‘Views on abortion are largely formed by an individual’s religious and cultural background. ’ An abortion is a deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. Sometimes abortions can happen naturally without us knowing, this is called a spontaneous miscarriage. An abortion involves removing the embryo or foetus from the uterus during a pregnancy. There are four main reasons people choose to have an abortion: wealth, religion, personal rights and medical reasons.
There are two main groups that people’s opinions are divided in to. These are the Pro-Choice and the Pro-Life arguments. Pro-Choice allows the woman to have a choice whether to have an abortion. This allows the woman’s to have a right to control her own body especially her right to an induced abortion. The pro-choice believe that a woman should be able to decide whether she wants have an abortion or not. Whereas, the pro-life believe that all life comes from god; letting the unborn live and not killing the baby in the womb.
People who support the pro-life believe it is wrong to abort the innocent unborn child. Disability More disabled babies are aborted than healthy ones. There are mixed opinions and feelings when a disabled child is involved because some argue that disabled babies should be aborted but others are against this. Most pro-lifers argue that a person with disability has the right to live along with every other member of society. In Britain, it is legally permitted to abort a baby on grounds of disability up to birth.
Encouraging abortion on grounds of disability encourages negative stereotypes about people with disabilities. An alliance of pro-life campaigners and religious groups are launching a new push to restrict the 1967 Abortion Act, to prevent doctors terminating pregnancies on the grounds of physical abnormality. Some pro-lifers on the Telegraph article state that ‘there is no such thing as an un-wanted child just an un-wanting mother. ’ Abortion of he disabled is an assumption that the lives of unborn children are of less value than other human lives, and are therefore expendable. Some pro-choice believers claim that abortion prevents disability but at the same time the pro-lifers defend their arguements by saying that all it does is killing those who happen to have disability.
In 2003, an international Down syndrome screening conference was held in London and a group of people who had down syndrome shared their opinion ‘I can’t get rid of my down’s syndrome, but you can’t get rid of my happiness. Someone else said ‘we swim together once a week and she has to slow down for her ‘healthy’ friend so she can keep up. ’ Most people with her disability are now killed before they are born. Why should babies with shorter, weaker legs have less right to life than those with stronger legs? It is utterly barbaric; in many cases these babies are fully formed. ’ However, the pro-choice believe that it is the mother’s choice weather she wants to abort her disabled baby or not.
If the woman decides to abort her baby then it’s probably because she doesn’t want the child to suffer, or it’ll be too hard for her to bring a disabled baby up or in most cases the mother would need a job to provide for her family and wouldn’t be able to pursue with the job because she would have to look after her disabled child full time; educate their child, learn them to socialise and talk. This may be hard for some parents to deal with. “Imagine being a single mother with a fourth child on the way.
There is little time for raising the children. It takes two full time jobs just to make ends meet, and that barely happens. A third, part time job might be necessary to provide heat during the winter months. The fourth child will be here by then, and there’s little that can be done to provide any resemblance of a comfortable life. Mistakes were made in the past, and now another person has to suffer because of them. This wouldn’t be necessary if only the pregnancy could be aborted. Right now, that’s a choice women can legally make.
If abortion was made illegal, a new baby would come into the world that would unlikely ever know anything except suffering. ” Law In some countries the law towards abortion are completely different to others, however the law in the UK, an abortions can usually only be carried out during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy as long as certain criteria are met. An Abortion Act 1967 covers the UK mainland (England, Scotland and Wales) but not Northern Ireland. The law states that abortions must be carried out in a hospital or a specialist licensed clinic.
Two doctors must agree on an abortion, that it would cause less damage to a woman’s physical or mental health than continuing with the pregnancy and pharmacists can object to giving out abortion-inducing after pill to any aged women or. The newspaper Pro-Life times contained an article on how a Muslim pharmacist objects to giving out the abortion inducing morning pill to a 37 year old woman. The weakness in this source/information is that the pharmacist is a Muslim therefore he would be on the pro-life side of the argument.
However, the pro-choice would argue back on the fact that it’s not his choice weather to give the pill to that woman, because it’s her body and she should choose what she does with it. This is where her human rights come in. Abortion often negates full human rights, like the slave trade. Reasons for abortion being carried out after 24 weeks include that it is necessary for the woman’s health; to prevent permanent injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman and/or if there is substantial risk that if the child were born; s/he would have physical or mental abnormalities.
Countries such as Southeast Asia and Northern Africa abortions are illegal with exceptions of rape, maternal life, health and/or mental health at the same time Northern America and Northern Asia an abortion is legal on request. Unfortunately in some parts of South America abortion is illegal with no exceptions and therefore life can be very difficult for women who live there. When an abortions is illegal there are more people within the countries that have an unsafe abortion that any other countries in the world. These people tend to be more towards the religious side, therefore having an abortion is out of question.
Furthermore the male and females have least equality towards education and employment this could be why the amount of unsafe abortion increases. In the United Kingdom, before the legalisation, pro-abortionists claimed that there were 100,000 illegal abortions each year. Religion A variety of religions (mostly pro-lifers) strongly believe that life begins at conception and that it’s a gift created by their god. They believe the unborn have rights so therefore the sacred value of human life starts from the very beginning, once it’s conceived.
