Abortion Debate in Ethics

Abortion Debate in Ethics

Abortion is the terminating pregnancy by the expulsion of the embryo or the fetus before it is time o ready to survive in the outside world. Abortion which occurs without being induced is called a miscarriage, but the abortion that occurs with deliberate interventions is called induced abortion. Whenever abortion is done but at late stages, and the fetus can survive outside, it is called new termination of pregnancy (Jones, Witwer & Jerman, 2019).  Safe abortions are considered the best procedures in the medical industry, but the opposite happens with unsafe abortions as they are the leading cause of maternal deaths. In the United States, abortion is considered safe compared to childbirth, which has been rated to be 14 times higher chances of death for the mothers.

Globally, over 56 million abortions are carried out, with 45% of them conducted unsafely. Between 2003 and 2008, the number of abortions slightly reduced with the introduction of family planning methods and birth control. And it even became safer as from 2008, almost half of the women were able to do safe abortions without limits like being asked reasons for the abortions (Jones, Witwer & Jerman, 2019). Abortion is regulated by how old the pregnancy is. It is restricted to early pregnancies as late pregnancies are fully grown and could survive. In the past, abortions were done via herbal medicines, massaging forcefully, use of very sharp tools, or any other traditional methods. These actions were, however, led on due to the abortion laws and cultural and religious views on the act.

The figure above shows the trend in abortions in the U.S from 1973 to 2014; this indicates that the number of abortions has dramatically reduced (Jones, Witwer & Jerman, 2019). Abortions statistics are always presented as the number of abortions and the number of women and their age to get more accurate information.

Abortion Debate in Ethics

Abortion is still considered a criminal activity in most countries. Abortion should be decriminalized; this is to say that early abortions should be accessed with ease when requested, while the late abortions should be available only with a valid reason and justification. The compelling reasons include the abnormality of the fetus if the health mother is threatened or the mother is having social issues that threaten her fetus. Strong ethical arguments have been making their way through to make early abortions legal.

A fetus can live outside the womb after 24 weeks in intensive care, and it also becomes conscious, which ethically makes both late and early abortion have very little difference. Suggesting that, if ethics and law could be lessened a little considering the attitude that the public has shown towards abortion (Stoll et al. 2015). Everyone should be able to come to terms with late abortion for justification because virtually a mother will only do a late abortion for an important reason. What this means is that all barriers to abortion, including legal, social, ethnic, and professional, should be done away with only those who have a severe issue behind their motive.

The abortion debate is continuing to be an emerging issue worldwide. It is greatly affected by the moral legal, and religious beliefs about induced abortion. These two players in the debate are those who care about life versus those who feel that everyone has freedom of choice. Pro-life and pro-choice as they call the movements. The pro-choice advocate that women have a right to decide whether to keep the pregnancy or to terminate it. Pro-life, on the other side, suggests that it is the right of the fetus to grow and be born. Both terms are always considered on social media as all have loaded justifications. All the two movements have different results that, at some point, influence the public making it difficult to reach an agreement of what is ethical.

Abortion is a morality issue for most of the people. They believe that ending the life of a person, in this case, the right of the fetus and the woman’s right over her own body.  This debate has even crossed boundaries and has become a political and legal issue (Stoll et al. 2015). In other countries, there are anti-abortion laws while abortion rights campaigners try to repel by seeking freedom, different jurisdictions have different by-laws, which range from the prohibition of the public to fund the procedure of abortion.

Currently, the world is still against abortion. Proposals in the debate range from the complete prohibition regardless of whether it is essential to the mother’s life or not to finish the legalization of public funding.  Evidence from recent researches has shown that most induced abortions are unwanted pregnancies, and this happens due to mental health problems (Stoll et al. 2015). Abortions that are done in the first trimester on pregnancies don’t cause any mental breakdown. Still, after that, the baby is always usually attached to the mother, and losing it causes a severe effect on the mother.

In conclusion, the time has proved that; the beginning of the privacy of a body is what has created a lot of unsafe abortions. Time has defined privacy. And intimacy leads to abortion. The ability of a woman to decide what it is they will do at what time.  Generally, it has been proven that abortion is ethically not accepted.