/her major. Thus, students should be allowed to choose the subjects they need in accordance with their abilities and skills.

Works Cited

Allen, Jeff and Steven B. Robbins. “ Prediction of College Major Persistence Based on Vocational Interests, Academic Preparation, and First Year Academic Performance .” Research in Higher Education. 49.1 (2008): 62-79. Web.

Callender, Claire, and Jonathan Jackson. “ Does the Fear of Debt Deter Students from Higher Education? ” Journal of Social Policy. 34.4 (2005): 509-540. Web.

Goldrik-Rab, Sara and Josipa Roksa 2008, A Federal Agenda for Promoting Success and Degree Completion . Web.

Porter, Stephen R. and Paul D. Umbach. “ College Major Choice: An Analysis of Person-Environmental Fit .” Research in Higher Education. 47.4 (2006): 429-449. Web.

Standards and Students Coursetaking Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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"Fighting for the Right to Choose: Students Should Have the Freedom to Pick the Courses They Want." IvyPanda , 6 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/fighting-for-the-right-to-choose-students-should-have-the-freedom-to-pick-the-courses-they-want/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Fighting for the Right to Choose: Students Should Have the Freedom to Pick the Courses They Want'. 6 March.

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1. IvyPanda . "Fighting for the Right to Choose: Students Should Have the Freedom to Pick the Courses They Want." March 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/fighting-for-the-right-to-choose-students-should-have-the-freedom-to-pick-the-courses-they-want/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Fighting for the Right to Choose: Students Should Have the Freedom to Pick the Courses They Want." March 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/fighting-for-the-right-to-choose-students-should-have-the-freedom-to-pick-the-courses-they-want/.

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• Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, and College Exam Grades
• Comparative Politics in Compulsory Politics
• Self-Efficacy in On & Offline Counseling Programs
• College Students: Self-Efficacy and Goal Orientation
• The Effect of a Mathematics Methodology Classroom on Self-Efficacy of Pre-Service Elementary Teachers
• Self-Efficacy in Students Studying Statistics
• Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Expectancies - Psychology
• Self-Efficacy: Implications for Organizational Behavior and HRM
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• Composition of Idaho State University
• Charter Schools and Its Privileges
• Is a college degree necessary?
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MY BODY MY RIGHTS

Being able to make our own decisions about our health, body and sexual life is a basic human right..

Whoever you are, wherever you live, you have the right to make these choices without fear, violence or discrimination.

Yet all over the world, people are bullied, discriminated against and arrested, simply for making choices about their bodies and their lives. 

A woman is refused contraception because she doesn’t have her husband’s permission. A teenager is denied a life-saving termination because abortion is illegal in her country. A man is harassed by police because he’s gay.

My Body My Rights is Amnesty’s global campaign to stop the control and criminalization of sexuality and reproduction.

Join us in defending sexual and reproductive rights for all.

It’s your body. Know your rights.

UNTIL WOMEN AND GIRLS CAN MAKE REPRODUCTIVE CHOICES ON MATTERS AFFECTING THEIR BODIES AND FULLY ENJOY THEIR RIGHTS, I’LL CAMPAIGN FOR SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS FOR ALL. Vongai V. Chikwanda, Harare (Zimbabwe)

What are sexual and reproductive rights?

A global scandal, breaking the silence.

When it comes to our bodies and relationships, our freest conversations tend to happen in our heads. Often, we keep these thoughts secret. Why?

Perhaps it’s because what we feel we can say openly is defined by the society we live in.

These social norms are controlled by our governments, our communities, even our families. When we challenge those norms, we feel guilty – embarrassed. We fear being stigmatized, even jailed. And because of this, we keep silent.

Through My Body My Rights, we want to help break this silence because right now, there are a lot of us who don’t know we have rights, and are therefore unable to claim them.

Third-party control

Decisions that are our right – like whether or when to have children – have become a matter for governments to control. Some governments also allow other people in our lives to make choices for us – like doctors, faith leaders or our parents. And some fail to meet their obligations to provide the information and services that people have a right to.

Imagine being married to your rapist, to be forced to see that person all the time – it would be devastating.  Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director

In Burkina Faso, women can be refused contraceptives at health clinics unless they are accompanied by their husbands. In Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, laws fail to protect survivors of sexual violence. In some cases rapists can avoid prosecution by marrying their victims, often teenage girls. In  Ireland, where abortion is illegal unless the woman’s life is at serious risk , about 12 women a day travelled to the UK for a termination between 1980 and 2012. And in many countries, having sex outside of marriage, loving someone of the same gender – or simply dressing outside the social norm – is enough to land you in jail.

“NARGES MOHAMMADI CARES FOR THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS. WHENEVER SHE HEARD THAT A PRISONER WAS DUE FOR EXECUTION, SHE DID EVERYTHING TO SAVE THEM. IF SHE DID NOT SUCCEED, SHE JOINED THEIR FAMILY IN FRONT OF THE PRISON IN SOLIDARITY.” Human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, October 2016.

Growing backlash

That these restrictions still exist tells us that there is much to do. A backlash against sexual and reproductive rights is brewing – driven by well-funded and organized interest groups. At the highest levels, some governments are trying to roll back these rights, questioning the ideas of “reproductive rights” and “gender equality”, or branding the principle of “human rights for all” as Western. What’s clear is that our rights to express our sexuality and make decisions over our own bodies are being challenged.

From 2014-15, Amnesty’s My Body, My Rights campaign will try to halt this trend, particularly in Algeria,  Burkina Faso ,  El Salvador ,  Ireland , Nepal,  Morocco-Western Sahara  and Tunisia. Through it we will reach out to people around the world, encouraging them to break the silence that surrounds these issues as a first step to claiming their rights.

If we break the silence, then governments will have to step up and start protecting people’s right to make decisions about their bodies and their lives. Until then, we will expose states that violate these rights, and we will demand change. Because sexual and reproductive rights are human rights. They belong to us all.

They have to remember that we’re human beings.  Anonymous on how politicians and lawmakers in Ireland treat women who need an abortion

Let’s break the barriers to free choice for women and girls in Burkina Faso

Take action today., related content, iranti and amnesty international mark international transgender day of visibility, kyrgyzstan: amnesty international secretary general agnès callamard’s call to veto restrictive ngo law, tunisia: authorities’ targeting of lawyers undermines access to justice, nigeria: icc must not dash the hope of survivors of atrocities by the military, eswatini: authorities must stop harassment and intimidation of tanele maseko.

An American soldier with British war orphans adopted by his unit; London, early 1943. Photo by Robert Capa, International Centre for Photography/Magnum

The right right thing to do

The ethical life means being good to ourselves, to others, and to the world. but how do you choose if these demands compete.

by Irene McMullin   + BIO

Conventional wisdom depicts moral struggle as an internal conflict between a higher moral self and an untamed dark side. This picture pervades popular imagination: the angel and the devil on either shoulder, the ‘two wolf’ parable, the Ego and the Id, the ‘true self’ and the ‘false self’. It resonates with religious traditions that place us between angels and animals in a Great Chain of Being, leaving us torn between higher and lower, spirit and body, good and evil, the demands of conscience and the lure of sin.

This view also calls to mind a philosophical tradition from Plato to Immanuel Kant that often presents life’s major moral struggles as a kind of combat between the requirements of duty and the dangers of desire. The self is fragmented and must struggle for wholeness by casting out or silencing its evil components, refusing to give immoral intentions a foothold in thought and deed. A good deal of moral theory, therefore, tends to assume that there’s a morally right answer about what one ought to do in any given circumstance. Any difficulty in doing the right thing results from (evil, selfish) resistance, not from the fact that one cannot do all the good or valuable things that one is called upon to do.

However, this familiar view ignores the fact that, in many cases, the problem is not how best to override or silence one’s dark side, but how to cope with having too many good or morally neutral demands on your limited time, energy or resources. In other words, the key issue in many cases is not whether to be moral at all – but rather how best to distribute your moral resources in conditions of scarcity and conflict. Coping well with this latter kind of moral challenge requires very different ways of thinking about moral agency and how to lead good lives.

