Should Abortion Be Legal - Essay Example

Should Abortion Be Legalized? Module Module ID: Abortion The term abortion simply refers to the planned and deliberate termination of pregnancy in order to kill the unborn child, who has not entered in the world. Consequently, abortion is a popular method to get rid of the unwanted child developing in the fetus in the wake of sexual union between two or more individuals belonging to the opposite genders. “More than 40% of all women will end a pregnancy by abortion at some time in their reproductive lives.” (Trupin & Stöppler, 2011) Hence, a significant proportion of the American women seek the services of doctors, nurses or other medical staff to throw away their unborn child at different stages of pregnancy. Though abortion had been a vehemently disputed issue, and authorities stated it as crime, the same has obtained the legal status during the second half of twentieth century. Since abortion is completely the personal matter for women, which not only relieves unnecessary domestic, financial and social burden from the very back of women, but also leaves positive impact on their health and fitness, it must have legal status in every country of the globe, and mothers should have the right to decide about the fate of their unborn children without any interference from statute of law or social norms and cultural values prevailing in their social establishment. There was a time when abortion was criticized and censured by an overwhelming majority of the people in almost all parts of the world. The people widely looked down upon the act and declared it a serious sin, injustice and crime against religious, moral and ethical principles being followed. The dogmatists particularly condemned and rebuked the practice by declaring it as an obnoxious act against humanity at large, which is equally heinous to the murder of a born individual. The religious people were of the view that since Nature had allowed the unborn child to enter the world, without entering into debate that whether he is legitimate or illegitimate, no human should have the right to stop his way to arriving in the world at any cost. Another main reason behind opposing abortion was this that the person(s) responsible for the same were regarded as the murderers of an innocent life, which neither had any contribution in arriving in the world, nor did he had power to defend himself from the cruel clutches ready to take his life before birth even. Thus, taking the life of a harmless, defenseless and innocent unborn was undoubtedly a serious crime against society in the eyes of the religious-minded people as ell as for the moralists in past. It is therefore, the act of abortion always invited displeasure and abhorrence of the large number of the population for the last several centuries, and people always maintained very negative opinion regarding the act. Animistic religion tends to regard abortion as a direct attack on the vital principles of nature. Similarly, Abrahamic faiths including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, do not allow any step even that advances towards abortion, as the Old Testament states: “Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of Yahweh your God, obeying His voice, clinging to Him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers... (Dt 30:19-20). It is therefore the legalization of abortion had not been taken into consideration altogether till the end of nineteenth century. Somehow, time took drastic turn, and society started entering into debates and discussions in respect of the validity of abortion in the best interest of women and society. The supporters of abortion argue that since mother is the major sufferer before and after the birth of children, she should have been granted the permission to decided whether the child should be born or not. It would, according to them, not only leave pleasant impact on the physical and psychological health of the mothers, but will also remove the extra and unnecessary financial burden on mothers in particular, and on society in general. Additionally, abortion is also helpful in respect of protecting the unwed women from defamation, degradation and humiliation in case the pregnancy is the outcome of rape, incest and sexual relations beyond the marital knot. Thus, abortion is the only way to avoid and escape illegitimate and extra marital pregnancy on the one hand, and is certainly beneficial to make the victims of rape forgetful of the mishap happened in their life that has left permanent and indelible imprint of woe, anguish and despair on the mind and memory of the victim. According to the Tennessee Right to Life organization website, “even though 93% of abortions are done as a means of birth control it still does not hide the fact that 1% are performed because of rape or incest; 3% because of fetal abnormalities; 3% due to the mothers health problems.” (TRTL, 2011) Furthermore, abortion is also supportive in determining the ascription of the child’s real father. If a married woman is raped and gets pregnant out of the same state of affairs, it would be almost impossible to determine whether the coming child belongs to her husband, or is the outcome of the tragedy took place in the life of the woman. “Suppose we do not make abortions legal only for those few women who have become pregnant through rape, there would be no way to enforce it. It is impossible to determine if the baby was conceived from rape two