Abortion & Women’s Right Essay

The issues of abortion used to be rather controversial in almost all countries all over the world within a sufficiently long period of time. There were a lot of debates in psychological, medical, philosophical, religious spheres in this relation. A lot of experts relate this issue to the problem of women’s rights. Generally the debate about abortion is concentrated upon discussion of moral and legal status of this procedure and possible outcomes for women, for society in general. Usually there are two sides, one is pro-life movement, supporting the position that the embryo has also the right to live and the other side is pro-choice movement, underlining the right of the concrete woman to make her choice about her health and about her life. “Each movement has, with varying results, sought to influence public opinion and to attain legal support for its position, with small numbers of anti-abortion advocates sometimes using violence.” (Lee 1996). However, for most individuals the issues of abortion are first of all moral issues, related to human rights, either fetus rights or women rights, in some cases it becomes also political and legal issue as well.

Before discussing the arguments either for or against abortion, it is necessary to concentrate upon the definition of the procedure itself. Generally abortion is defined as “the ending of pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo from the womb before it can survive on its own.Abortion may be caused purposely and is then called an induced abortion, or less frequently, “induced miscarriage”. The word abortion is often used to mean only induced abortions. A similar procedure after the fetus could potentially survive outside the womb is known as a “late termination of pregnancy.” (Lee 1996). Mostly modern methods of abortion include application of medication or surgery. Depending on the local laws, abortion could be done officially or unofficially, if it is done legally, in most countries it is considered to be a quite safe procedure. It important to underline here that any pros could be related only to the situations, when abortions are done legally and are safe procedures. Modern methods are different from the ancient time abortions, when they were done with application of herbs, special tools, force or any other method, which was then considered to be traditional. Abortion laws are different in various countries of the world, societies perceive abortions in relation to their religious and ethical views. For example in cases of rape, problems with fetus and risk to woman’s life abortions could be allowed, even if they are generally not legal.

Abortion is not a new medical practice, in ancient times abortions were done with the help of the available resources. The earliest mentioning of abortion date to c. 2700 BCE in Ancient Egypt for example. There were various techniques applied with the aim of conducting abortions, which were represented in friezes. In Buddhist or Hindu cultures there were evidences of abdominal abortion found. “Some medical scholars and abortion opponents have suggested that the Hippocratic Oath forbade Ancient Greek physicians from performing abortions; other scholars disagree with this interpretation, and state the medical texts of Hippocratic Corpus contain descriptions of abortive techniques right alongside the Oath.” (McMahan 2002).  Ancient physicians and philosophers had strong debates about abortions, relating it to Hippocratic Oath. Aristotle discussed abortion as a method of population control in his famous writing Politics. In Christianity abortion was considered to be homicide irrespective of the stage of pregnancy. In most Islamic countries abortion was not allowed or at least it was restricted. Muslims believed that the soul entered the fetus in 40 days after conception. Starting from the 17th  century the abortion techniques were getting more advanced in Europe. One of the most serious obstacles for development of really safe methods was the ignorance of the physicians of the sexual matters. “Other medical practitioners in addition to some physicians advertised their services, and they were not widely regulated until the 19th century, when the practice (sometimes called restellism) was banned in both the United States and the United Kingdom.” (Lee 1996). By the end of the twentieth century abortion was made legal in many countries of the world. Although nowadays the situation is much better with safety of such procedures as abortion, still the problem of unsafe abortion still remains more than acute. The supporters of abortion prohibition could hardly think of the numerous unsafe methods, women are ready to apply, when their right for abortion is restricted and they still choose to do it. Some of them try to self-abort or contact persons, who don’t have the necessary skills and knowledge or facilities. Logically, such choices are rather risky for further state of health of a woman, causing such complications as sepsis, damage of organs, incomplete abortion and so on. Millions of women are injured or die because of unsafe abortions in the whole world. “Estimates of deaths vary according to methodology, and have ranged from 37,000 to 70,000 in the past decade; deaths from unsafe abortion account for around 13% of all maternal deaths.  The World Health Organization believes that mortality has fallen since the 1990s.” (Lee 1996). It is important to note that statistically countries, where abortions are legally banned, have much higher rates of unsafe abortions and their outcomes, than in those countries, where safe medical abortions are legal and depend upon decision of a concrete woman. One of the brightest examples, demonstrating this connection is the fact of legalization of abortion in South Africa in 1996, which led to significant decrease of the number of illegal abortions and correspondingly the number of abortion-relation deaths.