There are (at least) three different classes of goods that regularly give rise to incommensurable but competing legitimate moral claims, each revealed through a different practical stance that we adopt towards the world as we try to figure out what to do and who to be. On this picture, each agent is indeed fragmented, but this fragmentation is not best understood as an internal conflict between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ selves. Instead, moral conflict should be understood in terms of competing dimensions of the good – not all of which can be accommodated in any given moment.

What are these three basic normative domains or classes of value? It can be helpful to think of these in terms of the traditional literary distinction between the first-, second- and third-person perspectives. A novel written from the first-person perspective provides access to the protagonist’s struggles from the inside; the reader says ‘I’ along with her. In the second-person perspective, the focus is on the other person: the ‘you’ takes centre stage. When written from the third-person perspective, every character’s struggles are viewed from the outside; each is referred to as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’ or ‘it’ in descriptions of their movements in the world of the novel. Though some characters might be more important than others, typically none is singled out as providing the primary lens through which the world finds its meaning.

These perspectives are not just useful literary devices. They are core practical perspectives that we adopt toward the world and our place in it. As we pursue our projects and pleasures, interact with others, and share public institutions and meanings, we are constantly shifting back and forth among these three practical perspectives, each bringing different elements of a situation to salience and highlighting different features of the world and our place in it as good or bad.

F rom the first-person stance, you navigate the world as an agent trying to realise your projects and satisfy your desires. From the second-person perspective, you understand yourself and the world through the lens of other people, who are a locus of projects and preferences of their own; projects and preferences that make legitimate demands on your time and attention. From the third-person stance, you understand yourself as one among many, called to fit yourself into the shared standards and rules governing a world made up of a multitude of creatures like you.

These different perspectives reveal different features of the same object or situation. Take the example of your own body. When weeding the garden or washing the dishes you are – despite the physical nature of the work – largely ‘unaware’ of your body except insofar as it is the vehicle of your will. Indeed, what’s valuable and salient about the body from this first-person perspective is precisely its ability to disappear into the task. If you’re hampered by a migraine or an arthritic shoulder, the body’s status as vehicle of your agency is compromised, and you’re forced to think of it instead as a kind of recalcitrant object that needs to be managed. If it’s a perfect manifestation of your will, it’s no longer ‘your body’; it is, rather, simply you .

From the second-person perspective, your body appears as an object of experience for the other person. Think of how differently you experience your own body when you’re alone, as opposed to when someone suddenly enters the room. From the second-person perspective, one’s own body might seem awkward, desirable, average, ineffectual and so forth, depending on who the other person is. Now imagine that same body of yours being examined by a doctor. Then your body shows up for you as something quite different from a seamless expression of agency or the manifestation of self before another individual. Your attention shifts to a third-person perspective such that your body is revealed as a physical object subjected to the rules and categories of other physical objects. Different features become important. During a medical examination, you experience your own body as an instance of a general physical type, capable of being helped or hindered by generic procedures and processes developed for managing objects of that kind.

You must answer for who you are – if not to others, then to yourself

This kind of third-person practical perspective moves to the background when another perspective is setting the terms for what counts as particularly relevant or meaningful in a given situation. The point is to see how these different perspectives give us access to different forms of meaning, value and reasons – though we never occupy one stance in total isolation from the others. While occupying one perspective, we don’t simply forget the others, but are aware of and answerable to the claims that they make in an implicit way. Each perspective is constantly providing important information about what matters and what’s best, and we’re answerable to all three at once, even when only one is setting the agenda for how best to allocate our limited time, care and attention in a given situation.

The fact that there’s a plurality of these normative perspectives means that there’s more than one way of understanding what’s best. Best for whom? For me? For you? For the many who share the world with us and the institutions that enable this sharing? No single perspective can fully encompass the others. Each shows us a different facet of the world’s irreducibly complex meaningfulness and our place in it. Each gives us access to different ways of understanding what’s important, valuable or good. Our condition of normative pluralism means that we’re supplied with different resources for answering the basic questions of agency: what should I do? What are the better or worse options in this situation? Who am I trying to be? To whom am I answerable? This moral complexity makes living a good life challenging because competing goods from these different normative categories can’t be compared on a single metric. In most cases, there is no simple answer about what to do. To negotiate life’s demands, we constantly move in and out of each perspective against a background sense that we’re answerable to the different criteria of meaning and value constitutive of each of the three perspectives.

This emphasis on ‘answerability’ is a core feature of existentialist accounts of personhood. We experience ourselves as being ‘at stake’ in our choices, aware of the fact that who we are is up to us, and that we care about getting it right. Though we regularly try to cover up and forget this fact by means of bad faith, mindless conformity and self-deception, to be human is to be haunted by the anxiety that comes with an awareness of our freedom and the existential responsibility it entails. Ultimately, you must answer for who you are – if not to others, then to yourself. Our basic status as normatively responsive beings – that is, as beings with a capacity to be oriented towards distinctions of better and worse – depends on this sense of being responsible for who you are.

The awareness of being entrusted with an existence for which you alone are answerable means that we’re always on the lookout for guidance in how to make choices well. The three different normative domains revealed via the first-, second- and third-person perspectives provide tools for answering the fundamental existential questions that underwrite every choice. Each offers a different basic value framework through which the world makes demands on us about what it’s best to do. We are indeed fragmented selves, but what divides us is not, for the most part, a battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ intentions. Rather, it’s a tension between different practical frameworks for assessing better and worse options, each anchored in a different aspect of the good.

According to this existentialist picture, you can’t be entirely unmoved by whatever strikes you as better or best in any situation. Why? Because to be utterly indifferent to the considerations that count in favour of choosing one way rather than another is to forfeit one’s agency – to adopt the posture of a thing determined solely by causal forces, rather than that of an agent responsive to reasons. But even this forfeit is a manifestation of agency, albeit one that seeks to conceal this fact from itself. Though it’s not always clear how best to respond to specific normative claims as they arise across different practical perspectives in particular situations – and one might be incompetent or cowardly in facing up to them – we can’t escape the sheer fact that we’re answerable to such claims. We cannot help but care about the difference between better and worse lives, and that means we cannot help but care about responding well to the claims of each of the three practical perspectives.

I n contrast, a good deal of moral theory prioritises one of these practical perspectives and downplays the moral relevance of the others by ruling them out as providing genuine access to moral reasons. This has the effect of allowing any responsiveness to other classes of normative claims to be categorised as irrational or evil. For example, classical utilitarianism enjoins us to think of everyone – ourselves included – as an equal unit in the moral calculus that aims to maximise the satisfaction of legitimate desires and preferences. This is a third-person way of approaching the question of what it’s best to do, since each of us is to be treated as an equal moral unit, subjected to the same categories and assessments as any other. Similarly, Kantian deontology prioritises the third-person universality of a reason understood to be identically present in all agents. In each case, the good life is defined in terms of your ability to submit yourself to universally shared moral categories – to think of yourself in third-person moral terms.

There is something right about this approach. It has the compelling result of putting pressure on us to do more for strangers in distress than we tend to do because we’re so often caught up in our own troubles, or those of loved ones. But it also gives rise to objections that ultimately derive from a recognition of the equal value and importance of the first- and second-person perspectives in our moral lives. For example, critics of Kantian deontology point out that respect for a universal reason that manifests in every other human is hardly the same thing as loving concern for this particular person. Critics of utilitarianism, meanwhile, have pointed out that maximising ‘total expected utility’ – ie, getting as large a ‘quantity’ of good results as possible – might require us to, say, harvest someone’s organs when she arrives for a routine check-up at the doctor’s office, since five of her healthy organs could save the lives of five critically ill people. Allowing her to keep her organs will save only a measly one. Though utilitarians and deontologists have come up with many ingenious responses to such objections, these worries follow naturally from a third-person practical perspective, in which each person is viewed as an interchangeable and largely anonymous unit of general rationality or calculable outcomes for the world at large.

