Poverty and abortion: policy solutions for vulnerable women

Abortion

Over the years, given the awareness and exposure that came with the advent of media and the internet, human societies and cultural norms across the globe have evolved from being very conservative to moderate to liberal. With apparent increases in literacy rates, standards of living and awareness in general, people around the world have reconsidered many of their notions and have adopted more liberal approaches towards social norms and myths. That said, despite of moving towards liberal broad minded cultural notions, the practice of Abortion still attracts intensive debates in both developed and less developed societies. This paper particularly focuses on the degree to which poverty is related to the practice of Abortion and how this relationship does implicates on the lives of poor women. The paper also aims at proposing a policy that would help in tackling the said problem.

Introduction

As medical sciences evolved and progressed for the betterment of human lives, many practices and solutions proposed by science for the general well being of humans have attracted great debates from people of almost every school of thought and socio economic background. One such subject is Abortion, a practice that has been criticized widely around the world regardless of religion, ethnic and cultural orientations and socio-economic origins.

An Abortion process pertaining to maternal services involves services such as abortions which means killing of a living fetus. An abortion, in medical terms, refers to removal of the fetus from the mother's body. Major reasons why women might go for abortions include danger to life, illegitimacy of the child, poverty or economic conditions, overage or under age pregnancies and child being unwanted by the husband.

The practices have attracted both criticism and support from various social circles on ethical and social grounds. There are two angles to the practice that generally attract debates. The first and the principal part of the problem is that whether or not abortion should be allowed at all. The opponent and the extreme view is that since the practice involves killing of a fetus, a living thing, the practice should not be allowed under any circumstances. However, a more flexible view is that while aborting a living fetus is unethical, abortion may be carried out if the fetus poses serious danger to the life of the mother.

The second aspect of the problem is that who would decide whether or not a woman should undergo an abortion. This aspect is directly related to the degree to which women enjoy rights and freedom in a society. This aspect further has two angles. On one side, there have been women who have been forced to undergo abortion despite of their willingness to deliver the baby. This mainly happens due to social reasons such as in the case of 'illegitimate pregnancies' that is when babies are conceived out of wedlock. On the other hand there are women who are forced to deliver their babies despite the fact that they do not want to conceive it be it for social or economical reasons. Both the aspects come down to a bottom line that in most cases, the decision of whether or not to abort a baby is dictated by social and cultural norms and pressures, with the mother having little or no say in the matter.

Policy Options and Alternatives to Tackle the Problem

In the recent past, governments of many states have initiated a campaign to cut down spending on publicly funded Planned Parenthood counseling services and organizations on the allegations that they are using the funds to perform abortions. This implies that indirectly the governments are showing reluctance to fund abortion practices. Texas and Virginia were the two major states that moved these propositions of cutting down funds on publicly funded Planned Parenthood organizations. Other states including North Carolina, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Ohio have followed the suit.

According to The Washington Post (2012), the delegates who passed the said bill in Virginia argued that since these public spendings are made out of tax payer's money, it would be unethical to make those people pay for performing abortions, who consider abortions as a wrong practice. On the contrary, many opponents of the proposed bill, including activists that support the idea that the decision of whether or not to abort a baby should be at the discretion of the mother, alleged that the recent anti-abortion bills passed by the governments are politically driven and are merely aimed at political point scoring and hyping up their political graphs among general public.

As a policy analyst, I believe that making outright cuts in publicly funded Planned Parenthood services is going have dire disproportionate effects on poor women who would be forced to bare the burden of an unintended child in an unstable economic environment. The policy makers must adopt a rational approach that could keep a balance between 'sustainable politics' and social welfare. This means that the underprivileged social groups must be considered before moving any bills that are aimed at garnering political support from the majority populace.