months after the fact because unfortunately the majority of rapes are not reported.” (Barnes, 2010) It is therefore, women generally decide to abort the child in order to wash all the bitter feelings created in their mind out of rape destroying their souls and hurting their emotions for the future years to come. Additionally, it has aptly been observed that the children are molested by stepfathers, uncles, neighbors, teachers and even real fathers, which may result into unwanted pregnancy of girls in the wake of sexual assaults inflicted upon them. Since the adolescent girls are not in a position to sustain the pregnancy, due to their young age and incest, they may undergo serious trauma and psychological collapse. Moreover, such type of pregnancy may also adversely tell upon their nerves, and disturb their studies and other activities, they require immediate relief from the illegitimate pregnancy in order to protect their honor and future as well. As a result, the mothers and guardians look for the precautionary measures to save them from going into the hands of despair, dejection, defamation and dolefulness. And if abortion is not allowed by the authorities, saving the future of the young girls would become a hard nut to crack. Consequently, production of large number of unwanted and illegitimate children will be challenging for the mothers and society as well, and the state will observe anarchy, chaos and disturbance for not stopping the advancements of unwanted pregnancies in general. Another issue that appears in support of abortion includes the will of the woman carrying pregnancy in her body. It is fact beyond suspicion that a woman’s body is entirely a personal thing for her, and bringing any changes in it should not be taken as an social issue. If a woman allows wiping out unwanted pregnancy from her fetus, the torch-bearers of human rights, ethics and morality should have no right to impose their personal policies on the body of the pregnant woman. Additionally, the pregnant woman will certainly be the sole responsible for the upbringing, nutrition and education of her future child, so if she feels herself unable to bear the expenses of the child by consuming her time, money and energies on him, then society must let her act according to the plans she has devised in the best interest of herself and her child. Thus, if a woman is not in a position to comprehend with the challenges she has to face as mother, she should be allowed to surrender her pregnancy to protect herself and the child from going prey to frustration, hunger and miserable life because of her pathetic financial position and low socioeconomic status. Hence, the woman can give birth to further children in future provided she overcomes her financial worries and personal difficulties for the future years to come. On the contrary, if she has no access to better food and nutrition during her pregnancy, she would definitely give birth to a sick and weak child, which will be just an awkward burden on his society because of the lack of proper growth under unfavorable financial situation of his mother. Moreover, the life of the mother will also be at stake, and she can lose her life during pregnancy due to lot of burden of job as well as scarcity of wealth and resources quite essential to feed herself and her unborn child. “A woman has the right to have access to abortion and the health care institutions have an obligation to provide such services as safely as possible.” (Bygdeman, 2008: quoted in fiapac.org) To conclude, it becomes crystal clear that contemporary world vehemently requires a peaceful, prosperous, healthy, vigorous and talented individuals for the collective progress and uplift of a nation and society. Healthy, wealthy and beautiful women can produce vigorous and talented children and weak and frail mothers will surely produce weak and ill babies. Unwanted and unnecessary pregnancies may destroy the individual and collective life of the society in many ways, which can be escaped by allowing the women to decide the fate of their unborn children. The religious people should also take the entire socioeconomic scenario in view in order to protect the society from going into the hands of poverty, diseases and decline. It is therefore abortion should not be declared as an infamous blur on the very face of humanity anymore. Instead, more and more safe and innovative methods should be promoted to save the life of the women interested in aborting their pregnancies for the best interest of society. Thus, the state should devise laws and implement the same in favor of abortion, and thus abortion should be given legal status in order to save the helpless women from committing suicides top avoid punishments inflicted upon them for aborting their child. References Barnes, Sara. (2010, Dec 23) The Long Term Effects of Abortion on Women The Gospel Organization Retrieved from http://www.the-gospel.org/stdy_fmly/abortion_effects.php Bygdeman, Marc. (2008) Should Gynecologists be Obliged to Perform Abortion? Quoted in http://www.fiapac.org/media/berlin/Praesentationen/Freitag/PDF_Fr_Langenbeck/3_Bygdeman_FrLangenbeck.pdf?phpMyAdmin=LNnPTp9uIV39b-McBypzPD84EE3 Trupin, Suzanne R & Stöppler, Melissa Conrad (2011, Sep 25) Abortion E-Medicine Health Retrieved from http://www.emedicinehealth.com/abortion/article_em.htm Deuteronomy 30:19-20 Religious Views of Abortion (New King James Version) Quoted in http://www.twotlj.org/Abortion-ch4.pdf Read More