Abortion and Womens Rights - Research Paper Example

Outline: 1. Introduction to Abortion: What is it, how does it affect a woman? 2. Reasons why women should be allowed to make the decision: unplanned pregnancies, health, medical defects in the foetus, poverty and incapability of raising a child, teenage pregnancy, rape and incest. 3. Abortion according to Islam 4. Abortion for the sake of the unborn child 5. Conclusion Abortion and Women’s Rights The issue of abortion is one of the most widely discussed debates in the world today; it involves the riddance of a foetus in a woman’s womb in some schools of thought whereas others believe the murder of an unborn child takes place. Whatever the perception may be, in many countries around the world, women are not allowed to make the decision regarding whether or not they would like to get their pregnancies aborted. This has led to a very heated argument because even though both men and women take part in sexual intercourse which may lead to pregnancy, only men are given the power to decide whether or not they want they child to be aborted. A woman, however, is a container for the foetus and without her the childbirth is not even possible (Shafak, n.p.). She needs to make the decision regarding whether or not she is capable of carrying the child in her womb for a period of 9 months. Every woman must have the right to make the decision regarding abortion depending upon a number of factors like the involvement of the father, financial resources available to her, health implications as well as a matter of mere choice of whether or not she wants the baby and is willing to sacrifice her life to care for her child (Abortion Is Every Woman's Right, n.p.). A woman’s body is her own and thus no other person should be allowed to make the decision regarding what she wants, especially if she is an adult of sound mind, capable of making her own decisions. The right to abortion is a very crucial topic that needs to be discussed and taken care of because it involves the life of an unborn child. It is thus up to the woman to decide whether or not she wants to give life to the foetus because she herself will be able to ascertain whether or not she has the potential to do so and carry on with the pregnancy (BBC News). Many a times, women fail to gather the support of the men that got them pregnant in the first place; in such a situation, how is it that a woman should not be given the right to carry on with the abortion if she wants to? (Abortion Is Every Woman's Right, n.p.). A woman is a human being too, something that a patriarchal driven society often tends to forget; it is not an easy task to carry on with pregnancy and give birth to a child especially without financial resources and proper nutrition. Unless and until a woman wants to have a child, she should not be forced into doing so because this takes away the rights of not only the mother but also her unborn child (Dreaper, n.p.). A pregnancy does not always have to be planned; in many cases, two people engaging in sexual intercourse while using all the necessary precaution could still fall short – condoms are not a hundred percent effective and neither are birth control pills and that is why a woman should have the right to decide whether or not she wants to keep the child once pregnant (Dreaper, n.p.). Young couples could get pregnant without having the means to support a child or a plan for the future of the child and in this case, if they deem fit that they should abort the pregnancy, it is their decision. Moreover, if a woman is young and has her entire future ahead of her, she should not lay prey to society to do what is best – she should know what is best for her and take the necessary actions because otherwise she will have to deal with the consequences (Shafak, n.p.). Pregnancies have a very adverse effect on the body of a woman; they tend to disrupt the normal course of lifestyle for her and there are many changes that she goes through in her body. More often than never, an unplanned pregnancy also leads to the disruption of many spheres of a woman’s life like her education, social life, family and her personal future plans. This can also be seen in the court’s decision in the case of Roe v. Wade in the US Supreme Court (Women's Health, n.p.). A woman thus should be allowed to make the choice of whether or not she wants to abort the birth of her child within a stipulated time period, especially if it was not a part of her plan. If such rights are denied to women, then there is a constraint imposed upon their freedom and it rules out the aspect of them being treated equally. In many cases, the doctors may also say that the child would be born with medical defects and physical deformities due to a shortcoming of the genes or the DNA and in such cases, if the woman wants, then she should have the right to abort the pregnancy (Abortion, n.p.). Abortion does not mean killing because the foetus does not have a life of its own till it is about four to five months old. It feeds off the body of a woman and thus it should be up to her to decide if she wants to carry on with the pregnancy and if she will be able to house a child born with certain defects and deformities. Moreover, it might not be in the best interest of the child to give it life because of all the medical complications that it will have to suffer, in which case the mother may decide it best to abort the child (Planned Parenthood Action Centre, n.p.). There are a number of other reasons why women choose abortion as have been enumerated further. Pregnancy may be a result of either incest or rape – two very grave issues in society today where women are the victims. If a woman becomes pregnant as a result of forced sex, she might not want to give birth to the child as she could have been accosted by criminals (Planned Parenthood Action Centre, n.p.). Moreover, she may become pregnant as a result of an incestuous activity that may again be forced, something that she has not consented to. In such cases, it should be the woman’s decision to make because let us face this, why should the woman who has first been the victim of a crime, and then subject to an unplanned pregnancy, not even have the opportunity to decide whether or not she wants to live her life in the wake of the crime where she was the victim? Moreover, a woman might not have a proper mental or physical frame of mind and body for bearing a child and taking care of it; it is in society’s interest to ensure that the child that is being born is subject to the best welfare that there is and