When making a policy the government will have to be particular about placing their socio-economic objectives above individual political motives in order to come to agreement with a rationally drafted, unbiased and socially motivated policy statement. Ideally, it would be a policy that takes on board both the stakeholders of the law that is the one who need the economic support for Planned Parenthood and the one who oppose abortion as an unethical practice. This means that a policy would be such that while it does provide essential support pertaining to Planned Parenthood to the underprivileged faction of the society where required, it must also launch an awareness campaign that aim at creating awareness among the opponent school of thought about the need to support Planned Parenthood among the poor and that it is in the best interest of the society and economy at large (West, 2009). Keeping this in view, the following policy options and alternatives are proposed.

Increase in public sector funding to Planned Parenthood organizations with an aim to bring down the rate of abortion among poor women by giving them greater accessibility to contraceptives and family planning counseling services.

Funding shall be made conditional to those organizations that perform abortions unnecessarily or when other contraceptive alternatives can be made available to the parents.

Overall emphasis shall be on avoiding an unintended pregnancy by preventing it altogether rather than aborting it.

In case the government plans to discontinue funding abortions under any circumstances whatsoever, it shall be the government's responsibility to support the 'unintended' addition to the populace that becomes the economic burden on the family.

Awareness campaigns shall be launched for the privileged and anti-abortion groups, aiming at making them understand that not supporting Planned Parenthood among poor in already unstable economic climate will eventually lead to increase in unintended increase in population thus increasing the economic burden on the taxpayers and the economy at large.

Evaluation and Assessment of the Alternatives

The above mentioned policy alternatives are outlined on the idea that it is the government's responsibility to provide welfare support to the underprivileged groups and that public and socio-economic welfare must be given a priority above political motives. This however does not mean that the views and sentiments of those who deem a practice ethically and morally wrong should be ignored, as that would be in violation of the democratic principles. Thus in order to keep a balance between the two sides, the policy must be designed to take all stakeholders on board.

Keeping this in view, there are two basic alternatives that are proposed above. One, either the government should support Planned Parenthood programs for the poor aiming to help them to avoid unintended pregnancies altogether by increasing their accessibility to contraceptives. Moreover, conditional abortions should be allowed on the grounds that the organization makes it certain that abortion is necessary because the potential baby is going to be an economical burden on the family and that bringing it to life would be unjust to the baby itself.

Another alternative can be that if support is withdrawn from abortion altogether, the government must take the responsibility to support the 'unintended child' in every way including maternity expenditures, food, shelter, clothing, as well as health and education expenses of the child thus removing the burden off the parents shoulder. However, this would again mean that the taxes coming in from the economically productive sectors will be spent on the 'unproductive' or less productive individuals of the economy. This argument however can be refuted by countering that the currently 'less productive' segments can be made productive for future by investing in their education and training.

In order to finally concluding on which alternative should used as part of the policy, a thorough cost benefit analysis would be required. For the first alternative, the costs of spending on Planned Parenthood funding for the poor must be weighed against the benefits earned as a result of making such a spending. Likewise, for the second alternative, the cost of supporting a living child who is born out of an unintended pregnancy must be weighed against the benefits as a result of incurring such a cost. Clearly, the cost of supporting a child until s/he becomes self dependent would be relatively much higher than that of cost of funding an abortion which would be a onetime cost. This means that now the relative benefits of the two alternatives will have to be compared. According to Brigade (2009), her research concluded that in poor societies where men are the main bread earner of the family, children out of unintended pregnancy are seen as economic burdened and the mothers are subjugated for 'transferring the burden of their dependency.' This creates long-term detrimental effects on the psychology of both the mother and the child. This finding makes it evident that an unintended birth (due to inaccessibility towards contraceptives and abortions) has to be protected against negative economic, social and psychological implications in long-term.

Conclusion

In most cases the reason why woman consider their pregnancy as 'unwanted' and chooses to pursue an abortion because she feels that the society will confiscate her right to a normal life is she delivers the baby. She might want the baby, being a mother, as dearly as any other mother but might not want to bring it to life on fear of not being able to provide it a quality life. Therefore if the society feels that abortions are wrong, it must address the root causes which forces a woman to choose to go for an abortion and eliminate those root causes. (Kopaczynski, 2011). Moreover, abortion must only be discontinued in totality when the government and the privileged society can give social, psychological and economical assurance to both the mother and the child (Bachioch, 2011).