Medical Ethics. Should Abortion Be Banned?

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Abortion is said to have taken place if pregnancy is terminated either unintentionally or willfully. Willful abortion, performed in 7% of total cases, is mandatorily carried out to erase the effects of rape and incest, or to prevent serious health problems from occurring to a mother or her unborn child. The remaining 93% of cases of willful abortion involve females undertaking to be purposefully aborted as a response to social and personal problems. Today, 34 nations in the world have laws in place that legally permit abortion to be performed at any stage starting from conception until giving birth (Maisie). The United States is one such nation where abortion became legal in 1973 after the country’s Supreme Court landmark ruling in the Roe vs. Wade case (Cain) because the Fourteenth Amendment assures individuals of taking their own decisions on personal and ethical issues (Graber, 26). Controversy over the pros and cons of abortion has been raging ever since 1973 with pro-abortionists and feminists praising the Supreme Court’s ruling for various reasons, and detractors seeing the ruling as the unpleasant intrusion of secularism, narcissism and materialism into the American community besides turning women into ‘structural men’ (Ginsburg, 1&2). However, in the present situation of the world in general and the United States in particular, there is no doubt that abortion is a bad practice that deserves to be banned in all cases except where the mother’s life is in danger.

While there are many arguments against abortion, the following are the main ones that reveal why the practice is particularly heinous.

The arguments in favor of abortion have no solid foundation

Two of the main arguments favoring abortion are that it upholds women’s liberty and ability to fight against social discrimination (Ginsburg 1&2), and that it saves women from having to undergo clandestine operations that are expensive, illegal and most of all, extremely dangerous (Maisie) and could well lead to the death of the patient. Both these arguments have no solid foundation simply because with the massive advancement of science and technology, a large number of birth control methods are available to women to choose from. Even if one were to set aside the slightly uncertain abstinence method and the extreme method , there are still many safe and proven methods such as male and female condoms, diaphragms, cervical shields, implantable devices and perhaps the most commonly used oral contraceptive – The Pill, which in its latest version can even be effectively taken 72 hours after sexual intercourse. Given such tried and proven methods of birth control, one fails to see the necessity to overlook them and blindly give women the right to commit murder – that too, of their own flesh and blood.

There is unquestionable medical proof that the unborn child is a living human being

The United States Senate Bill 158 on the subject of human life states: “Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being” (Cain). Such a statement is total confirmation of the indisputable fact that an unborn child is a living human being as soon as he or she is conceived. Therefore, if an abortion is performed at any stage between conception and birth, it is willful murder of a human being, and those guilty of such murder include the mother, the doctor performing the abortion, and most of all the lawmakers of the country who do not enact laws to prohibit such murder.

Abortions are physically dangerous

Several medical problems have surfaced as a result of abortions. The major ones are Pelvic Inflammatory Disease , Ectopic pregnancies, infertility, miscarriage, premature births of unnaturally tiny-for-dates children in the future and scarred uterus needing hysterectomy (Cain). Such medical complications can scar the future of women to a great degree. A particularly unnerving truth is that such medical complications only arise from legal abortions in medically safe environments. While it may be less frequent in the United States, it is well known that a large number of abortions are clandestinely carried out at cheap prices in unhygienic environments in many parts of the world. The toll arising from such scenarios is much higher than in the case of legal operations, including the very real risk of death to the women operated on.

Indisputable link between abortion and breast cancer

Eminent breast cancer researcher Dr. Joel Brind confirmed in his research published in the November 1993 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association that women who have abortions before giving birth have a 50% extra chance of developing breast cancer as compared to other women. This is because abortion interrupts the natural process of estrogen formation in the breast cells of the woman. Dr. Brind’s revelations have been confirmed by findings in Brazil, Finland, China, Russia, and Estonia. Going one step further, Russia and Estonia which have the highest global rates of abortion, witnessed a 300% spurt in breast cancer cases as a result of abortion (Cain). This problem takes on terrifying proportions as far as the United States is concerned in the light of the revelations that federal agency personnel and academics in the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute have deliberately hidden information about the exacerbated dangers of breast cancer caused by abortions. In addition to this, they have also been guilty of unscrupulously giving wrong information to patients – for example the NCI website declared that estrogen levels reduce during the first 3 months of pregnancy, whereas in actuality it rises by as much as 2000% (Lanfranchi).

The very real risk of developing breast cancer, coming atop the other lesser dangerous medical complications discussed earlier herein, focuses the spotlight brightly on the danger to the very lives of women undergoing an abortion. Everyone knows that cancer is a dreaded disease, which, along with other ailments like HIV/AIDS and Multiple Myeloma brings death because man has not yet found a cure for them. Therefore, women having abortions may succeed in killing their babies, but they also face the chilling prospect of soon exiting from life themselves courtesy of breast cancer.

All religions denounce abortion

The Bible directly prohibits abortion. Psalm 139:13-16 declares that God superintends life in the womb of a woman, and Exodus 21:22-25 which stipulates a punishment of ‘life for killing an unborn child (Cole). Similarly, Chapter 17, Verse 31 of the Holy Quran specifically declares: “Kill not your children [for] killing them is a great sin” (El Ashi). The stance of these two holy books representing the two leading world religions today against abortion is echoed in the holy books of all other religions. Although it was not the case during the early times when the Bible and Quran were written, there are now many other less controversial methods of controlling reproductive capabilities available at very reasonable prices, making abortion needless.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it must be admitted that abortion, when viewed in the light of two of the most highly prized concepts of mankind , besides being encumbered by several other drawbacks as discussed above, cannot – logically, medically, or by any other definition – be pronounced as ‘good.’ The only instance when it can be condoned is when the life of the mother is threatened. In the U.S, the legalization of abortion is nothing short of hypocritical and scandalous because the sanctity of a Senate Bill protecting life in all forms is shattered by a mere court verdict that is being gleefully used as a means to live promiscuously and irresponsibly. The very fact that 50% of abortion cases in the country involve young women below the age of 25 (Maisie) and that most abortion patients are unmarried with very little sexual experience (Ginsburg, 2) reveals that our younger generation is blatantly using abortion to deviate from morality. This undeniable fact becomes frightening when one considers that an unpleasant cycle has been created , one that is sure to worsen in time to come given the unsavory support promiscuity is and will increasingly receive from substance abuse . The esteemed lawmakers of our nation can stop the rot by prohibiting abortion {‘airbrushing’ techniques like enacting federal and state laws prohibiting the use of government money to fund abortions (Graber, 7) is simply laughable}. But as long as they continue shirking their responsibility, they must be prepared to bear the entire blame for not only violating the principle that the country’s founding fathers placed at the heart of the Constitution (Graber, 7) but for allowing future generations to slip and slide through an increasingly immoral life.

References used

Cain, Mariam. “Prolife: 10 Arguments against Abortion.” Africa Christian Action. 2003. Web.

Cole, Steven J. “Abortion Information.” Abortionfacts.com. 2004. Web.

El Ashi, Arafat. “Islam and Abortion.” Crescentlife.com. Web.

Ginsburg, Faye D. “Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community.” California: University of California Press. 1989.

Graber, Mark A. “Rethinking Abortion: Equal Choice, the Constitution, and Reproductive Politics.” New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1996.

Lanfranchi, Angela. “The Federal Government and Academic Texts as Barriers to Informed Consent.” Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons, Vol. 13, No.1. 2008. Web.

Maisie, M. “Pros and Cons of Abortion.” Buzzle.com. 2009. Web.

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