An adequate account of the good life requires that all three classes of good are accommodated

But if we think of what matters from the first-person perspective – namely, the individual’s power to govern her own life and express her own unique will – then this kind of approach strikes us as monstrous. Indeed, the approach to moral agency dear to economists and libertarians – rational egoism – swings far in the other direction, insisting that the individual’s power to govern her own life and express her own will is the only thing that is truly valuable, the only thing that can show up as a genuine reason to do anything. According to accounts of this kind – which prioritise the first-person perspective to the exclusion of the others – institutions or persons are immoral insofar as they thwart any individual’s efforts to satisfy her own preferences. All ostensible practical reasons must be understood in terms of the individual’s free pursuit of her preferences if they’re to count as reasons at all.

Again, something about this seems right. Each agent is indeed legitimately claimed by a desire for autonomy and individual success, a basic yearning to satisfy one’s preferences and realise one’s projects. But suggesting that this is the only or the primary source of value – the only legitimate way to answer the question ‘What is best?’ – leads to highly counterintuitive conclusions about the nature of the good life. The main objection is that it completely elides the deeply social nature of good human lives, reducing others to a mere means of satisfying one’s preferences.

In contrast, the truth revealed to us from the second-person perspective is that we treasure others and regularly seek to enable them in their projects and preferences, even at great personal cost. From the second-person perspective, the agent experiences herself as claimed by the value of another person, not as a mere representative of a universal moral category, nor as a useful tool for her own pursuits. The other person is instead experienced as intrinsically valuable. Hence the second-person perspective reveals that even actions that don’t promote one’s own interests can count as reasons.

But the legitimacy of the other two normative domains – the goods of shared world-building and self-expressive autonomy – means that they cannot simply be subordinated to the altruism of the second-person perspective. An adequate account of the good life requires that all three classes of good are accommodated. Though the subordination of the self or the shared political domain to acts of extreme self-sacrifice or charity is a compelling moral ideal advocated by many of the world’s religions, it too distorts the moral picture of what counts as a good human life.

D espite the best efforts of moral theorists to simplify the moral terrain by constraining us to a single perspective on the good – a single source of normative claims to which we’re answerable – doing so invariably results in a picture of human life that neglects some of the sources of value that make a good life good. Each of these normative perspectives offers us a set of distinct reasons that cannot be reduced to or translated into the others without erasing some essential feature of our moral lives.

This means that life confronts us with a fundamental and irresolvable tension. We are tasked with negotiating competing legitimate normative claims – a plurality of goods – with no recourse to an ultimate metric or higher perspective through which to eliminate conflict in answering the basic existential questions to which we’re condemned: who should I be? What should I do? To whom am I beholden?

This shouldn’t prompt us to embrace nihilism , but to recognise the only form that a good life can take for normatively fragmented creatures like ourselves. Leading a good human life – what is sometimes called flourishing – requires that we continuously negotiate these three competing ways of encountering goodness. Flourishing demands achieving a fragile and shifting balance between the different normative terrains. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these domains (self-fulfilment, good relationships, and responsiveness to the demands of a shared world) but achieved in such a way that success in one domain doesn’t unduly compromise success in another.

Well okay, you might be thinking, but how do we know what to do in any particular circumstance? The approach outlined here – which emphasises the irresolvable messiness and conflict at the foundation of our moral lives – seems to have the drawback of not offering sufficient guidance for actually figuring out what one ought to do, at least compared with the resources provided by other moral theories.

But those other approaches succeed in offering guidance by ignoring the moral complexity of being in the grip of an irreducible plurality of goods. This is not to oversimplify these positions, of course. Kantian deontology prioritises the third-person universality of reason, but we can see that it attempts to accommodate the other normative perspectives through the notions of respect for others (the second-person dimension) and respect for self (the first-person dimension). It essentially enjoins us to respect ourselves, respect others, and build a world in which all can be respected. As such, it maps well on to the tripartite moral terrain that I’ve specified above, but it tends to ignore the complexity that results, assuming that all three normative perspectives will subject you to the exact same moral demands.

Everyday moral deliberation involves shifting constantly from one perspective to the other

Similarly, utilitarianism prioritises the third-person norm of universal utility, but it attempts to accommodate the other perspectives through the fact that one’s own preferences don’t automatically trump the other person’s (the second-person dimension) and the fact that the nature of its guiding norm – satisfaction – includes a fundamental reference to the first-personal domain.

But in both cases the intention – an intention that’s understood as realisable – is to provide a decision procedure that stipulates adopting a neutral third-person stance that purportedly captures the normative force of the other two normative domains without remainder. It’s this view that must be questioned.

What engagement with these other theories helps us to recognise is how everyday moral deliberation involves shifting constantly from one perspective to the other in an effort to weigh them against each other, despite their fundamental incommensurability. Imagine that you’re trying to decide whether to quit your job to pursue a less stressful career. The lower pay will make things harder on your family, and you won’t be able to help others as much in the new job. Is it self-indulgent to pursue the easier option when you have the skills to help others, and doing so supports your family? But don’t you deserve a break, too? And the stress is taking a toll on your health and mood, which also affects your family. With the extra time and energy the change affords, you could help out in the community more. What should you do?

These perspective shifts demonstrate that it will almost always be impossible to assess the moral quality of specific acts except against the background of the general tenor of one’s life. In other words, when assessing moral success or failure, the primary target should be lives, not acts. In most cases, a specific act is meaningful only in terms of its place in one’s life as a whole; in terms of the role it plays in the general landscape of competing demands from self, other and world. Are you the kind of person who regularly helps and respects others on both an individual and an institutional level? If yes, then you’re entitled to make some room for your own comfort or pleasure. But if you’re always submitting to the siren call of self-indulgence, then you should think about reallocating your limited resources so that your life better reflects the value of the other two classes of good. Responding well to the criteria of excellence constitutive of each normative domain – being good to ourselves, to others, and to the world – demands negotiation work such that these three classes of competing goods can be accommodated in a coherent way. Hence flourishing requires us to organise our priorities – not simply in the moment, but over the course of our projects, relationships and identities.

Of course, there will be certain lowest common denominators in each normative domain. No amount of good behaviour will ever entitle you to torture others – at least, not if you’re to be counted a good person and your life a good life. But these absolute constraints are few, and few of us find them particularly tempting, at least in their obvious forms. They are therefore incapable of offering sufficient practical guidance when it comes to the choices that most people make in their everyday lives.

T he emphasis on lives, not acts, is a distinctive feature of the virtue-ethical approach in moral theory, according to which our focus should be on a person’s character and life context, not primarily on isolated choices or events. My view, which combines existentialism with virtue ethics, endorses this approach, along with another core feature of virtue ethics: the central place of role models in our moral reasoning. When we feel torn between competing legitimate moral demands both within a normative domain (eg, when we’re claimed by the competing needs of two loved ones) or across domains (eg, when the needs of a loved one compete with the demands of institutional justice), we must think about how to allocate priorities in our lives as a whole, and we regularly take inspiration from the models of excellent lives provided by our moral exemplars. What you choose to do should be guided by your understanding of how those actions shape a life. But understanding how specific actions create a certain kind of life or character is information that we learn mainly by looking to the lives and characters of others. How to find good role models and how to break free of bad ones are of course important questions to address, but those challenges shouldn’t interfere with recognising moral exemplars as a key source of guidance as we navigate this complex moral terrain.

One of the ways in which we learn from others how to succeed at the accommodation and negotiation work made necessary by normative pluralism is in terms of the virtues. The virtues are problem-solving stances through which we address obstacles to human flourishing that are built into the human condition. These obstacles to flourishing include mortality and temporal finitude, material scarcity, and temptations posed by desire for bodily pleasure and aversion to pain. The virtues are character traits – tendencies of seeing, feeling and doing – that enable a good person to respond well to all three normative domains even in the face of these obstacles. For example, patience helps us continue to respond well to self, other, and shared world, despite the temporal limitations that make doing so difficult. By habituating ourselves into these exemplary forms of normative responsiveness, we can better accommodate the different ways that the good reveals itself in our lives. Together with certain absolute prohibitions on a limited set of extreme violations of the good, and moral exemplars who orient us in our striving, the virtues can help us cope with deep structural challenges to flourishing.