However, some of those religions have exceptions. The Catholic Church, Islam, Judeo-Christian and Hinduism all state that taking or killing an innocent child’s life is forbidden, not permissible and seen as a crime therefore many religions are completely against abortion. Having an abortion is going against the 6th commandment of life, ‘thou shalt not kill’. Or the teaching of the twelve apostles in the early Christian tradition states: “You shall not kill the child in the womb or murder a newborn infant.
The Jewish law forbids the taking of innocent life and stresses that human beings are made in the image of God. A twelfth century interpreter of the Jewish law declared: ‘’ A descendent of Noah who kills any human being, even a fetus in its mother’s womb, is to be put to death. ’’ Other religions like Buddhism and Judaism assert that abortion is forbidden but the decision whether to have an abortion or not can often depend on the situation; if the mother’s or child’s life is in danger.
The decision whether to have an abortion or not can be very hard for a religious woman, because if she decides to proceed with it her family and friends may reject her due to going against their religious beliefs. Although the Atheists and agnostics view abortion as a violation of human rights and hold pro-life opinions for this reason just like the other traditions. The evidence that i’ve provided about religion shows that views on abortion are largely formed by an individual’s religious and cultural background.
Worldwide the abortions laws are largely formed on the country’s religious beliefs but when you look at an individual their views are more formed on different aspects or more than just religion. The more pro-life you are the more your views will be largely formed against abortion and the statement ‘Views on abortion are largely formed by an individual’s religious and cultural background’ mostly apply to the pro-life group due to the fact that they are more religious than anything else. Poverty The arguements weather to pursue with an abortion could depend on couples financial problems.
The pro-life argue that a woman should not be driven to abort her baby through poverty or social exclusion. They say abortion simply allows society to get away with ignoring the problems facing women in crisis pregnancies. The compassionate response is to allow women, whatever their background, the recourses’ necessary to bring up their children. Most women accessing abortion services have faced a major life issue such as job loss or perhaps falling behind on rental/mortgage payments, in the preceding year. Some say abortion discriminates against the poor.
However, the pro-life believe that it is in the interest of governments to pay for abortion therefore no woman is to go through abortion alone. Pro-life charities such as Good Counsel and LIFE offer housing and support to women in crisis pregnancies. SPUC will always respond to request for help from pregnant women. Women in actual danger can request police protection and safe housing. There are humane solutions to poverty and social exclusion. SPUC works to create a climate of tolerance and respect for life rather than promoting abortion as an easy way out.
Abortion can break down families and can increase alcoholism within the families grieving over the aborted babies. In a study released by the Guttmacher Institute in 2005, women were asked to provide reasons why they chose to have an abortion. 73% of the women felt that they “can’t afford a baby now” due to various reasons such as being unmarried, being a student, inability to afford childcare or basic needs of life. The poor and low income women account for more than half of abortions in the United States. Of course, that having a baby will create financial roblems if you don’t get paid much. As a single mother you would want to provide for you newly born baby as much as possible but the mother would have to quit her job and look after the baby for twenty four hours every day therefore working wouldn’t be an option; being a single parent can be hard when it comes to financial situations. Possibly the pro-choice could argue that pursuing with an abortion would be the best thing to do in a situation like this as you are not yet ready to provide for a baby or even more to the point not having enough money to provide for yourself.
In contrast a poorer woman in a low or middle-income country, particularly a young woman is in a different situation: she tends to have more frequent unwanted pregnancies. If she decides to have an abortion, it is more likely to be unsafe and extremely painful, i. e. probably late, undertaken by someone without the necessary skills or in an environment lacking in minimal medical standards, and often without anaesthetics. Consequently, she ruins a high risk of seriously damaging her physical health or dying.
If she chooses not to have an abortion it’s probably because there are many other reasons why. In 2001 the Leader of America, President George W Bush designed a policy to deny foreign/poor countries receiving money for the use of providing others with information about abortion. George Bush said that they will provide the poorer countries with money but only on one concept; poorer countries cannot give out information to others about abortion, otherwise the money given, will be suspended or even taken away. It has had a devastating effect on the world’s poorest women.
Conclusion
Via research I have fount out that there are alot of reasons that depend on whether or not an abortion is one of the choices that people wish to pursue with. These reasons could include law, health/disability, poverty, wealth, religion including personal reasons. In conclusion, as a female student, before my abortion essay was written my view were more linked to pro-choice, and therefore haven’t changed whilst writing this essay. However other people’s opinions are completely opposite due to the research and information that they’ve fount. • Women’s views aren’t being expressed. Men are in charge of some religious groups. • Female student – my opinion- in my views on abortion have been changed by the process of writing this essay – PROCHOICE! ( • If people/kids got the same education levels as now, maybe their views would be changed because they would’ve found more information about abortions and the reasons for and against abortion. • Link between religion-inequality-wealth-literacy rates. • Rich countries can influence the views of poor countries by making deals involving money but they wouldn’t be able to change the views of another rich country.