if that is not possible, then the woman might as well take the decision to abort the child than hear all her life that she is incapable of taking care of another life (Women's Health). Abortion is constitutionally protected in many countries and in some parts of the world it is even illegal. However, there are ways to carry out a legal abortion, depending on the time that has passed in the pregnancy and the manner in which the pregnancy took place. In many religions around the world, like Islam for example, abortion is considered to be a sin. According to the teachings in Islam, abortion is considered to be ‘haram’ or forbidden in nature because followers believe that the foetus has a soul and that it is illegal to kill the soul or abort the foetus growing inside a woman’s body (BBC News). However, the religion permits abortion to take place if the life of the woman or the mother is in danger because of the same and that her health is so low that she would not be able to handle it. After the foetus has grown beyond 120 days though, abortion is not permitted because by this time, it is believed that the child has started to grow and has a soul. Within a specific period of time, three months after conception, it is perfectly alright to carry on with the process of abortion if a woman wants to. No other person should be allowed to make a decision for a woman’s body regarding whether or not she wants to keep the child. It is wrong to say that another individual has the right to decide what someone else wants because this goes against the basic gist of fundamental human rights that people have which render them equal. Abortion may also be committed for the sake of the child, like the Grand Ayatollah of Iran issued a statement saying that even though abortion is considered to be illegal in Islam, for the sake of the child, if the parents are unemployed and living in the lap of poverty and have no means to protect and help the child grow, then it may take place because there is no point bringing into the world a human being for the sake of suffering (BBC News). In conclusion, women should have the right to decide whether or not they want to abort the foetus growing inside them because after all the body belongs to them and no one else. A woman should have the liberty to decide what she wants to do with her body especially if the pregnancy was unplanned. Moreover, if she is subject to crimes like rape and incest and is pregnant as a result of the same, it would be shameful to disallow her to have an abortion as she may not want to mother a child born out of such a circumstance. Moreover, every individual is capable of making decisions based on his own health and, thus, if a woman does not deem it fit, then she should have the right to have an abortion. In many cases around the world today, teenage pregnancies are also on the rise and the only way to counter this issue is to either spread awareness among the people or let them have the right to abort a child that they cannot support anyway. It must be understood that it is not easy for a woman to say yes to an abortion because she grows attached to the baby growing within her; a woman is a source of power as she breathes life into another individual however, the freedom to do so must entirely be hers and not someone else’s (Dreaper n.p.). Summary: This part of the paper shall summarise the notion which the author has proposed in the research paper. To conclude, the fact that a woman gives birth to a child should be given the paramount importance as to whether to have an abortion or not. It is in the best interest of the husband and the wife if the woman is given the right to decide wehther she wants to go for abortion. Woman right activists have propogated this theory for many years. Since the woman si the carrier of the child, it is obvious and imperative that she should have a stake in deciding whether she wants to have the child or not. In many countries which are governed extensively by catholic or islamic laws, the rights of the woman with respect to abortion are very limited and often the woman has to fight for her rights with regard to maintanence of the child and the way she wants to bring up the kid, and even abortion. The research paper has enunciated multiple examples form different facets of life with regard to the way woman’s rights have been taken away from them with regard to parenting. Aborting is one of the rights which women deserve. It is quite strange to understand that women have not been acknowledged as the beholder of their kid during pregnancy. Abortion is also protected in many countries which are contitutionally governed and are ahead in terms of intellectual administration. In countries where we have a solid Government running the entire affair of State administration, abortion laws are much more relaxed and women rights are given an importance along with a recognition to the fact that they desrve to be treated on equal terms with men. The entire jist of the argument which follows in this period is the fact that abortion is an important decision which shall be made by boththe husband and the wife and not the husband alone owing to societiel pressure and turbulence. It is important to know that irrepsective of anything which happens to the child the woman is going to be in trouble for the defeicency and not the man. The main reason why the woman desrves equal rights to men in the matter of abortion is the simple fact that they are the one bearing the child physically and therefore it is crucial that women are provided with al lthe support and care. If there is any complication during the pregnancy then the woman should be allowed to chose for herself, whether she wants to have the child or not. Works Cited BBC News. BBC News. n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . "Women's Health." Abortion-Reasons Women Choose Abortion. n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . "Planned Parenthood Action Centre." Women's Abortion Rights. n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . Shafak, Elif. "Rape, Abortion and the Fight for Women's Rights in Turkey." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 09 Sept. 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . "Abortion." Abortion : It's Every Womans Right to Choose. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . Dreaper, Jane. BBC News. BBC, 10 Dec. 2007. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . "Abortion Is Every Woman's Right." Abortion Is Every Woman's Right. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . Read More