The popular ‘combat’ view of morality, wherein agents are constantly torn between immoral desires and the demands of duty, gets much of its plausibility from our normatively plural predicament, which requires us to negotiate conflicts and tensions arising from competing normative resources provided by self, other, and shared world. We are indeed conflicted – torn between comparably legitimate, substantively moral demands – but this is often simply a feature of the messy moral landscape to which we’re condemned, not a sign of intrinsic moral corruption. What might count as a ‘bad intention’ on the combat model is often better understood as the manifestation of another legitimate claim to goodness, one that’s at odds with a value that we ultimately take to have a greater claim to recognition in this context or at this point in our lives. Hence doing what’s right isn’t simply or primarily a matter of silencing an evil desire – though it might be strategically useful to think of goods we can’t realise in this way – but rather a matter of figuring out what’s best now in the context of a well-lived life considered as a whole. And there’s no simple algorithm for knowing how to exercise this moral discernment as we struggle to do justice to all of the sources of value to which we find ourselves answerable.

Am I happy? Am I generous? Am I contributing to the world? The moral struggle we face is finding a way to honestly and accurately answer ‘Yes’ to all three of these questions at once, over the course of a life that presents us with many obstacles to doing so.

To read more on ethical living, visit Psyche , a digital magazine from Aeon that illuminates the human condition through psychological knowhow, philosophical understanding and artistic insight.

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Stories and literature

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clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

Opinion The meaning of a woman’s right to choose

In her May 4 op-ed, “ Democrats have a message. Will they seize it? ,” Karen Tumulty wrote that the question for the 2022 elections is whether voters wish to give Republicans the reins to outlaw abortion , restrict voting rights, ban books and airbrush racial history.

Republicans are engaged in a misguided effort to retreat 70 years (almost a third of this country’s history) and return to the 1950s, when minorities knew their place.

This is decidedly not conservative; it is reactionary.

Greg Williams , Columbia

I thought I had no words about the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion. But I found a few.

They want freedom of speech but only if it’s their speech. They want freedom of religion but only if it’s their religion. They want government out of their lives but want to govern women’s bodies. They want law and order, but they think they’re above it. They want patriotism but won’t fight against insurrectionists. They want families first but only their families.

All that has been gained over so many years is being chipped away. Margaret Atwood was prophetic back in 1985. Yes, it could happen here and now.

Susan Pfaff , Nags Head, N.C.

Regarding the May 4 news article “ Two GOP senators are on the defensive over their votes in support of justices ”:

Like Captain Renault in the movie “Casablanca,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is shocked (shocked!) to find out that the Trump-appointed justices whom she voted to confirm would go back on their statements that Roe v. Wade is settled precedent. What did she expect? In the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised his supporters that the reversal of Roe “will happen, automatically” if he were elected and had the opportunity to appoint justices. Furthermore, his nominees seem to have been handpicked by the Federalist Society, a conservative group that favors returning as much power as possible to the states.

Ms. Collins claims to be pro-choice. If the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court is any indication of the final ruling, choice will be taken from women living in many states. Draconian trigger laws in some states would prohibit abortion even in the cases of rape or incest.

I hope Ms. Collins can live with herself, although I don’t see how that’s possible.

Susan Weinmann , Rockville

Notwithstanding the eloquence of the language that George F. Will brings to his writing, I was gobsmacked in the third paragraph of his May 4 op-ed regarding the leak of the Alito draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade , “ Alito’s draft is less a refutation of Roe than a starting over .” I could accept Mr. Will’s reference to the “stench in the building” that would be left from the leaker’s action. However, comparing the early release of a draft document to the horrific action of a traitorous Jan. 6 mob was beyond the pale. Besides, to those paying attention, this document is more Captain Obvious than a surprise.

Historically, most improper disclosures of documents have been quite revelatory, of great moment and beneficial in the long run. I think of the Pentagon Papers , Watergate and, most recently, the brave whistleblowers such as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman , whose divulging of material led to the first impeachment of President Donald Trump. The actions of those public servants were not dangerous to others, for only they were at risk.

Though Mr. Will might not agree, The Post and I believe that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

Greg Grapsas , Olney

George F. Will wrote that “the person … who leaked the draft Supreme Court opinion … betrayed the trust of those who gave him or her access to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion overturning Roe ” and “probably got into a position to commit this infamous betrayal by swearing never to do such a thing.”

Supreme Court Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett did essentially the same thing as the leaker. Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett speciously stated in a variety of ways under oath during their confirmation hearings that they understood Roe to be “settled law” or other terms to that effect. That the legal definition of “settled law” has since come under scrutiny makes the statements no less specious.

Their statements resulted in them now being in a position to commit this infamous betrayal of senators who, based on those specious statements, voted to confirm their nominations to the Supreme Court.

There is still time for Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett to set a more honest and honorable example by refusing to betray the senators who unwittingly voted for their confirmation, the American people and U.S. institutions. To do so they must allow Roe to remain law.

Teri Simpson Lojewski , Berlin, Md.

As a relinquished and adopted adult, I can testify that adoption is no solution for banning abortion. Adoption is painful and complicated at best. Most of our mothers were poor and/or single women living in societies that abandoned and ostracized them. Better solutions include supporting a woman’s right to choose abortion, providing affordable child care and early-childhood education and reinstating the child tax credit. This would turn the “right to life” into the “right to live.”

Nicole Burton , Riverdale Park

The irony of the Supreme Court’s dismay over the breach of its privacy — about a judicial opinion affecting the privacy of millions of Americans if Roe v. Wade is overturned [“ Supreme Court will investigate leaked draft of abortion opinion ,” front page, May 4] — cannot be overstated.

Emily Pegues , Alexandria

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Best Abortion Essay Examples

The right to choose.

701 words | 3 page(s)

The topic of abortion is a highly contentious issue in American culture. There are a host of misnomers attached to the pro-choice movement. Contrary to popular belief, being pro-choice is not the same as advocating the death of children. Rather, pro-choice merely means that the mother, rather than the state, has the right to determine whether abortion is permissible. In order to cut through this obscurantism, the following argues women ought to have the right to choose to have an abortion on the grounds that it preserves reproductive rights and protects women’s health.

The concept of ‘the right to life’ is very nebulous. Usually, the right to life is taken to mean that a person has the right to continue living. But at what cost? Does the right to life include the right to use other people as a means to sustain life? As Murray Rothbard in The Ethics of Liberty notes, “In short, it is impermissible to interpret the term “right to life,” to give one an enforceable claim to the action of someone else to sustain that life.” Most people would agree that one person does not have the right to use another person’s body as a means to sustain their life. So why is it not the case with respect to abortion?

Use your promo and get a custom paper on "The Right to Choose".

Some people have argued that if the mother consented to the conception, then she is contractually bound to take care of the child. There are a variety of problems with this line of reasoning. To begin with, promises are not enough to establish enforceable contracts. Contracts are only viable if an object can be stolen. In addition, contracts are established by the voluntary act between two individuals. A fetus is hardly conscious and cannot volunteer to do anything. Last, the contract cannot be voluntary for the mother, provided she is enslaved to carry the baby against her will (Murray, The Ethics of Liberty, p.98).

Another reason that women ought to have the right to choose is that outlawing abortion is detrimental to women’s health. Whenever abortion is outlawed, it merely pushes the practice into the black market where unqualified practitioners prevail. According to the World Health Organization, for every 21 million women who have an illegal abortion, about 50,000 of those women die. As Peter Singer illustrates in his essay Taking Life, “Abortion performed by a qualified medical practitioner is as safe as any medical operation, but attempts to procure abortions by unqualified people often result in serious medical complications and sometimes death.”

