Outline
This research paper is an argumentative piece of work. It seeks to establish the legalities of carrying out abortion by looking at both sides of the discussion while supporting one side. It starts with a brief description of abortion followed by a discussion on whether mental and physical defects can be used as the basis for abortion. Then follows the part on whether children born out of unwanted pregnancies can lead happy lives. The discussion on the abortion rights of women prisoners looks at the injustices they face when pregnant and incarcerated. The last part is a conclusion, to sum up, the debate on abortion.
Abortion
In a broad definition, abortion is used in reference to the act of terminating a pregnancy by ejecting a fetus leading to its death or as a result of its death. The ejection of the fetus may occur naturally in a spontaneous manner due to health complications or can occur by means of artificial induction. When abortion is induced, the consent of the woman carrying the pregnancy is sought after first. The debate surrounding the question of whether it should be legalized elicits a lot of heated arguments in many countries. Some countries have gone into details of breaking down the circumstances in which the induction of abortion should be allowed while others, like the US have legalized it since 1973. Though legal in the US, individuals have had varying views on whether it is fit to abort, or in which circumstances abortion may be considered unavoidable. This led to the emergence of such groupings as pro-life, who advocate for the consideration of abortion as murder, and pro-choice who are of the view that women should have the right of choice of whether to or not terminate the pregnancy.
One such debate that has elicited mixed feelings is the question of whether mental or physical defects are enough reasons for carrying out an abortion, a concept called therapeutic abortion. They base their reason that the concern should be on the patient (be it the mother or the fetus) as opposed to their comfort in the social circles as a reason for aborting. Arguments in support of this categorization have supported their view with several justifications (Barbara 76). If the doctor’s examination supposes that the continuation of the pregnancy is bound to cause physical harm to the mother, then abortion has been recommended. The point here is to save the mother’s life by terminating the fetus’s life since the mother can always give birth to another child without forgetting the fact that chances are that the mother is likely to have other kids who are already depending on her. Termination of pregnancy has also been suggested where the woman suffers a physical or mental complication that is likely to be transferred to the infant. The idea here is to prevent the illness from being passed on to the unborn child.
Induced abortions have also been advocated for if the doctors indicate that the fetus seems to be severely disabled. The fetus is therefore gotten rid of to escape the agony of having to rear a disabled kid or risking having a child who would eventually not survive. Concerning the issue of mental health, it is said that women who are mentally disabled should undergo abortions or be forced to. It is also recommended that mentally ill women should be forced to submit to sterilization for paternalistic reasons. The argument to support his is that mentally ill women are not in a fit position to rear kids. Opposers of this school of thought that pregnancy should be terminated if there are possibilities of the kid being born with a disability have refuted this claim and argued that the fetus should be allowed to grow to birth since the doctor’s tests are often not 100% correct as evidenced to some kids being born healthy after the doctor had declared a problem. They also support their stand by pointing out that many children have been born with disabilities and live a normal life, while other disabilities can be medically corrected after birth (Jerome 98).
The question of whether children born in unwanted circumstances can lead a happy life forms a new discussion altogether. The basis is that if the mother felt that the pregnancy should not have happened or it should have been terminated at some point. Reasons for wanting to terminate the pregnancy can emanate from several issues ranging from rape, unplanned pregnancy, the woman not being ready to have a baby, relationship issues with the partner that makes the pregnancy unwanted, incest among other valid reasons. Careful consideration of the risks of abortion from health to social factors often leads to a woman’s change of mind to abort, but the child is born without the love and embraces it should get and is therefore prone to child abuse. It is from this that we derive the argument whether such a child can lead a normal life in the social setting (Lisa 117). Most developed countries were driven by the quest to eliminate child abuse thereby, legalizing abortion. Clearly, tagging someone’s chances of living to whether they are wanted elicits bad concepts of how we value life. On whether unwanted pregnancies then lead to the birth of unwanted babies, I’d say no basing my answer on the rate of abused children from wanted pregnancies with that of unwanted pregnancies, which indicates a small difference if any. A study revealed that most pregnancies are actually unwanted for the first one or two months. However, a general look at the children’s relationship with the parents regardless of the circumstances of birth, indicates that they are loved and admired equally. Chances are that the son or daughter who was as a result of unwanted pregnancy turns out to be the favorite child and the most loved (Michael 17). The initial feeling of a woman concerning the pregnancy is then said to contribute only to a minimum level how they come to feel about the child. Only two studies on this subject concluded the opposite of this, the first one from Sweden saying that a child born of unwanted pregnancy stands a risk of being socially and mentally alienated than his peers. The second study concluded that compulsory childbearing had adverse effects on the way the child was treated in their life growing up. The two studies have been discredited as having abused the use of scientific methods to arrive at conclusions. In an article seeking to establish the reason for the abuse of children by the parents, Illinois Dept. of Child and Family Services Newsweek, July 24, 1972, pointed out that parents who were themselves, victims, hostile environments of abuse as children often apply the same amount of violence used on them when the kids fail to meet their emotional needs, which are mostly unrealistic.