Another factor, which is able to seriously impact the situation with abortions, is lack of information about contraception, as well as access to contraception in general. Unplanned pregnancies are on top in the list of reasons, why women tend to decide to make an abortion. “Rates of such abortions may be difficult to measure because they can be reported variously as miscarriage, “induced miscarriage”, “menstrual regulation”, “mini-abortion”, and “regulation of a delayed/suspended menstruation.” (Lee 1996).

Based on the position that women have their right to make this vitally important choice for them, because their health and their lives are dependant upon this choice, it is necessary to study the major factors, which make women agree to make an abortion. A lot of women, living in the modern world, are used to plan their lives, their important events themselves and thus in case of unplanned pregnancy would most luckily decide to make an abortion, because they want to choose the suitable time themselves or maybe because they already have a child or two and would prefer to concentrate their physical and moral resources on the existing children. Everybody knows about the costs of raising a child or another child, thus in case women want to be able to provide good education and possibilities in life for their children, it is probably not correct to force them to change their minds. Other personal reasons might be even more serious, in cases of rape or incest, a woman might be pregnant, and then it is hardly morally correct make her give birth to such baby. There is no use of keeping this baby in a special institution afterwards, depriving him of his right for normal family.

Sometimes abortions are the results of social pressures. There are societies, where children of a specific sex are preferred, where singly motherhood is not supported, where people with slightest disabilities are not accepted and so on. In some countries there is strict birth control – China for example and their one-child policy. “The legal obstacles that already exist affect millions of women across the U.S., who musts travel to another state to get a legal abortion or are unable to get a legal abortion or are unable to get one at all because they can’t afford it” (Abortion: Every woman’s right, 2013). Irrespective of the modern methods of contraception, there are a lot of cases in America for example, when they turn out to be not that effective. “The Guttmacher Institute estimated that “most abortions in the United States are obtained by minority women” because minority women “have much higher rates of unintended pregnancy.” (McMahan 2002). An important factor, influencing the number of abortion is maternal and fetal health risks. There are situations, when doctors are to take this decision for a pregnant woman, in many countries this factor belongs to indisputable arguments pro abortion. Medical factor, however, should not be treated as a separate one, as it is closely related to emotional, psychological and psychical state of a woman. In other words the responsibility of a doctor is sufficiently high in this case. One of the most terrible diseases nowadays is without any doubts cancer. “The rate of cancer during pregnancy is 0.02–1%, and in many cases, cancer of the mother leads to consideration of abortion to protect the life of the mother, or in response to the potential damage that may occur to the fetus during treatment.” (McMahan 2002). Chemotherapy, which is applied in most cases, is rather risky for the state of health of the fetus, which is multiplied by other medications.

Overall, the issues, related to abortions are rather complex and versatile, they could be treated from moral, ethical, medical, social, religious perspectives and there are numerous pro and cons arguments; at any rate the basic idea of any of these arguments should be the perseverance of the right of women to decide for themselves.

Works cited:

Abortion: Every woman’s right. Socialistworker, 2013

Cohen, R. The cruel consequences of anti-abortion hate. Socialistworker, 2015

Hymowitz, K.S.The Relationship Between Poverty and Unwed Births. The Daily Signal, 2015

Lee, P. Abortion and Unborn Human Life. Catholic University of America Press, 1996

McMahan, J. The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. Oxford Ethics Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002

Poverty and Abortion: A Vicious Cycle. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2014

Valenti, J.Abortion isn’t about the right to privacy. It’s about women’s right to equality, 2014

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]
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