In addition, outlawing abortion denies teenager girls from attaining an abortion. Due to the prematurity of their bodies, teenage girls who are pregnant are much more likely to suffer medical complications and even death. Depriving teenage girls the right to have an abortion increases their risk for medical complications and mortality.

The last reason that women should have the right to an abortion is that, whenever abortion is legal, it actually decreases the amount of abortions. Since Roe vs. Wade was established, the amount of abortions in the Unites States has considerably dropped. Between 1973 and 1997, the amount of abortions performed in the Unites States has dropped from 4.1 per 100,000 abortions to 0.6 per 100,000 abortions (The Safety of Legal Abortion, p. 5). In addition, approximately 99 percent of these abortions were performed during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy—a time when the fetus has little, if any, conscious experience.

As been illustrated, being pro-choice is not the same as being ‘anti-life.’ Rather, it merely states that the right to life does not entail the right to use another person’s body to sustain life. Furthermore, prohibiting abortion does not actually thwart abortions from occurring. It merely pushes the practice underground. Last, whenever abortion is legal, abortion rates drop. Thus, if we really wants to minimize the rate of abortions, we ought to maximize the right to choose.

• Anonymous. “The Safety of Legal Abortion and the Hazard of Illegal Abortion.” Naral: Pro Choice America. 2014. PFD Document .
• Rothbard, Murray. “Children and Rights .” Rothbard, Murray. The Ethics of Liberty. New York and London: New York University Press , 2002. 97-99.
• Singer, Peter. “Taking Life: The Embryo and the Fetus .” Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press , 2011. 123-141.

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How to choose the right college essay topic

Your fears about making the wrong choice or your insecurities about how you compare to others can blind you from noticing all of the excellent potential essay topics lurking just beneath the surface of your everyday life. Here are five tips to help you choose the best topic to make your application shine.

1. Mind map your life.

Mind mapping is sort of like brainstorming — you let yourself generate lots of ideas quickly without slowing down to second-guess them. Ideally, you should mind map on paper, not on your computer, so that your ideas can sprawl all over the place. In mind mapping, the second step is to start drawing connections between the different ideas. Some questions you can use to help guide your mind map are:

• What are my values?
• What are my personality traits?
• What are my passions?
• What am I really proud of?
• What moments in my life have challenged me?

Your potential essay topics lie in the connections between these initial ideas you’ve jotted down. For example, you may have written “brave” as one of your personality traits, and you may have written “being bullied at school” as a time that challenged you. Was there something about being bullied that taught you to be brave? Or did being bullied teach you something important about the nature of bravery?

A college application essay is asking you to impose meaning or structure on the seemingly disconnected parts of your life, and mind mapping can help you find those connections.

2. Don’t pick a topic.

Well, don’t pick just one topic. Not at first. Start with a few ideas, and then try them out by writing outlines for each essay. This may seem like more work up front, but it can save you from spending weeks writing an essay only to get to the end and realize that it doesn’t quite work. Trust me, I’ve been there. Humans often have a bias towards the first idea we come up with, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best one.

You wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it. Test drive your essay topics.

3. An essay is not a resume.

One of the most common mistakes students make is to treat the essay as an expanded resume, explaining in more vivid detail all the different experiences they’ve had, the classes they’ve excelled in, and the clubs they’ve joined. But you’ve already submitted a resume! The essay is where you show who you are , not what you’ve done.

4. Focus especially on moments of transformation.

Nothing reveals our characters quite like moments of transformation or challenge. Are there times you stood up for something you believed in? Are there times that you realized something new about the world or yourself? Are there times when you changed because of something you did, saw, heard, or experienced? Have you tried new things? Have you pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone?

These don’t necessarily have to be dramatic moments, like the first time you jumped out of an airplane or the time you spoke up in a packed auditorium at a city council meeting. You might write about a new friend you made who comes from a different background from you, and what you’ve learned from that experience. You might write about a moment you decided to pass the ball to a teammate rather than score the winning goal yourself. Each of us has small moments every day that test us, teach us, and reveal our characters. Reflect on your moments of growth.

5. Be yourself.

I always hate it when people tell me “just be yourself.” I’m a complex person! Which part of my “self” am I supposed to be? And what if my self is sometimes a little lazy or selfish? Should I be that self?

But being true to yourself is important in choosing the right essay topic and writing a successful essay. Many college applications look pretty similar: lots of students have good grades, strong test scores, and flattering letters of recommendation. For admissions officers, those parts of the application can start to blur together. What really stands out is the essay. That’s where students start to seem like real people.

You might think you don’t have the most exciting life. You’ve never volunteered at a health clinic in Africa. You’ve never won any big debate tournaments. But the truth is, admissions officers aren’t looking for an action adventure story or even the next Mother Theresa. They are looking for people who seem like people, not dull, identical robots trying to say the right thing. It doesn’t matter so much what your passion is, just that you have one.

There are lots of ways to show character and personality. If the most exciting thing you’ve done this past year was spending time with your near-sighted lizard, Freddy, then write the story of you learning from Freddy about how to be a good creature in this world. It’s only when you write about something that you really care about that you’ll be able to show excitement, thoughtfulness, and engagement - ultimately, that’s what your essay should do.

Now go get mind mapping!

Emma is a JD candidate at Yale Law School. She holds an MPhil and DPhil in Social & Cultural Anthropology from Oxford, an MFA in Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University, and a BA in Sociology from Brown.

Related Content

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, which common app essay prompt should you choose.

College Essays

On one hand, the Common Application has seven essay prompts to choose from, which is great news: No matter what your story, you're sure to find a good fit! On the other hand, having seven prompts means you can write seven different kinds of essays, each with its own potential pitfalls and clichés to steer around.

In this article, I'll outline two totally different approaches to figuring out which Common App essay prompt is right for you and help you brainstorm possible ideas for each. I'll also talk about what makes great college essays great and give examples of what you want to avoid when crafting your essay.

What Are Application Essays for, Anyway?

Before you can choose an essay prompt, before you figure out what you're going to write about, it helps to know what the goal of your writing is. Think about it: if your goal were to give someone instructions, you'd write really differently than if your goal were to describe a landscape.

So What Is the College Essay Supposed to Do?

Admissions officers want to know the things they can't find in the numbers that make up the rest of your application. They want to know about your background, where you come from, and what has shaped you into the person you are today. They want to see your personality, your character, and your traits as a person. They want to learn your thinking style and perspective on the world. They want to make sure you have the ability to creatively problem-solve. And finally, they want to double-check your maturity level, assess your judgment, and get a general sense of whether you would be a good college student—whether you would thrive in an environment where you have to be independent and self-reliant.

So think about the college essay as a way of letting the admissions office get to know you the way a close acquaintance would. You have to let them in and share real thoughts, feelings, and some vulnerabilities. You definitely don't need to reveal your deepest, darkest secrets, but you should avoid showing only superficial details or, even worse, a façade.

Disclosing your closest-held secrets is not the goal of a college essay; however, you  do want to share enough information to give the admissions staff a sense of your personality, motivations, and values.

How to Brainstorm Ideas for Each Common App Prompt

There are two big-picture ways of coming up with essay ideas.

First, maybe you already know the story you want to tell. Perhaps you experienced something so momentous, so exciting, or so dramatic that you have no doubt it needs to be in your college application.

Or maybe you need to approach finding a topic with some more directed brainstorming. There's nothing wrong with not having a go-to adventure! Instead, you can use the prompts themselves to jog your memory about your interesting accomplishments.

Approach #1: Narrating Your Exciting Life

Does something from your life immediately jump into your head as the thing you would have to tell anyone who wanted to know the real you? If you already know exactly which of your life experiences you are going to write about, you can develop this idea before even looking at the prompts themselves.

You can ask yourself a few questions to see whether this is your best brainstorming option:

Is there something that makes you very different from the people around you?

This could be something like being LGBT in a conservative community, having a disability, being biracial, or belonging to a minority group that is underrepresented in your community.

Has your life had a watershed moment? Do you think of yourself as before X and after X ?

