Legal Abortion is a Fundamental Right - Essay Example

Legal Abortion is a Fundamental Right Increasingly larger number of people tends to consider every woman be free to take her own decisions concerning maintenance of pregnancy or abortion. Such an approach is seen as an integral component of reproductive rights. It is proved that the rate of post-abortion complications is much lower in those countries, where abortions are legal. On the contrary, absence of an opportunity to have pregnancy terminated in a legal way makes women resort to a number of illegal and dangerous methods, which may turn to be destructive to health or even fatal. Societal attitudes towards abortion depend on its moral priorities, traditions, and standard of living. Abortion happened to become one of the most controversial and debated issues of the last decades. It is easy to observe that its advocates and opponents cannot even define this term. Abortion opponents consider embryo to be a human being, which by no means may be killed. Abortion equals the murder. On the other hand, abortion rights advocates insist that a woman should never be forced to carry an embryo at the expense of her health. The essence of reproductive choice lies in the principle of private autonomy concerning sexuality and fertility. It presupposes conscious and responsible attitude towards these issues. Reproductive rights are expected to provide appropriate social conditions to maintain reproductive health. They became an integral part of many international human rights documents and national legislations. The right to maintain reproductive health is one of the most important reproductive rights. This right becomes exercisable only in case if all the people are provided with all the modern methods of family planning. Artificial abortion is certainly one of them. Unfortunately, abortion is an inevitable evil of modern society. Reproductive rights may be considered fundamental, especially for women. According to Angela Devis, one of the first activists of abortion-rights movement, modern women may possess various rights like right to vote in an election, right to education, and many others, but none of them is worthy unless women possess right to control their own bodies. The fact that a woman’s life may be inconvertibly changed without her consent cannot be tolerated, especially in case if pregnancy occurs because of deception or sexual violence. The experts of PPFA (Planned Parenthood Federation of America) assure that reproductive choice should by no means be constrained. It should be promoted instead. Modern society must provide every woman with an access to sexual education and methods of fertility regulation. Legal and safe abortion should be one of them. The abortion debate seems to be impossible to resolve. The discussion revolves around moral and legal status of abortion. It is possible to group its participants into two movements – “pro-choice” movement and “pro-life” movement. Pro-life group insists that the embryo or fetus possess right to be born. Its most ardent disciples strive for total prohibition of abortion. Pro-choice group does not encourage abortion too, but it emphasizes the right of women to make choices under no pressure. Each group flights for social approval and influence over public opinion. Most abortions are procured during the first trimester of pregnancy. At this moment an embryo cannot be regarded a human being, since its existence totally depends on its mother and her health. An embryo may only be called a human after the moment neural development begins. In addition, an embryo does not have a human face until the eighth week of pregnancy. Some of the abortion advocates insist that an embryo cannot be called a human being unless its form resembles a human body. Embryos are rather similar to all the other cells. Pro-choice group emphasizes that millions of different cells die every day. As explained by Sam Harris, American author and neuroscientist, each pair of gametes (sexual reproductive cells) has the potential to become a human being. At the same time, opponents of abortion do not strive to save them. Even more, some advocates of this theory consider abortion to be acceptable even in case if an embryo's nervous system is developed and it may be regarded a human being. It is possible to draw an analogy between the maintenance of unwished pregnancy and forced usage of a human body as a dialysis machine for the sake of another person, suffering from kidney disease. A desire to "unplug" would certainly be morally acceptable despite even the fact that it would kill somebody else. For this reason the expulsion of an embryo is also acceptable, since it possess no right to exploit body of a woman without her without her consent. That is why abortion is a fundamental right of every woman. According to Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, the difference between rational and religious approach lies in the fact that the first one is not concerned if an embryo is a human being or not. Instead, it brings up such an issue: is an embryo capable of suffering? One more question is important for this author: is it a mother or an embryo who suffers more because of abortion? He reminds that an embryo cannot feel anything until its nervous system is formed. In addition, it suffers much less than cows in a slaughter-house if abortion is procured during the first trimester of pregnancy. It is known that no one contraceptive method may provide absolute defense from unwished pregnancy. Effectiveness of contraceptive methods is measured by the Pearl Index. It shows how many women out of 100 become pregnant every year regarding the contraceptive method they use. From 4 to 18 women become pregnant every year during the rejected sexual intercourse. The usage of condoms does not give guarantee too – from 2 to 12 women get pregnant. Finally, the result of combined oral contraceptives is from 0,1 to 0,9. Taking this into consideration, pro-choice advocates claim abortion to be an indispensable guarantee. Otherwise a woman loses the right to be an own of her body the moment zygote is formed. Opponents of artificial termination of pregnancy try to prove abortion to be a painful and dangerous procedure. It sometimes may even lead to fatal outcome. It may cause a number of problems and complications in future. Finally, such a rough interference into the course of nature is not likely to disappear without leaving a trace. Abortion may in future be followed by such complications as extrauterine gestation and pelvic inflammatory disease. It also increases chances of miscarriage. Psychological stress and shock is one more essential factor. Moral injury may be too serious and difficult to treat. At the