Mention the word abortion and a lot of people begin to get uncomfortable. It such a rife subject even in developed nations that political ambitions can be made or broken depending on one's stance about this. Unfortunately so many people have failed to realize that this is quite a private subject for women. There are circumstances that stem up and would make a woman have to make a serious decision about her health and her future. Therefore no socio-political, cultural or religious factor should be made to take the place of her decision. A woman should have the right to choose whether she wants to keep a child or not. After all it is her body, her health and her future that is in jeopardy.
It is however unfortunate that a lot of countries continue to criminalize abortion even when the health of the mother is at stake. For instance an Irish woman named Savita Halappanavar. She had a miscarriage and needed urgent medical attention. Unluckily for her, she was rushed to a Catholic hospital that refused to carry out an abortion for her. Even though that was the only procedure that would have saved her life. She got blood poisoning and lost her life and that of her baby.
Pregnancy is a very risky condition and a lot of women are going to run into complications during this period and an abortion is going to be their only saving grace. To cancel this option before hand for them is very inhumane thing to do as far as I’m concerned.
In another sad antithetical case, women in some countries are being forced to get abortions when they clearly do not want such procedures carried out on them. In China, in order to uphold the one child to one family policy, women are forced to remove subsequent unplanned pregnancies. In India, women are made to abort pregnancies when the fetus is a girl. It is referred to as female feticide. Recently a new born baby girl was found in a dumpster and had to be rushed to the hospital to received urgent medical attention.
There are other cases where a woman should be allowed to have an abortion. For example if she is not ready, financially, to support a child it is very unhealthy for such a lady to be forced to carry that pregnancy to term. Many ladies have had to quit school in order to take up poor paying jobs to support a child they were not ready to have. For the welfare of mother and child, young ladies should be allowed to make decisions on whether they want to keep a pregnancy or not.
Most ladies also get pregnant from horrifying experiences like rape and to force such a lady to keep a child that will only remind her of an unfortunate and painful child is very wicked. Most people will argue that abortion involves taking the life of an innocent child but they are just a mass of undeveloped tissues that are not even a complete human yet. It doesn't even have a developed nervous system yet and as such cannot feel pain. And it is even sad that most religions try to guilt people into keeping a pregnancy at the expense of the mother's life. The mother’s decision should ways hold supreme as it is her body and she should have the final decision on what she wants to do with it. And she can always live to have healthy babies in the future.
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(images courtesy of pixabay)