For example, did you meet a childhood hero who has had an outsized impact on your life? Did you suddenly find your academic passion? Did you win an award or get recognized in a way you were not expecting to? Did you find yourself in a position of leadership in an unusual time or place?

Did you live through something dramatic, such as a crisis, a danger you overcame, or the complete upheaval of your circumstances?

Maybe you lived through a natural disaster, made your way home after being lost in the woods, or moved from one country to another?

Was your childhood or young adulthood out of the ordinary? Were you particularly underprivileged or overprivileged in some unusual way?

For instance, did you grow up very poor or as the child of a celebrity? Did you live on a boat rather than in a house or as part of a family that never stayed long in one place because of your parents' work or other circumstances?

If you've experienced a dramatic event that changed your life or face unusual obstacles on a daily basis, approach #1 may work well for you.

Approach #2: Brainstorming for Each Prompt

If you don't have an unusual life experience or a story that you absolutely know needs to be told, don't worry! Some of the very best personal essays are about much more mundane situations that people face. In fact, it's better to err on the side of small and insightful if you don't have a really dramatic and unusual experience to write about.

Let's go through the prompts one by one and think of some ways to use more ordinary life events to answer them.

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This is the broadest of the seven prompts. Almost any life experience that you write about could fit in this category, but you need to be careful to avoid writing the same essay as every other applicant.

Brainstorming Ideas

Background. Did a family member or friend have a significant influence on your life? Did you grow up in a particularly supportive and tolerant—or narrow-minded and intolerant—community? Were your parents not able to provide for you in the expected way? Did you have an unusual home life?

For example, my family came to the U.S. as refugees from Russia. By the time I went to college, I had lived in five different countries and had gone to nine different schools. This wasn't a traumatic experience, but it certainly did shape me as a person, and I wrote about it for my graduate school application essay.

Identity. Are you a member of an interesting subculture (keep in mind that violent or illegal subcultures are probably best left off your college application)? Do you strongly identify with your ethnic or national heritage? Are you a committed fan of something that someone like you would be expected to dislike?

Interest. In this category, esoteric interests are probably better than more generic ones because you don't want your essay to be the hundredth essay an admissions officer sees about how much you like English class. Do you like working with your hands to fix up old cars? Do you cook elaborate food? Are you a history buff and know everything there is to know about the War of 1812?

Talent. This doesn't have to be some epic ability or skill. Are you really good at negotiating peace between your many siblings? Do you have the uncanny ability to explain math to the math challenged? Are you a dog or horse whisperer? Are you an unparalleled mushroom forager?

Pitfalls to Avoid

Insignificance. The thing you describe has to be "so meaningful" the application "would be incomplete without it."

Redundancy. If the interest you write about is a pretty common one, like playing a musical instrument or reading books, make sure you have an original angle on how this interest has affected you. Otherwise, your essay runs the risk of being a cliché, and you might want to think about skipping this idea.

Bragging. If you decide to write about your talent, be aware that by focusing on how very good you are at playing the cello, you run the risk of bragging and coming off as unlikable. It's much better if you describe a talent a little more off the beaten path. Or if you do end up writing about your excellent pitching arm, you may want to focus on a time when your athleticism failed you in some way or was unsuccessful.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

In essence, you're being asked to demonstrate resilience. Can you get back on the horse after falling off? Can you pick yourself up and dust yourself off? This quality is really important to colleges, so it's great if you have a story that shows off your ability to do this.

The key to this essay is the "later success" part. If all you went through was failure and you learned no lesson and changed no approach in the future, then don't use that experience here.

Did you lose a game because of a new and poorly rehearsed strategy, but later tweak that strategy to create success? Did you not get the lead in the play, but then have a great experience playing a smaller part? Did you try a new medium only to completely ruin your artwork, but later find a great use for that medium or a way to reconceptualize your art? Did you try your best to convince an authority figure of something only to have your idea rejected but then use a different approach to get your idea implemented?

Too much failure. Don't focus so much time on the "failure" half of the equation that you end up not giving enough space to the "later success" and "learn from the experience" parts.

Too little failure. Don't diminish the negative emotions of failure because of a fear of seeming vulnerable.

Playing the victim. Avoid whining, blaming others for your failure, or relying on others to create your success. You should be the story's hero here.

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

The key to this prompt is the reflection or insight that comes from the question, "What was the outcome?" Challenging deeply held views is not always a good idea. Writing about a negative outcome and how you reacted could demonstrate your maturity level and ability to tolerate views different from your own.

Remember, the belief or idea could be anyone's: yours, a peer group's, or an authority figure's. Did you stand up to your parents' conservative or traditional values, for instance, about gender norms? Did you get your friends to stop bullying someone?

Also, the belief or idea doesn't have to be extremely serious or big in scope. Did you make dressing up for Halloween cool for teenagers in your town? Did you transform your own prejudice or bias (e.g., about athletes having interesting thoughts about philosophy)?

Causing offense. If you have a story that deals with super hot-button issues, such as abortion or gun control, you need to be careful to keep your essay's tone respectful and unaggressive. This is a good thing to check by letting other people read your drafts and respond.

Avoiding negative feelings. Challenging beliefs means pointing out that what a person thinks now is wrong. It can also be quite lonely and isolating to be on an unpopular side of an issue. It's important to include these negatives into the story if they fit.

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

“Reflect” and “surprising” are the keywords in this prompt. You need to write about a specific thing that another person (or persons!) has done for you that made you feel grateful—but your response shouldn’t stop there. To make your response really shine, you also need to reflect on the experience or, in other words, explain what it meant to you, why your feelings about it surprised you, and why. From there, you’ll need to round out your essay by connecting what that person did for you to the person you are today. Did that surprising act change you in some way? Did it make you a better person? This is your chance to show colleges what your values are when it comes to connecting with other people.

Remember how the prompt specifies that you should write about something someone did for you that made you happy or thankful in a surprising way? That wording is nudging you to think outside the box. For instance, most people are thankful for birthday presents or a friend who picks up the check at lunch. You need to think of something more out-of-the-box—something you didn’t necessarily expect to make you feel gratitude.

It’s entirely possible, for instance, that someone helped you out of an ethical dilemma or really difficult situation. Has someone ever helped you when you didn’t necessarily want help? Have you ever been in a situation where, if someone else hadn’t stepped in, something bad could have happened? Did that event motivate you to change your behavior in the future? Were you persuaded to own up to your mistake and do better next time?

An event in which the act of kindness or the person who performed it was unexpected is a great option here as well. Did someone you dislike do something kind for you? Did a stranger help your family out financially? Did your best friend come in from out of town when you had a bad injury to throw you a surprise party? Did a student who’s more popular than you invite you into their group at school?

Being disingenuous. Don’t exaggerate the effects of the surprising act of kindness you choose to write about. Similarly, you don’t want to write about an event that didn’t truly mean something to you and affect your life in a tangible way. Stick to writing about the truth of what happened in the situation and how you felt about it, and your response will be gold.

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Going from childhood to adulthood doesn't usually happen after one accomplishment or event but is more of a process. This question is asking you to find one step along the process and explain how it fits into the long thread of your growing up.

You don't necessarily need to tell the story of some big, official ceremony. Instead, you can focus on a small moment that showed you that you were older, more mature, and more responsible than you had been before.

Did your family make up its own adulthood initiation ceremony? Were you finally able to beat your mom in chess or shooting hoops, and did that change how she treated you? Did your dad cry in front of you for the first time, making you realize that you were old enough to handle it? Were you suddenly left in charge of younger siblings, and did you rise to the task instead of panicking? Were you allowed to make a big financial decision for the first time and found yourself taking it very seriously?

For example, during my junior and senior year, my mom traveled extensively for work, and my dad lived several states away, so I lived by myself for weeks at a time. It was exhilarating and made me feel independent and mature. But it was also lonely and burdensome because I had to take care of everything in the house by myself. Living alone was a huge part of my life, shaped me into the person I was, and made me see myself in a new light as a grown-up.