Common sense would dictate that with the legalization of abortion, the unwanted kids would be eliminated leaving only the wanted ones and hence no or less abuse on children. Contrary to this notion, the opposite has actually happened. Studies have indicated that in the US alone, the rate of abused children increased to about 25,000 after abortion was made legal as compared to 5,000 before the legalization of abortion. These statistics conclude our discussion on whether the undesired child can live a happy life, by proving that factors that contribute to the abuse of kids are not in any way related to the question of whether the pregnancy was wanted or not. When a child is born, the parents show the same degree of passion to all children regardless of how the child was conceived.
It is said that 6-10% of women who are brought into correctional facilities in the US alone are pregnant at that time. A reasonable number of the prisoners give birth while still in prison. While it is difficult to say the exact number of women who obtain abortions and the wantedness to carry out abortions among the incarcerated women, statistics show that in the US, half of the pregnancies are unwanted with 24% of the unwanted ending in abortion. It is therefore only logical to state that the same rate applies in prisons regarding the need to abort. The rate in correctional facilities is actually bound to be higher than the free women considering the fact that many women would prefer to give birth in better circumstances. The amendment of the US law to prohibit cruel treatment entitles the prisoners to proper health care. Another amendment that seeks to prohibit the state from denying a person privacy without instructions from a law order, gives the women prisoners the right to choose to abort even when imprisoned. While many correctional health providers are in sync with the fact that the prisoners are entitled to securing abortions, the logistics surrounding the provision and facilitating of the procedure are still wanting. While still emphasizing the importance of abortion among the prisoners, it has been revealed that prison employees use abortion as a weapon on women. In circumstances where the pregnancies result from abuse by prison guards, the women are forced to carry out abortions and punished if they hesitate. The mannerism in which abortion is regulated in the coercive prison atmosphere raises a lot of questions relating t the involvement of legal, constitutional, moral, political and financial inter-relatedness. Incarcerated pregnant women should be allowed access to proper care in the range of pregnancy services and the policies surrounding the establishment of access to abortion facilities be developed (Roth 67).
Abortion is a discussion that won’t go away in many countries concerning its legalities. While most developed countries have legalized it completely and put proper health measures to deal with post-abortion complications, other countries have a well-defined categorization of the exact circumstances that abortion is acceptable. Such nations tend to shift the focus of the discussion to the effects on health as opposed to social factors. After all, the proving of the fact that unwanted pregnancies do not necessarily result in abused children goes a long way in justifying that legalities of abortion do not solely depend on the argument that it leads to a society of happy children who are not subjected to abuse.
Works Cited
Barbara, Hinkson, Craig David, M. O’Brien. Abortion and American politics. Virginia: Chatham House, 1993.
Carolyn B, Surfrin Mitchell D, Judy C Chang. Incarcerated Women and Abortion Provision: A Survey of Correctional Health Providers. Minneapolis: University of California, 2009.
Jerome, Legge. Abortion policy: an evaluation of the consequences for maternal and infant health. New York: SUNNY Press, 2002.
Lisa Schwartz, Paul E. Preece, Robert A. Hendry. Medical ethics: A Case-Based Approach WB Saunders: Elsevier Health Sciences, 2002.
Michael Monahan. Abortion Facts – Information on abortion you can use. Snowflake: Heritage House ’76 Inc, 2006.
Roth, R. Do prisoners have abortion rights?: Feminist Studies. Baltimore: Market Place Suite, 2004.
Bibliography
Beverly W. Harrison. Our Right to Choose. Biddeford, ME: Beacon Pr, 1984.
Christine Watkins. The Ethics of Abortion. San Diego: Green haven Press, 2005.
“Crime-Abortion Study Continues to Draw Pro-life Backlash”. Ohio Roundtable Online Library.
The Pro-Life Infonet. 11 August 1999. Web.
Gavin Walsh. The Worst Acts of Violence, Abortion, Law And Ethics In Humanity. Columbia, MO: Athena Pr Pub Co, 2004.
Jennifer Baumgardener. Abortion & Life. New York: Akashic Books, 2008.
Mark Graber. Rethinking Abortion. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999
Sarah V., Sands J., JohnstonT. A., Russell S., Rimmer S., Could Some Fetocides be Avoided by More Prompt Referral After Diagnosis of Fetal Abnormality. New York: Informa Healthcare, 2002.
World Health Organization. Unsafe Abortion: Global and Regional Estimates of Unsafe Abortion and Associated Mortality in 2000. Web.