TIME TO REVISIT THIS IMPORTANT DISCUSSION
BY: LEXI COYLE MCDONALD
LIFESTYLE HEAD
All sources linked to images.
An abortion is a medical procedure that terminates a pregnancy and is a basic healthcare right for women, and anyone else who can get pregnant, worldwide. The need for an abortion is common, and the reasons why a pregnancy should be ended vary greatly from person to person. However, access to safe, legal abortions is not guaranteed for those who need it. Restricting access to these services can and will have devastating impacts for countless citizens.
Are abortions really that common? One in four women will get an abortion at some point in their lives. In 2011, almost half of all United States pregnancies were unintended. Nearly half of those unintended pregnancies are aborted. Women living in poverty have a rate of unintended pregnancy that is five times higher than that of upper or middle-class incomes. The unintended pregnancy rate has been dropping with the Title X family planning programs and better access to contraceptives, but it is nowhere near zero.
So, what would happen if we criminalized abortions? Would that make abortions stop? Actually, preventing women from having an abortion does not make their need for an abortion stop, so they will be compelled to seek out services that are unsafe, especially those who cannot afford to travel or receive private care. This disproportionately affects those who are marginalized, including women and girls in low-income households, refugees, transgender citizens, intersex citizens, Indigenous and minority women, and women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or anything similar. An estimated 25 million unsafe abortions are carried out every year worldwide, and they are the third leading cause of death for maternal deaths worldwide.
This also leads to roughly five million largely preventable disabilities with a cost of treating the consequences of those operations at 553 million US dollars every year. This number would likely be 375 million US dollars higher if the treatments for these women were actually met.
How can we prevent this from being the harsh reality of many people?
Some steps that have been proven to reduce maternal deaths and preventable disabilities are inclusive sexuality education, distribution and accessibility to effective contraceptives, timely healthcare for possible complications, and safe, legal abortions. Barriers to safe abortions are restrictive laws, poor avalibility of services, high cost, stigma, objection of healthcare professionals, and unnecessary requirements (ex. long, mandatory waiting periods, misleading information, etc…).
Why do people want abortions anyways? As stated before, reasons vary, but some of the most common are that a pregnancy would interfere with education or work, would be too expensive for a family to handle (even just the care pre-birth), would interfere with the parents’ ability to care for other children or persons who are dependent upon them, would be too much for a single parent or for a family having relationship problems, physical problems with the mother’s health, physical problems with the fetus’ health, or that the person feels to young to have a child. All of these reasons and others are completely valid. Not everyone wants to be or is capable of being a good parent, and not everyone who wants to be a parent can be a parent at this very moment.
Isn’t abortion considered a sin? The religious aspects have been hotly debated for a very long time, so it is hard to find an agreement. The bible requires the death penalty for 60 specific criminal violaters, but abortion is not among those 60. God killed millions of unborn children and their pregnant mothers in the Noachian deluge, the conquest of Canaan, the incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in other major slaughters described in the bible. All the people were exterminated including those who were pregnant, as there are no stated exemptions for fetuses. Genesis 2:7 declares that God breathed life into man’s body, meaning that life/personhood begins at first breath, which is outside of the womb. For anyone who says that they can make an exception for rape, incest, or possible resulting physical harm, in other words says that abortion is acceptable (that the “murder of unborn children” is acceptable), but only when the anti-abortion politicians say so. In the time after Roe v. Wade, over 6,000 acts of violence have been committed by Christians, including the murder and maiming of healthcare professionals. Opponents to abortions are oftentimes against programs that are proven to decrease the number of abortions, such as contraception and sex education. In addition, if the fertilized egg is a person, as many claim, then God murders an even greater number of unborn children. This is because most fertilized eggs either fail to implant in the uterine wall and pass out of the body or do implant, yet are spontaneously aborted by the body. This results in less than a third of fertilized eggs surviving to term. Even if abortion was condemned by God, why should one person’s religion force others to live by it?
Evidently, abortions are a human right. Whatever someone’s reason for needing these services, they should be able to have access. Every person should receive comprehensive sex education and the ability to obtain contraception. No matter one’s stance on this subject or one’s religion, everyone should have the right to choose and do whatever is best for themselves and for their future.
All numerical/religious data is from these websites:
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