Sameness. Avoid the milestones that happen to everyone: driver's license, bar/bat mitzvah, etc., unless they happened to you in some extraordinary way.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

The idea of this prompt is to discuss something you're passionate about. It's a great opportunity to showcase a skill and show off your writing skills because your passion should come across on the page. Pay special attention to the "What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?" aspect of this prompt; how you learn and from who can say a lot about you.

Hopefully, you should know the things that captivate you right off the bat. Try to think of the things that you turn to not just for fun but that de-stress you or give you the ability to learn.

More importantly, understand why this topic, idea, or concept is important to you. It should have a deeper meaning in your life and say something about who you are as a person.

Some other questions you can ask yourself to find a topic include the following: What unique hobbies or interests do you have? What challenges have you overcome in pursuing this topic, idea, or concept? What have you discovered about yourself in relation to this topic, idea, or concept?

Don't miss the overall meaning. Even if something is captivating to you, it's not necessarily captivating to others. Make sure you focus on what the topic, idea, or concept means to you and why that matters rather than getting lost in explaining it and how you feel about it.

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

This is one of the most popular prompts from the Common App. Remember that even though this prompt is open-ended, you should discuss something meaningful that shows growth, reflection, or something unique about you.

A lot of students have unique experiences that have influenced them throughout their lives. Try to think of people or events that have changed your perspective in a big way.

However, the topic itself doesn't have to be about a big moment. Lots of things can be life-changing, and it's perfectly OK to write about something that happened in your daily life as long as it moved you and has affected you in a way that you can put on paper.

In this prompt, insight is key to a great essay. Reflect on the moments that defined your perspective or events from which you learned something. This prompt should be about something personal to you and can be about family, friends, or an experience.

Ask yourself if there's a time, event, or person that has stuck with you and what it or they meant to you. Once you have some ideas, ask yourself why. What does it say about you to have changed as a result of that experience, and how might others relate?

Being too general. Insight can be found in moments both big and small. But for this prompt, try to avoid going too big and going too small. You don't want to write about something mundane and have to stretch it to make it mean something. That said, it can be tough to boil down an experience that's really significant, like being an Olympic athlete, into a short essay. Personal and insightful are the key.

How to Turn Your Idea into an Essay

Now that you've come up with some possible ideas, how do you go about actually writing the essay? Before you write, you need to have a plan. I like to think about planning out personal essays that I've written by first imagining them as enjoyable movies. You want your reader to walk away entertained, to remember the characters and story, and to want to see more from the same creator. So how do good movies do those things?

Character arc. Good movies have main characters that undergo some kind of change or transformation. Who is the main character of your essay? It's you! The you of your essay has to start one way and end up another: more mature, with a different mindset, or having learned a lesson.

Conflict or transformation. Good movies also have challenges. The main character doesn't simply succeed and then keep on succeeding; that's boring. Instead, the main character either overcomes an external obstacle or changes in some way from beginning to end. Your essay also needs this kind of story drive. This can come from an obstacle you overcame, an outside force that stood in your way, a disability or weakness you experience, or a seemingly unsolvable problem you face. Or it could come from a before–after scenario: you used to be, think, or act in one way, but now you've changed into a different or better person.

Dramatic set piece. In good movies, the conflict or transformation isn't just told to the audience. They are acted out in scenes set in specific locations, with dialogue, character close-ups, and different camera angles. In your essay, your story also needs to show you dealing with the conflict or transformation you face in a small, zoomed-in, and descriptive scene. Think spoken dialogue, sensory description (i.e., what did you see, smell, hear, taste, or touch?), action verbs, and feelings. This scene should function as one illuminating example of what you overcame or how you changed.

Happy ending. Movies that are fun to watch tend to have happy endings. The hero resolves the conflict, emerges a better person, and looks forward to future accomplishments. Your essay also needs to have this kind of closure. This is really not the time to trot out your nihilism or cynicism. Instead, your essay should end on a moment of self-understanding and awareness. You lived through something or you did something, and it affected you in a way that you can verbalize and be insightful about.

Coming up: the story of you, starring you, written and directed by you.

Which Prompt Should You Choose?

So now that you've brainstormed some topic ideas and a game plan for turning those ideas into an essay, how do you narrow it down to the one ?

Reverse-Engineer the Perfect Prompt

If you used the first brainstorming approach, try to formulate a big-picture idea about the story you're telling.  

Is the character arc primarily you learning something about yourself or making peace with your background? Sounds like a good fit for prompt #1.

Is the conflict about you struggling to do something but eventually succeeding? That goes well with prompt #2.

Does the story focus on a mind being changed about an idea? You want to go with prompt #3.

Does your happy ending involve you changing something for the better, fixing something, or solving a problem? Then your essay is ready for prompt #4.

Is your character arc about growing up, gaining wisdom, or becoming more mature? Then you're probably answering prompt #5.

Look in Your Heart

If you used the second brainstorming approach, get ready to get a little cheesy. Really listen to what your gut feelings are telling you about which of your ideas is most compelling and which will get your emotions flowing on the page. Readers can tell when you're writing about something you care deeply about, so it's worth it to find the topic that has the most meaning to you.

Not sure how to tell? Then this is the time to ask your parents, teachers you are close to, or some good friends for their input. Which of your ideas grabs their attention the most? Which do they want to hear more about? Chances are that's the one that an admissions officer will also find the most memorable.

What's Next?

Want a detailed explanation of why colleges ask you to write essays? Check out our explanation of what application essays are for .

If you're in the middle of your essay writing process, you'll want to see our suggestions on what essay pitfalls to avoid .

When you start working on the rest of your application, don't miss what admissions officers wish applicants knew before applying .

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Pro Choice (Abortion) — My Body My Choice: a Woman’s Right to Choose

My Body My Choice: a Woman’s Right to Choose

• Categories: Abortion Pro Choice (Abortion)

About this sample

Words: 2744 |

14 min read

Published: Feb 11, 2023

Words: 2744 | Pages: 6 | 14 min read

Works Cited

• “Ethics - Abortion: Arguments in Favour of Abortion.” BBC, BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/mother/for_1.shtml.
• “Abortion Facts.” National Abortion Federation, 12 Sept. 2017, prochoice.org/education-and-advocacy/about-abortion/abortion-facts/.
• Kreidler, Marc. “Why I Am Pro-Abortion, Not Just Pro-Choice.” Free Inquiry, 8 July 2016, secularhumanism.org/2016/07/cont-why-i-am-pro-abortion-not-just-pro-choice/.
• Garrand, Danielle. “Alabama Just Criminalized Abortions – and Every Single Yes Vote Was Cast by a White Man.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 24 May 2019, www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-abortion-law-state-criminalized-for-women-every-single-yes-vote-was-cast-by-white-man-2019-05-15/.
• Levitz@EricLevitz, Eric. “The GOP's Assault on Abortion Rights Is Tyranny of the Minority.” Intelligencer, 16 May 2019, nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/alabama-abortion-ban-heartbeat-law-rape-incest-polls-republicans.html.
• Ditum, Sarah. “My Body, My Choice: from Now on, Abortion Rights Must Be Fought for from First Principles.” My Body, My Choice: from Now on, Abortion Rights Must Be Fought for from First Principles, 6 Nov. 2014, www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/my-body-my-choice-now-abortion-rights-must-be-fought-first-principles.
• “Abortion Risks Abortion Dangers and Abortion Complications.” Post-Abortion Bible Study, ramahinternational.org/abortion-risks-dangers/.
• Grob, Kristina. “Abortion and Soundbites: Why Pro-Choice Arguments Are Harder to Make.” Areo, 23 July 2019, areomagazine.com/2019/07/23/abortion-and-soundbites-why-pro-choice-arguments-are-harder-to-make/.

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The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

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Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

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Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Write your essay introduction

The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

See the full essay example

The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Write your essay conclusion

Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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Should college essays touch on race? Some say affirmative action ruling leaves them no choice

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When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.

Then she deleted it all.

“I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18-year-old senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.”

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education , it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already high-stakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.

