Abortion: A Serious Challenge between Morality and Women’s right [draft]

Having an abortion is a common phenomenon which can be seen around the world. Taking an example from our society, September is called as a month of abortion in Taiwan. It is also a controversial issue when it comes to the election of president in America last year. There is also a report of BBC radio website indicates that one in four UK women have had a termination and the number is on the rise. Thus, the problem that how to make the choice between morality and women’s right comes to my mind. Personally, I approve that women have the right to perform the operation of abortion. No woman would make such decision casually, and we should respect women’s right of terminating or proceeding with the pregnancy.

My standpoints have in common with Obama, the President-elect in America, who thinks that abortion is about women’s right. According to the videos I found out from Youtube, Obama claimed that the law of limiting abortion would influence, even harm women’s rights. In another report of Yahoo news online, it mentioned that an Australian state, Victoria, is going to pass a bill which give women the sole choice of whether to have abortion or not. Currently, woman there can abort only when the doctor thinks pregnancy would harm the health of the mother.

From the other points of view, the anti-abortion groups insist on the human rights of the unborn babies. They hold a perspective that abortion is equal to murder the babies. The children should be treated as independent humans even they are still in the womb. From the opposite standpoints above, we can understand that the issue is really a dilemma for governments to deal with. The reason for them to be against to abortion is mainly by morality. However, do women have no rights to abort if she does not want to have a child? Does woman who get pregnant unexpectedly have to abort her baby covertly in illegal clinic?
To solve the problems, we should know the reason why women choose to have abortion at first. A news documentary on BBC radio website investigated the women who had chosen to have abortion. Tracey said that “I don't regret what I did and I still don't regret not telling my parents as I know they would have taken control, 16 is too young to have a baby, you are still so young yourself, go out and enjoy yourself before settling down, I now have 2 children and have the maturity to enjoy them.” In a news report of BBC website discussed about the reasons for abortion. Women may decide to have abortion for social reasons such as poverty. The mother is unable to cope with a child, and the mother is too young to have a child. The child is the result of crimes such as rape, incest, and child abuse. Under the situation, it is quite hard for a woman to keep the pregnancy. In addition, mother’s health including mental health, the serious physical handicaps of the children, the birth control policy of the government, and the parents’ gender selection and so forth. These are the general factors for woman to choose abortion.

After understanding the reasons and motivations for a woman to have abortion, we found out that it is really complicated for a woman to abort her child. We can not just define abortion as murder the babies, because we do not know what difficulties the woman exactly goes through. If those anti-abortion groups consider about the unique situation of each woman, maybe they would change their ideas. To have an abortion is never a simple choice for women. It is not just a question to give birth to the child or not. What women should face is the responsibility. Once you choose to give birth to the child, you are responsible to keep him or her and educate him or her. A large amount of time and money are needed, the parents should be prepared of their mental condition, too. If the woman’s economic situation does not allow her to keep her child, what can she do after her child come to the world? Abandon her baby or send her baby to an orphanage?

I believe that there must be many difficulties for a mother to make the decision of aborting her baby. If the government restricts women’s abortion rights, it may damage women’s health and become a greater problem to the society. Misunderstanding often happens when people forget to think for others. In the online resources of a magazine named Crisis has a report which introduces the march about women who strives for their abortion rights. Women are struggling to get their right of choosing whether they should abort or not through themselves. Actually, women are the protagonist of the problem, and they should have the dominance to make the decision. If people could stand by women’s side and try to respect every woman’s unique situation, maybe the problem would not trigger such a great dispute.

In my opinion, abortion is women’s basic right. To discuss about the part of human right, let’s take a look of the investigation first. According to a research paper “Developments in Laws on Induced Abortion: 1998-2007” of Journal of International Family Planning Perspectives, we can know the main trend of the legislation about abortion in different countries during 1998 to 2007. It is obvious that liberalization of abortion laws is the main trend during the last 10 years around the world. More countries have broadened the grounds of legal abortion. Since 1998, sixteen countries have increased the number of grounds on which abortions may be legally performed. Even the countries have prohibited abortion by its laws allow a part of abortion when pregnancy would hurt the mother's health. Only two countries added restriction to the laws of abortion.

The research paper supports my points of view. Banning abortion under all the conditions is impossible. If the government liberalizes the laws and makes the aborted procedures more accessible, it can reduce women's maternal mortality or morbidity. It also increases woman's human rights, because woman can be the master of her own bodies. They would not be forced to accept the child even when the child come from rape, incest, and so forth. Women are in the first place of this issue of abortion. Restrict abortion not only harm women’s human rights, but also make the secret and dangerous abortion increase. By the normal access to abortion can help women stay in a safer condition. They do not have to worry about the danger of accepting a secret procedure. If a woman considers to aborting her child, the government should provide her enough information and the result of abortion instead of limiting women’s rights. As the woman understand what abortion is, how the procedure be performed, and think about why she choose to abort her baby, she would make the most appropriate decision herself.

It can be questioned that are those who opposed to abortion really caring about women’s circumstances? Have they ever stood in women’s position? In an article “The Female Nature: A Woman's Destiny?” on the Journal of Humanist takes partial-birth abortion for example. The Congress of United States prohibits partial-birth because they think that the procedure is inhumane. There is a Justice wrote about why abortion should be banned. They suppose that woman would--and should--regret for having an abortion. Abortion violates woman’s motherhood. Therefore, the government should prohibit abortion. The other article “Abortion: we need compassion, not dogma” on the Journal of New Statesman mentions about the “pro-life” campaigners. Their aim is to stop abortion completely. Even when the limit time of abortion is cut from 24 to 20 weeks, their concern is not to save the babies who are terminated between 20 and 24 weeks, but to use a lower limit as a stepping stone to an outright ban. Most of them are motivated by religious or philosophical purpose. From the two articles, we can see that woman’s thoughts are usually to be neglected. The government, humanist, and the clergy intend to limit woman’s right to have abortion. Regardless of each woman’s unique situation, what women need is usually ignored. Why can they force woman to accept their arbitrary decision? When it comes to a woman’s set of circumstances, we should respect the necessity of woman to make such choice in the first place. There is no denying that woman is the person who involved. However, most of the legislative commissioners who decided the policy are males. Did they really know what woman confront? Or they just limit woman’s rights by the slogan of humanism?

Morality and humanism is the main standpoints for those who oppose to abortion. The anti-abortion groups care about the unborn baby more than the mother who is pregnant. Nevertheless, the role mother plays is actually the most important one. The mother has to face all the problems when she decides to give birth to her baby. What women need is compassion, instead of the dogma and condemnation. Anti-abortion groups condemn women’s behavior of aborting the babies, but such condemnation is meaningless if they can not provide any way to solve women’s complicated problems under each particular condition.

Instead of feeling regretful to have a baby, it is much better to have a correct idea about sex, especially for those juveniles. Our society should provide more information about sex. People should make use of condoms and contraceptive drugs to prevent pregnancy if they do not want to have children.