LEGALIZING ABORTION
Everything has its own both sides:
positive and negative, and abortion is no exception. Until now, abortion is
still one of the most persistently controversial issues in the world generally,
also in Vietnam. People usually foist murder on abortion without considering
its benefits: guaranteeing the health and lives of pregnant women, stopping the
delivering pregnancies of victims of sexual assaults and contributing to crime
reduction. Therefore, we think that abortion should be legalized for its
practical utilization.
First of all, it can not be denied that
abortion is significantly responsible for the recent crime reduction. Some
estimates report that legalized abortion accounted for as much as 50% of the
drop in murder, property crime, and violent crime in the USA between the 1970s
and 1990s (Donohue & Levitt, 2001 ). The answer for this remarkable
statistic can be explained as follows: teenage girls, unmarried women, and poor
women are most likely to have unintended pregnancies, but criminalising
abortion forces these women, the reluctant mothers into continuing giving birth
to unwanted babies. Actually, these children are often raised in poor
conditions with parental neglectfulness and lack of love, which increases their
chances of leading criminal lives in
adulthood (p.381)
Besides, abortion is less physically
dangerous to a woman than carrying and delivering a child.“ The risk of death
from an early abortion is 1 in 500,000 for pregnancy and childbirth the risk of
death is 1 in 14,000.” (Insel & Roth, 1998, p163). Abortion does guarantee
health and lives of the mothers in case continuous pregnancies and deliveries
cause death for the women. The fact remains that maternal mortality ratios have
risen significantly. "Maternal mortality ratios have increased from 6.6
deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births
in 2006."(“Maternal Health in the U.S”, n.d, para. 4)
In addition, the fact that women who
are victims of rape or incest and prone to pregnant by this violent act is one
of the very first reasons for the women themselves to have abortions. "Of
a national sample of more than 4,000 women, there were 34 rape related pregnancies,
two of which were caused by a father or stepfather and four by another
relative" (Julie & Kathy , 2000, p.4). The notably latent dangers is
that if these pregnancies still continue, the new-born babies can suffer from
disabilities, incurable genetic diseases such as leukemia, Down Syndrome, heart
diseases, obesity, and even be infected HIV.
The people who are firmly in opposition
with legalized abortion condemn abortion
with some significant reasons. Firstly, abortion at any stages of pregnancy
constitutes killing innocent babies. Pro-lifers think that unborn babies who
are human beings from the moment of conception have a fundamental right to live
(David, 1971) . Additionally, according to Insel and Roth (1998), abortion
actually causes the serious mental and physical effects on women’s health.
Moreover, another undeniable evidence is that abortion is one of the major
causes of gender imbalance, especially in Asian countries. However, a woman do have constitutional right and freedom
to choose abortion, which recognized by the US Supreme Court in the 22nd Jan, 1973 by Roe v. Wade , the wide variety of laws were
written specifically to protect born human beings and their property throughout
the world. ”Moreover, there is
virtually no legal precedent for applying such laws to fetuses. Even when
abortion was illegal, it had a lesser punishment than for murder” (Arthur, 2001,p3). Furthermore, abortion should be
legalized because it is an effective tool to control the population, also the consequences
of world population explosion such as malnutrition, starvation, poverty, lack
of medical and educational services, pollution and conflict over basic
comodities like air, water, earth. (Paul, 1968)
Killing does not always mean mercilessness,
inhumanity, or even extermination. On the contrary, killing somehow does
constitute a choice for morality maintenance and supporting life. And abortion
is one of many moral ending-life ways. Aborting an innocent babies can sound
cruel but nurturing unwanted babies in a neglectful environment then turning
them into unwanted citizens are much more inhumane, and choosing the unborn
babies regardless the mothers' lives is not different from diminishing women in
any situations. Finally, it is believed that the women themselves have rights
to make decision whether to continue their pregnancies or not, and no power in
the world is eligible for enforcing them to deliver babies at the risk of
losing seriously their careers, their health, even their own lives.
*References
Arthur, J. (2001). Personhood: Is a fetus a human beings ? .Retrieved: November 17,
2012 from
http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/print-friendly/fetusperson.shtml
David, B. (1971). A defense of abortion. United States:
Princeton University Press.
Donohue, J. J., & Levitt, S. D. (2001). The Impact of
Legalized Abortion on Crime. The Quarterly
Journal of Economics. Retrieved: May, 2001, from http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf
Insel,
P. M., & Roth, W. T. (1998). Core
concepts in health (8th ed.). California: Mayfield Publishing
Company.
Julie, M., & Kathy, H. (2000) .The ‘HARD CASES’ of abortion: A PRO-LIFE
RESPONSE. United States: Family Research Council publishers.
Maternal Health in the U.S (n.d.).
Retrieved: November 17, 2012, from http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/campaigns/demand-dignity/maternal-health-is-a-human-right/maternal-health-in-the-us
Paul, R., & Ehrlich, A. E.
(1968). The population bomb. New
York: Ballantine Books publishers.
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