Why abortion should be legal
| Subject: | 🏥 Health Care |
| Type: | Persuasive Essay |
| Pages: | 3 |
| Word count: | 867 |
| Topics: | 👨🏼⚕️ Abortion, Ethics, Health, 🟡 Morality, 👌 Pro-Choice Abortion, 🤷🏻♀️ Ethical Dilemma |
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The issue of abortion has remained contentious all through the recent history of the world. Several participants in the contention have raised different opinions in support or in opposition of abortion. In a major development in recent years, there have been efforts to illegalize abortion. The stakeholders opposed to abortion have raised legal issues and linked abortion to the denial of the right to life that is always guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and Freedoms of the constitution (Kero et al.). However, another equally animated section of stakeholders has remained adamant that abortion should be the choice of the woman bearing the pregnancy. Despite all the different perspectives, it is held herein that abortion should be legal and all women should be allowed to decide without any form of coercion or persuasion from other parties about whether to keep or initiate abortion procedures to terminate a pregnancy. The current paper will detail the main reasons regarding the view on why abortion should be legalized and why those calling for its illegalization lack the ethical and moral grounds to make such a call.
The woman should be guaranteed an unalienable right to choose the way the treat their body. Since a pregnancy develops in the uterus of a woman, it is important to ensure that the woman choses on her own whether to allow the pregnancy to develop in her body or not. The democratic principles that have been adopted in most countries in recent years have always allowed individuals to make decisions in a lawful manner. As long as the decisions that an individual make do not affect others negatively, such a person in protected by law regarding any such decisions (Pinter). As such, a woman deciding to keep or lose a pregnancy through abortion is a decision that should be protected. It is clear that such a decision does not affect any person, which then requires the democratic principles of law application to be implemented to ensure that such an individual is guaranteed the freedom to make their own decisions.
The argument that life begins immediately after conception has also been raised in the debate of the legality of abortion. The argument that the fetus is an individual should not arise because scientific inquiry has confirmed that it cannot survive on its own without being in the uterus of a woman. The definition of a person involves the fact that they can survive on their own without the reliance of another for life. Therefore, since the fetus survives only through the conditions in the uterus of a woman, it is evident that they are not person, hence the claim of their right to life as persons should not hold. In this context, the right to life in such a debate should focus on the body of the involved woman who is the person whose life is independent (Cook et al.). Therefore, the woman should be allowed to choose whether the fetus benefits from the conditions in her uterus or not instead of forcing them to keep such the pregnancy against their will.
The stakeholders in the debate who are arguing for the illegalization of abortion have suggested that it should only be allowed under specific circumstances. However, the in the application of law, issues of restriction have to be abstract, meaning that any illegal issue has no circumstances under which it can be illegal. As such, if abortion is declared illegal, it should always remain to be illegal at all times. The argument that abortion should be illegal in one point and legal in some other instances leads to confusion, which may influence lacunas in the application the laws that could be developed in such a topic. Therefore, the lack of a strong ground of argument raises issues regarding those arguing that abortion should be illegal. The argument to illegalize abortion and legalize it in some instances is a clear depiction of the lack of standards from among the proponents of illegalizing abortion. If abortion was to be illegalized, those calling for it to be so should be ready to deny instances in which it may be legal. Therefore, the lack of standards leads to the notion that those calling for the illegalization of abortion lack the ethical and moral grounds in law to make such a call.
In conclusion, it is clear the contention in the debate regarding the legalization of abortion is set to hold for several more years. The clash of the conservative and progressive views has further complicated the efforts to end the debate. Clearly, to address the issues under contention requires that the involved stakeholders should conduct research to ascertain the facts involved in the debate (Giubilini and Minerva). Additionally, since the modern societies have accepted democracy as the aspired system of governance, a referendum should be called and the members of the society be allowed to choose between legalizing or illegalizing abortion. Finally, the current paper, having considered the arguments from both sides of the debate, concludes by stating that abortion should be legal, which will go a long way in helping sustain the lives and health conditions who may be seeking abortion services secretly once it is illegalized.
- Cook, R. J. et al. “Legal Abortion for Mental Health Indications.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 95.2 (2006): 185–190. Web.
- Giubilini, Alberto, and Francesca Minerva. “After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?” Journal of Medical Ethics 39.5 (2013): 261–263. Web.
- Kero, A. et al. “Legal Abortion: A Painful Necessity.” Social Science and Medicine 53.11 (2001): 1481–1490. Web.
- Pinter, B. “Medico-Legal Aspects of Abortion in Europe.” The European journal of contraception & reproductive health care : the official journal of the European Society of Contraception 7.1 (2002): 15–9. Web.
