Abortion Debate While Legal Aspect

Abortion Debate

While legal aspect of abortion has been the subject of extensive debate during the last 35 years, abortion itself has been around for thousands of years. The religious and social moral codes have played a major role in both preventing and encouraging abortion. The religious beliefs have generally been interpreted as against abortion while the behavior and circumstances have often necessitated abortion of unwanted pregnancies.

The truth is that abortion has always been available to those who seek it. Hundreds of thousands of women undergoing abortion die throughout the world each year. 'The illegality of abortion in some countries forces these women to back street clinics and in the hands of illiterate and untrained midwives.

The arguments for and against abortion favor a careful approach where abortion is kept legal within a specified term of pregnancy and women are educated to seek help as early as possible in the course of pregnancy.

Banning abortion under 'any circumstances' will only bring unwanted and unloved children into the world bringing misery to the parents, burden on the state and a phenomenal increase in maladjusted children who live on the streets, and turn to crime and drugs and affect the society.

Introduction survey of attitude about abortion in the UK and USA showed that 41% of the young girls surveyed, supported unconditional access to abortion (Smartgirl, 2002). Another 33.5% girls favored abortion provided certain conditions regarding term of pregnancy and health or circumstances of the pregnant woman justified abortion. 85% of the girls favoring unconditional access to abortion thought that it was 'a woman's right to choose issue'. Reading a quote about abortion and woman's right to choose by Esther Langston, a professor at the University of Nevada made me think about the validity of this right. Esther Langston said:

QUOTE] "What we are saying is that abortion becomes one of the choices and the person has the right to choose whatever it is that is...best for them in the situation in which they find themselves, be it abortion, to keep the baby, to adopt it, to sell it, to leave it in a dumpster, to put it on your porch, whatever; it's the person's right to choose."(In Hanegraff, 1997) [UNQUOTE]

Should a person really have an absolute right over another being? Can we allow an unborn child to be aborted a few days before it is delivered? What about fetus that is known to have defects of life and limbs such as Thalidomide children? Is it ethically acceptable to permit abortion in such cases? The religious arguments affect human psychology, after listening to the arguments regarding 'sanctity of life' abortion due to necessity at a particular time can have psychological effects later. Abortion is indeed a complex issue justifying exploration for this important ethical question.

THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY AND ABORTION

In most of our discussions regarding the abortion debate, our focus is normally on the society we live in. For most of Europe and North America, the society has grown tolerant to unmarried parenthood. In these societies children born 'out of wedlock' are fully accepted and being an unmarried mother does not have the stigma it had, say a hundred years ago.

In most of the developing countries, catholic countries of South America, Muslim countries of Asia and among other conservative societies having a child outside marriage is unthinkable and brings the whole family into disrepute, it is not uncommon for family members to kill a girl who becomes pregnant before marriage in some Islamic countries. Even the laws on statute books charge the parents with crimes punishments varying from a few years to death (Need for repealing Hudood Ord stressed, 2003).

In such societies abortion is the only solution of protecting the woman and 'the family name'. Unfortunately, abortion is also illegal in most of these societies. The result is that people have to find sympathetic (and money demanding) private clinics, resort to unsanitary back street abortion clinics (Gabon: Illegal Abortions, 2005) or find women who perform abortion by using antiquated techniques. The result is that thousands of women are rendered infertile or loose their lives in these illegal abortions. These women will surely prefer not to have the sword of the law hanging over their heads too. Legal abortion in such cases in these countries will be considered a blessing. Banning abortion under all situations in developed countries will only help retain these laws in conservative societies. Until a change in societies' attitude towards sex outside marriage and recognition that pregnancy could result in some of these cases, keeping abortion illegal can only be considered inhumane.

Most of the religiously inclined societies restrict access to birth control devices. In a village in Ireland or Saudi Arabia it is not easy for a young man (married or unmarried) to go to the nearby chemist to buy contraceptives. It is just too embarrassing for the young man. The consequences of these attitudes combined with illegality of abortion has created situation, which are not easily comprehended by those living in sexually free societies. Making abortion legal would be the most humane act in these countries.

The plight of the women affected by the abortion being illegal in these countries makes us appreciate the importance of keeping abortion legal. The question remains is that if we can consider it a woman's right to choice to the extent that we can discard all considerations of the welfare of the unborn child or that if it could have sustained itself outside mother's womb in an incubator, for example. My view is that we must be careful in safeguarding the interest of the unborn child while accepting that during the first half of the pregnancy the fetus is a growing organism incapable of sustaining life outside the mother's womb and if the circumstances justify it should be kept legal to during the first trimester of the pregnancy on parents request and after wards till the first half of the pregnancy, the parents should be provided guidance regarding the other options available to them..