Supreme Court strikes down race-based affirmative action in college admissions

In another major reversal, the Supreme Court forbids the use of race as an admissions factor at colleges and universities.

June 29, 2023

Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn’t want to be defined by it.

In English class, Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life’s hardest moments to show how far she’d come. But she and some classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.

This year’s senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court’s conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.

Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that universities can still consider how an applicant’s life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”

Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students’ backgrounds.

Post-affirmative action, Asian American families are more stressed than ever about college admissions

Parents who didn’t grow up in the American system, and who may have moved to the U.S. in large part for their children’s education, feel desperate and in-the-dark. Some shell out tens of thousands of dollars for consultants as early as junior high.

Nov. 26, 2023

When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, his first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child. Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt.

“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “I wrestled with that a lot.”

Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.

Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and being made fun of for listening to “white people music.”

Like many students, Max Decker of Portland, Ore., had drafted a college essay on one topic, only to change direction after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Decker initially wrote about his love for video games. In a childhood surrounded by constant change, navigating his parents’ divorce, the games he took from place to place on his Nintendo DS were a source of comfort.

‘We’re really worried’: What do colleges do now after affirmative action ruling?

The Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action has triggered angst on campuses about how to promote diversity without considering race in admissions decisions.

But the essay he submitted to colleges focused on the community he found through Word Is Bond, a leadership group for young Black men in Portland.

As the only biracial, Jewish kid with divorced parents in a predominantly white, Christian community, Decker wrote he felt like the odd one out. On a trip with Word Is Bond to Capitol Hill, he and friends who looked just like him shook hands with lawmakers. The experience, he wrote, changed how he saw himself.

“It’s because I’m different that I provide something precious to the world, not the other way around,” wrote Decker, whose top college choice is Tulane in New Orleans because of the region’s diversity.

Amofa used to think affirmative action was only a factor at schools like Harvard and Yale. After the court’s ruling, she was surprised to find that race was taken into account even at public universities she was applying to.

Now, without affirmative action, she wondered if mostly white schools will become even whiter.

A lot of what you’ve heard about affirmative action is wrong

Debate leading up to the Supreme Court’s decision has stirred up plenty of misconceptions. We break down the myths and explain the reality.

It’s been on her mind as she chooses between Indiana University and the University of Dayton, both of which have relatively few Black students. When she was one of the only Black students in her grade school, she could fall back on her family and Ghanaian friends at church. At college, she worries about loneliness.

“That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said. “Going and just feeling so isolated, even though I’m constantly around people.”

The first drafts of her essay didn’t tell colleges about who she is now, she said. Her final essay describes how she came to embrace her natural hair. She wrote about going to a mostly white grade school where classmates made jokes about her afro.

Over time, she ignored their insults and found beauty in the styles worn by women in her life. She now runs a business doing braids and other hairstyles in her neighborhood.

“Criticism will persist,” she wrote “but it loses its power when you know there’s a crown on your head!”

Collin Binkley, Annie Ma and Noreen Nasir write for the Associated Press. Binkley and Nasir reported from Chicago and Ma from Portland, Ore.

More to Read

Editorial: Early decision admissions for college unfairly favor wealthy students

Jan. 4, 2024

HBCUs brace for flood of applications after Supreme Court affirmative action decision

Sept. 22, 2023

Opinion: In a post-affirmative action world, employers should learn from California’s experience

Sept. 16, 2023

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A Complete Guide to Allergy Treatments

You’re sniffling, sneezing and staring at the pharmacy shelf. Here’s how to choose the right option for your symptoms.

By Nina Agrawal

With tree pollen counts already hitting peak levels in some parts of the United States, now is the time to start preparing for — and treating — your spring allergy symptoms .

But before you head to a pharmacy, consider some measures you can take at home. And if you do need to resort to medication, here’s what to know about the various pills, sprays and shots available.

Your first line of defense

Doctors recommend first trying to limit your exposure to whatever is triggering an allergic response — for example, tree pollen in the spring.

You can monitor local pollen levels on weather or allergy apps or on sites such as the National Allergy Bureau’s . When counts are high, doctors recommend keeping your windows closed, wearing a well-fitting mask outside and showering and changing your clothes when you get home. Pets can also bring in pollen from the outdoors, so keep them out of your bedroom and wash them regularly. When you come inside, you can also rinse out your nose with a saline spray or neti pot.

“It’s laborious, but the people who do this stuff find it really helpful,” said Dr. Neeta Ogden, a New-Jersey based allergist.

Nasal sprays

Dr. John Mafi, a primary care physician at UCLA Health who often treats patients with allergies, said that for those with moderate or severe seasonal allergies, the most effective treatment is typically a nasal corticosteroid spray.

These include fluticasone (Flonase), budesonide (Benacort), triamcinolone (Nasacort) and mometasone (Nasonex).

Allergens trigger inflammation in the nose, eyes, throat and, sometimes, the airway. “A local steroid is calming that area of inflammation,” Dr. Mafi said. Because nasal sprays are not absorbed systemically the way steroid pills are, they are considered low-risk, he added.

Spray with the nozzle pointed out toward the ears to get the greatest benefit and to avoid side effects like nose bleeds. The steroids can take several days to take effect, so doctors recommend using them from a week or two ahead of pollen season until pollen counts decline.

Antihistamines

Antihistamines reduce the itchiness and inflammation produced by histamine, a chemical your immune cells release when triggered by an allergen . They can be taken as pills, nasal sprays or eye drops. They work quickly and are most effective if taken as needed, such as on days when your symptoms are particularly bad.

“It can be like a rescue therapy,” said Dr. Farah Khan, an allergist and immunologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

For itchy, watery eyes, antihistamine eye drops — often in conjunction with a nasal spray — tend to work best, Dr. Mafi said.

An oral antihistamine can be beneficial when you have multiple symptoms, like itchy eyes, a stuffy nose and hives, said Dr. Rita Kachru, chief of clinical allergy and immunology at UCLA Health.

In 2020, a task force of physicians that issues allergy treatment guidelines recommended against using “first-generation” oral antihistamines, such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl), for allergic rhinitis, especially on a chronic basis. The group cited negative side effects, including sedation, performance impairment and increased risk of dementia.

Doctors said the “second-generation” oral antihistamines loratadine (Claritin), cetirizine (Zyrtec) and fexofenadine (Allegra) won’t make most people drowsy, though patients are least likely to experience drowsiness with fexofenadine, Dr. Kachru said. These pills can cause side effects, including dry eyes or mouth and constipation.

If an antihistamine produces unpleasant side effects or stops working well, doctors suggest trying another one.

Decongestants

Some antihistamines, like Claritin-D and Allegra-D, come combined with pseudoephedrine (Sudafed). Doctors don’t recommend products that contain pseudoephedrine for children at all, or for adults for more than a few days in a row because the ingredient can increase heart rate and blood pressure.

Dr. Kachru also warned against using the decongestant nasal spray oxymetazoline (Afrin). Though it might provide relief, she said, over time you need more medication to get the same response. And stopping the medication can cause inflammation that can make it hard to breathe through your nose, she said.

Immunotherapy

Doctors recommend consulting a board-certified allergist if your symptoms are getting worse, interfering with daily life or causing other health problems, and medications aren’t helping. Dr. Ogden said patients often come to her when they can no longer tolerate taking medications for months on end.

“And then we have a talk about starting allergy shots,” she said.

Allergy shots deliver progressively higher doses of the protein you’re allergic to, teaching your immune system to tolerate it. The therapy, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is usually covered by insurance, has been shown to significantly reduce symptoms and medication use , and the effects can last for several years after treatment ends.

Another option is sublingual immunotherapy, in which you place a tablet containing the allergen under your tongue. The F.D.A. has approved tablets for ragweed, grasses and dust mites.

Both forms of immunotherapy require a substantial investment of time, usually three to five years. Scientists are studying other options. With climate change and air pollution making allergy symptoms worse, Dr. Ogden said, “I think immunotherapy is where we’re going to end up.”