Should Abortion be Legal

Abortion is the voluntary termination of a pregnancy so that it does not result with a delivery. The topic is controversial in its essence as it deals with whether it is right or wrong to have a say when it comes to carrying out a pregnancy until the end and if people are allowed to terminate it in any way, killing the conceived fetus. The topic is a painful one for people who find themselves in such a dilemma where they ought to take such have a decision. Most individuals have their opinion about it, most are decided, with or against, and a minority of people remains undecided and is the category of people who face moral dilemmas in such cases whereas others already decided long ago. In the following, we would be presenting cases where abortion might be acceptable and as a legal right and another supportive cases against abortion.

This paper was first of all based on the following articles that will be either supporting or criticizing abortion:”Abortion and Health Care Ethics” by John Finnis, “Abortion,Ethics,Conscience and Choice by the Abortion Review”. In addition to “How is the ethics of stem cell research different from the ethics of Abortion ? by Elizabeth Harman” and finally “Prenatal diagnosis and abortion for congenital abnormalities: is it ethical to provide one without the other?” by Ballantyne, Newson and Ashcroft.

According to one of the articles, every human individual is equal to every other human person in respect of the right to life. In other words, every living human individual must be treated as a person and every innocent human person has the right never to be killed. (Finnis, 2015). The second article describes who is ethical, who is moral. The article by Harman was mainly about ethics regarding abortion and the last article was related to case study in Brazil & Iran.

Regarding legality, according to abortion. Some societies ban abortion almost completely while others permit it in certain cases. The age of the fetus, time and the circumstances are taken into consideration.

In some societies and at some times, abortion was legally accepted is some cases as the following : For the sake of the mother’s health including mental health, where pregnancy is the result of a crime (inclusing rape, child abuse and incest), where the child of the pregnancy would have an ' unacceptable quality of life' such as cases where the child would have serious physical handicaps, genetic problems and serious mental defects. In addition to other social reason as poverty or mother being too young to cope with child and finally it might be a matter of government policy as in China for example, as a way of regulating population size, regulating groups within a population and. improving the population. (Berer, 2017)

Abortion laws vary widely by country, some have banned entirely abortion but they reconsider life-saving abortions. Giving an very recent example concerning that matter, Alabama today is proposing a new law that makes abortion punishable by up to 99 years in prison. (Donovan,2019). Some have described that decision as “death sentence for women and in case of a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother. By taking this decision, Alabama became the latest US state willing to use strict abortion bans. Its is important to mention that in that law, abortion will be considered at a crime at any stage of pregnancy.Even in case of rape and incest, abortion will be considered as a crime as soon as the woman knows she is pregnant. The only exception would be if the mother's health was in jeopardy. Other than Alambama, In recent weeks Kentucky and Mississippi approved bans on abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which happens as soon as the sixth week of pregnancy. Many women, however, don't realize they're pregnant until much later than this. (Donovan,2019)

While abortions are legal under certain conditions in most countries, these conditions vary widely. According to the United Nations World Abortion Politics in 2013, abortion is allowed in most countries in order to save a woman's life, about 97%. Other commonly-accepted reasons are preserving physical 68 percent) or mental health (65 percent). In about half of countries abortion is accepted in the case of rape or incest (51 percent), and in case of foetal impairment (50 percent). (Gennarini,2019)

As a counter argument, today some NGO’s as IPAS (A global non-profit organization that works to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and to end deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion) (Ipas,2019), are trying to make laws to support abortion. According to them, laws should not be used to scare, shame or imprison a woman for ending a pregnancy. But in some countries, abortion is considered a crime and women are arrested and punished by the state for making a decision about their own reproductive health.

In countries where abortion is illegal, many people are affected. Every year women are thrown in prison for illegal abortion and their families are punished with them. Abortion is a health care not a prime.

One of the most shocking news related to abortion is a game, a video game “Doom Baby Fetus” where players try to kill unborn babies. (Vaquez,2018)

According to Crux, the new video game, “Doom Fetito,” has players race to procure an abortion-inducing drug by battling Catholic priests, Nazi-like police and pro-life women. Once those “opponents” have been conquered, players are supposed to kill “the boss,” which is an unborn child, in the “Doom”-style game.(Martin,2018) The game developer said she was inspired to mock Argentina’s pro-life movement after seeing pictures on Twitter of a 20-foot cardboard baby during recent Argentine pro-life rallies, according to the report. After players defeat the “villainous” child, the game displays the message: “You defeated fetito! Give this misoprostol to those in need so they might defeat it, too!” Misoprostol is an abortion-inducing drug that could become easily accessible in pharmacies if Argentina passes the pro-abortion bill. (Vaquez,2018) This game is an “evil game” that is unethical on all levels and shows how scary and dangerous the internet could be, especially if kids play these kind of games that could easily brainwash them and lead to very dangerous places.

To sum it up, abortion should be a right and nor be considered as a crime under very strict circumstances mentioned previously and especially when there is a real risk of serious damage of the mother. There is no doubt that the we believe in a world where every woman can determine her own future but not in case of committing a crime.Having an abortion for social reason for example is the least acceptable. Abortion will never stop from being a controversial topic but it has gradually stepped out of the label of taboo and is being discussed more openly and today awareness campaigns are always being set up.

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