Abortion: Women's Rights

Résumé du document

Picture this situation in a grandmother's old tale. Her story reflects perfectly one of the main problems of illegal abortion. Way back in 1920, when she was 16, her friend was pregnant as a result of incest. Incest refers to having sexual relations between persons who are so closely related that their marriage is illegal or forbidden by custom. As it was not a favorable condition for a woman at that point of time, the grandmother decided, along with her sister, to help her, by putting something sharp into her womb to perform a kind of an abortion. However, the friend died after the act.

The sad part of this story is that such incidents are commonplace in the present world as well.

Statistics reveal that only 39.3 % of the world population lives in countries where abortion is authorized as a choice made by women, with restrictions of time (in terms of viability, as we will see later). This means that 71% of women from industrialized countries can choose to interrupt their pregnancy if it is not desired.
However, many countries do not authorize abortion except in drastic cases, in conditions where there are health problems for the woman (13.8 %) or when their life is in danger (25.7%). Poland changed its liberal laws to very restrictive ones. Latin-American countries emphasized the restrictive character of their laws.

In conservative countries, it is quite hard to think about abortion in a liberal way. This is the case of many countries, such as England, Spain, USA and Ireland.

Abortion is illegally practiced on 20 million women each year, while officially we know that 42 million of women undergo the process each year. This represents almost half of the abortions made in the world each year. Moreover, the saddening part is that in addition to being extremely expensive, it is performed under very bad conditions, leading to death in a lot of cases.

Extraits

[...] In 1982, abortion was refundable in France. Basically, it is a chance given to women to choose how to live their life, as well as to decide when they are ready to bear a child. It is not only good for the woman, but also for those fetuses which could have been children with health problems, or even not well bred because of psychological problems (in case of women who were raped) or financial issues. This represents a real step forward for women and pregnancy. [...]

[...] Abortion remains perceived as something bad, even if it's no longer illegal. Ireland is also a good example in the sphere of considering public opinion. Since 1983, with the passage of the Pro-Life Amendment, the unborn child has an explicit right to life from conception. In 1992, public opinion was directly touched by a case, named the case where a young girl threatened to commit suicide if she could not abort. She was sent to another country to practice an abortion. [...]

[...] Abortion is not an easy process. Various details discussed in the show illustrate clearly that this point needs to be improved. There are various measures being done to legalize the process of abortion, but a lot of work still needs to be done. Moreover, huge questions still exist as women's right to choose is not yet achieved. II. The question of Viability What is viability? The question about the date Questions about the viability of the fetus were also raised in the show. [...]

[...] Abortion and Women's Rights I. Legalization of abortion Death from illegal abortion Picture this situation in a grandmother's old tale. Her story reflects perfectly one of the main problems of illegal abortion. Way back in 1920, when she was 16, her friend was pregnant as a result of incest. Incest refers to having sexual relations between persons who are so closely related that their marriage is illegal or forbidden by custom. As it was not a favorable condition for a woman at that point of time, the grandmother decided, along with her sister, to help her, by putting something sharp into her womb to perform a kind of an abortion. [...]

[...] Most of the time, abortions are made during the first trimester. In France it's even performed in the first two months. Later, it becomes more complicated to be done for ethical reasons. As the question of whether a viable fetus is already a baby or not, arises, it leads to further complicated scenarios in which the question of murder arises in our minds and it is quite difficult to make a clear law on that point. As a consequence, most women can easily abort during the first trimester, but it became more complicated later and even impossible in many countries. [...]