Arguments for abortion - Essay Example

3 December Abortion Abortion is the process of termination of the pregnancy taking place inside a woman’s body in order to remove the foetus or the embryo from the uterus and stop it from growing into a baby. Abortion may take place by itself in the form of a miscarriage or induced on purpose to stop a woman from having a child.Today, there are many safe procedures developed for the purpose of conducting abortion unlike the olden days where unsafe medicines and tools were used to remove the foetus, which also tended to result in a large number of maternal deaths. Moreover the extent of abortion has also reduced a great deal because of the spread of awareness regarding safe sex and encouraged use of contraceptives, among even people living in the rural and backward areas of the world. The legality of abortion is a much debated topic in most countries around the world with some countries’ constitutions looking down upon the subject and others allowing it with certain exceptions and till a certain date of the growth of the embryo. Many people are even concerned with the ethical issue of abortion and whether or not it involves killing another soul; all these controversies have caused a great deal of scarring on the right that women have over abortion too, because after all they carry the child and have to go through all the pain and physical trauma. (Mappes, Thomas A., and David DeGrazia) Most abortions that take place are due to unintended pregnancies and the abortion takes place depending upon the gestation period of the embryo because if the embryo has grown into a foetus of 5 or more months, it may not be possible to carry out an elective or therapeutic mode of abortion as by the time, the baby is almost fully developed. Many abortions are carried out because of issues ranging from rape and incest to health risks being posed to the woman’s body and her inability to carry the child due to lack of nutrition, proper health care facilities etc. In many cases, the abortion may be spontaneous, resulting in a miscarriage, when the embryo or the foetus faces an unintentional expulsion. This usually takes place before the 24th week of gestation. If a miscarriage takes place before 37 weeks of gestation then it is termed as a premature birth and not an abortion or miscarriage because by this time, the live infant is delivered, and may in many cases be a still born. Such spontaneous abortions may be caused by accidental trauma or even stress. (Mappes, Thomas A., and David DeGrazia) The medical methods of having an abortion till the early gestation period include ingesting medicines containing mifepristone misoprostol combinations of 200 mg followed by 800 mcg of vaginal or buccal misoprostol and these medicines may be effective till the 9th gestation week. In most European countries like France, Britain, Switzerland and Nordic countries this is the most common medicine used by people and they tend to abort their pregnancies before the 9th week. In the United States of America on the other hand, the number of women ending their pregnancies in such early weeks are far lower. The surgical methods used till 15 weeks of gestation are suction or vacuum aspiration where a syringe is used to remove the foetus or the embryo and the placenta with an electric pump. (Mappes, Thomas A., and David DeGrazia) Many doctors also use the method of menstrual extraction where a cervical dilation is not required. Another method encouraged by the World Health Organization is called Curettage where the walls of the uterus are cleaned with a curette, leading to very less chances of infection and bleeding. In many backward areas of the world, several unclean and unhygienic methods are used that are very unsafe and tend to cause deaths among pregnant women in their attempt to have their child aborted such as the insertion of objects like hangers and knitting needles inside the vagina to remove the foetus or embryo. 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. In recent news, in Ireland, a seventeen weeks pregnant woman Savita Halappanavar was denied a chance at abortion because the infamous doctor told her that they lived in a ‘Catholic country’ and even though she was told that she would anyway have a miscarriage after which she developed septicaemia, she soon died because her request for abortion was continuously rejected by the doctor. (Mitchell, Ben) Such cases compel people to think twice before illegalizing such an aspect of life that could lead to life and death at a point. Rather than illegalizing abortion, its use should be discouraged unless and until absolutely required to save a woman’s life. Like Savita, there have been many other women around the world that have been denied the opportunity to have an abortion and in turn died. The example of the Islamic religion has been talked about further in this paper, another religion after Christianity with strict views on abortion. 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? 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.) Taking away the right from a woman to have her undergo an abortion if she wants to, is like snatching a part of her body because someone else makes a decision regarding the child growing inside the woman. 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 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. In contemporary society as well, abortion is frowned down upon. Women having unplanned pregancies, especially in countries like India, before marriage are considered to be impure. Abortions after knowing the sex of the child in India and more such backward in terms of thought countries are prohibited. This is because in many countries and cultures aborting the foetus when it is a male child and not a female has been a common practice. Some schools of thought believe that it is better to abort the child than to wait for it to be born and then find out if it is a male or not and commit female infantoecide. 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. 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 in many countries do not have the permission to undergo an abortion if they want to. That is why there are many protestors against such an act because women should be given the right to decide for an abortion if they feel the need to. A woman 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 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, abortion is the medical process of terminating the growth of the feotus growing inside a woman’s body. This may be carried out for various reasons ranging from unplanned pregnancies to medical deformities detected in the growing foetus. Abortion laws have also been passed in many countries around the world, giving the topic a proper platform for discussion. In religions and cultures around the world it has gathered a great mass against it as well as for it, depending upon the thought process. In countries like Ireland however, the aspect of abortion has provided trouble to many people including Sarita’s case that has been discussed. This made the topic open for discussion and open to modification in terms of a subject of law. In religions like Islam, it is frowned upon and women are not given the rights to make the decision regarding abortion thus there is discrimination taking place that has caused a great deal of trouble to many women globally. Morevoer, 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. Abortions taking place in the first 10 weeks of the pregnancy are a woman’s choice, but anything after that becomes a compulsion for her due to her inability to carry the child, or health risks that may even lead to her death. In such cases thus, she should be given the leverage to ask for an abortion in order to at least save her own life. In many cases, the women are told they will face maternal deaths or will not be able to live after the baby is born and many women still go ahead with the birth of their child and sacrifice their lives for the same. Shouldn’t a woman thus have the right to decide whether or not she wants the abortion? The option should at least be available for the rarest of rare cases in order to avoid any extreme situations. 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. Rather than the state deciding whether or not abortion should be illegal, it should be up to the doctors to have the option of conducting such a surgery in cases where it is the only option. Many women are denied their rights of abortion even though these rights are their very own and no one else’s to decide. 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.). Works Cited Mappes, Thomas A., and David DeGrazia. Biomedical Ethics. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Print. BBC News. BBC News. n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . "Women's Health." Abortion-Reasons Women Choose Abortion. 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. . Dreaper, Jane. BBC News. BBC, 10 Dec. 2007. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. . Mitchell, Ben. "Ireland, Abortion and Legal Clarity | The Oxford Student." The Oxford Student. N.p., Nov. 2012. Web. 04 Dec. 2012. . Read More