Abortion as an individual act and a universal social phenomenon is characterised by opposing values and interests.
The importance and interests in conflict are from different spheres of private and public life.
Their essence makes them relevant topics for consideration in ethics and philosophy, religion, demography, legal policy, psychology, medicine, etc., and many other scientific areas.
Likewise, they encroach on the space of an individual’s freedom, privacy, and universal concepts such as morality, legitimacy, justice, happiness, and concern, temporally speaking, both the present and the future.
To demystify the issue of legalizing abortion and successfully resolve it in the direction of its legalisation (increasing availability, education on medical aspects, possibilities, methods of execution, etc.), it is necessary to keep in mind the complexity of the whole situation.
The Pros of Legalizing Abortion
A right to safe abortion is a civilisational achievement of human rights.
Prohibitive reproductive rights laws can bring severe difficulties that could have been prevented at the outset, as you can read in essays on abortion at https://studydriver.com/abortion/.
States bear unnecessary costs for birth control, correcting the consequences of illegal abortion and caring for abandoned children.
They are obliged to develop mechanisms for preventing unwanted pregnancies, primarily through the availability and information on contraceptives and through the sexual education of young people.
Abortion, as a last resort when an unwanted pregnancy does occur, should be allowed, accessible and safe.
Researchers have concluded that abortion bans have increased illegal and female mortality throughout history.
According to an open document of the World Health Organization (WHO), 42 million abortions are performed each year, of which 22 million are in safe and 20 million in unsafe circumstances.
As a result, about 70,000 girls and women die each year worldwide. Also, about five million have serious health problems, many of them with permanent consequences.
Human rights organisations constantly warn that restrictive abortion laws are incompatible with human rights norms.
Safe termination of pregnancy is a woman’s right to life, freedom, privacy, and equality—the right not to be forced to undergo illegal, insecure, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
The independent decision of when, how many and whether to have children at all has enabled women to study, earn and leave marriages and relationships in which they no longer want to be.
Safe abortion is a lifeline for many of them.
Restrictions do not result in fewer abortions but force people to risk their lives and health searching for unsafe and illegal procedures.
If abortion becomes a crime, not only will there be a large number of unwanted pregnancies, women will not have protection mechanisms in cases of pregnancies caused by forced intercourse, but there will also be an increase in “alternative” abortion clinics.
We already know how specific segments that are not legalised work.
So, abortion will be performed in a hidden place and will probably by not so professional people in not-so-special conditions.
This can only lead to even more significant societal problems and not solutions without legalizing.
When considering legalizing abortion as morally wrong or right, we also need to address both pregnant women and unborn life.
If the fetus proves to have birth defects, what kind of life can both mother and child expect?
The Cons of Legalizing Abortion
Throughout history, the attitude has changed about whether the fetus is a unique entity, a human being, a personality.
The question of when human life begins is crucial to consider the cons of legalizing abortion.
The view that the fetus is a human being and that, consequently, abortion is the murder of a new human person, infanticide that can be justified by nothing but the need to protect the life of a pregnant woman, arouses strong emotions their willingness to you accept it unconditionally.
And, what can be blamed on the protagonists of this attitude, the people who are today united in a powerful international pro life movement?
Faced with the disappearance of entire nations and the declining natural increase, the debate on abortion has become highly polarised in the last two decades.
Proponents of the pro life view favour repealing the laws that allow abortion and believe that abortion is permitted only when a woman’s life is in danger.
States and societies (e.g. Ireland, Poland) that adhere to these views are primarily conservative societies with significant church influence.
Other related topics bring more light to physical health issues of legalizing abortion. Accordingly, the procedure is inhumane and may leave severe consequences to life.
Abortion is therefore approached only in exceptional cases since some of the difficulties can lead to permanent loss of fertility.
Moreover, the post-abortion syndrome is characterised by psychological changes, similar to repeated dreams where abortion is reproduced.
Symptoms such as avoiding emotional attachment, sleep disorders, depression, substance abuse, guilt, suicidal thoughts, or suicide attempts are also experienced.
There are also numerous cases of a married woman having an abortion without consulting her husband.
She is distraught that no one explains to the younger that due to abortion in their youth, they can have severe problems with sterility in later years, and because of that, many of them are left without offspring.
Also, the famous judgment in Roe v Wade took the most lives in the history of the judiciary and the history of the United States.
From the verdict in 1973 to the beginning of 2018, as many as 60 million unborn children died in abortions in the United States.
Instead of the promised feeling of control over one’s own body, which would “equalise” women with men, this “choice” brought remorse, sadness, and lasting pain to millions.
Conclusion
Regarding the scope of protection of fundamental human rights – the right to life, we are still facing numerous doubts and ambiguities.
One of those doubts is the issue of the right to abortion, which is the subject of multiple controversies among lawyers, philosophers, medical workers, theologians, and citizens.
Debates conducted in various scientific disciplines indicate the complexity of issues that must be legally regulated at the domestic and international levels.
Modern society must discuss the abortion legalizing topic and reconsider previous beliefs.
Many women who had abortions stated that they felt not as if they had wisely chosen one of the options offered but as if they had no choice.
Therefore, all actors in society must help women by giving them more choices, not just the death of an innocent child.