same time, doctors assure abortion is quite a safe operation. Its influence over health and ability to conceive is rather insignificant. Reproductive health of a woman is not endangered. The risk of serious complications is only 0,5%. This is one of the most essential arguments for abortion. In addition, psychiatrists have proved that the stress level is much higher before the abortion than after it. Even more, sometimes abortion is the only means to save life of a woman. Of course, doctors strive to save lives of both woman and embryo, but sometimes it is impossible. In such case a woman is offered to make a choice. It is worthy to mention that even religion approves such an approach. Muslims believe fetus becomes a living soul after the 4th month of pregnancy. That is why they consider abortion to be a murder after this point. Nevertheless, they accept the necessity to procure an abortion in case if mother’s life is endangered, especially if she has other children. It is because they consider every woman to be an “original form of life”, while an embryo is just a potential life form. Thus, a woman’s death is considered to be greater evil than abortion. There is one more argument for abortion. Sometimes babies are born with serious pathologies, which may limit duration of their lives to 0,5-2 years. Modern medical genetics provides an opportunity of precise diagnostics. All the genome defects may be traced. Ultrasound screening may also reveal a number of developmental disorders. Even more, absence of an opportunity to procure abortion in a legal way would definitely endanger health of many women. A number of illegal abortions will rapidly increase. Low quality of illegal abortions turned to be a significant risk factor. Abortions of poor quality often lead to irreversible consequences like sterility, infection contamination, and even lethal outcome. Unprofessional criminal abortions procure death of more than 70 thousand women in the whole world every year. In addition, abortion ban implies delivery of unwanted children. Of course, it will factor into the amount of abandoned children, orphans, infanticides, and child abuse. It is also going to limit opportunities of parents to create better living conditions for already born children. It may decrease their life chances and foredoom them to poverty and desperation. Very often women make little account to the upbringing of their unwanted children. Even more, they are very often left in orphan homes. Not all of them have chance to be adopted in future. Unfortunately, such children have not much hope of successful future. Also a mother may be especially cruel if her child was born as a result of sexual assault or some other adverse situations. Sexual assault, as any other form of violence, cannot occur without a trace. Pregnancy is not the only possible result of forceful rape – a woman may also contract a number of serious venereal diseases. It is highly probable that such diseases may be passed to a baby during pregnancy. An innocent baby may be condemned to suffer hepatitis, HIV, syphilis, and so on. Of course, there are many examples of successful pregnancies even after sexual assaults. Pregnancy develops normally and baby’s health is not endangered. That is why abortion is a personal right of every woman. If she decides to maintain pregnancy despite anything – this is wonderful. Unfortunately, women very often cannot cope with their shock. Psychological and moral pressure, exerted by attempts to appeal to ethic and religious values, may cause aggravation of damage. In such a case any woman may seek for all the available means to get rid of unwished pregnancy. Absence of an opportunity to have pregnancy terminated within the circumstances of social vulnerability and unfavorable economic situation is quite an irresponsible initiative. It may lead to even higher material insecurity of society and violence on children. Fortunately, the statistics of the last years is rather reassuring. The annual number of abortions in the United States is decreasing. The tendency towards pregnancy termination descended in all the social and age groups. CDC (Centers for Disease Control in the US) reports record low number of abortions. Over the 2002 to 2011 period the rate of abortions decreased by 13%. This statistics sounds impressive if to take into consideration the fact that the power has been in hands of the Democratic Party during the last several years. Its position towards abortion is comparatively loyal. The decrease of abortion rate may be explained by several reasons. First of all, people tend to use more modern and effective methods of contraception. The role of non-commercial organizations, promoting sexual education, is rather essential as well. The second reason is that more and more teenagers show interest in marriage, especially in little towns. It may be explained by religious factors. At the same time, the situation in big cities seems to be opposite. Finally, the enforcement of laws on alimony payments became a substantial factor too. Most of men in the US are scared by risk to have an unwanted child, since the average amount of alimony payments is about 500$ per month. In addition, it is possible to observe the influence of economic factor. People do not want to plan a big family because of economic crisis. According to the statistics of the current year, approximately 740 thousand of abortions have been procured in the US. Federal expenses for this kind of medical procedures exceed one billion dollars. Thus, it should be realized that abortion is the only possible way to solve certain problems. Of course, abortion advocates do not promote irresponsible sexual intercourse and do not consider abortion to be a contraceptive method on emergence. But some circumstances leave no other alternative. And of course this is an extremely difficult decision even for those women, who are sure of their choice. There is no doubt that this question is going to remain controversial and charged. It is unlikely to be settled. But one thing is known for sure. Each group of arguments concerning abortion is to certain extent meaningful. Women's rights activists often say that no one woman wants to have an abortion. She wants either to have a baby, or to have her pregnancy terminated. . Works Cited Fisher, Brian. Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women. NY: Morgan James Publishing. 2014. Print. Madden, Russell. Abortion: A Philosophical and Scientific Approach. NY: Guardian Press. 2014. Print. Pollitt, Katha. Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. NY: Picador. 2014. Print Sproul, R.C. Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue. Sanford: Reformation Trust Publishing. 2010. Print. Read More